Oh. Need A Pot Of Tea To Do This. Wait A Moment...

www.antoniarolls.co.uk for my website
www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for my other website
www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com  for the A Graceful Death exhibition, paintings from the end of life.  Go now to read the write up of the latest showing from Dublin.

Oh.  Got My Tea And Jam And Toast.  Did Some Washing Too.  And Went To The Loo.

I am unpacked from my visit to Ireland, and I have been to Tescos.  The Sons have returned and are going through the food like the old Packman eaty-head on the first type of video games.  Both sons need everything that they own washed, and both sons are very tired thank you very much.  What seems to happen when any of the Offspring come home, is that a theatrical and dramatic Exhaustion explodes onto them, which means that they can only do social or eating things, their overwrought bodies can't cope with anything else.  Except long hot baths and lots of telly.  So Delicate, they mouth at me from the sofa, I Am So Delicate (little cough).   Well I am Not I say, and stomp around Doing Things.  It is half term this week, always a time of great Eating and Washing.  I used to Fetch and Carry too, but one son does all his travelling on the bus or train and the other can't think of anything worse than getting off the sofa.  Daughter lives and works in Brighton, and is a Wholly Grown Up Person.  She is training to be a nurse and is doing night shifts for a while.  Very impressive.

This is a Rambling Blog.  I am absolutely exhausted.

I have not yet unwound from my trip to Dublin - please go to www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com to read how it went.  It was very wonderful.  

Anyhow.  To Ramble on.  Alan came over last night.  There was a point in the evening when we were all (13 Year Old Son, Alan and Me) sitting on separate chairs and sofas with the telly on and each of us on a laptop.  That is how   a) Tired we were  b) Disfunctional we were  c) Clever we were. 

So, back to now.  I did have some tea, and I did have a couple of nice big wholemeal doorstops of toast, with butter and jam.  I ate the toast over the keyboard in here and a nice big sticky jammy cherry fell off the toast and plopped onto the letter B, rolled onto the letter V and then fell over the space bar onto the floor with a teeny splat.  I found this a very heartening little display.  There is already quite a lot of cake actually in the keyboard, and some yogurt over the numbers on the right hand side.  There is evidence of tea on the caps lock, and on the F1 to F4 keys, so it is as if my food wants to stay here with me.  There is a growing Menu of Comfort Food actually inside my computer.  Wonderful.  If I really lose my way in life, I can lick my keyboard and have a nice balanced diet.

I did put some washing away.  I love it when everything is clean, I just love how clothes smell when they are newly washed and ready to be put away.  I feel like Doris Day.  "My oh my!  Is that a spot of Mother's chocolate cake on your collar?  Oh My!  Let me dab it off with my hanky!  Oh you!  Goodness me (a girly chuckle) what am I to do with you?  Oh My!"  I did go to the loo too.  I have changed the towels and the bath mat from my Blue Set to my Lime Green Set, and I like to go in and have a Look.  It is very nice to be tired, quite wobbly, and thrilled with the Lime Green Bath Towel Set.  It means I go to the loo as often as I can.  Just today, mind, tomorrow I aim to be a bit more normal.

Now I am getting ready to drive into Chichester to do some Serious Things.  I have a list, otherwise I would park the car under a tree in a car park somewhere and gaze blankly at the tree trunk and wonder why I was there and who put the tree in the way of the car.  I am taking Costya the General Ruler Of All Things with me, to help me open my car door and remember my name. I really am that tired.  Tonight, I am going to slump in front of a DVD with 13 Year Old Son and go into a coma.  Tomorrow is another day.  I look forward to it.  Now, I must chew my keyboard for some strength before going into Chichester.  

Going To Mass In A Minute, Doing This In Haste AGAIN, Such A Busy Artist

http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
http://www.jesusonthetube.co.uk/ for my other website
http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/for the exhibition A Graceful Death, paintings from the end of life.  Read the latest on the Dublin response to the exhibition as it nears its conclusion in the first showing of it in Ireland

Off To Mass In A Few Minutes, Dublin Hosts Have Lovely Church And Congregation, And My Goddaughter Is Singing A Solo

I am still here and loving it.  The exhibition, A Graceful Death, is closing today.  My wonderful, truly wonderful, Dublin friends have made their home into a gallery and have set up the exhibition as a private invitation only showing of the A Graceful Death exhibition.  I am showing A Graceful Death as the main exhibition, with a small exhibition of Jesus on the Tube, and Every Day Angels.  Dublin Friends know more people than you can imagine, and have made contacts and invited the most amazing characters who would find this exhibition of great purpose in their work.  We have had representatives from the Irish Cancer Society, the Irish Hospice Movement, the Clergy, Undertaking firms, the Glasnevin Trust alongside the Bethany Group of bereavement support, and hospice volunteers and all manner of interested and interesting people from all walks of life. 

