Coffee and Chat

Black as the Devil

Hot as Hell

Sweet as an Angel

Pure as Love

a recipe for coffee by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand (1754- 1838)

My favourite coffee is Viennese - I like the sweetness added by the figs.
As this is a home page I should really be telling you how many degrees and children I have (none of either) and that I'm happily married (I'm not) and what a marvellous career I have (I don't - well, I do have a job growing germs, which is smelly but interesting). In fact, I should be painting such a glowing picture of my life that reading it leaves you feeling distinctly depressed and wondering where you went wrong in your own. Cheer up - I'm not going to do any of that! This is a place for convivial chatter, for random ramblings and irrelevant thoughts, so sip your coffee, warm your feet by the stove and be entertained.

Why do I like Pre-Raphaelite painting?
The two paintings used on this site are by Burne-Jones and Waterhouse who were never part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but were influenced by it and carried its ideals into the twentieth century. I love the attention to detail and the romantic and often tragic subjects of the paintings. Burne- Jones' "The Beguiling of Merlin" is another magical work, in which Merlin is lulled to sleep by the enchantress Nimue, in a hawthorn bush in the forest of Broceliande; another of his paintings is "The Baleful Head", in which Perseus shows Andromeda the head of the Medusa reflected in a well. Waterhouse's "The Lady of Shalott" is a very familiar Pre- Raphaelite image, but I prefer his "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" with a knight being tempted to his doom in a sinister, dark forest.
Less well-known are the works of Evelyn de Morgan, wife of the celebrated ceramic artist, William. "The Storm Spirits", "Hope in the Prison of Despair" and "Flora" are three of my favourites. Pre-Raphaelite painters are not renowned for landscapes, but "A Study in March (In Early Spring)" by John William Inchbold is a particularly fine example - it's so detailed that at first glance you'd think it was a photograph.
The best book I've found on this subject is "The Pre- Raphaelites" by Christopher Wood, originally published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson. I have a Book Club edition printed in 1983.

Other artists who inspire me.
I've always been enchanted by the work of Alphonse Mucha, particularly the decorative panels - my favourite has to be La Lune. He used a small number of models and I find it fascinating to see each familiar face turning up in other pictures. In the 70's Mucha was very popular - I bought my house mostly because of the Mucha wallpaper in the living room, and I have to say that it's lasted well. I have a collection of Mucha mirrors also produced at this time - I have four examples of "Spring" (it's not an addiction - I can give it up at any time - no, honestly, I can!) Most of the mirrors are hung in the bathroom and I've had to quake-wax them to the wall, as Ozzy likes to use them as door-knockers to wake me in the mornings!
I also love the cat paintings of Lesley-Anne Ivory and collect her series of plates. Thank goodness we don't often have earthquakes in England, or they'd all tumble down from the walls! (We did have an earthquake a few years ago, strong enough to wake me and worry the cats. The house shook and the heating system rang like a bell - not an experience I'd care to repeat.)

Counted Cross-stitch - Another Passion.
I resisted learning to cross-stitch for some time, due to bad experiences with needlework at school, but my friend Bev finally convinced me to have a go. If there's a craft better suited to my obssessive, nit-picking personality, I've yet to find it - I'm a born cross-stitcher! I took it up in 1989 (you can see one of my first efforts in one of the photos of Gus, on the Memorable Cats page) and I've done projects large and small ever since - from trinket-box lids to big, complex pictures. My favourite designers are Marilyn Leavitt Imblum (Lavender & Lace and Told in a Garden), her daughter Nora Corbett (Mirabilia), Teresa Wentzler and Linda Gillum (who designs for the Donna Kooler Studio and also the American School of Needlework) I prefer fantastic subjects, cats (why aren't you surprised at that?) and samplers/designs where I can sneak in verses from the poetry of W. B. Yeats. I don't like anything from Stoney Creek (sorry, guys, you're just too twee!), veer away from angels of any variety and have an utterly irrational loathing for band samplers, which seem to be the current darlings of the cross-stitch world. I've dabbled in design - I did a Cthulhu sampler to mark the centenary of H.P. Lovecraft's birth in 1990 and a Cerebus the Aardvark picture in 1993 - I had to work that one twice, so I could send one to Dave Sim, Cerebus' creator.

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