Slept Well Last Night, Thanks Very Much.

http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website

http://www.jesusonthetube.co.uk/ for my other website

http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/ for the A Graceful Death exhibition, paintings from the end of life

antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com to email me

Yes, Thanks, I Slept Surprisingly Well Last Night. Am I Cured?

A Still Life painted in the style of the Dutch Masters.  There are four butterflies amongst the flowers, and a tiny lady bird on the right hand bottom of the lacey hanky.  How about that. The painting is about 12"x 18", more with the frame, and I think what you are trying to say to me is that you would like one too.  Well, that is great.  Email me and we will talk about which flowers and what colour background.  And if you want parakeets in the background, you shall have parakeets in the background. This glorious picture cost, frame included and working against the clock because the tulips drooped lower and lower as the hours wore on, £500.00.  Go for it. 

I did sleep well last night.  It is really the first night I slept well in a while.  Well, since Alan and I graciously decided to part and go and make of our lives something glorious, without each other. I go up and down, up and down.  Sometimes I think Alan?  What was all that about!  I am an Exocet Missile, I am Shooting To The Stars!  Oh I Am Free And Life Is Good Yippee Roll On The Next One.  Then I drop down into the doldrums and cry There Will Never Be A Next One I Want Alan Boo Hoo Why Wasn't He Perfect Where Is He Now Boo Hoo How Dare He Agree To Part and so on.  The bottom line is that it is very hard to be Alan-less.  However, it is our choice and I expect there is someone else on his arm now (he moves fast) and I will just have to Blog It Out and be patient.  I have given myself till July the First before I take stock, but I expect I will give myself much much longer than that to really get over Alan and Steve.  Till, say, September.  Next year.  At dinner the other day, 13 Year Old Son said "It's nearly July Mum, time to get going (wink wink)"  "My Son," I said with dignity, "this is neither the time nor place to discuss my Love Life.  We are at dinner and what will the French Student think?"  The French Student probably thinks "We do it all the time.  Get a move on."  And so, the next day, off to B & Q with my 80 Year Old Mum.  "Darling," she says taking my arm as we enter the shop, "are you going back onto the computer web thing yet?"  "Mother", I say, "give me a chance.  It is not yet July the First."  But we all know that I am sitting this sadness and loneliness out.  I am not going to find anyone else.  Both Alan and Steve meant a lot to me and I want to honour their memories by letting them out of my life and memory with grace and love.  To show the importance of their time in my life, I want to wait till I don't miss them so much. 

So!  What else is going on? Well, the house is happy and full of excitement.  The Teenage Overlord is happy, and so we are all happy.  13 Year Old Son is away for a week on an activity thing with his school. He is an out door type and I thought we would all benefit, he from his being by the sea doing Outdoor Training without Pause and I,  from having a break from the School Routine. Rising in the morning peacefully and single (whaaa single whaa why am I single) (stern rebuke - get a grip)  and not washing out his only shirt in shampoo every night because he has only one school shirt and I keep forgetting to wash it in the machine and there is only one garment anyway so I pop it into the sink and wash it with shampoo, body wash, soap, or face scrub every night, and hang it up and will it to dry.  He has outgrown all his other shirts and this one was donated to him by the school because he looked like Oliver Twist in his other ones and I can't see the point buying another one when he leaves the school at the end of this term.  So now his Old Shirts get used in the studio to wipe my brushes. 

The Teenage Overlord, the darling Muppet, has his birthday on Sunday.  We are celebrating all weekend (I am told) and on Sunday there is a large party on the beach in Brighton.  The following weekend, The Glorious Clarissa and I, with the Muppet Overlord and 13 Year Old Son, go to Oxford to set up A Graceful Death for the day in a kind of jolly arty festival.  I wonder if I will get a tent in a field a long way away when they see I deal in Deads.  It is all a bit of a muddle, but Clarissa, my Boys and I aim to have Nothing But Fun so that is what we will do. 

This painting of Anne and Peter Snell has just been completed for the A Graceful Death exhibitions.  It is remarkable because both Peter and Anne commissioned this to go into the exhibtion to help others.  Peter died a few days after this scene.  Anne, his widow, is a strong, loving and gracious lady and I am so grateful to her and Peter for the very special honour of being with them, in the hospice, in order to paint this picture.

So I am glad to say, having slept well, I am ready for the day.  There is much to do, and paintings to paint (tomorrow, I am in London today Seeing People.  Terribly Important.  In fact, so far, all my Work and Painting Contacts are Friends.  And vice versa.  It is All One Painterly Jolly.)

Just look at the concentration.  Don't you wish you could have this Artist concentrate on your painting?  Well what do you know.  She can.  She can concentrate on your Still Life, your Angels, your Portraits, your Anything That Takes Your Fancy (within reason.  She can't do abstract but then, no one has asked her to so maybe she can.  Oh how full of possibility the world is.)

Off to London now.  Back to back appointments with Jolly Folk who Love Art, and I won't once think of Alan or Steve.  No, not once. (Whaaaaa...).  Am I cured?  I will tell you when Bill Nighy can't hold out any longer and calls me up.