It's been a while

Thought I would check into the site and send a new Blog out - and realized that it was over a year since the last one! I know it is a cliche but time really does seem to go more quickly. Something like the water going down the plughole - same volume but the impression of much greater speed. Though that is probably a simile best not developed!

Anyway here I am and there you are - hopefully. Someone who helped me set up this website - a dear friend indeed - suggested that I should not simply list what has happened since the last such missive, but expound on some theme. Well, I suppose the most obvious theme would be getting things done. There is a great tendency - for me at least - to prevaricate and put things off, finding almost anything else to do other than what I know I should really be doing. It is partly a lazy streak, partly a wish to get whatever it is absolutely right, which is in itself a pressure that can induce the much fabled 'writer's block'. Either way, it leaves the page unwritten and the canvas staring angrily back across the studio, and can gradually compound until the whole thing appears to involve an effort and a challenge way beyond the inclination of an average day. The answer? Well, I've already mentioned it. Yes, it's the plughole. I know I said I wouldn't develop it, but it does have its uses. Like, for instance, reminding you that you do have only a relatively limited time to get things done, so get on and do it! A proverbial kick up the backside that does often work - and indeed has done for me over the last year or so. There have been regular poetry performances - indeed I was invited to be the guest poet by the Silver Street poets back in September - and a fair amount of writing (poems and the Women's Book - which I am roughly 3/4 of the way through). There have also been a lot more of the big colour series of acrylics and pastels - and the odd commission too. And there has been an invitation to exhibit at a lovely little venue downtown. So yes the plug hole has proved effective. As another cliche goes, It really isn't a dress rehearsal so go out there and let it out!