The ups and downs of life!

Saturday was an ‘up’. My young friend and I took a stroll around Greys Court, near  Henley. Nestled in a tranquil valley this picture-perfect place is full of delightful surprises. Some days the smell of home baking in fills the air in Lady Brunner’s kitchen

As it was a lovely day, we wandered around the gardens, bursting with the delicate blooms of springtime.

And, to one of my favourite places in  the garden – the site of this full-size wooden carving of a faithful retainer.

I painted a picture once of this kindly old man and entitled it ‘The Good Gardener of Greys Court’. Eventually, after walking round the grounds, past the Chinese bridge …

… we entered the wide wood. Just like a scene from ‘The Wind in the Willows’ except that it wasn’t wild on Saturday. It was covered in bluebells.

So that was our Saturday ‘up’.

Currently I’m working flat out on my 24-page catalogue and brochure for my exhibition. I’ve finished the design. It includes over 50 pictures, and nearly all the text has been written. 

Luckily I’m ahead of myself because now I have to talk about a ‘down’. Last week I saw Mr Ladas, the surgeon, in London. (He’s the man who performed my lung cancer operation two years ago.) Unfortunately the Pet-scan showed that the cancer has returned to my lung. It hasn’t spread – which is a good sign, and all other organs are in good nick. But this time the tumour is in a difficult place as it has attached itself right on the main blood vessel to the lung. Half-an-hour ago I was told that I have to go to the Royal Brompton Hospital in London next Monday evening for a major operation early the following morning.

So keep your fingers crossed tightly. I’ll probably be in hospital for a week or so. and I know my young friend will be there for me. 

We have planned to spend the weekend in the West Country, where on Friday I’m giving a short talk in the evening, after the opening of the Hilliard Miniature Show.

Next day, on to Devon for two days. It’ll be nice to relax then and hopefully put the imminent operation out of my mind temporarily.

I probably won’t write a blog for a couple of weeks, unless I dictate a few words to my young friend.

The Apothecaries Hall

This is the coat of arms of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. It shows Apollo, the God of Healing, overpowering the dragon of disease, represented by the wyvern. The unicorn supporters were King James’s special beasts and show his personal interest in the Society’s incorporation. The crest is a rhinoceros, whose powdered horn was alleged to have numerous medical properties. The motto translates as ‘Throughout the world they speak of me as a bringer of help.’ I’ve included this coat of arms in my blog as I can now show my latest miniature portrait.

It’s of the Past Master of the Society, and will soon be on permanent display in the Apothecaries Hall in London. Following the dissolution of the Dominican Priory in 1538 the Society acquired the building and created a hall, courtroom and gallery. Unfortunately most of the old building was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, but part of the walls survived. This picture shows the entrance to to Apothecaries hall from Blackfriars Lane, as it is today, with the Society’s Arms above the lintel. 

 It has long been a tradition for a Past Master to commission a miniature portrait of himself to donate to the Society. This portrait is the second of mine to be honoured in this way. Additionally the Past Master arranges for his Armorial bearings to be represented as a stained glass window to be added to others in the Great Hall. Here are some of the existing Armorial bearings of Honorary Freemen and Past Masters in one of the windows

I’m still awaiting the results of my Pet scan, but should know what they are on Monday afternoon when I see the oncologist. Keep your fingers tightly crossed as it’s been preying on my mind for a while now.

Last weekend I spent many hours working on a scale model of the venue for my forthcoming exhibition at the River and Rowing Museum. These pictures don’t show it very well.

The other day the pair of Canada geese, which had nested on the point of our garden by the river, finally hatched and we had seven little goslings. Aren’t they great – that is before they grow up and mess all over our boats and gardens?

And the following day the proud parents took them out of out Mill stream into the main river where, no doubt, some will not survive, if the pike have anything to do with it.

