The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square

I've been allocated a place in the Antony Gormley's "One and Other" Fourth Plinth project which started today. I'll be taking my place on the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square on

Monday 3rd August from 3 - 4 p.m.

It's going to be a fairly challenging thing to do, I admit to being apprehensive but my initial "oh not me!" has morphed into what's turning out to be an interesting experience already. My ideas of what I shall do up there are evolving and taking shape day by day.

The theme of my hour on the plinth is likely to be an exploration of inner and outer reflection. I'll be spending some time reflecting inwardly about the experience and what has brought me to this point in time as well as focussing on outer reflection, using the environment to inspire me.

I'll be writing more about this in posts to come, and you can read my Plinther's Profile and watch what's happening on the Plinth right now by clicking here - which means you'll be able to watch me when I'm up there too! Scary. . . .

Pasties and Piskies

Hello - a quick post to say I'm back after a wonderful holiday in Cornwall, where the weather was brilliant - warm, sunny, cooling sea breezes - and I've come back with a Mediterranean-like tan!

We stayed in the motor caravan (RV if you're in the US!) and revelled in seeing clifftops and country lanes alike smothered in wild flowers. We walked the coastal footpaths, enjoying the stunning Cornish coastline, paddled in the sea (so did the dog), ate a HUGE cream tea, a HUGE Cornish pasty, saw Cinnabar moths, one Scarlet Tiger moth, a basking seal, a glow worm. . .but we didn't see any Cornish Piskies (pixies).

More to follow when the photos are sorted out. As for now, the catching up ( and doing the washing) goes on!

Sorry

Sorry I have not contributed but events have over taken all my good intentions.
Derek's brother died very suddenly last week and the world is on hold for us at the moment.
It doesn't seem credible that life just goes on around us.

Across the Borders

Low tide at Berwick-on-Tweed

Here are some views of our Spring holiday in the Scottish Borders and Northumberland. We were blessed with lots of sunny days as we travelled around in our motor home to Melrose, Edinburgh and North Berwick. There, we stayed near the beach opposite the island which Robert Louis Stevenson is supposed to have based "Treasure Island" upon. Beach & dunes were good, dog was very happy.

Then we travelled along the coast back into England, stopping to visit castles, beaches and fishing villages along the way, ending our holiday at Kielder Water in the Kielder Forest, which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We learned that L.S.Lowry used to take his holidays in Berwick-on-Tweed, and that Bass Rock, offshore from the Scottish Seabird Centre, appears white because it's crammed full of nesting gannets. And the smoked kippers we brought home from Craster were delicious!

Ancient beeches, Kielder Water

Here's the slide show:

As I was

Sandra showed some photos of herself around 1949/50 and asked for pictures of us when we were young. Jackie has promised some photos of her belly dancing days (come on Jackie, it's definitely your turn now!) and I've come up with a few pictures of me at different times in my life.

The first one is my christening photo when I could have been somewhere between 3 and 6 months old - so that's 1945/46.
This next one was taken in 1972, when I was teaching. It was near the end of term, before the summer holidays started in July, and it was sport's day. One of the parents thought it highly amusing to have taken a photo with his telephoto lens of Mrs. H yawning on duty and it took a bit of living down in the staff room. There were jokes and comments about how enthused I seemed to be about our annual sports day. The truth was, I was very tired because I was in the early stages of pregnancy, but didn't know it at the time. I do remember that I could hardly keep my eyes open at this event, when I was supposed to be supervising my class into the correct order for the events they were in.

Finally, one taken in 1973 with the 6 month old baby that was making me yawn in the previous picture when he was but a tiny embryo! Just look at those hexagonal specs frames which were quite a fashion statement at the time!

Country File The Lancashire strand

Just a couple of nice rural scenes..more to follow! Just outside Blackburn

When we were young

Two posts at once wow!!!lol have you got any old pics of you when you were small? Scanned these for flickr