part of the messy series

red deer stag, richmond park

snipe

kitchen art

possibly a bit twee but wanted to try some easy on the eye stuff

(fish with guns?! no its just a spoon)

it must be Colonal Mustard in the kitchen with.. knife/spoon/rolling pin

fish 4 u

spooning leads to..

Four candles

minimalist style sketches

Lindisfarne

Finchdale priory

Record Revamp

I have undertaken the task of trying to up-cycle some old records from the attic into other items such as bowls and such. I know some people think defacing records by melting them down is an act of great inhumanity against music. I myself own a record player and enjoy the delights of some great un-synthetic/little adulterated tunes. But some of the crap records in our attic.. well suffice to say i feel no shame in remodelling them into items other than those they were originally designed for.

Hence this week i attempted to make a bowl from a record. numerous youtube videos show you how, I combined the instructions from a few and used mostly common sense. The result was a method mainly consisting of, step 1. put it in the oven. step 2. take it out of the oven. step 3. enjoy your revamped record.

If you want to try this i suggest watching a few of the vids on youtube so you really can't mess up. I did take some photos along the way though so here they are.

 First find some terrible music

 Then put in the oven over a bowl with a weight over the centre

 and voila, a rather crinkled record bowl

Here i added a paper slip of my own illustrations although i have not decided if i like this effect or not

BLOOMIN BRILLIANT

the allotment is looking at its best with bright foxgloves out in their full glory. Some lovely marigolds planted by charlie are just peeping out and the gem lettuces are looking well... like gems. As we are sadly leaving Durham so soon, we have harvested some of our veg a little prematurely for an allotment feast. That means the potatoes are grubbed up for a delicious accompaniment to the radishes and spinach. We also have a fantastic garlic crop, on the small side but very flavoursome!

some protective measures have also had to be put in place for some of the veg, this includes small pots of beer to catch slugs and snails as well the ingenious use of holy to ward off would be attackers from the peas (a solution demonstrated by Sally).

animals around and about

i have come across these fellows in the last few days, they were very friendly.

Radish & Buttercup

the allotment is looking fantastic. the wet april followed by the latest hot spell has greened everything up and the radishes have grown quickly and are ready to eat. the wild spaces between the well tended beds are teeming with buttercups, foxgloves and bluebells. the garlic is growing strong and some careful investigation showed me they have grown some lovely big garlic bulbs. i weeded among the potatoes and around the garlic today, it is so nice to be out in the sun and in the allotment.