the duck who loved me

orchard goose, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

I spent my early life in an orchard with geese and ducks, waiting for the moment when the BIG WHITE GANDER would sneak up behind my dad (who was pruning trees) and prod his bum. As kids, my brother and I found this overwhelmingly funny.

Some of Geraldine Taylor's piece for the next Bristol Review of Books, that this picture accompanies. Seemed like a good idea to show the finished version, as it was 'work in progress' on the earlier post.

More watercolour paper stretching and drying on the board, and me doing a bit of sorting-out in the meantime. I've got a bag of readymix mortar in the back of the car, ready to go up onto the roof and fix the bit that's leaking. I stopped off at B&Q to get the mortar, and, as usual, went in through the door marked TRADE PROFESSIONALS ONLY because I'm bolshy and don't like walking round the long way, and I don't think you need to be a fat bald bloke with builder's cleavage to be a builder. Even though it's statistically probable that you will be.

habit

habit, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

At our tiny primary school in Wales, we traipsed across the road to the church hall once a week for our art lesson. Big sheets of paper on the trestle tables, big cans of powder watercolours for mixing into that browny-purply sludge colour that you always seem to end up with when you get too enthusiastic.

The teacher explained how to make skin colour; mostly white, with a dash of red and just a touch of yellow, but not too much.

And that is pretty much how I've been doing it ever since.

Yesterday I was looking at the slightly grubby block of white in my palette, and thought, "I wonder?"

...and did a bit of Googling, and found that loads of other people used different ways of getting skin colour in their watercolour paintings.

Burnt sienna seemed a popular place to start.

So I did.

Bingo.

Only took me forty years to start thinking outside that particular box.

Yet again, it shows how deeply ingrained habit can be. Quite chastening, in a quiet sort of way.

privacy

Occupy Bristol, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

I dropped in at Occupy Bristol the other morning, just to see how things were going. Some chap advised me that I should ask permission before taking photos of anyone; which, as a matter of form, I was going to anyway, but hey. Some people didn't want their pictures taken, so I didn't; some were OK, so I did.

There were isolated acts of doing-useful-things going on, and I chatted with the young chap who was sifting through the bins, sorting the contents for recycling. He was just extricating a broken beer bottle from the cardboard. "You could do with some gloves for that job," I said. He agreed, so I gave him a wodge of disposable latex gloves (a box of them lives in the back of the car, ready for use in the event of unforseen mechanical problems). And carried on my way.

I feel ambivalent about the issue of taking people's photos without permission; it's often better to do so, because then they aren't self-conscious, at least if they don't notice you doing it. And in the case of the Occupy site, it seems a good idea to get as many photos of the camp as possible, to maximise the impact. And could it be argued that, by making a political statement as they are, their images become public property? -certainly, when I was prosecuting my case against P&O Ferries at an Employment Tribunal, I was deemed public property; I was actually followed around Southampton by a photographer in a car, one afternoon, as I cycled around trying to find some lunch...

...still, I'm not like him. I hope.

Yesterday morning, at 8 o'clock, I got a phone call from a man asking if I was Linda Marland. I told him that I wasn't, and that I didn't know anyone of that name.

I tend to be careful about giving out any information on the phone, as there are so many nuisance calls and the occasional phisher....

...the doorbell rang at 6 last night. "You expecting anyone?" asked Katie.
"No. You?"
"No..."

It was Bloke In Suit.

"Hello; does Linda Marland live here?"
"No. You phoned this morning, didn't you?"

He was a reporter, trying to find a witness involved in the Vincent Tabak trial, which reached its conclusion yesterday morning. He seemed disbelieving of my denial that I knew the person he was trying to find. I can live with that.

there ain't no pink in the Union Jack

the Seven Sisters, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

...actually, there ain't no pink in a rainbow, either, come to think of it.

Saw these gloves in B&Q the other day.  Pink glove and blue glove are childhood sweethearts.

They grow up and of course they get married.

...happy ending!

...this was inspired by a link that CN Lester put up, of   Pointlessly Gendered Products                     

occupied

 

I called in on College Green, to see how the Occupy Bristol camp was doing. I was just passing through; I'm sympathetic to its aims, but am too engaged elsewhere to get involved. So I felt slightly voyeuristic, a bit of an outsider. Took  a few pics; bloke drumming, people building a sort of ribbony teepee. Reminded me of the old free festivals... A bloke bounded over to me, grabbed my shoulders, and aimed a kiss at my mouth. I diverted it to my cheek. He put his arm around me, and we held a pose for a nearby photographer. Then I left.

It was all a bit unexpected. I felt a bit as though my personal space had been invaded without my permission; which, of course, it had. It didn't feel like a huge deal at the time, and I didn't feel particularly threatened, in daylight and with other people around. But even so. Reading other womens' experiences of occupations, and the marginalisation and objectification of women in them, it seems like part of a bigger picture. And I feel very bad, not so much that it happened, as that I didn't call the bloke out on his actions. Because if you don't call people out, then that behaviour is reinforced. 

So if there's a picture out there with me and the bloke, smiling for the camera, just remember that the camera doesn't take the whole picture.

That's all.

ravening

raven a video by Dru Marland on Flickr.

A bit of wildness passed through the neighbourhood yesterday morning. I was tapping away at the computer and making my way through a big bowl of coffee (Illy espresso, hot milk, squirty cream and a sprinkle of cocoa. It was Sunday morning). I heard a distinctive cronking. Hauling up the sash window, I leaned out just in time to see a raven dive through the back gardens, rolling as it went, then climbing and cronking in an exuberant wide curve over Westbury Park. I scrambled up the ladder to the roof, and watched as it was joined by a second raven, and they beat round in another circuit, putting a flight of finches into a fluster as they went.

Then they were gone, and there was just the pink-tinged cirrus of the late dawn, way high up, and closer overhead the businesslike grey clouds, fresh from Africa and scudding north as fast as the breeze would carry them.

festive

 

 "OK, that's, like, a bit weird," said Katie. Richard was describing our Moggy and its habit of bimbling around Bristol; and that is precisely what it was doing at that very moment, bouncing us over Cotham Brow, down to Whiteladies Road and the studio where Richard was being interviewed live on BBC Bristol. He was up in town for the Bristol Festival of Literature, and we got a passing mention as Richard talked about those of his books with a local flavour to them...

Minutes later he was on board and we were heading home. 

"You gave good radio," I said.

"She was a good presenter," he said. "The taxi from the station got me there with two minutes to spare. You have to go through this huge news room full of people, then she's in a tiny little room at the other end..."

We had an early dinner. Oven chips, Pukka pies and mushy peas. Just the thing to keep you going through a busy evening. Twenty minutes later we were on the bus down to Broadmead, industriously folding up leaflets for the National Academy of Writing, hot off the printer, ready for the reading. Richard showed me how to do it, and I did it a different way because I thought my way was better. All that time making origami frogs in maths lessons at school wasn't wasted, let me tell you.  We were a bit cramped, though. "These seats are bloody small," I observed. I've not been on a bus for years. Maybe buses are now being designed with an eye to the future, when everyone is going to be a midget.

 At Foyle's, Richard talked about Lazarus Is Dead with Jari Moate. Then we dashed across town to Easton, where Richard and Pete Salmon held a NAW masterclass.

...and then it was time to go to the Apple, a cider pub that is also a boat. James Russell was already installed on a bench, having been at Stanfords Bookshop earlier, doing an event for his Naked Guide to Cider.

A late night, then.