SwiftWatch 2013

Every year I keep an eye out for the first returning swift of the season and today was the day for their return!!

UPDATE - and that was the only swift I saw until this weekend!  I don't know where the others had got to and I was getting a bit concerned, thinking they'd all taken a wrong turning somewhere and had got lost but, no, finally, FINALLY, everybody else arrived yesterday, and I can now hear them all squealing with delight as they meet up with old friends circling high above my house.  Bliss!

Achievement unlocked - half century attained!

 **Warning - gratuitous overuse of the word 'lovely' in the following post.  Apologies in advance**

Yesterday was eventful at Jones Towers.

I turned 50.  I'm not entirely sure how it's happened but I don't seem to have done anything more than just staying alive for the requisite number of years.  And there's been at least one occasion when that might not have happened.  But here I am, made it to 50 years and one day.

I don't feel 50 at all, more like 25.  And, rather gratifyingly, there was more than one Facebook comment yesterday expressing surprise that I'm as old as I am, which was rather lovely and good for the self-esteem.

A friend asked me how it felt to have reached half-a-hundred years old - I told her I wasn't sure yet but the beautiful weather has helped a lot and, frankly, being 50 is better than the alternative.  Sadly I know a few too many people who didn't manage to make it this far, through illness or stupidity, so, on the whole, I'm really quite pleased to just keep buggering on.

It was a quiet birthday - about a year ago I was pondering whether to try and have a 50th birthday party, but then realised (and this isn't a self-pitying whine, I'm just stating a fact) that I don't really have that many friends and most of my relations live a long way away and just wouldn't be able to afford hotel accommodation, etc., so there was no point in having a bash.  Which, actually, I'm okay about, because I would have only stressed about it to an enormous degree and, consequently, not enjoyed it much!

Yesterday was, of course, a work day which meant that The Lovely Husband was out at meetings all day, so I would have to entertain myself.  My mother rang to sing 'happy birthday' down the phone at me, which was lovely - she and my step-dad are off to visit relatives in Holland so I won't be seeing her until the beginning of May when she'll give me the incinerator that she got for my birthday!

Yep, that's right - one of those shiny galvanised metal dustbins with a small chimney on the top.  Absolutely awesome for burning garden prunings in.  The one she bought me for my birthday several years ago (do you detect a theme here?) has now practically rusted into dust and I really couldn't think of anything that I absolutely needed when she asked, apart from a new one of those, so that's what I'm getting!

She did, though, also get me a surprise orchid which she gave to me last week.  I collect orchids as I seem to be able to keep them alive quite successfully by pretty much ignoring them - always useful in a plant, I find.  I'm now restricting myself to only getting unusual colour combinations because I've got white ones and pink ones and pale purpley ones and scented ones, but she found a very pretty pink and green striped one that I found a purple glass orchid jar to put in, and it's now happily with the others on my windowsill:



.

I had a few birthday cards in the post, my very favourite of which came from The Lovely Husband:



And, as I mentioned, lots of lovely birthday wishes from Facebook friends and relations, which made me feel very smiley.

As it's a 'big' birthday, this means a 'big' birthday present from my beloved.  For my last big birthday, 10 years ago now,  I got the most stunning 5-stone diamond ring.  So, for this one, and knowing my love of sparkly bling and that diamonds are always the answer when asked 'what do you want for your birthday?', my fabulous man got me a pair of diamond solitaire stud earrings, totalling 1 carat (i.e., half a carat each).  *screams*  I KNOW!!!!  How utterly, gobsmackingly wonderful is that?

For the last 10 years or so I've been wearing a pair of Diamonique (i.e., good quality cubic zirconia) stud earrings but now I've got the real thing!  Plus this means that when the Zombie Apocalypse arrives and the Petrol Wars cause civilisation to fail, I've now got portable wealth that can come with us when we flee to safety!  Hooray!

I've also bought myself a Fuggler.  Yes, that's right, a psychotic, flick-knife wielding 'teddy bear' with fake human teeth.  Because who could resist this face - I know I can't:

Should you decide you can't live without your very own Fuggler, then hurry on over to Mrs McGettrick's Fuggler Emporium on Etsy, and adopt one of your very own!  I first saw the Fugglers on the intertubes about a year ago and they touched my blackened, stoney heart so much that I decided I would order one for my 50th, and so it has come to pass.  I'll show you pictures when he arrives.