Last Monday, it being the hottest day of the year, and revelling in wall to wall sunshine. Val and I drove down to Denmead, where we’d been invited to lunch with Neil (Val’s eldest son) and his family. I’ve lost my satnav so we chose a route that avoided motorways and main roads of any sort. I became a magical journey with the pink and white blossoms sparkling in the sunshine and the spring colours of the leaves forming a picturesque background all the way there. Becky was there too. (She starts her new job in London next week in publishing, which is very exciting, as she’ll be meeting many famous authors.) Here’s Val enjoying the sunshine.

The journey home was equally nice. Hope I remember the route next time.

Last Sunday, on the way back from Reading, as I neared the motorway turnoff, coming towards me was the most colourful group of people I’d seen in a long time. Preceeded by a score of hi-viz yellow-jacketed policemen were hundreds of Sikhs. With turbans of yellow and orange and brightly coloured saris, the procession was headed by a highly decorated lorry. It reminded me so much of my many visits to India. And to cap it all, as I passed the parade, my car radio burst out with one of those frenetic and energetic songs from a Bollywood movie. A total coincidence.

On Friday evening my young friend and I were invited to dinner with Paul and Debbie. Debbie’s parents, Babs and Pat were there too. Later we drove to Wargrave to see some of the exhibits in the ‘Henley Arts Trail’. Just before we left Paul corralled his two white rabbits to take them indoors for the night. Here he and Pat are having successfully recaptured the one who escaped. 

Yesterday I was asked to meet the Mayor of Henley in the Mayor’s Parlour in Henley Town Hall where a framed limited edition of my painting ‘When the Queen Came to Henley’ was erected there. The Mayor, Elizabeth Hodgkin, had donated the picture to the town.

Nuclear Alert!

Last Thursday I went to the Churchill Hospital in Oxford for a pet scan. After spending 90 minutes in a cupboard while two nurses injected me with radioactive material from a gun-metal canister (it set off a loud alert on one of them!) I was placed in the centre of a large room with all sorts of nuclear notices plastered around it. There I had to lie in a big metal tunnel with my arms above my head for 35 minutes with the noise of the machine as it whirred around my body as my only companion. When I finally escaped I was too radioactive to be near children or pregnant women for 6 to 10 hours! As my young friend was neither, she drove me home.

We’ve just returned from a weekend in Norfolk. I like steam trains so we took a trip on the North Norfolk Railway between Holt and Sheringham.

We were staying with Christine at her cottage in the hamlet of Stanfield, and she came with us. Sitting in a very luxurious first-class compartment at the front of the train it took me back to my younger days (not that I ever travelled first-class then) when I always went around by train in corridor coaches. Here comes the ticket collector. Nice to have an old-fashioned cardboard ticket to be clipped,

When we got back to Holt I clambered up to the driver’s cabin. It was very hot in there.

Down the lane from Christine’s house lives an old farmer called Joe. Here he is with a couple of his dogs.

He owns 8 dogs, chickens, lots of noisy geese, and eight or so shire horses. One of them tried to eat my young friend’s jacket.

Joe ploughs his fields with a team of shire horses, and I gave him a DVD I’d made of him with his horses on an earlier visit.

We went to nearby Castle Acre Priory the following morning.

This must have been a very impressive collection of buildings during the Norman conquest. The castle and priory were built in the early 1070’s by the family of William de Warenne, a Norman knight and was a combination of fortress and aristocratic residence. Although Castle Acre priory closed in 1537 it is remarkably preserved, and although abandoned in the middle ages, remains one of the most comprehensive Norman earthworks in the country. As we wandered around we took a whole series of photographs.

On the way back home we had to make way for a whole caravan of tractors on their way to some sort of rustic rally. (Wonder what a collection of tractors is called?)

Every time I go to Norfolk there’s a cold wind blowing, and this time was no exception. These two seagulls didn’t seem bothered as they perched high above the harbour in Wells-next-the-sea.

On Monday we decided to drive the 150 miles home by avoiding motorways. (The M25 is always congested and very boring.) Our first destination was Oxburgh Hall in southwest Norfolk. This stately home was built in about 1482 at the height of the War of the Roses,

Beautifully preserved, it’s surrounded by a wide moat. We entered the house via the gatehouse. Inside I came across this gold relief carving.

