Planet Ruby Starrs

Onwards through wet wales - very lovely rolling hills and green lush valleys.  We visited a couple of eclipse chums and received wonderful hospitality, good food, comfy bed and good conversation... we hatched some vague plans for eclipse chasing in the States next year.. I realise we need to do some serious thinking about this as it looms as potentially our next adventure.. I haven't had much time to draw the last couple of days.. I did a little bit of weaving inspired by some baskets I saw in a museum in Aberystwyth. We came across the museum by chance.. the less then sunny weather left us wandering (meandering even) around town considering options for the day.  Some of the architecture in Aberystwyth is very beautiful and one building in particular caught my eye - the ground floor was Boots but upstairs advertised itself as local museum.  It was a very grand ornate ediface so we went to have a look.  We were delighted to discover it was an old victorian theatre repur

We've done quite a bit of wandering about recently... and our wandering has taken many different forms and its almost interesting to consider the different interpretations of meandering, wending, lolloping and plain ambling... my limited but recent experience tells me some people - and I don't want to stereotype - but mainly men - are not good at meandering.. or even wending.. probably not enough shopping experience... they tend to go for lolloping or brisk focused marching.. they haven't got a clue about the tiny but necessary shifts in tempo good meandering takes - the need to "wend" ever so slightly and the ability to stop often to absorb the locality!    Alternatively it needs to be understood that constant wending is a different kind of wandering and needn't always include meandering as this will slow the process down.  In fact sometimes wending can be quite brisk especially if there is a tea room or a pub waiting at the end or middle of a wending trail.

After a really nice visit to Portmeirion we stopped in beautiful valley nearish Harlech.. it is so unspoilt I'm not telling anyone where it is... but lovely woods and running stream, moss covered stone bridge... its a tad damp but we managed to eat our dinner al fresco beside the stream after a walk up the valley to surprise surprise an esoteric crag... It was a really sheltered spot and we sat enjoying a glass of wine and the tree tops high above us swayed in the wind.  We sat out til the light faded and then retired to bed.  Not long after we turned the rain started... Beryl was snug under the trees from the wind but the rain was a different matter, the rain coming through the trees was like gunshots on the roof mostly machine guns.... it was loud intense and carried on most of the night... we contemplated moving the van but the rain was so heavy it just didnt feel feasable in the absolute black of night - theres stuff under the van - on the drivers seat- so we slept it out... i

I.m sat on top of a welsh hill as i write this... Dr Fred has ventured further up an even bigger hill with crags on and i am luxoriating in peace and tranquiluty next to mountain lake... well maybe a hill reservoir but its very pleasant and quiet.  This being written on my mobile and i didnt bring specs so its a bit rough and ready... Wales is a bit of a contrast to the previous two days weatherwise... on sat after a late start Dr Fred, the friends we were spending the weekend with and myself went for an extremley hot walk on Wildboarclough.. the sun was out and we all resembled pink shrimp by the time we got to the crag pub... when we had slogged back up the hill to the campsite i.m surprised we werent cooked like prawns!!! Stil a lovely wslk followed by a pleasant evening sat outside our camp eating and drinking and watching the sun go down and a stunning gibous moonrise.  Now in Wales it is wet and windy but not too cold and lush and green with beautiful soaring hills and valleys

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank.  Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just

Knowing my interest in moths a friend brought me a find from a recent walk - it was a (dead) cocooned moth - she reckoned it was an old one - some moths apparently overwinter by wrapping up in a shell like cocoon and emerging in the warmer season - this one hadn't made it -She had found two so she dissected one and found a desiccated moth inside and brought the other one for me to look at- yes its a strange - but interesting gift - my friend is also strange and interesting... (many of my friends are)... so we dissected it on the kitchen table expecting dried moth but found a fairly gruesome alien like grub - damp and floppy and now I think we may be infected and ready to star in alien 5 - the togston alien meets grub affair - so posts from now on will be sporadic possibly because the alien got us but more likely because we are heading off in Beryl again - first to the Blue Dot festival at Jodrell Bank to see Underworld and then down to Wales and surrounding area to explore esoteri