I have written up the exhibition so far in the A Graceful Death blog, at http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/ to which I now direct you, as it is very good what is happening here.

So back to the next half hour.  I am going to Mass.  I do not go to Mass often.  When I stay with my Darling Dublin Friends, I go with them and find their church a positive, thriving place full of children and wonderful ways for the children to take part.  This morning, I am going to hear my goddaughter sing a solo.  My goddaughter (call me biased, but I don't think I am) can sing with the voice of an angel.  She doesn't just hit the right notes, she had Power in her voice, and alongside all the other good things she can do, it will be a joy to hear her this morning. 

So.  What can I say.  I am very tired and don't want this exhibition to end.  I may have to be escorted to the airport on Tuesday and made to get on the plane firmly, but gently, by my Dublin Friends.  This house, the family in it, are so gracious and generous.  It makes me wonder, could I give my home over to someone to show 3 exhibitions at once?  And do all the organising?  And provide tea and cupcakes and round the clock support?  I don't know.  If it was for the Dublin Friend and her creative work, then yes. Absolutley.  A pleasure.  And too, the amazing photographer extraordinaire Eileen, I would do it for her.  So for a selected few, I would do it happily.  I have seen and expereinced how it should be done, so I have a few practical advantages.  Oh yes, and the Glorious Clarissa made her house over into an Gallery for A Graceful Death last Feb, so she is utterly fab too. If she wanted a Property Lodge exhibition (her company) I would do that for her.

In between the last sentence and this, I have been to Mass, come back, shown some folk around the exhibition, had lunch, had more lunch and sat with Dublin Friend on the sofa and made rude jokes about the exhibition.  Yesterday, my dear old friend Caroline travelled with her truly excellent (and all agree here, very pretty) mother from one end of Ireland to Dublin to visit the exhibition.  I am so impressed with this, and it was wonderful to see her again.  I have not seen her for about 5 years now.  We met when we were about 12 at our Convent Boarding School and it is funny how one forgets that Caroline remembers Everything...Caroline can entertain a crowd for hours with stories of how dreadful we used to be.  Ooops.  It was the highlight of the day.  (Seeing Caroline, not her stories of our frankly Dreadful pranks).  Thank you for coming Caroline.

I will go back now into the Fray, and take more bus loads of Invitees Only around the exhibition, pausing to have a little light hearted moment with the Jesus on the Tubes under the stairs (not in the broom cupboard, I will put up photos of a very neat exhibition space under the stairs later when I get home) and ending with a bit of good humour with the Every Day Angels exhibited in the kitchen.  The tea is on, the cakes are being eaten and replenished, talk is being talked, and people are spending time deciding what they think and feel about the A Graceful Death exhibition.  I listen with huge interest.  So, off again for the moment.  The next tour is about to start.

Oh and the Goddaughter sang like a Super Star.  Wonderful.

Blimey, Where's My Tea And Did I Pack My Passport? Can't Stop Now,

www.antoniarolls.co.uk for my website
www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for my other website
www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for the A Graceful Death exhibition, paintings from the end of life

Can't Stop Too Long, Got To Get A Plane 

Goodbye for the moment.  I am in my towel just out of the bath, got clean hair and rose scented cream on my face.  My bag is packed and I am sad to say that I can't fit any sensible shoes in the suitcase, so, well, I will have to wear my high heeled boots all the time.  For Art.  I have put on some washing (why?  I am going to Dublin.  Why do the washing now?) and 13 Year Old Son has gone to school and forgot his books and his phone.  I will take them in to his school in the few spare minutes that I had put aside to have breakfast and do a bit of This but what the hell.  I don't need breakfast and this will be a lightening blog.  