We climbed up to the roof via a very precarious spiral staircase as you can see, and the other photo shows the view from the top.

Right next to the Hall is a small chapel and here is one of the stained glass windows inside

To break our journey we called in to Woburn Abbey – the home of the Duke of Bedford. I remember the last time I came to Woburn was in 1963 while on leave from Singapore. Then I photographed my friend’s little blonde, blue-eyed daughter sitting down and dwarfed amid hundreds of daffodils. Subsequently the picture won a gold medal in a pan-Asian photographic competition. I called it ‘Barbie in Wonderland’.

At Woburn in its vast 3,000 acres of parkland they look after about 8 species of deer. As we drove around in the bright sunshine we took a few pictures. Here’s a couple.

This morning I finished my miniature of the Past Master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. I won’t be showing it on my blog until he’s received the painting, but he’s already given permission for it to be shown there, so probably next week I’ll include it.

Now I’m spending a lot of time on preparations for my exhibition. My friend, David, has made me a scale model of the exhibition venue, and today I’ve started working out exactly where the hundred or so paintings will hang. Should be fun.

My Oldest Friend

Just got back from my oncologist in Reading.  The result of the latest CT scan means that I have to have a PET scan next week in Oxford to check something.  This type of scan means I become pretty radioactive and have to keep away from children and pregnant women for a while.

Today I received some very sad news from Bangkok.  My oldest and best friend, Maurice Bowra, died last night.  He’d been ill for a year with liver cancer.  We go back a long way and first met in Singapore when I did my National Service in 1955.  He, being a corporal, and me, a lowly sapper in the Royal Engineers, I remember paying a weekly visit to his room (I was in the main barracks) where he’d saved all his “dog-ends” from his already smoked cigarettes.  I was an impecunious soldier at the time as well as a smoker so took the tobacco out of the dog-ends and, with my trusty Rizla cigarette machine, would make a few whole cigarettes.  Here’s Maurice on a recent trip I made to Thailand where he has lived ever since coming to work with me at my advertising agency in the mid-60’s. 

Maurice married Oye, my secretary, when we lived in Bangkok.  I’ve stayed with them at their home there many times since.  Maurice was a senior member of the British Genealogical Society and upon my 70^th birthday he surprised me with the most wonderful bound book entitled “70 Years of Life: 50 Years of Friendship”.  This book is a fully comprehensive and illustrated history of, initially, our time in the army and subsequently many years working together in the large international advertising agency based in Bangkok.  At least thirty pages of the book gave a very detailed account, which he had researched, of my family history – going right back to 1767.  Maurice leaves his wife Oye and his two daughters Didi and Chada.  I intend to travel to Bangkok in early August to pay my respects at the cremation ceremony.

My young friend returned from South Korea on Sunday evening.  I must admit I was worried about her flying there, particularly because of the recent belligerent outpourings from North Korea.  However, she had a good time from a work point of view and even managed to get in a bit of sight seeing.  Here are four of her photographs, one of little blue men; another of a Buddha figure on Jeju Island; the third is the very nice view from her room; and finally these big “grandfather statues” all made from lava from the volcano.

I’ve finally finished the bronze head of my great nephew Max.  Strange how it looks different in photographs from every angle.  Nevertheless the sculpture itself worked out well, I think.

We went for a short row on Sunday afternoon.  Luckily we didn't go too far downstream, because when we turned round we found the strength of the river quite formidable – it took quite a while to get back home as the slightest relaxation of the oars meant we were forced downstream again.

On Thursday I had a meeting with the curator of the River and Rowing Museum to discuss more details of my exhibition.  There’s so much to do.  To add to it I made this large pencil drawing last week.  It’s of my grandfather’s pub “The Plough” and shows him standing by the door near my uncle and aunt.

Saturday dawned as the first gloriously sunny day of the year.  It also heralded the beginning of the bowling season here in Henley.  This picture shows the immaculate green before any of us had what is called a “roll up”.