I visit Christina of Denmark

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-christina-of-denmark-duchess-of-milan

Please follow this link to see my favourite painting. I know there is a way for me to do this with my photo program but I don't seem to remember how.

I did catch up with Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, just a few days ago. When I look at this work of Holbein's I want to hold my breath for a very long time.

The English are kindness itself, letting all of us see the collection without charge, presented beautifully and in such good condition. I salute this country for what is offers every visitor, so quietly and without fanfare. Of course, there is a problem when you offer all of this for free on a grey, drizzling winter Sunday between Christmas and New Year. Lots and lots of visitors! Not all of them are here because they love a painting the way I do this one. No indeed they are here because it is on the 'list' of things to do. Let's not forget it is free, perhaps the biggest atttraction of all. As usual the gift shop is packed even tighter than the picture galleries.

I am interested to see on the website (as you will if you follow the link), that this painting is the focus of some project of people writing about the subject. This is what I will write .......

This is so beautifully painted. The artistic skills, the use of the paint, the placement of the figure in the picture frame. The slight tilt of her head that changes the way we perceive the subject. Holbein has managed to depict the black gown so that is not only sombre but also rich. I want to walk into the room and finger that fabric. This subject is so much a real person that I feel I just might know her in another life.

I love the painting, but I feel angry at the reason for its existence. This young woman, perhaps 15 or so years of age, is being traded on again. Look at the story - married at 11 years of age by proxy, a widow at 13. What to do with here? Was she a virgin widow and would that add to her value? Within another few years she is again married, this time to the future Duc of Lorraine. Four years of married life is all she has before she is widowed again. For the rest of her life, until 1590, she lives as the Regent of Lorraine.

I like to think that Holbein used his extraordinary talents as a portrait painter to carefully show Christina in such a light as to not appeal to his patron Henry VIII. I think I am being fanciful here. He was a great portrait painter, and in this work he is able to show us that she is no simpering pretty girl, but a sad woman of strength, who feels powerless in the world she finds herself in.

Christmas meets Colin the Caterpillar

Colin the Caterpillar

These photos show you Colin the Caterpillar - described as "extremely chocolatey...chocolate sponge roll filled with chocolate buttercream, covered in milk chocolate with a decorated white chocolate face and sugar coated chocolate beans:. Colin contains no artifical colours or flavourings.

Colin has joined me for Christmas Eve in my lonely little room. I found Colin in the Marks and Spencer shop on Charing Cross railway station, reduced to 3 pounds, on my way back from.....well there is where the story lies really.

I decided that I was a boring old f**t. Here it was Christmas Eve day and what was I doing? Wandering around the Sainsbury's supermarket in Forest Hill, just down the hill from the flat. On the spur of the moment I jumped a train and decided to visit my favourite Holbein portrait in the National Gallery. I have chosen one of the few times when the National Gallery is not open. It must have shut at lunch time. But, goodness me, where am I? In Trafalgar Square. What else is there? St Martins in the Field church of course!

A family Christmas service was about to start in this beautful and very recently refurbished building. The gold leaf shimmered. There were mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers with lots of small children. How warm and fuzzy it felt. This was a quite different London to the one I had just left south of the river. This congregation was no multicultural London. This was white and middle class. 99% white, with two non-white people, who it turned out where not regular attendees - one was a carer for a very elderly infirm lady (and left before the service began) and the other was a tall and handsome man playing the part of one of the 3 wise men. Who was wise here??

Let me shudder now.

This service was more like attending one of that strange breed of English stage productions called the Pantomime. Yes we were coached in calling out " Ba Ba Ba" (we were being sheep at the manger), and "No No Follow the star".

I kid you not.

The actors were the Rev Richard Carter and the Rev Rosy Fairhus. Their talents extended to playing Mary and Joseph complete with costumes. Joseph's line for a laugh was "Jesus Christ" when Mary tell him she is pregnant and he asks who the father is..... and she answers "Whgy yes, how did you know his name"..this was truly truly truly bad stuff. How could they do it?? To give you an idea of the rest of it, here are the lines for one of them playing a 3 wise men part......

" I'm hot and sore what a fool
I should have stayed by the swimming pool
Watching X Factor ont he box
Instead of all this sand in my socks
I don't need to follow this star
I'm already following Borck Obama"
[we then come in with "No No Follow the Star".

We were taught a Christmas carol/song before the service began...all bouncy and loud and meaningless. Thanks be to God we were allowed to sing some of the all time favourite childrens carols. Tears began to run down my face when we sang 'Away in a manger'. It was if I was a child again, remembering the wonder and the specialness of Christmas when it was much simpler. I had thought the whole service might be a bit like this.

How could they have done this in that beautiful beautiful church, where the choir (or a very small part of it) sent a few soaring notes to the heavens, but otherwise had to belt out the bouncy stuff.

I am glad I went. It was my one Christmas thing....one reminder of what all this was supposed to be about.

So Happy Christms all

Christmas eve day at Taymount

The snow is just about gone. Washed away in the night.

Ah! This is more the London winter I remember. No white snow. No blue skies. No sunshine for sure. Here is is grey, overcast and dull. It rained all night and the fine drizzle is still coming down.

The snow was an inconvenience in the end. It looked so pretty out the window but it made it near impossible to get around easily. The English behaved as if snow had never come down in this city before. They had special news programs telling me nothing of any use at all. The Eurostar was stuck in the tunnel all one night and suspended services for three days in the run up to Xmas. You can imagine how that went down.