So, I will write more from Dublin.  We set up tomorrow, and tomorrow the Opening Party starts the whole A Graceful Death exhibition.  I am going to be interviewed by Alan Stanford on Saturday for a new radio station 4fm, so tune in this Saturday and hear how Ireland does AGD.  

Better go now, got all my Scarpetta novels (got only 5 or so to go) and so I will be busy at the airport and on the train and probably at the exhibition.  "What?"  I will say, "I can't talk now I am reading Scarpetta novels and will have to leave you to walk around and look at the pictures and do you know, I have only 5 Scarpetta novels to go now?"

Bye, onwards and upwards.  Maggie Hamblin is on Start the Week at the moment, she sounds absolutely wonderful.  Wonder if she would like a cup of tea one day.  Maybe I will stop off on the way to the airport and ask. 

Typing Quietly At Eileens. Dawn Is Breaking And The Birdies And I Are At Our Computers

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, showing in Dublin 21 - 25 October

Dawn Breaks.  The Birdies And I Do Our Blogs.

I am at Eileen's, at her computer.  Last night I washed 13 Year Old Son's hair and took him to his elderly grandmother's for the night.  I arrived at Eileen's at about 10pm and ate a sandwich, drank some tea, chatted a bit and then fell into a deep sleep on her spare sofa bed in soft white clean sheets, and dreamt that I was a surgeon called Jane.

This morning, the birds woke me at dawn and I decided to get up, follow their examples, and do my blog.  I am, I say with pride, dressed.  I have packed up the sofa bed and am here fully formed and efficient and it is Saturday morning.  So where do we go from here?  Out, I say.  We go Out.  Today, this Saturday, is Eileen and my day out to celebrate her birthday last January and my 50th in August.  It is another celebration, yes, and I did say that it was not just my birthday in August, it is my birthday this year. 

How then did I get here?  Through thick and thin.  Everything exploded that could explode yesterday, everything fell off that could fall off, and all that could prevent me having a smooth day that started at the beginning, had a lunch break, and ended at the end, happened.  It felt that way, it felt that I was fighting to have a normal day, and a good deal of the day went belly up.  I needed to make a doctors appointment for something that I think may not be Leprosy or Fatal after all, but found that to make a doctors appointment was not possible. I had to call between 8.30 and 8.32am and by 8.33am all the slots had gone. I could book to see someone, a nurse, in 2013, but apart from that "Sorry, we are full up.  Call on Monday between 8.30 and 8.32 and just keep phoning all week unless you die."  I did get a 9am cancellation (how?  Someone got an appointment at 8.33 and cancelled at 8.40?  And How, by all that glitters, did they get through on the phone twice?).  Anyhow, I sped like the wind to the doctors and saw the loveliest young lady doctor who really seemed to like me and feel my pain.  She set me up with a blood test and some other Things and I feel loved by the NHS.  Back like the Blazes to get 13 Year Old Son up and off to have his ear padding out and Hey!  The road outside the hospital is being dug up and there is no way anyone can get near it!  I had a new friend in my Lovely Lady Doctor at the surgery, I was not going to let this sour my NHS experience.  I drove on the pavements to another entrance and all was well.  Son is not only Deaf in his left ear, he is nearly 14, driven by Testosterone and 6' tall.  His way of passing the time is to shadow box me, and practice fake head buts.  He talks loudly.  Waiting in the Ear Nose and Throat waiting room, he pointed out with enthusiasm who was ugly and who was not, and followed it up with an affectionate headlock.  It looked as if I was with a dangerous criminal with psychological difficulties. 

Much to do!  A date in London in the East End with the wonderful Nicola Slee, feminist theologian and writer and poet. She was giving a talk on theological issues and I was due to go.  I didn't go.  I had to Not Go.  After feeding 13 Year Old Son and Costya the Muppet Over Lord (who is ill and home too) I sped about doing Work on the A Graceful Death exhibition which opens in Dublin on Thursday 21 October.  Oh so much to do.  Let me, I said to myself, pop to Quick Fit and get my two front tyres replaced because the MOT man said I should, what with all the long journeys I do and the way they are worn down to a smooth and threadbare condition.  It can be done, I remembered, in less than an hour.  Then, I said to myself, I can take Deaf Son to Old Grandma (a sitting target for headbuts, she can't run fast or move out of the way like I can) and head on up to Nicola Slee and then on to Eileen's for the night and hey, isn't life good? 