Birthdays also mean a good meal out and we decided to try somewhere we've not been before - a rather fancy Italian restaurant in Godalming called La Luna.  We're not massive fans of your usual Italian food - far too much emphasis on tomatoes, pasta and pizza for our liking - but we're aware that there is good Italian food out there, you just have to find it.  And La Luna has the reputation of being a really good restaurant, if a little pricey, but, hey, you don't turn 50 every day!

I'm going to do a Katyboo here and give you a restaurant review!

We were surprised to find the place about three-quarters full, which isn't bad for a Tuesday evening, when we got there for 7.30pm.  Nice interior, dark wood floor and tables, mushroom coloured walls, lighting not too bright.  Proper Italian waiters too.  Only slightly odd touch was that the music being played was Nirvana!  But the menu was fantastic.

This is the sort of proper Italian restaurant where it's naturally expected that you will eat four courses - Antipasti (starters), Primi (pasta), Secondi (main), and Dolci (puds).  Which is exactly what we did as it would've been rude not to.

We had a couple of gin and tonics to start off with.  Then for antipasti I had the Calamari Fritti (squid rings in tempura batter) which came with a little pot of parsley pesto and mayonnaise for dipping.  It was good - the calamari rings, although quite chunky, weren't at all chewy.  TLH had beer battered zucchine with a tomato guazzetto dip - this was long thin pieces of courgette which had been battered and deep fried, with an utterly delicious tomato and basil dipping sauce.  I have to say his dip had more flavour than mine, but as we tend to eat communally and share everything, we each got to enjoy both dishes.

For our Primi course, we ordered small dishes of pasta - I had the orecchiette (ear-shaped!) pasta with pancetta, broccoli, chilli & garlic.  It was ok but the flavours could have been a bit more robust, I think.  Beautifully cooked and the pasta was properly al dente.  TLH had the Neapolitan spaghetti with king prawn, courgette, and basil pesto - his tasted quite basil-y to me, which isn't a bad thing at all, and he said his king prawns were yummy.

For Secondi, I ordered the Pan fried halibut supreme, with capers & Amalfi lemon sauce and steamed samphire but they didn't have halibut that day, it was Turbot instead, which was fine by me.  TLH had the South Downs rump of lamb, minted broad bean & courgette, with Bagna cauda (Piedmontese hot dip sauce).  The lamb was cooked using the sous vide method which involves putting the meat into an airtight vacuum sealed plastic bag and cooking it in a hot water bath for many hours in order to retain as much taste as possible.  It did look amazing - lean and slightly pink in the middle, soft and easy to cut.  The Bagna Cauda sauce was a belter too.  My fish was very nice but, again, I think I somehow managed to order a dish with subtle flavours rather than something a bit more gutsy.  We ordered a side dish of steamed spinach with chilli and garlic (no spuds for us at the moment) which was, frankly, the best spinach I've ever eaten (and we always order it if it's on the menu).

Finally, for the Dolci course, I had 3 scoops of homemade Italian sorbet; one each of lemon, raspberry and pear.  This was utterly orgasmic.  Strong, zingy flavours and the pear sorbet was totally to die for.  TLH had the Madagascan Vanilla Panna Cotta, with rhubarb compote which he also thought was incredibly good.

We were very good and only had one bottle of red to accompany the lot, and didn't bother with coffee because, well, TLH doesn't like Italian coffee very much and I don't tend to drink very much coffee anyway.

We were right royally stuffed and agreed it had been a very good meal indeed, and I expect we'll be back.

Then, to top it all off nicely, I got home to find that The Guardian had liked a photo I'd sent in to them in response to an assignment they'd issued to the general public so much that they wanted to publish it in a picture gallery on the front page of their online edition!  Bloody hell!  The link to the picture gallery is here and my photo is number 9, of a woodland waterfall and a pond.  It's credited to Boudicca23 in the text underneath and Kaz Jones in the bottom right - they're both me!!

And with that, we went to bed, having had no room left for the cake I'd bought earlier in the day (and which we won't now be touching until Thursday as we're both on the 5:2 Fast Diet - and doing very well - and today is a Fast day).

It was a really lovely day!

