Night before Christmas

It was the night before Christmus and all through the house.

Nothing was stirring not even a *****

A very 'Merry Christmas' to all readers of this blog around the world. May this season bring you peace, good health, joy, love and happiness.

Rainbows and Unicorns

Oh Christmas Tree !

Trees have been decorated in midwinter since 'Pagan times' . Our Nordman Spruce this year is decorated with illuminated paper roses and glass baubles which have adorned our trees  for more than forty years. The 'wooden tree' has appeared each year on the first day of Advent since our children were small. This year our grandchildren will celebrate Christmas at home with us and gaze upon our beautiful Christmas trees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree

London at Christmas 2019

Coming soon

Coming soon 

"Don't forget on Christmas Eve it is important to know where 'the man in red' is at all times. I'm relying on you Tabby!¬

Christmas 2019

The lost chip of summer

'The one that got away' - Acrylic paint on canvas - Prof C H Roberts (by kind permission of Mr and Mrs Roberts)

"We are aware of his work"

'Sekhmet surveys the work of Ra' - collagraph and mixed digital media - George Roberts November 2019

'We are aware of his work'  - collagraph and mixed digital media - George Roberts November 2019

'Good and evil in the Garden of Eden' -  collagraph and mixed digital media - George Roberts November 2019

"Thanks to the intellectually and creatively generous Emily Harvey and her excellent internet site, 'The Curious Printmaker', which introduced me to the wonderful world of collagraph plate making using aluminium tape".
https://www.thecuriousprintmaker.co.uk/

Figgie Pudding

'Boris' - mixed digital media - George Roberts November 2019

Suffolk Coastal

East Anglia long coast,big skies and the 'occasional viking'

Thorpeness Beach

'Head in the clouds walking at Thorpeness' - digital media - George Roberts October 2019

Doggerel Bank

Went to Thorpness 

to look at the folly

The sun came out

so didn't  need a 'brollie'

Lots of dogs on the beach,

shingle laced with sea holly

spotted a dalmatian, two schnauzers

 but not one border 'collie'

   George Roberts

Small Town Dark Moon

"Small town with talking heads under a dark moon" - etching and drypoint on aluminium plate with added digital media - George Roberts October 2019.

Led by Donkeys

'It is possible to have too much of a bad thing' - mixed media- George Roberts October 2019

Silly me; I thought Old Etonians only f**ked pigs.

Stag's horn sumach in Autumn

'Our neighbour's cat loves to hide in our garden' - digital media - George Roberts October 2019

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake

My old man's a dustman

'Not mushroom inside' - Mixed digital media - George Roberts October 2019

I say, I say, I say

Not you again!

My dustbin's absolutely full with toadstools

How do you know it's full?

'Cause there's not mushroom inside.

Lonnie Donegan

'Three Little Birds'

"Three Little Birds" - woodcut and chine colle on print paper - George Roberts - September 2019 

Rise up this mornin'

Smiled with the risin' sun

Three little birds

Pitch by my doorstep

Singin' sweet songs

Of melodies pure and true

Saying', (this is my message to you)

Singing' don't worry 'bout a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Singing' don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Bob Marley & The Wailers

Going, going, gone!

"Red screams as she unravels" digital media and Juno Cam NASA - George Roberts September 2019

A fine City

Elm Hill Norwich - Watercolour on Whatman paper -George Roberts- circa 1992 - by kind permission of Mr and Mrs Towns

" Norwich a fine city with some fine people"

Oven Master

"Having made a few final tweaks to the design of our garden wood fired oven, tonight Toot and I baked classic pizzas and a crusty loaf. One day you too will become an Oven Master grasshopper."

Chine Colle

" My first attempt at adding colour to a woodcut using 'chine colle' a technique in which coloured tissue paper is bonded to the print paper with rice paste during the printing process.

Doesn't it !

'Two moths in a wardrobe' - mixed digital media - George Roberts September 2019

" Where's the candle ? "

Red Hot Chilli Peppers

'Chilli Peppers' - digital media - George Roberts September 2019

'My very first time'.

I was just eighteen years, six weeks and three days

When in my hand, I held my first chilli

My endorphins rushed, my face became flushed

When I subsequently, touched my pursed 'willie'.

George Roberts

Honeysuckle

'Honeysuckle' -  digital media - George Roberts - August 2019

Thoughts of home

Home is defined by the perfume of honeysuckle

Heady on summer’s warmest night

With gibbous Moon lit Armstrong bright

Fragrant

Heaven scent 

The driven sound of rain

 Wet on window pane

A herring gull’s sad reverberant cry

Night trains in the distance passing by

Bread baking

 Coffee percolating

Buttered Toast

Sunday Roast

An old dressing gown or favourite chair

A tiny knitted and much loved bear

A place to hang a Sunday best hat

A red felt lobster or family cat

Home is all these things and very much more

Where you kiss and hold safe all those you adore

George Roberts

Still Life by Woo

'Still Life by Woo' - Milton Artist -Pixie Boon -Acrylic on paper - 2019

" Now on exhibition at the Oulton Broad Gallery Suffolk."

Stewart Green's Amazing Nano World

The Windmill

The Watermill

'Beside the Seaside'

'Friend of the Cabine', musician and 'nano-modeller', Stewart Green created the above, absolutely tiny but detailed working models in his Oulton Broad workshop. "Isn't that a pip"?