Four hours later and four new tyres, new brake pads and brake stuff flown in from Chichester to Bognor as a Favour to the bloke who was doing it otherwise I would not get the car back till Next Week, four hours later I was able to drive the car home.  I missed Nicola's, I didn't get to Grandma's till her bed time, and I didn't pack nor wash nor have my dinner.  I missed Nicola's talk. But my car drives like a dream and is Safe. I must add that I had a huge nail driven into one of my old tyres that was a very unnacceptable hazard, even I could see that. 

So here I am. Sitting now in daylight with Eileen stirring next door with the Tea Things.  She and I are going to the following today -

• Saatchi Gallery.  We suspect that they will beg us to come and exhibit, and we will have to check our diaries to see if we can.  Other than that, we are intrigued by the Gallery and want to Have A Look.
• Kensington Roof Gardens!  We are going to see them.  My eldest brother had his wedding reception up there years ago, and I have fond memories of it. 
• Tea at a Place Eileen Found and Booked.  Afternoon Tea and Cream Cakes at 2.30 instead of lunch, because we knew we needed the cream tea more than lunch and felt that we would not enjoy it so much if we had both. 
• A Wander Around The South Bank and
• A ride in the London Eye.  Deaf Son thinks it is the London Ear but he has a bit of a thing at the moment about Ears. 
• Home again.  What a lovely day.  Eileen has her next birthday in January and we are going to have another day out together and maybe I will not interfere with my own Birthday Year that seems to take over.

So now, the birdies have flown.  They have done their Morning Stuff and now so have I.  The day is mine, and Eileen's, and we are going to Have Fun.  Yesterday is behind me.  Nearly £500 worth of car repairs and I am fit for the road.  The sadness that I couldn't make Nicola Slee's wonderful talk will fade as the Cream Teas keep coming, and by the time we fly over London in the London Eye (Ear) I will feel all is right with the world, and that there is always Tomorrow.  Which there is, too, now that the Lovely Lady Doctor has not given me a week to live.  Sigh.  Bring on the tea, Eileen, and let us have cake for breakfast.

Lordy Lordy, I Am So Tired. This Is Life As A Success.

www.antoniarolls.co.uk for my website
www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for my other website
www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for the A Graceful Death exhibition, paintings from the end of life

Lordy Lordy.  How Tired I Am And Yet ...

And yet, I still go on.  This is unusual. I am not given to driving myself into the ground, I am more than happy to stop and read a book (Scarpetta.  Got about two more to go before I get the last few in the series.  If I am not grounded and sensible I could find that Art and Life gets in the way of my Reading Life.)  I am suddenly in a weary downward spiral having been full of action and derring do for the last month or so.  My Dublin A Graceful Death Host and his longstanding old pal came over from Dublin in the Pal's huge car/ocean liner and collected the paintings and all the boxes full of stuff for the exhibition which opens on the 21 October.  Wow.  In one weekend, the whole exhibition was removed and I sit here, utterly spent.  I expect it is a reaction to having got all the new paintings done, and all the organisation takes ages and ages to do.  And now, they are in Dublin waiting for me to come over and set them all up and be there for 5 days showing them.  

However, today I have done a lot.  I will do the usual, and bullet point them below.  It looks very impressive that way.  

• Woke up at 7.30 feeling dreary and weak willed.
• Put on some nice clothes and perfume!  Nothing weak willed about that!  
• Had dear dear Olivia for breakfast to talk about her new book.  "One Hundred Illuminating Conversations To Have With Your Loved One".  It is about philosophical conversations you (she) could have with your spouse or partner (she has with her equally eccentric husband who is a darling too).
• I am possibly illustrating it and doing the cover, so I showed her some drawings which she loved.  Funny little twist here, they are drawings I did in the 1980s of me and my then husband Nicholas, chatting in space.  I did lots of drawings of him and me floating and chatting and living in amongst the planets up in space
• Had the best time with Olivia 
• Cycled to Bognor and back for various things.  Point I am making here is that I cycled somewhere,  I am really cool.
• Wrapped up and took my Anne and Peter Snell painting to Goodwood to join the other shortlisted paintings for the Chichester National Open Art Exhibition.  
• Will pick it up next Tuesday unless it gets through to the next stage
• Felt very smug.  
• Had nice clothes on and perfume. Got high boots on so strut a bit to get maximum attention before getting back into the car and taking them off and falling asleep for 10 mins.  
• Sainsburys.  Food for the 13 Year Old Son for whom the words I Am Full Up are a meaningless jumble of sounds
• Home, fed son and myself and took to the 
• Sofa!  With a Scarpetta novel and radio and before I could do either, I fell asleep
• Woke to Darling Dublin Friend phoning and telling me her PR friend has arranged a radio interview for me about AGD when I am there.
• Panic.
• Went back to sleep. Still wearing high heel boots.  

