Category Archives: Art

Art, Cycling, My Art

Bike ride to Scotland: Part 3 Lincoln to York

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Day 3 – 06/05/2003 (Tuesday) Lincoln to York

This should have been an easy flat day. It was flat, for the most part, but it wasn’t easy. Most non-cyclists think that it is hills that make cycling hard work, they are correct, but only to a certain extent. The thing that makes cycling really hard work is wind coming from the wrong direction. Today I had wind from the north-west. I was riding roughly north-west. This resulted in a very hard day in the saddle. Psychologically wind is harder to deal with than hills. When you are riding a hill you know that sooner or later you will get to the top and at least for a while you can have a rest as you free-wheel down the other side. When you are riding into a head wind you get no relief. You know that the wind will be in your face all day. You have to work harder and you go slower. It feels unfair. All that extra effort and you go nowhere rather slowly

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Art, Cycling, My Art

Bike ride to Scotland: Part 2 Hitchin to Lincoln

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Day 2 – 05/05/2003 (Monday) Hitchin to Lincoln

I underestimated the distance from Hitchin to Lincoln. I thought it was around a hundred miles, it turned out to be nearer one hundred and thirty. Most of the way was flat, well the first two-thirds of the route was across the Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire Fens.

Click for a larger map

On the last third of the route, from Sleaford to Lincoln, I made the discovery, that contrary to popular belief Lincolnshire actually has hills. They are not the Alps, although I did see a sign advertising the head quarters of the local mountain rescue society in one of the villages. This Facebook page possibly belongs to them or their successors. However when the hills arrive in the last thirty miles of a long ride, one that is thirty miles further than you expected, they are hard enough. (The route profile does make them look a bit worse than they actually are).

I had expected the countryside to be a bit boring and unattractive. In spite of the unremitting flatness and the difficulty in distinguishing one stretch of road from the next, I found the scenery quite attractive.
Watercolour Sketch of the Fens

I stopped for lunch in Spalding round about two pm. I found a café selling cheap carbohydrates and refueled. I have noticed that when I am touring, and especially doing longer distance, that my critical faculties as regards food drop off. As long as it fills the hole I am happy.

It was after I passed Sleaford that I entered the Lincolnshire Wolds and the road started to go up. After riding through flat-lands all day riding up the hills was initially a pleasant change. It is not that steep, but you are climbing constantly for thirty or so miles. I kept consoling myself with the thought that I would probably be able to free-wheel the last ten miles into Lincoln. Not quite. Yes I did free-wheel into Lincoln, but not in the gentle controlled way I had anticipated. All the height that I gained in two hours of climbing I dissipated in about three minutes as the road took the short route down a cliff face into Lincoln. You can see it if you look carefully at the elevation profile.


I stayed the night at the Lincoln Youth Hostel (which has sadly since been closed). I was too late for an evening meal at the Hostel, due to me taking about two and a half hours longer than anticipated because the route was thirty files longer than I thought it was. I wandered out into town had a look around and found myself a curry. Very nice it was too.

Part 1 Wallington to Hitchin

Part 3 Lincoln to York >

Art, Cycling, My Art

Bike ride to Scotland: Part 1 Wallington to Hitchin

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Day 1 – 04/05/2003 (Sunday) London to Hitchin

Today didn’t work out that well. For various reasons, some good, some bad, I didn’t actually manage to leave until one-thirty in the afternoon, rather than seven or eight in the morning as I had planned. Never mind, I thought at least I had lunch before I left

Everything was going well, apart from a bit of hassle with the traffic in Brixton, until just after crossing London Bridge. I realised that I might have left the train ticket for the return journey lying on the kitchen table. A search through my bags confirmed that my thought was correct.

“Oh dear” I said to my self, well that wasn’t exactly what I said, but this blog tries to be suitable for all ages. I turned round and went back to London Bridge Station and caught a train to East Croydon, from where I cycled home and retrieved the ticket. I thought that while I was back home that I might as well unload the dishwasher and put the washing, which was now dry, away.

I cycled back to East Croydon and put the bike back on the train, this time to St Albans. My theory was that St Albans was roughly where I would have been if I hadn’t had to go back home to retrieve the ticket.

I decided to push on further. Eventually I decided that I would call it a day when I got to Hitchin, about 20 miles nearer to Duns. Then to cap, what was not the best day of the journey, the hotel I stayed at was not only the most expensive place I stayed at all trip it also, in retrospect, was the worst.

I plan my routes on BikeHike.co.uk which is a great little route planning website for cycling or walking. Your routes can be uploaded to or downloaded from a G.P.S. device if you own such a thing, or printed off if you don’t.