Its been another busy week, family to stay and now lots of chores - washing bedding and restocking depleted cupboards... in between this I have somehow found time to try my hand at paper making - I had a long conversation with a friend who is expert in this field and looked at lots on the Internet but it is definitely more tricky then it looks, and now my kitchen is full of damp sludgy grey flattened 'paper' it will take forever to dry and I'm not convinced it will not just turn into dust or that stuff that used to come out of really old mattresses or chairs!!! Someone told me to turn it onto a formica surface to get a nice shiny finish... our dining room (rather grand name for half of the kitchen) table is a delphinum blue formica so I tipped  the sludge from the wire mesh onto the table - having removed as much excess water as I could with a sponge - 5 days later its still there..still damp and still quite sludgy - blue sets the grey off nicely though.... first attem

Great couple of days painting the snow dog for the Great North Snow Dog event to be on show later this year - very tempted to post some pictures but apart from the fact we are not allowed to share images until the launch I also think it would spoil the overall surprise of the finished object - here is just one small sneaky preview that doesn't give too much away but its safe to say its looking really good and its been such good fun - so pleased that Rachael came up with the idea and I really appreciate her hard work and encouragement to make it happen (and also the doughnuts),  The sponsors came in to take some photographs and see how we were progressing and they seemed very pleased with the ongoing painting.  The final piece is likley to live outside the Cathedral near the Old Post Office building which now houses our sponsors NBS mystery bit of our Snow Dog ..... We've had fun each designing the individual pieces which have come together extremely well to create a very

Proggy / clippy rug finished - backed and down in bedroom to ensure cosy toes on these cold July mornings... and for those that know me - No that is not astro turf on the bedroom floor- that all went in the van!!

In the absence of anything constructive to do today Dr Fred and I had a tea tasting experiment...  We both are very fond of the British institution of a good cuppa and generally cant even get out of bed until this particular craving has been satisfied - well I can't - Its Dr Freds duty to make tea every morning and to be honest it nearly always a perfect cuppa... tea tasting However - we do have quite a lot (possibly too many) conversations about what makes the best tea.. ranging from good old pyramid bags to fair trade types and also leaf tea - even broaching decaffeinated brands.  I'm such a lush I don't really think there is much difference between the brands we tend to favour - Dr Fred holds firm he has his favourites so we decided to put it to the test... I wont bore you with the details but it was all very cafe scientific - blind tasting of several different teas including a decaff and true enough I couldn't tell the difference and picked the decaff as my fa

possibly a Scarlet Ibis lost in the grey wilds of Northumberland Inspired by the museum archive exhibits I decided to spend some time drawing Scarlet Ibis's - Birds are harder then you think to draw... sometimes they just work and other times it is incredibly difficult to capture the shape properly - unless obviously you are particularly good with birds!!! Yesterday I had a lazy day just making line drawings of Scarlet Ibis - the whole bird, bits of the bird, its feet, its silhouette - getting the curve of the beak was quite challenging, these birds are incredibly elegant - long legged and haughty not only because of their wonderful scarlet plumage but they have a serious regal attitude - and I was looking at different ways to convey this... We saw lots of ordinary Ibis in Sydney Australia, they were very common just hanging out on the streets by the Botanical gardens - I found them hard to draw then!! Scarlet Ibis in native greenery After drawing I picked my favouri

Le Mal Du  Pays Rene Magritte  (The lions always make me think of Leeds Town Hal)l While I love living up here in windy damp Northumberland I do get occasional waves of nostalgia and homesickness which have to be addressed from time to time.  I have to go 'home' and catch up with everyone and remind myself that variety is the spice of life and I'm not missing too much by living up north.. also if I lived in Leeds then I would probably have to get a proper job!!!! no more larking about student life - and most people I love in Leeds are busy and probably don't notice I'm not around as much as I lament that they are 2 hours away ha ha ...  Last week we had a flying visit to Leeds - to do just that - catching up with family and friends negating the most recent bout of homesickness by spending a night near where I used to live... and being reminded of students.. noise.. traffic..mess.. I think the area is improving.. but its student changeover time so bins are