So there, lots happening.  Now, because I am such a weary and high living type, I am going to bed.  Tomorrow is another day - but - today has not been so bad considering I am so exhausted and slow and want to eat chocolates and lie down.  If I was Kay Scarpetta, now is the time, when exhausted anyway, that I would go out and do an autopsy on five new serial killing victims and then, even though I had a crushing headache and the whole Law Enforcement Thing was corrupt and Against Me, solve the case in a showdown in the dark with only a surgical glove and a jar of formaldehyde to save me.  And when the good cops (that like me and are worthy and uncorruptable) arrived, I would not shriek "Mummy!" or "He nearly got me I am so scared give me Milk Tray and Paracetamol and a Terry's Chocolate Orange Whaaa"  she would say in a cracked but terrifically stoic and IQ-of-180 type of voice "Huh.  What kept you (splat)" and fall over in a worthy and non attention seeking dead faint.

But I am not Kay Scarpetta.  I am going to ignore everyone that wants me and go to sleep and dream of being on tour with the Jolly Boys as Jolly Artist Extraordinaire.  Goodnight.

Multi Tasking, Thinking About Breakfast And Wondering About How Life Is Just A Mystery

www.antoniarolls.co.uk for my website
www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for my other website
www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for the A Graceful Death exhibition, paintings from the end of life

Here.  In The Kitchen.  Mulling Over Breakfast, Multi Tasking And Life

  I find Multi Tasking very difficult indeed and I am in the kitchen writing this, listening to the radio and trying to imagine what to get for breakfast.  I feel a Muddle in my brain and know that I must turn off the radio, close the laptop and concentrate on Breakfast.  Then I can do this Blog and then, when all that is done, I can listen to the Radio.  All at once, and I lose the Edge and get silly. I have just forced 13 Year Old Son to wake up and told him that he has to get up and have breakfast with me and then, a jolly day ahead doing Mummy Things.  He is awake all night and asleep all day because he is not able to do anything after his ear surgery and on top of that, his balance is off so he looks drunk.  Poor Son.  We set up a chair in the garden so he could sit on it and whack his punch bag that is hanging from a beam outside, but he fell off the chair.  So it is back to taking dramatic practice swipes at me.  He does need his ear surgery to heal, he needs to get out there where there are people who thrive on being ambushed and given the Mock SAS Tai Kwando Routine.  A hug from 13 Year Old Son turns into a Firemans's Lift to a different room and a quick bout of Arm Wrestling before I can get back to my cooking, my portraits, my guests and so on.

Talking of Guests, I am expecting my friends from Dublin to arrive tonight, in order to take the whole A Graceful Death exhibition with the accompanying Jesus on the Tube and Every Day Angels exhibition back to Ireland tomorrow, so that it can open on the 21 October.  They are real wonders, these two Irish Fellows, to come all this way to help out.  They are doing it because they are quite simply Kind and Good.  Both are high flying successful business types, and so there will be no nonsense over dinner tonight.  No woolley thinking.  Very on the ball these two, and very quick witted.  And perhaps I should provide them with boxing gloves in case 13 Year Old Son takes a practice shadow pot shot at them while getting over excited.  Perhaps I should welcome them in tonight with 13 Year Old Son in an headlock, to set the scene.  "Oh he likes it" I should say, as they ask if he can breathe OK.  "It's either this or a Sumo Wrestling match in the living room."

