Articles
Wandering Wizard
This painting is something of a departure from what I had intended to paint, but then when you are painting something for a wandering theme a slight departure is to be expected. Anyway, the other day I was sitting reading a few pages of Lord of the Rings – the section where Gandalf leads Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli into Meduseld, and I had a clear idea what I had to paint. It’s strange really, whenever I paint something from Tolkien I want to include all the details I see in my head, this time I really just wanted to feature the wandering wizard who annoys Wormtongue so much.
So, this is a quick A4 watercolour of Gandalf, his old grey cloak in rags covering his new white garb as he shuffles and stoops his way to the presence of Theoden. Now I really want to paint the full hall, with shafts of light picking out different details, and the other characters in place.
Where’s all this grit then?
I was amused to read an article in the News & Star earlier that according to Andrew Moss, the council’s assistant director of highways, they have topped up the 10,000 grit bins and roadside grit piles. Funny that, we’ve been asking for the grit piles on our road to be topped up for weeks and our requests have fallen on deaf ears. The hill down past our lane looks more like the Cresta Run these days than a road, and we’d probably be better off buying a toboggan than wasting money on road tax.
To date I have made numerous requests to Cumbria County Council for the grit piles to be topped up, I’ve had assurances from Tony Markley (Cumbria County Councils cabinet member for highways and economic development) that the lack of grit issues had been passed to a highways officer who would get in touch with me directly – that was a week ago now. I also contacted my local parish Councillor, who did not respond, a local County Councillor who would look into the matter, never heard from again; and my local MP Rory Stewart, who is obviously too busy to respond 
So, here’s an invitation to Andrew Moss and all the other Councillors who believe the grit piles and bins are all topped up, come and drive around some of the minor roads in a normal car and see how far you get without sliding along at 45 degrees to the road before hitting the verge.
I know they’re all busy at this time of year, heck, I’d like to be busy to, but not busy trying to free my car from roads that are untreated and are untreatable thanks to the lack of grit. This is the second bad cold snap in twelve months, and the second time the Councils have left us high and dry.
Put that light out
My annual rant about light pollution (and a couple of photographs of Venus & Saturn in the early morning sky).
Hopton House
It’s quite rare that I feel the urge to sit down and write about a bed and breakfast, in fact this is the first time so you’ll have to forgive the random approach to describing our time in the lap of luxury. I’m not a travel writer after all