Purple Cosmos Painting

I put the unsatisfactory orange flower painting away in my portfolio and started looking for a new photo.  I found a really rather lovely photo taken in Vietnam of a purpley-pink Cosmos flower on Flickr.  I can't link to it directly from this blog because the photographer has disallowed it, but I managed to print off a copy of it to work from, and this is it (click on the pictures to embiggen):



It's a little different from my previous pictures in that the focal point flower is much larger, and to the forefront of the image.  I chose it because it's a nice, simple, uncomplicated shape, and the background is a better colour choice than the orange flower one.

With all my paintings, I start by using masking tape to mask off a border on an A4 sized piece of acrylic paper.

I then looked carefully at the original photo and picked on a mid olive green shade as a suitable mid tone to start with.  A mid tone is the best to use because you then add lighter and darker tones afterwards.

I painted over the whole of the masked off sheet with this olive green wash, let it dry then drew the outline of the flower:



I then started working on the background, scumble glazing (i.e., dry brush technique) various shades of green.  You can see where I've been testing colours on the white border of the original photo - there are nine blobs there, and I will have used about three-quarters of them in my painting at this point.  But it doesn't look like there are six different shades of green in the painting, does it?  That's what I mean about the amount of colour mixing and effort that goes into getting the background right!



So this is it a bit further on, with more colours added, just to the background:



I'm now more or less happy with the background, so it's time to concentrate on the flower.  In order that the green doesn't show through, I decided to paint the flower out completely white (which is actually quite effective as it is!):





Now it's just a question of painting in the petals.  Again, I started with a pretty pale mid-tone shade of pink and then added darker and lighter shades:





Then added the central bit where all the stamens and pollen are, etc., added darker shading where necessary, added white highlights and finally went round the edges of the petals with the thinnest black lining known to humanity:



And this is the final version, with the masking tape removed and the edges tidied up:



And I'm thrilled with it!  This one turned out way better than I could have hoped for and definitely makes up for the slight disappointment of the orange flower painting.

The next painting I'm thinking about is of a tulip but I may change my mind so watch this space!!

Orange Flower Painting

Bit of a catch up.

My last post had a picture at the end of it of an orange flower against an out-of-focus background:



I started the painting about a week after finishing the white star flower one.  And I'm not sure that I like the finished result all that much.  But, hey, I'm getting ahead of myself a bit - I've a series of photos to show you how the picture progressed.  As I've said before, in these paintings that I'm currently doing, the background takes far longer to do than the focal point, the flower.  There are many, many different colours layered over each other, often physically ground into the acrylic paper in order to give an airbrushed effect.  I chose this particular photograph as I thought the colours were bright and the background kind of interesting.

Anyway, here's the progress:











And finally, with the masking tape removed and edges touched up:



I can't quite put my finger on what's not quite right with this painting.  It's the colours, I think.  The background colours are too bright and the orange flower doesn't 'pop' enough.  Also, in the photo, the flower is practically neon orange and I just couldn't quite bring myself to paint it as bright as, I think now, it should have been.

I tried photographing it against a different background but it just seems a bit 'flat' to me -



Never mind - it's all good practice.  It just means this is definitely one I'll be putting in the Cranleigh Art and Crafts Society's October exhibition in the hope that someone loves it more than I do!

White Star Flower Painting

The White Star Flower painting is now finished.  And for a white flower, I've discovered that there's an awful lot of blue in it!  I think it's worked quite well although, to be honest, I'm not quite as heart-skippy pleased with it as the previous ones I've done.  Not sure why.  I like to do things well and, like everyone who creates anything at all, the flaws in the finished object always seem enormous to me.  I'm not entirely satisfied with the flower for some reason I can't quite put my finger on.  Perhaps I've been looking at it up close for too long.  Never mind, I'll show you some photos of it in progress:


This was putting the first few colours on, with the original print out of the photo at the top of the board.  It's best to start with the darker colours first, then gradually add the lighter ones, before finishing with the flower.  Again, there are layers and layers and layers of subtly different shades all mixed in, using a dry brush (also known as 'scumble glaze') technique which after a few hours kills your shoulder muscles as it takes a long time using hardly any paint on a dry stencil brush using a circular motion to get the airbrushed effect.  I can only actively do it for an hour or so before I have to give my aching muscles a rest, it's that physical!