The kitchen just arrived, and instead of saying a firm "No" to the delivery men who can only Not Deliver with more than 5 days notice to remove the box from the lorry, I said "Yes" and had them put it in the garage.  I had been told by B&Q that if I was unable to stop the delivery, by for example, calling up and saying No with only 4 and a half days before delivery, I could say "Take it away!  I cannot Cope!  No no no, you cannot make me!" to the men who arrived with it, and they quite happily would take it back to the depot where it would sit for another 5 days. If I still couldn't have it it would go back to The Place From Whence It Came Originally (Middle Earth?)  and it would be 8 weeks or so before I could have it back.  Well, I do have space in my garage so I asked the Men Who Can Only Hear Yes to put the kitchen in there.  The actual Installation happens in mid November.  That, when it comes, will be a whole new adventure.

Well, it is now nearly midday.  Breakfast is turning into Brunch and soon it will be Lunch.  If it gets to Lunch, it will have to be huge because I didn't get Breakfast.  Soon I will have to go and make the Son actually get up, instead of pretending he is getting dressed by having his clothes in his arms as he snores away in his bed.  I have to get him tired enough so that he can sleep at night.  "Go," I may say to him, "and install this kitchen.  It is for your own good, and by doing this, you will sleep better at night."  Or maybe I will make him walk down a crowded street in Chichester and see how many people he knocks over as he tries to balance properly.  

Life is a Mystery.  I was up early and I still haven't had breakfast.  I have 3 exhibitions packed and ready in my hall way to go to Dublin and I have a Kitchen in my garage.  I used to have 3 children living here with me, and now I have 1.  The older children are Gone, living their own lives in Brighton and London, and I am left with a the youngest who I think is still only 6.  But he is 13, and taller than me, and speaks like Brian Perkins, and so what happened to Time?  I feel the same, I am still 25 years old and how did these wonderful creatures manage to grow up so well and so lovely?  I don't remember helping them very much, it was all a bit of a blur.  It was never easy being pulled 3 ways.  I didn't have 3 knees, 3 hands, and someone always had to wait.  Gosh.  And now I am 50 and officially Old.  Saga writes to me Monthly.

Right.  Time to make breakfast.  Time to be Efficient.  Time to drag Son out of bed by his heels and say it is a well known Ambush Technique used by Cage Fighters with One Ear.  Yes.

Life In The Fast Country Lane Of Bognor Regis

www.antoniarolls.co.uk for my website
www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for my other website
www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for the A Graceful Death exhibition, paintings from the end of life

The Merry-Go-Round Of Life, Even In Bognor Regis

Even, as they say, In Bognor Regis.  I live in Bognor Regis, and from this town, I create my World.  I sit in my studio and tap away at the computer, and paint my paintings, and plan my plans.  I bring up my children and clean my house and then - then I shoot off into the big wide world and make things happen.  Bognor Regis always welcomes me back once I have finished whatever Thing I was doing beyond its borders, and after a little while recouperating lying around on feathered cushions and peeling grapes, I start again.  This, Friends, is what I am doing now.  Starting Again.

I have had much happen on the domestic front.  Beautiful Blonde Daughter in Brighton is changing directions for the better, and has a lovely new boyfriend too.  Costya, the Muppet, the Teenage Overlord, Ruler of South West London and Soon, The World, is back at college.  He is creating a Myth around himself, a kind of Film Version of his Life in which he stars and does all the editing.  This takes up many of his days and probably a good deal of his nights too.  There is hope he will get some qualifications too, but that is secondary to the Legend that he is creating.  Takes up a lot of study time, and is exhausting, I am told.  Never mind, I can but give the odd Critique of the Film from time to time and ask if he is eating properly and going to bed at some points during the week, and asking gentle questiions about course work.

  13 Year Old son broke his foot in August and was off all sport.  He was inventive with his crutches and used them to shoot me and demonstrate martial arts moves. As soon as he was able to take up Games at his new school, we got less than 24 hours notice of his ear operation for which we have waited about 4 years.  So now, he is injured again and unable to do sports or games or anything much till after Christmas.