Part 2 Hitchin to Lincoln >

Art, Cycling, My Art

Old sketch books.

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I was sorting through my art equipment this afternoon. Basically looking to see what was worth keeping and what needed to be thrown when I came across a couple of old sketch-books that I also used as diaries to record a couple of trips. For my younger readers, “Keeping a diary”, was a bit like blogging ,except you wrote your thoughts down on paper. Usually no one else read them, not that much different to blogging then.
I thought that I would re-write them as blog posts and include the (better) sketches.
The first series of posts will be about a bike trip I made to Scotland in 2003. Mrs johnm55 had gone off to Canada for the week without me, so I decided that it would be a good idea to go and visit my mum – on my bike.
Day one can be found here

Art, Theology

Happy Birthday Leonard Cohen

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Like a bird on a wire,
Like a drunk in some old midnight choir,
I have tried, in my way, to be free.

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Art, My Art

Some Examples of my own art

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I have talked about other people’s art reasonably regularly since I started this blog. I thought it was about time that I showed some of my work for every one else to criticise.

Pictures follow

Art, Opinions

Watercolour @ Tate Britian

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Watercolour Tate Britian

I am a bit late to the party with this review. The exhibition opened in February and closes on 21st of August. Various circumstances prevented me from visiting until recently, but I think it is worth recording my opinions, even if it is only for my benefit.

Before I start the review I should explain that watercolour is my least favourite method of making artistic marks on paper(or any other support for that matter). I find it difficult to handle if I am working anything bigger than A5 size and I find that my results are generally disappointing. There are some artists who can handle the technicalities of medium, but I generally find that their work is, how shall I put it gently, boring. I associate watercolours with meticulously rendered reproductions of country churches and pastoral landscapes. Paintings that make me think, why didn’t you just take a photograph and save yourself the time and trouble.

I also tend to think of watercolour as a very English method of painting. I don’t know if this is a good thing, a bad thing or something that does not really matter.

I did, however, go to the Tate ready to have my opinions of the medium and the artists who use it radically revised.
But wait, there’s more

Art

Suffolk Town and Village Signs

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We were on holiday in Suffolk recently and I became fascinated by the town and village signs. Every town, and every village with a population of more than ten seems to have one.  They usually depict events, things, people or places associated with the town or village. They are often quite intricately carved and painted.
I have annotated the photo I took of the sign for Stratford St Andrewto try to show the thinking behind the symbolism on the signs.

Stratford St Andrew Village sign

Not all of them are as complex in concept as that one. Some such as the Beccles and the Southwold signs show a specific event in the town’s history.

Beccles Town Sign
Beccles Town Sign

The Beccles town sign shows Queen Elizabeth I handing the Charter of the Corporation of Beccles to John Bass in 1584

Southwold Town Sign
Southwold Town Sign

The Southwold town sign depicts the Battle of Sole Bay which took place in 1672 between the Dutch.and the combined English and French Fleets

The slide show below includes some of the others that I came across.

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Art, Opinions

Joan Miró at the Tate Modern

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Joan Miró Exhibition Poster

I recently went to see the Joan Miró exhibition at the Tate Modern. I have long liked what I have seen of Miró’s work, but, before the exhibition had not seen a lot of it. In addition I knew very little about Miró as an artist. It is, I think a sign of a good exhibition that I left not only having seen a lot more of the artist’s work, but feeling that I had learned a bit about what made Miró the artist and the person he was.

The early rooms explore his relationship with Catalonia and his identity as a Catalan. It is worth noting that Miró always insisted upon using the Catalan ‘Joan’ rather than the Spanish ‘Juan’ as his given name.
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Art, Environment, Opinions

Dark Skies

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I grew up on a farm in the Scottish Borders. The nearest house to the one we lived in was about quarter of a mile away, the nearest town was about seven miles away and the nearest city about fifty miles away. When I went outside on a clear moonless night I have no idea how many stars I could see. Above me the of the universe was on display. Later in life I earned my living at sea. Sitting on the fo’c’sle on a warm tropical night looking up at the strange – to northern eyes – stars of the Southern Hemisphere is a memory I will always cherish. Now I live in the South London suburbs, I once counted the stars I could see on a clear moonless night. There were 42 visible. Where have all the stars I marvelled at in my youth gone. They are all still there. But our insistence that there be no difference between daylight and night drowns them out.
About two weeks ago we observed Earth Hour. We switched our lights off at 20:30, and discovered that with the light from the street lights at the front of the house, and our neighbour’s ‘security’ (as in blanket) light at the back, there was enough light, if not to read by, but to do most things.
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