This is the final painting and you can see if you compare it with the photo above that the background has been lightened, and darkened, and altered, which all takes time and patient observation and lots and LOTS of colour mixing.




And this is it finally with the masking tape removed and the edges (where the paint managed to get under the tape) touched up with white paint.

All my flower paintings are done on A4 size acrylic paper (that is, paper designed to painted on with acrylic paints as opposed to watercolours or oil paints), which I've now got used to using.

And now I'm looking forward to starting my next flower painting.  I'm going for something more colourful this time - here's the original photo:



Bright, isn't it?  I'll keep you posted!!

Salvia in a meadow - latest painting

I meant to do this post the other day but got caught up in my blood pressure shenanigans so it got put to one side.

I've decided to concentrate on a short series of flower paintings where the background/foreground/both is out of focus.  I did one of these earlier in March (you can see it in this post), and I thought it was extremely effective so spent some time wandering around on Flickr looking for suitable candidates for the next painting.  I found several that I've favourited to make final choices from.

Anyway, I found a rather nice photo of a close up of Salvia in bloom, taken at a botanical garden in Scotland.  I can't post a close up of the photo due to fiddly technical issues but here are some pictures of my painting as I was working on it (I printed off the photo on two different printers, you can see the colour differences.  My painting is a combination of the two.  Don't forget you can click on the pictures to embiggen them):









and finally with the masking tape taken off (I've since touched up the edges):



It's turned out really well, and I love the colours.  I'm so loving this technique and it's really effective.

And, yes, I've started on another one!  This one is of a white star-shaped flower against a much darker green and near-black background.  It's only in its early stages so far and there are many more layers of subtle colours to be added and blended in yet.  It's interesting because even though the flower is the focal point of the painting, it only takes a fraction of the time to paint compared to the background.  I can easily spend 2 or 3 hours fiddling around with the background, and 20 minutes on the flower!



Again, I started this latest painting before the fannying around with the blood pressure but I'm hoping to complete it over Easter - I'll show you when it's done.

Trying not to worry...

UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF POST

I'm trying not to worry too much because it's not helping things, as you will see.  You may recall almost exactly two years ago now I had my blood pressure tested at the doctors and it was a little high, so they made me do a fasting blood test, an ECG and take home a monitor for a week to test myself twice a day.  Well, after I did all that they never called me back in to see about starting medication so I assumed all was okay for the time being.  The readings were only ever borderline anyway.  However, I wasn't keen to start taking meds then so decided to change my lifestyle a bit, and start with upping my exercise, which is why I started running.  I also bought myself the same BP monitor that the surgery had lent me so I could keep an eye on it myself at home.

High blood pressure runs very strongly in my family line - my maternal grandmother started having heart attacks in her 40s and it was her 5th or 6th one that finally got her when she was only 64.  One of my aunts had a stroke in her 50s.  My father died of his first sudden, massive heart attack aged only 55.  I'm turning 50 in less than a month.  I want to live to see my 56th birthday at least (and many more beyond).  If your family history is full of high blood pressure then there's a genetic element that no amount of lifestyle change will help (although giving up smoking, cutting down on caffeine, salt and alcohol, losing weight and increasing exercise are all Good Things).

So, last Thursday (21 March) I realised I'd been feeling a bit breathless and I could feel that my heart rate was up.  It's that feeling you get sometimes after you've eaten an enormous meal, like at Christmas.  I hadn't been eating especially enormous meals so I knew it meant my blood pressure was up.

Over the last two years I've tested my BP from time to time and it's always been less than 140 for the systolic reading (the top one, that measures the pressure of the blood as it's squeezed out of the ventricles of the heart and along the arteries, and is always the higher number) and less than 89 for the diastolic reading (the bottom one, that measures the blood pressure in the heart between beats, so when it's resting.  If the number is too high then the heart isn't resting enough).  The average normal readings these days are about 120/80.  So, yeah, mine's been a bit higher than normal but still just about OK.

I tested on Thursday morning (the machine takes three readings and averages them), and it was 134/90.  Which was a bit concerning as it was the first time I'd seen it go to 90.  On Friday morning, the reading was 126/90, so one improved, the other not.  I've been told several times that it's the diastolic, the lower figure, that's the most important, so that's the figure I've been concentrating on.

