Potpourri of Things to Spice Up Life

Over the past 3 weeks or so since my return from Majorca there have been various things adding colour to my life.  I am rediscovering carbohydrates, once avoided as presumed fattening.  As a direct result of the sickness incurred in Majorca I was advised to avoid protein and fibre as much as possible (healthy though these normally are) and to concentrate on carbohydrates and starches, easier for a queasy stomach to cope with.  This led to a renovation of my diet.

Usually I haven't been keen on pasta, finding it rather boring, but I came to appreciate its gentle and satisfying nature, and one can always add an interesting sauce.  Bread, too, figured more prominently, and I found that eating it late in the evening helped me to sleep better.  I did miss my fruit and veg, though!  And it’s difficult to persuade my husband that potatoes have been rehabilitated. 

My weight was constantly fluctuating up and down last month - at first, not surprisingly, I put on several pounds on holiday, and then shed it in less than a week; after that the transfer to carbohydrates led to more weight gain at first as I was unused to handling them, and then down it went again.  I'm still around my target weight, but hope to keep up a higher carbohydrate content in my diet as I can see what kind of purpose it serves.

Even after the Heritage Days were over, Norwich does not lack cultural events to stimulate you.  The Castle Museum holds a series of study sessions with objects on a Thursday, called 'Try it on a Thursday'.  You simply have to be over 55 and to book, as there are only 12 places at a time.  I've finally got onto the right mailing-list and went along to one called Decorative Arts - Eating and Drinking, a subject dear to my heart.  We 12 lucky people arrived at the Shire Hall Study Centre, where a table was laid out with historic pieces of pottery and porcelain, silver and glass from the Museum's reserve collection - no, no food!  The feast was for the mind and the eyes.

The Decorative Arts Curator Francesca Vancke gave a talk on eating and drinking implements and dining practices from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century, and commented on the pieces before us.  We weren't able to handle the items ourselves, but if you go to local auctions or antiques fairs, there is plenty of opportunity to pick up and examine objects of historic interest there.  The speaker was clearly going down with some sort of bug and had difficulties with her voice giving out, but she pluckily soldiered on till the end.  I love to look at old tablewares, which show such an infinite variety and can be decorated in the most interesting and colourful ways.

I've been doing some more painting, too.  When I tried to do some in our own orchard, things were made very difficult for me by a mad apprentice artist, our cat Mossop.  She was clearly fascinated by the operation, and walked around among all the tubes of paint and brushes, also discovering that the Lazy Susan moved when she walked on it, although she didn't quite get the idea of going for a ride. (A Siamese cat who used to come to our garden was rather fond of stately rides in the wheelbarrow).  I was worried she might drink the paint water or get paint on her fur and start to lick it off, as it was no doubt poisonous.  I had to keep rescuing my painting, or it would surely have had her pawstrokes on it as well.

When I last went to the Yelverton art group I did a double-take as two of my worlds collided.  The Norwich Fringe Health Walkers, with whom I sometimes walk, were arriving to start their walk from the same parish hall that we were using for our art class, and I wondered at first which set of people these were, as I recognize them both.  The walkers who knew me thought it odd that I was disappearing into the hall rather than going on a healthy walk!

In our art class we were painting autumn colours, and I chose to depict a view of Wasdale Head with contrasting darks and reds from a travel article, liking the Lake District.  Having sketched the scene, I enjoyed mixing colours - several different types of green, some dark shades, and I found Windsor Red Deep, which I'm not used to using, the closest match for the red slopes, sometimes mixed with a gold shade.  Our group-leader Pat advised me to add purple to the darker green.  She gave me advice about working the existing paint that was on the paper down the paper with water, and also about putting in the lighter areas first. 

I tried to darken my dark areas, always a weakness with me - paintings need contrast of darks and lights and mine often end up with too much medium tone.  I also discussed with Pat a problem I had in Majorca of lifting out colour from my painting when I thought I was adding details, and we concluded that I'm probably using a paper that is too finely grained.

Exercise other than ballet has continued: I've been on a country walk with my husband, who does more walking than I, and have rejoined Carol's yoga class, since I only have 3 ballet classes a week at present until Jane resumes another of hers.  I had to miss the first yoga class when I was being sick, but have caught up since, and these twists, stretches, balances and circling of limbs are an ideal reinforcement to the work done in ballet.  Massaging the feet would also be a useful preparation for a dance class when we want to avoid cramp in the foot, which we readily get when pointing our feet.  This term in yoga we'll be concentrating on outer and inner strength and the abdominals.  The relaxation period at the end of each session sends us back to the real world reinvigorated.

The mind and eyes are also getting their stimulation when I attend a short art history course given by further education lecturer Wanda Standley for retired staff from the University.   She is helping us to appreciate paintings from the early Middle Ages to modern times, and, since she has given us more mainline courses in the past, she is this time concentrating on possibly less well-known painters, and this is working well.  She always had abundant slides to show us, and an audience from a variety of backgrounds finds this an enjoyable experience.

So there is never any lack of something interesting to do, and it all serves to keep the brain cells and the muscles working and the weight down!

I’ve just started another blog on the Sagazone website, which you might like to see, and which will pick up themes I’ll have treated in previous posts here and which you may have missed.  I’m writing under the pen-name of Dianthus.  There are already some comments on the first post, which for some reason rarely happens with this one.  The address is www.sagazone.co.uk/blogs/detail/23961/