Splodges and seeds

Mom and me have taken to feeding the birds that come to our garden. I bought a couple of dispensers from our local pound shop and some cheap bird food, suet based and seed, some of which the birds seem to love and some of which they don't.

It's funny to watch the littlest birds work so industriously worrying the seeds out of their mesh dispenser, and the fat, cumbersome, apparently lazy wood pigeons flutter down to grub around in the long grass for the seeds and suet pellets they drop. The pigeons are clever, letting the little birds do all the work so that they can reap the benefits. Not so different to some humans.

I'm so glad the UK government have shelved their plans to sell off Forestry Commission land. I'd like to think it's because they were moved by the mass of public protest, but the cynic in me says they probably just realised that all the trouble they'd have to go to selling the land wasn't worth the meagre funds they'd raise.


Work is progressing excruciatingly slowly on my green picture. I've done quite a lot of splodging too, much harder to disguise on a green base. I've tried to treat it as David Cox might have done, by elaborating on the splodges and trying to work them to my advantage, but it doesn't always work. Sometimes a splodge is destined to remain just a splodge.

This week, I've been continuing to enjoy Mozart and his letters. Also Never Let Me Go, a beautiful and unsentimental film who's message surpasses the plot. We're all donors and we all complete. That's what I'm taking from it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOZART!

I've been loving the music of Mozart since Radio 3 began the year with their Mozartfest. I'm listening to the Magic Flute and reading the libretto, though Mozart's highly dramatic and emotionally rollercoastering music conveys so much without words.

I'm hoping something musical might infuse my new drawing, as well as the vivid green ink I've stained the watercolour paper with.


I prepared the paper last year, I can't remember why I decided to stain it green, but I'm glad I did now. It was waiting for these lines to grow on it.


This mighty oak tree brings home all the more to me how crass, selfish and utterly immoral the current Government idea to sell off our (note that word 'our' - what the Government plan to do is basically theft) forests. They say it's necessary to plug this deficit, but I don't know. The only certain deficit I can see is the moral one.

If you disagree with what the Government plans to do with Forestry Commission land, please sign one or both of these petitions.

Forestry Commission's petition.

38 Degrees Petition