Columbia Road Flower Market - Bloomin' marvellous

"Best priced orchids in the world, how do we know that? 'cos we stole 'em"

Last Sunday we visited Columbia Road Flower Market . One road, full of flowers, just the off Hackney Road it is open on Sundays only. I was as busy writing down the cries of the stallholders . . .

Stallholder 1: "Look at these lovely Sunnies, still growing in m' hand!"

His neighbouring stallholder: "Careful darlin' 'cos that's not the only thing that grows in his hand."

Lovely hydrangeas £10 for one

Five Sunnies for a fiver, go on!

Whitby and Scarborough: Jewels of the North

A prospect of Whitby 

The Grand Hotel and grand it is!

Across Scarborough

Two towns, the first, Whitby, this is the town that launched a thousand pubs all called ‘The Prospect of Whitby’. 

We arrived on a dull late June afternoon however after a romp round Whitby Abbey (home of Bram Stoker and Dracula) it turned into a glorious summer evening and from the Abbey grounds the whole town was bathed in a golden light.

We were in this neck of the woods for a fossil hunting morning the next day. http://timbaynesart.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/jurassic-jewels.html

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We had decided to stay in Scarborough as Travel Lodge was offering a good deal. Their welcome, the room and location were perfect.  We looked out onto The Grand Hotel. 

Grand it is and as I sat down to draw early the morning several coaches cautiously rolled up to collect people. Presumably at some stage of a tour, the halt and the fleet of foot disconsolately dragged their wheelies down the hotels steps to the bus. 

Off we went to look for fossils!

Whitby Abbey - old stones in the evening sun

The scene of our fossil hunt

Blue Tee Shirt Club

Blue Tee Shirt Club  Watercolour on Paper 30 x 20 cm
For sale  Price on application 

A beach on Orkney inspired The Blue Tee Shirt Club

Then I went beach combing again, in search of prose and came up with this wonderful poem by Sylvia Chidi

Down To The Beach - Poem by Sylvia Chidi

Down to the beach

Down to the beach

On a sunny day we go

Beach bags packed with sunscreen lotions

Hands rubbing people’s backs in slow motion

Glistening oily bodies radiating with sensation

Down to the beach

Down to the beach

Where a chilly sea breeze blows

Let’s have some fun

In the red-hot sun

Down to the beach

Only there the ladies reveal saucy behinds

Whenever the raging sun is still kind

Down to the beach

As never-ceasing waves play across the shores

People happily play dreading any rainy downpour

Down to the beach

Where young lovers closely nestle

As sand creatures cause the sand to bristle

Seagulls gliding in the air with screams and whistles

Kids picking up shells and building stormy sand castles

Down to the beach

Where mostly good vibes flow

Down to the beach

We go whilst there is still sun without snow

Copyright blessed - Sylviachidi.com

More fish tales

Ronald Roach

Lucky I am to have another commission from Fallon's Angler, Issue 10. 

This time three illustrations, including a call for an illustration of a Roach, to complete the picture so to speak.

In his article Pysgota camlas by Kevin Parr takes in the sights and sounds and smells of canals in Wales. Yours truly adds a little water colour.

a little water colour

Drawing on the Solent from 900 feet

Southampton as she is spoke, next up Beaulieu (spelling?)

Needles approaching fast - oh yes and the lighthouse

I have been lucky to sail on the Solent.

So when dear friend Chris Swinhoe-Standen, a flying instructor at Booker Aviation  - High Wycombe, suggested a jaunt  where would I like to go?

The Solent was a natural choice, to translate that sea and coast from familiar from ground level up to 900 feet up. 

Off we went.

Checks and inspections prior to take  off

No time to think, just draw, it was akin to map making and totally instinctive.

Chichester Harbour and West Whittering