Grey days - great days

Hi everyone,

I love a grey morning! This is probably a good thing because winter in Ireland is grey. Grey sea, grey sky, grey-brown shrubs and bright green grass. Not the combination I am used to, but one I adore. We have both the melancholy that is appropriate for this low light time of year with the bright green that keeps my spirits from falling into a ditch.

Grey days are lovely excuses too aren’t they? In my case they are a great time to sit in my office and enjoy the surf rolling on to the beach as I work at my computer. We have recently redone our offices – moving Margie out of this one and into her own space on the second floor (third floor in US terms) where we put a sky light into the low ceiling. This little room is perfect for her and she hums as she does her work or writes her Haiku poems. Margie moving out allowed me to organize my crafts and art materials and to reorganize the cabinets. I have a big 17” plotter printer which used to be on my desk – taking up a lot of room. It now has its own shelf. Ted built a cabinet with a granite top and that side of my room welcomes me to get started on the next series of art.

My next set of ATC’s (artist trading cards, used as thumbnail sketches used to be used through which to mature ideas) will be about childhood. This was prompted by our dog Shadow, who ate one of my old children’s books. I replaced it on Ebay (and finished out the set) and decided to use the drawings and illustrations from the damaged copy as part of a series of collages on childhood. There is an international ATC website which hosts women’s work – and I have to have 20 cards to send on. I hope to complete the series early in 2007.

Grey days are also good for reading. The fall Margie and I joined a newly forming book club run by our favorite bookstore (and that is the name of the store: Bookstor). Our group has twelve memebers although we are still to have the full number at any one meeting. One man, Gerome, who owns the Kinsale boat touring company adds spice to what might otherwise be a higher degree of agreement than we have with him. Each of us select one book to host each year – and so far we have read very diverse material. Since this is the reason Margie and I joined – to meet people and to broaden our reading, we are well satisfied. That is not to say I don’t grinch all the way through books that I don’t like – and my reading tastes must be very narrow, because much of what we have read did not please at all during the reading. I find that after hashing it all through with the others though I find myself more at peace with the reading experience, whether I enjoyed them or not at the time.

Finally grey days make it enjoyable to know we have play practice that evening. Evenings start about 4:30 here these days, but practice starts at 8 and runs to 10. I will write more about the Panto in another blog, which is at this momentstill being written in my head.

I hope everyone reading this is feeling equally cozy in whatever type of day or evening this finds you,

Lots of Love,
Alana