For other brilliant models made by Stewart follow the links:
Southwold Railway
Loch MacToggue

‘Get Tanked Up’ with Syd Carp' No1

Scenes of life and death from Syd's 60 litre Tropical Aquarium

Welcome to ‘GTU’ the home of ‘Fish keeping’ on a budget, a wonderful hobby for the overly focussed and those fond of a pun.

“So Syd, what do you know about tropical fish keeping”? I hear you say.
Well the truthful answer to this is ‘not much’ but then again we all learn best by trial and error. What I can honestly say to you is that the topsoil in my back garden is chock full with my fish keeping mistakes and errors.

“Syd, is fish keeping something anyone can do?”
Few people realise the many similarities between manned space flight and fish keeping. Get a few little things wrong and death and destruction will follow as sure as night follows day. So fish keepers - ‘sweat the small stuff’ and keep your tank an oasis of health and tranquillity.

Syd's Ram Tetra

“Syd, is fish keeping expensive?”
Yes and no. Keeping ‘great white sharks’ is a ‘cash rich’ hobby and requires a very large living room or dentist’s reception area to accommodate.  On the other hand, keeping a few ‘mountain minnows in an unheated fresh water aquarium can be both rewarding and cost minimal.

“Syd, in fish keeping is there a prime directive?”
Yes.  An aquarium is an isolated biosphere totally reliant upon the fish keeper. So the prime directive is:
• At all times maintain the health and welfare of your aquarium and its contents.

Recent addition to Syd's Tropical Aquarium

“Syd, is this difficult to do”
Yes and no. Yes because an aquarium biosphere is a dynamic system. No because if you can obtain equilibrium or balance an aquarium will, with a little regular assistance from the fish keeper, maintain itself.

“Syd, do children make good ‘fish keepers?”
Yes, with Plasticine or modelling clay.

Next time I will consider the issues involved with choosing and setting up a small heated tropical fish aquarium.

No fish, molluscs or crustaceans were harmed either directly or indirectly in the making of this blog. 

Steve Dongle's Nature Table for Two - No1

A Painted Lady Butterfly on a Japanese Anemone in Steve Dongle's garden.

"In the last couple of months things have been ‘quiet’ in the ‘Cabine’.  So this morning, when our old mate Steve Dongle showed up, we were delighted to see the loveable old eco-warrior back on top form.  Apparently, he has been out of circulation for sometime after a tree fell on him. Just goes to show that there are risks associated with ‘keeping your friends close’.

Steve assures me that now he has recovered, he will continue to write his series of blog reports for the ‘Cabine’ - ‘Steve Dongles top 100 trees’.  He also suggested a new one ‘Steve Dongle’s Nature Table for Two’. As the ‘Cabine’ is located in rural Suffolk, we thought this suggestion, rather like caterpillars, had legs. We hope you like Steve’s first report and follow future developments.

In the event of a ‘no deal Brexit’  Steve has offered to include practical and helpful tips on how to live off the land and cook human flesh with only a magnifying glass - amazing!".  George Roberts

Nature Table for Two

" I have been alive for 69 long  hot summers and I cant remember a better one for butterflies. My garden has been teeming with 'em. The number of 'Painted Lady' butterflies  I have seen this year is stupendous and fantastic!

Red Admiral on the Buddleia

 Everybody admires a 'Red Admiral' and I'm no exception. I can remember the summers of my youth spent in glorious Maidstone, located at  the heart of the 'desirable south east', where and when you could not find a 'darlin bud of May' that wasn't encrusted with 'em - fantastic and stupendous!

o

Peacock Butterfly

A lovely jewel like butterfly. My old friend Madge loved her peacock colours - fantastic!

Gate Keeper Butterfly

A small brown butterfly first discovered by Egon Spengler in Gosaria - stupendous!

A 'Queen' on on the move - a swarm of bees

We heard 'em first. A wonderful 'hum' of bees. Then they were all around us, in our hair and on our clothes. Neither of us panicked and neither of us were stung. Who doesn't' like a bee or honey come to that? - fantastic!

IPOD (Interesting Plant of the Day)

Never pass up a bush without giving it a look , for the hedgerow is nature's treasury of wonders! The cream covered football, ,centre stage in the above photo, is an 'oak apple' or 'oak gall'. An oak apple is not a fruit but the result of a tree's reaction to infestation by a gall wasp in the family Cynipidae. The adult female wasp lays single eggs in developing leaf buds. The wasp larvae feed on the gall tissue resulting from their secretions, which modify the oak bud into the gall, a structure that protects the developing larvae until they undergo metamorphosis into adults -  amazing, fantastic and stupendous " - Steve Dongle environmentalist and eco-warrior.

Signed copies of Steve Dongle's book  'Steve Dongle's Top 100 Trees' are still available from the Waveney Gazette price £10 or 5 Euros.

Euler's Disk

                  George Roberts digital media July 2019

Garden Wood fired Bread Oven

Front of the oven - "the business  end where the bread goes in and out"

View from the side showing the homemade paddle

Rear view showing the 'fire box' where the wood goes in to provide the heat

Our first Pizza waiting to come out 

Wood fired Pizza with Toot's Dough

Our first loaf from the oven

As we did not use our barbecue very often, we decided to convert it to create a wood fired bread oven in our garden. This required some thought, a little research, a bit of design, three or four days construction and fabrication work, some astute purchases via the Internet (thank you Vitcas.Com) and reuse and recycling of stuff from the shed. All in all, the barbecue - bread oven conversion, cost about £210. It can still be used as a barbecue but now doubles up as a Pizza and Bread Oven.