Early in the Day

It's Friday and I am in the studio again, morning is the absolute worst time of day with my health condition, as it stands.

I wake up and once I start to move it truly is agonizing. I can't hep but scream out or cry out with the pain and things were so bad this morning that I couldn't even get my trousers on and had to ask C. to help. The left lower leg is dead as a plank. Moving out of the bed into the bathroom is a struggle and going down the stairs slowly is excruciating. Then sitting on my blue stool in the kitchen, I try to get the few 'breakfast' things I need together e.g., tablets (for all the good they do - but I keep taking them for fear things would feel even worse!!) cereal bowl, milk, cereal and spoon.

Fortunately C. came down and I was able to get him to pass me most of these things while I sat there desperately trying to find a comfortable position for this wretched left leg. it is like a leg that's been severely grazed and bashed and is raw and there is pain deep inside too.
C. also saw to Mister Monty who was meowing his head off as if to say I." am famished please give me my food right now - this minute!!". I remember I kept telling Monty to shut up.

Once I'd knocked down the final tablet with the fruit juice - thought I'd better clean up all the cat bowls and cups and stuff in the sink. We need these things before the dishwasher will go on again and we only have 6 cat bowls. If we can, we use the dishwasher just once every two days. It's hard going doing this stuff at the sink but it kind of distracts somewhat from this blasted pain.

Then I think "Can I face putting the pizza's together for lunch"?............ It's not that it's difficult or laborious but well I do it anyway. So I chopped the mozzarella and sprinkled on the 'spiced beef' (that I cooked up on Sunday morning, chop a few green peppers and chuck that all onto the passata which has been spread onto the bases and that's lunch prepared.

Then I make my morning cup of earl grey tea, which I have preferred to drink for gawd knows how long. C has to have his decaffeinated so I hate to think what it tastes like but I guess he has got used to it.
Mister Finny Foodles, turns up late for his breakfast and is being 'peculiar' about coming into the kitchen to his 'perch' to eat it, so I call C. to deal with him. He ends up taking it outside to the garden, for the cat to eat it.
That's a little zoom in on my mornings of late. As is evident I would be utterly lost if it wasn't for C. Bless him

Then I have to go drink it on the sofa and have a lye down as I am kind of exhausted.

The image is an etching by Gwendolyn Basala, which I find to be apt for this little vignette.

Falling, feeling isolated and fed up with Pain

"Self" unique inkjet chine colle and woodcut/offset 2008




"What can you do with a drunken sailor , what can you do with a drunken sailor, what can you do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning !!" I don't know where there are any keyboard digits for musical notes but this must be surely how I appeared to C. as I crashed into the wall of our sitting room, as I caught my crutch on the chair and went crashing to the floor earlier on this evening.
Boy did it hurt. Fortunately there were no broken bones and as I said to C. - "Its OK, I'm alright"
However as the hours passed by, I realize well I am pretty sure that I an quite bruised and the pain in my back which was already pretty severe, got a lot worse. Took some more tablets but can't say that they make that much difference. But I thought I had better take some anyway.
Oh Yee Gawds, what ever shall yee fling my way next ??!!



Anyway ....that's the trouble when you have a weak leg and a crutch you are sometimes inclined to trip or almost trip or fall. I fell over the other day in the post office right in the door. Talk about a grand entrance. That one didn't hurt much at all. The people in the post office were so kind I was astounded the way everyone there came immediately over to help and make sure I was alright - a couple of blokes helped me up off the floor. I was pretty shook up though.

Well another day gone and nothing much achieved on the art front. I did buy some acrylic rubber stamp mounts, on Ebay though which was good. I was particularly pleased with them as they are larger than the wooden rubber stamp mounts that I bought a few weeks ago.

Well I have always wanted to get more into making and using rubber stamps in my work anyway. As with the singular etched plates, that I made to use in my installation for Sweden -- I like that I can have the possibility to just place an image here or there on an artwork almost like in "collage mode". I really do like to "build" an image as I go. Part of it, I think, is that I like to elucidate associations and form a narrative of sorts although it's nothing "literal".



I mean I have done the other approach where you "plan out" your image and then e.g. make two plates or use a digital background and then superimpose an etching on top.

The other way I have gone about making artwork is to create a mono-print background and then combine one element with another

Images included in this Post


I ought to mention that these are the prints which I sent to the 1st Yunnan International Print Exhibition in China. The show will be held at the Yunnan Museum in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province, during the first 2 weeks of September. They sent an email inviting me so I decided to do it. There will be a catalog and prizes, there were no 'entry fees' involved. If only I was selected that would be great - might even fly over (ha ha!!)

As always - if you click on an image you get a larger version with details of the technique/title etc and of course a closer look!!

Agony in the Garden ( well Garage actually)

'Unbelievably here I am in agony again with my flippin nerve leg pain. And it's because I went to the hospital today for a scheduled appointment for an injection in my spine. Before I went, it wasn't there - I was relatively OK pain wise.

But let me tell you, having an injection in your spine with a so called "local anesthetic" (some gel that they rub on) is not a good idea or to be recommended - it was an absolute nightmare.

I was moaning, screaming and swearing with the torture of the pain from the doctor pushing that needle into my spine. He did it, halfway from the waistline to the the chest. It probably took about a minute to a minute and a half but it felt like forever. NEVER, never again would I agree to it.

In London when I have had these previously - it has been under general anesthetic.

And to think that earlier in the day I thought to myself "Why am I going along there to have this when I am feeling relatively OK?".
I suppose there was a certain amount of oh well I suppose I ought to. And a vague hope that it might clear my pain altogether and I might be "normal" again !!


When I asked him why we had to now have this injection under local as opposed to general anesthetic - he said something about there being even more needles involved or was it some thing about it being better to do it this way for some reason or other - I can't remember very well what he DID say but I will certainly be asking him again.

I think it is to save the NHS money - quite honestly thats why.
Just like their two bit "NHS Direct" service. Gawd one really despairs !!


I most definitely wish I had stayed at home.

It has got worse since I have got home and is now reaching up the full length of my leg. I can find no position of rest where it's not hurting like hell!!

I just hope that it will have lessened by the morrow !!

Thus ends my news burst.

Summertime Football and Cats

Things seem to conspire against me getting around to making a post here on my blog.

Well- it's a beautiful summer evening and although my leg is still painful - I am not feeling too bad, on the whole. It's really difficult to know, how my condition 'stands' (ha ha ha) but it seems that this leg is going to be around 'in the state that it is in' for some time yet. I surprised myself this afternoon, in a way by lying on my full length sofa. It was just nice to be able to do this, at last, because of my disconcerted leg nerve. The first math of the European Football tournament was on T.V., and I watched Switzerland play the Czech republic. The latter won, one nil. I particularly enjoy tournament of this calibre i.e., where international teams are playing and you are watching the sport at its very best. This would include also the World Cup. On the past two occasions that it has been on the TV here in the UK, I have also enjoyed watching the African Nations tournament. The first week is always the best I find. I love watching all the different kinds of people and there are usually at least a few gorgeous looking guys to absorb at the same time. Monty our tubster jumbo cat came in at some point meowing his head off, he's a very verbal cat ( i.e., loudmouth) trouble is he only has the one word. So of course you have to guess whether its some kind of genuine and valid need he's asserting or whether he just is mouthing off as he just doesn't know what to do with himself. Sometimes he just needs to be settling down to go for a nap and its just part of his ritual towards that end.

He really has turned out to be quite a character. He was so shy when he was a kitten. And Finny was the more forward one. Now the situation is reversed.