A new cap

A new hat. It’s very warm dispute the airy appearance. I like the little peak, very pixie. Here follows a technical discussion for those interested.

Normal service will resume shortly

I do try and post every Wednesday. i know the definition of wednesday has been pretty lax lately so this week I will not even try to come up with something interesting to inset later.

Real Life intervened. I’m not going to talk about it. I wanted to mark this some how.

best wishes to all of you out there who had a big dose of real life.

Hugs

MER

i’m also very disappointed that there is no longer a branch of Royals Indian Sweets in Tooting.

A matter of perspective

So I was looking for the other end of a broken link on the internets and once on the right journal i found this tag: climbing (ooh shiny!)
which lead to this – mental health and exercise.
A moment of understanding and relief. (and as the comment stream is long since closed I’m posting about it here.)
To say thank you for saying something i didn’t know how I could say.
I haven’t climbed in a year now, I miss it. I have had periods off before for many reasons. There are lots of reasons I haven’t climbed this year, but I often thinking about it. This post I found last night made me feel less bad about a lot of things to do with exercise. Even thought climbing, going to the mountains is more than just exercise. Personally, successful climbing is about being out of mind and in body, but not a in body that complains constantly. I wont be going back to north London for a while, but I might feel positive to visit some other more local walls, and do other kinds of exercise beside walking off my own motivation.

I’ve known for a long time that is my fascination with string has a lot to do with being out of mind. however it is hugely time consuming and doesn’t allow for much exercise out side the forearms. I discovered the other day at Sainsbury’s that you you can tell when you are loosing upper body strength; as it’s a struggle to to boost yourself up on the handle of a shopping trolley and scoot along on your toes.
Writing this, or even trying to think it through first, has enabled me to put somethings into perspective. Having it written out makes it concrete. So I might remember it.

That journal has also reminded me to try and use my light box more effectively – it’s on as i type this – only one of the switches didn’t work! Jumped on by cat? More angst? But better sleeping also means dealing more successfully with nighttime thoughts… …also to more effective days.

Thanks again
and for the writing tips too
and to all the other authors i’ve lurk around over the last few challenging years. I’ ve been wanting to say thank you for your company somewhere and here is as good as anywhere.

Then lying in the dark after scribbling this down originally I had this moment of clarity so had to turn the light on again. (go to sleep brain please!)

A lot of my problems aren’t mine. They are someone else’s problems. So I don’t need to fret about them. Just deal with the bits that spill over me.
In fact I shouldn’t worry about my own problems, just try and solve them. and not beat myself up when I can’t.

I know sounds pretty trite. but it was my moment and hopefully it will stick if I post it here.

MER

You’ve probably guessed I don’t manage to publish every Wednesday as I planed to. I just like to maintain some semblance of order in my life.

Shiny (not new) toy — Ply-spliting

I was introduced to This technique over ten years ago at an exhibition in Bampton Oxfordshire and attended two, one week courses over the next couple of years. I’ve already posted pictures of some of my work. I’d like to do more, but I’m hampered by the difficulty making cords to split. Recently I’ve been using strands from the core of old climbing ropes. It’s three ply and rather slippery, so a little different from the usual cords.
I was reminded of the potential of ply-splitting again at the conference. My teacher was there with all her samples and some of her books. They are very different from Collingwood’s books: full of bright, well annotated photo-diagrams. I do have Collingwood’s ply splitting book just not to hand.
You don’t need these books, she said, you all ready have a good grasp of the basics. I have a terrible memory I countered, they are useful as an aid memoir.You’ll like this book

With my assistant helping with the composition of the shot.

t’s got maths in. So I did and I do. Modern Western ply spliting grew out of interest in and analysis of traditional materials from Rajasthan. Various practitioners have taken the technique in wide variety of different directions. Once I had got my head around David’s diagrams and explanations I wanted to take (certain parts) his work further. Have patience.

Baby steps I tell myself.
Here’s the start of a little dish to remind myself about adding new sets of cords as you increase the radius. I’ll run out of new cords very soon so it will start to grow tall, then I’ll run out of cords all together. I like this start as you can see where all the cords are going.

Oblique POT in sets of six added after blue centre cords cross

I promise I’ll finish this nicely and post a picture.

MER