I wanted to go walking and looking at how beautiful things looked. Although in the end they gritted the roads, the footpaths became largely impassable as they were like ice rinks. The buses would pull to a halt and out you would step, not sure if you slide or not. In the end I did what they told me to do, and really didn't go out much. I am a abit stir crazy and will go for a long walk today, rain or no rain.

All this excitement about snow has meant that everyone has had their Xmas preparations upset. Flying was uncertain, people told not to go in their cars unless necessary.So many people return to families at this time of year, and London is a city of people who come from somewhere else. Today they are all loading their cars and driving off, setting off on all the trips home that have been delayed by the snow and conditions on the road. I am relieved, and will now have no problems getting around for Xmas day to my aunt and family.

Last night I turned the hot plate on under the egg I was about to boil and then realised 5 minutes later it was not working. My cooker has packed up it seems! I unpacked the microwave that has been waiting to be installed. This might push forward the work on the shower and the re-design of the kitchette I think.

It seems a little strange doing so little preparation for Xmas, but very relaxing. I have to leave cooking the bread and butter pud until I get to my aunt's place tomorrow. I have little token presents wrapped and ready. I am responsible for the deserts, so it is the bread and butter pud, rapberry cheese cake, merangue cases with blackberries and cream. I am helping with the veg, that will include sweet potatoes, pumpkin, potatoes, onions etc, hopefullyd one with lots of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, garlic and parsley.

I have 'chatted'with my son on Skype. He didn't have headphones or microphone so it was a funny chat. Anyhow I hope my son and the grandsons enjoy Christmas in the bush, with a swim in the pool. They will have Xmas lunch with my sister and family in the city. This will be an outside BBQ and roast veg. Quite informal and simple. If I had been in Oz, it would have been Xmas lunch in the bush at my place.

Snow at Taymount

How exciting for me! It has snowed at Taymount. I am watching the workers as they tread carefully through the snow on their way to work.

I sat up until 1.00am in the dark watching the snow fall. It didn't fall so much as swirl in quite a violent way. I saw people coming home late and ill dressed for such weather. A young couple ran out of the building and started making snow balls and throwing them at one another.

Now the sky is clearing and the sun is struggling to come out. Will this happen for Xmas Day as well?

Christmas preparations at Taymount

Christmas is certainly in the air here in London. The shops are overflowing with all those things we can very well do with out. I am on a charity shop or free Christmas this year. You can see my modest Christmas decoration on my window ledge. The holly complete with red berries was free and wild and picked on Sydenham Hill. The baubles were 1 pound in the charity shop. The red pot plants were saved from the 99p reduced shelf at HomeBase. I have bought and am loving back to health, a few other indoor plants for presents. Bit by bit I am gathering small, interesting and hopefully enjoyable presents.

The weather is very cold, although the mornings are bright, blue skies and sunshine. We are all rugged up well. It is enjoyable to walk briskly at this time of year, and it makes me feel quite like I must be getting fit.,

Finally the communal hallways are nearing the end of the refurbishment. I have included a photo to show you the carpet, just laid this afternoon. All will be finished well and truly by next week. You can see the wonderful art deco life doors in the top photo. I have to say when I saw this lift I knew I wanted to have a flat here!

Bathroom and getting out and about

The bathroom is soon to have a modern addition of a shower over the bath! Don't laugh all you Australians and Americans. This is progress here in the UK. Even 10-15 years ago it was unusual to have a shower over the bath let alone a stand alone shower. All is changing and the Brits are all moving across to showers.

Having said that I love the bath - it is just the right shape and just the right size. Having a central boiler in the basement here, I can have unlimited hot water. In Australia, every drop of water has to be collected from the roof, drained to large water tanks and then pumped back to the house when you need water. After 6 years of drought every drop was precious, and a bath for anyone was out of the question. When the water runs out, then it is a matter of trying to pursuade Luke and his water carters truck to come up with a load or two. It costs, and it is no longer that pure rainwater straight from the sky. I will still really appreciate a shower just the same.

In the communal hallways it is still a work in progress. The caretaker told me to take a look at the 3rd floor where it is finished except for carpet. I think the 'Ivory' colour of the walls looks a lot more like lemony white to me and to most others, but never mind. The doors and the carpets to be are what we Aussies call Brunswick Green. I will give you a look when it is done.

At last I have been getting out and about. Wonderful but pretty challenging concert at the Wigmore Hall on Monday night. A young and very very talented violinist, Sulki Yu and pianist Chiao-Ying Chang performed the premier of Roxburgh's Sonata. The composer was in the audience and it was pretty exciting for a girl from the bush, that's me, to be there. Not only is it quite an intimate performance area, it is stunningly lovely and the acoustics are very good. I know little about contemporary music, but I loved the whole experience. I was in Piccadilly today - very much a London early December day with rain and rain and a bit more rain. The Xmas lights were up, the double decker buses were rushing red-ly everywhere. The architecture along Piccadilly is so interesting.

The Royal Academy had an unexpected treat in an exhibition that included some Eric Gill (Portland stone and Bath stone) carvings of mother and child - a number of variations on the theme. I had not appreciated how lovely Gill's work is, somehow I had not understood his importance. There were Epstein's as well, and I know it didn't include his monumental works, but Gill stood up very well against him. I thought both of them fell down in their graphic work. I understand these were drawings for the sculptures but compared with Henry Moore's wonderful drawings they lacked excitement.

There is no further excuse for not getting to a lot of exhibitions and concerts. Watch this space!!