The New Forest Ponies

Well you'll have to wait for this one!!!

The Reluctant Art Students

Our range of mishaps are many and varied. For the most part we are the people affected during the ensuing mayhem, but not always. The following is one of the best examples (for all the wrong reasons, which will become apparent as you read on).

On this occasion we had been invited to stay at a friend's small hotel, which they had only recently opened. We readily agreed as Pat had been having a very traumatic time so we felt the short break on the coast (which was where the hotel was located) would be an ideal way for her to renew her energies.

Our friend already aware of Pat's problems had arranged that we have the best room in the hotel (the only one with a balcony!) . Her thinking obviously being that if the days were not very fine, we would not have to go to relax. What she didn't know, but would soon become aware of was at that time we had a particular liking to paint early morning paintings just as the sun was rising and that is where our tale begins.

We had set our alarm clock for just before 4am this being early July the sun would arise at about 4.30 am. After a quick cup of tea to refresh our brain cells (as you will discover the caffeine in this drink was obviously having a lie in before it decided to have a significant effect on our awareness). We made our way as quietly as possible on to the balcony.

Although we had discovered how to get on to the balcony the day before, this was the first time we had investigated the view properly due to the lateness of the hour we had arrived. Pat could see that if we tried to paint directly ahead of us sitting on our folding stools the railings would obsured our view. This being the case we positioned ourselves to the far left, where we had a much better view of the coast without the obstruction of the railings. Having decided on our painting position we settled down to paint.

Now at that time, whenever Pat realised something was not quite right with her painting , as well as he had hoped she would first begin to mutter under her breathe and then gradually it would get louder swear words in Spanish, which she speaks fairly well). This was partly as a defence mechanism, because it allowed her to express her disgust on how badly the painting was going without causing too much offense in public places (if there did happen to be Spanish speaking people in the vicinity, they would smile knowingly as if they had been let in on some private joke).

A sunrise picture has two variations, the first when the sun is rising through layers of cloud, creates a painting, a landscape, a seascape of many and varied colours with different forms seen mainly in silhouette (these are largely a race against time, as the sun rises higher and higher in the sky the light will change completely preventing the painting from being completed). The second arises when the sun is rising in a largely cloudless sky throwing the landscape into sharp relief and requires a lot long to paint, because you have to get the detail right. When this occurs we refer to it as a "morning picture".

On this occasion it turned out that our proposed painting tuned into a morning picture and due to the duration of the time it takes to complete it more breaks are required in order to take stock of how the work is progressing (what needed to be adjusted or clarified).

At about 7.15 am when we were taking our third break I became aware of a window just behind my shoulder and I must admit I was somewhat puzzled. I quickly ran through the geography of our room in my head - at last it dawn on me there wasn't a window like that in our room the reality of the situation soon became apparent. I decided I had better alert Pat to our present circumstances so I said " Pat " to which she replied in a rather irritated tone "Yes" still deeply engrossed in her painting. I pointing to the room I said " It doesn't belong to our room" Her response was short, sharp and to the point completely forgetting her previous practice she said Oh s.... in very English vernacular.

Finishing our paintings and clearing up as quickly and quietly as possible we decided to go down stairs and explain the event top our friend and then to the guest who we must have obviously disturbed with our early morning activities.

However when we went down stairs our friend wasn't in the hotel, her daughter was in attendance, so we quickly began to explain the story to her. We needn't have bothered she was fully aware, before we could finish she pointed to the staircase at the far end of the dining room and said "Do you see those two men going up the stairs" we looked over and saw two men alight the stairs in fact we had passed them by as we made our way towards her "Well they have just told me they have spent the early part of the morning with you in your painting following it "brushstroke by brushstroke!" When we asked her for their room number so we could go and apologies to them she explained that they had already paid their bill and were about to leave.

Although she recounted all of this in a very short space of time by the time we had got to the reception area to try to catch up with them they had already gone, so we never could apologies to our unintentional art students.

The Wood Wasp Shimmy

Whilst we confidentially expect to be posting new misadventures in the not too distant future, let us whet your appetite with a few of our previous misadventures so you know what to expect.

We had had a very productive day painting industrial scenery along the banks of the Grand Union Canal (part of an artificial waterway created about 200 years ago to transport goods and people up and down the British Isles, but now mainly used for sight seeing and leisure). We had just began to pack up when we both heard a very strange noise, which we can only described as akin to an asthmatic helicopter. Being unable to locate the source of this noise we returned to our cleaning up, shortly after this I caught sight of something that made me want to scream in terror (being that I had a phobia of wasps and such like flying insects at the time), but managed to stifle it for fear of making the situation worse.

The source of my consternation was that as Pat turned away from me to sort out her materials I saw that on her back was the largest insect I had ever seen. It was about three and a half inches long with an orange and black body, but what had really scared me was that one and a half inches of its body length was made up of a sting. Having alerted Pat to her unwanted passenger she began to scream at me "Get it off of me", but I was still paralysed with fear "Oh your useless" she proclaimed and began to take matters into her own hands. The insect by this time had began to crawl upwards towards her neck and started to traverse down towards her backside.

By this time she had decided quite rightly that I was going to be of little or no help began to take a couple of paces forward shaking her hips as she did so in the hope of dislodging her marauding passenger shouting at me "Is it off" to which I replied regretfully "No". Pat repeated the exercise with no further success. Seeing that Pat was having no luck dislodging her unwanted passenger I decided I had better do something, because if it was there much longer she might get stung. So despite my phobia I found heavy duty plastic bag and wrapped it around my hand and upper arm. I then proceeded to aim sweeping movements towards Pat's backside in the hope of flicking the insect away into the canal. All told we must have looked quite a sight to those travelling up and down the waterway with Pat doing her little shimmying dance I seemingly striking here bottom to make her repeat the movement (come to think of it, its a wonder someone didn't call the police). Inspite of our best efforts, the insect remained quite unperturbed then suddenly flew off with the same distinctive noise. After a great deal of admonishment from Pat about my late and rather ineffectual arrival to the rescue we continued clearing up and made our way home.

Over the next few days we did some research (this was pre-internet, so involved libraries and reference books) and discovered that the insect in question was a female wood wasp, which is twice the size of the male. Apparently, it is harmless to human beings the large stinger is in fact it's ovipositor. The obviously the short sighted insect having taken a detour from its native woodland habitat on a passing canal boat had mistaken Pat for a tree and was testing her as a suitable site to lay her offspring. Well anyone can make a mistake, especially as she was wearing a brown dress with a bark like design, no wonder the poor insect was confused.

The picture at the top was the nearest variety to what we saw we could find.

Why Further Misadventures?

Why the further misadventures? Let me explain. My partner and I are both fine artists/printmakers. We work in variety of medias oils, watercolours, pastels etc. It is our preference to painting outside in the open air "plein-aire" whether in town, countryside or by the sea. To do this we travel by public transport as neither of us can drive. We have now been doing this for over twenty years, so let us say this combination of conducting our art outdoors and using various forms of transport to get to our destination has created a multitude of dynamics that have led to mishaps, mistakes and other mayhem. Some of which are quite comical to say the least and it is these we will share with our readers.