I decided to test again on Friday evening because BP is normally higher in the morning so I wondered if there'd be any improvement come the evening.  Short answer - no.  Reading was 144/91.  Hmm.  Okay, try not to worry too much.

Saturday morning's reading was 128/93 and I woke with a thumping headache.  My period had arrived overnight and she usually brings a thick, hormonal headache with her these days so it could be that, but could, just as likely be from the raised BP.  But 93 is not good.  I was, however, also a bit stressed out due to shenanigans surrounding a family get-together that was happening on the Saturday and I'd been a bit piggy-in-the-middle which always stresses me out, but I didn't think it was enough to have raised my BP that much in such a short space of time.  I didn't tell my mum about my BP concerns as she has enough on her plate just now but did take the opportunity to ask if she was on BP medication, 'oh yes', she replied, airily, 'have been for years!' so that's another tick in the immediate family box.  *sigh* - you can see where this is going, can't you?

Yesterday (Sunday) morning's reading was 141/97.  I am now officially alarmed.  What the fuck is going on?  I wondered whether the machine's calibration had gone to pot but reminded myself that I am actually feeling a bit breathless and can feel my heart racing (oh, I've forgotten to tell you the pulse rate - take it from me it's higher than it should be).  Something is most definitely up, especially as it's gone up so rapidly in such a short space of time.

Today's reading?  Well, it's ridiculous - 142/101 with a heartrate of 90bpm.  I'm seeing the doctor this morning at 11.30.  If he/she doesn't suggest it, I think I'll ask to be put on meds to get this current spike under control while I change my lifestyle even more, and see if I can get it down low enough to come off meds.   I am, however,  resolved to the fact that I may have to stay on them for life and if that keeps me out of an early grave, then I'm happy with that.

Wish me luck and I'll keep you informed.

PS.  High blood pressure is known as the 'silent killer' because usually there are no symptoms until you suddenly suffer a stroke or heart attack.  If you're reading this and are over 40 and have never had your blood pressure checked, I would urge you to do so.  It doesn't hurt, takes only a few minutes but may just save your life.  Please do it.

UPDATE

The doctor thinks this is a blip and actually nothing much to worry about.  He did the average for the last 7 days' readings and it came out at 130/91 and said that was actually ok.  At the surgery, they don't start considering meds until someone's average is 135/85.  I said I'd always thought it was the lower number that was the most important but he said it wasn't, the systolic number is the one to watch out for and, looking at all my figures for the last year, it was fine. 

He asked if there was anything particularly stressful happening in my life at the moment that could account for the raised BP, but there isn't.  Only usual minor stressors and nothing that I could think would raise it so dramatically so quickly.  He said peoples' BP fluctuated anyway and it was hard to diagnose properly raised BP until the raise is consistent over a longer period.  I asked if it could be my thyroid, and mentioned that the fasting glucose/full blood panel I'd had 2 years ago hadn't shown anything bad; he looked it up and agreed, also saying that although my cholesterol level was a bit high at 6 something, my overall Q ratio figure (which is something to do with cholesterol + something else, and is an indicator of the future risk of the patient developing heart disease) was extremely good, but he suggested that it wouldn't hurt to do the blood test again to see if anything's changed in the last 2 years.  So that's been booked although the soonest they could do it was 15 April. 

He also wanted me to do the clinic's BP monitoring programme, where I test twice a day, write down the numbers and then add 5 (I did it 2 years ago), and he was happy I use my machine.  He said this would give us a better idea over a longer period.  Basically, the upshot is he doesn't think whatever's going on is bad enough for me to start BP meds because, as he says, once a person's BP is bad enough for meds, they most usually never come off them again.  What TLH and I are going to do is try and lose some weight - I could stand to easily lose 30lbs, as could he, and I'm also going to see about getting my cholesterol down.  I'm also going to start running again - I've not done much this year (last went out mid-February) because the weather's been unrelentingly shite here and then there was the flu that knocked me back for a couple of weeks.  Actually, I'm wondering if the flu didn't 'leave' something behind that's caused this reaction, a bug of some description.  I may well take myself off to Quincy, my Traditional Chinese Medical practitioner and see what he thinks.

Anyway, the upshot is nothing to be too concerned about at present but we'll do more tests just to see if there is anything to keep an eye on.