I suppose at least one younger-than-60 reader might ask “why?” Well, kiddies, this is why we have Wikipedia.
No, seriously, I feel I owe at least an explanation, if not an apology, for my absence from the blog.
You see, I, like most women (and even some men!) wear many hats. And lately I seem to have had an over-burden of chapeaux.
This, of course, is a regular hat. Sometimes I might get away with calling it a chef’s hat. Mostly, though, I just make things “look pretty on the plate.”
Well, the easel is a bit of a fib since I’m not a painter (can you tell!), but my artistic trials continue.
The local group of printmakers have just held their inaugural print awards and, following a good reception, we’re hoping this will become an annual or biennial event. But it was not without some heart-stopping moments! I suppose organisers of any exhibition have similar “now what?” crises. Which, in the end, are mere blips on the radar. Not every blip is an in-bound meteor!
I’m ashamed to say it’s been a l o n g time since I wore this hat with any degree of professionalism. But Idid a little judicious pruning of the calendar and managed to get a few more pots of herbs started, ripped out some disgracefully overgrown, weedy shrubs and old annuals, had The Man take a serious saw to some kind of scrawny tree ( wild fig, I suspect), cut away the last of the passion fruit vine and whooped in excitement at the first tomato flowers. Then stamped and cussed when something ate them. 😦
I binned a leakier-than-necessary soaker hose, put in a new one…then had to race around looking for the cigarette lighter.* But, slowly, the trash I can’t compost is being hauled off to the tip and I feel virtuous.
Hmm…my teaching hat was side-lined while we sorted the print exhibition, but I’ll be back in the classroom tomorrow….
unless I have to don another hat…
…and I have no idea how to draw whatever hat a motor mechanic’s gofer wears. But I’ve been wearing one of those, too. And very soon I hope to have a picture to show you of the shiny “new” Mustang!
In the meantime, instead of a bikini-clad bimbo draped across the bonnet, a la motor show (or Mr. Clarkson’s dreams)…
A few posts back, Ronell mentioned in comments that she’d love to see cane harvesting. Well, there are still a few fields being cut and I managed a very rough sketch of one on my way home the other day.
For those who have a romantic idea of cane being torched, then lines muscular men swinging blades…sorry! they don’t do it that way now. Nope! Today the cane farmer has an enormous machine, with two worm-screw things which push into the cane and, as they turn, the screws carry the stalks up into a chopper wotsit (I’m talking technical stuff here) where the leafy waste is stripped and blown clear through a cowl, leaving the “good” part (the stems) to be discharged into a waiting trailer. The trailer is hauled by a tractor and I guess it must take some nifty co-ordination to have the trailer under the spitting-out-part when it’s doing the spitting-out. I’m sure if you Googled you’d find even more technical explanations.
But it’s sort-of like this. Sort-of…
And now it’s time for the chapeau de chef again. But first – the sommelier… 
**
*Being non-smokers, we only have one lighter (for incense and mosquito coils) and I needed it to seal that leaking hose.
** There was some wine left over from the opening night and I brought it home to “cellar” until we have another celebration. Someone rather unkindly remarked that having me look after the wine was rather like putting Ronnie Biggs in charge of trains!
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