13 Year Old Son is a bit like Taz of Tazmania in the cartoon.  He is fond of, and longs to try,  Cage Fighting  and Boxing.  He likes Brainiac (the very brilliant and hands on science programme that really does explode cars and experiment with chemicals and such important problems such as Can You Walk On Custard?  Turns out, just to let you know, that you can walk on custard, but you can't cycle on it.) and longs to do that.  He loves Football and started American Football at school, and wants desparately to learn to play Rugby.  You get the picture - he likes rough contact sports and daring explosive smelly dangerous ways to spend his time.  Now, however, after his surgery, we know that he will never hear in his left ear, so he may decide to get a hearing aid.  He will be the only Rugby Playing Cage Fighter, with an American Football background and a Qualification in Explosives and Smelliness that keeps stopping proceedings and saying "What?  Can you repeat that?"  and "Not the Ear!  Not the Ear!  Got a hearing aid!  Hit the Nose, leave the Ear, Thanks."  Wham.

And so, onto the House.  It is filled with Intrigue.  Nice Intrigue, but lots of Action.  People come and go and the rooms fill with fascinating characters that pop into our lives and pop out again.  Arty Man With A Full Schedule, and his Ginger Best Friend, have a fascinating life.  They have popped into my life and have not yet popped out of it, which I am glad about.   Never a dull moment.  And they and I were fascinated by the Silent Pole when he was here, because he was so very silent and polite and absent.  A lovely man, we agreed, but with no clues at all as to what he was really about.  Oh it was intriguing.  There were Dogs in his life in Poland.  And a Wife.  And....and....we couldn't discover anything else.  Dogs and a Wife.  Not much to go on.  And then a small jar of Beetroot appeared in the fridge.  A Clue!  What does this mean?  Dogs, A Wife, and Beetroot!  Oh what next, we asked each other, what next.  Well I will tell you.  Yesterday I found a bag of Polish Bread.  He left it behind when he went home last week, and I will file it with the other clues and come up with an answer.  A Profile.  Once, I passed his door and heard Voices.  His Voice and someone elses.  The room is too small for two, so I reckon he was Skyping.  Skyping the Wife about the Dogs while eating Beetroot and Polish Bread.  I know these things.

And me?  I have A Graceful Death opening in an Invitation Only exhibition in Dublin on the 21 October.  I must get that ready.The Nicest Man In Ireland, husband of Darling Dublin Friend, (as they are my Hosts for the show) is driving over in a large car with his friend, Nicest Man in Ireland no 2, to pick up the paintings and take them over as a gesture of support for the exhibition.  They will stay over this weekend and pack up the car with the paintings, and then drive back to Dublin.  So, the paintings need to be packed and labelled.  The A Graceful Death exhibition includes too a small exhibition of Jesus on the Tube and Every Day Angels.  This works very well as a whole, and makes the show very wide ranging.  

I think, now, that I will do a bullet point list for you to see how busy I am.  This way we can all see how things are panning out.  Hem hem. 

• 20 October to 26 October 2010, A Graceful Death in Dublin.
• I have a painting short listed in a National Art Competition.  See what happens to that by the end of October
• 13 Year Old Son becomes 14 in November.  Oooh. A Cage Fighting Party I fear.
• Eileen and I have a Christmas Art Fair for one day in Arundel on November 28.  You will be Summoned to it.  Be ready.
• Application to fund A Graceful Death meetings in November, very hopeful about this.  You never know.
• Christmas.  
• February 2011 AGD goes to Manchester
• Arty Man coming too, if all works out, to make an AGD film.  He is a very gifted film maker and I think he is a talented fellow. Hope this film happens.
• A prospective showing of AGD in York, at a lovely teeny Stately Home.  Hope this comes off.  Probably for 2012, as I am so busy in 2011.
• I intend to try a painting in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
• I want to take AGD to the Edinburgh Festival
• Clarissa and I have plans to go to India for a few weeks
• November 2011 AGD goes to Birmingham for 4 weeks where I will be doing workshops during the exhibition with the talented Penny Hewlet, a wonderful poet.  And, I hope, other workshops that are in the pipeline and are very unusual.  All around Bereavement, Life, Death and Hope.
• Christmas.

So there you have it.  A Busy Bee.  And, my dears, running alongside all this are my portrait commissions and my blogs.  So if I make out that I drift from flower to flower, humming a merry little tune while waiting for the kettle to boil, I am being disingenuous. Don't believe a word of it.  I am fibbing to hide the real level of activity so that you think I have many different levels of existance here, in Bognor Regis on sea.

And did I say that I am getting a new kitchen?  No?  Well, I am.  But I have not got round to dealing with that yet.  Pity because the kitchen arrives alongside the Irish Men in their Car on Saturday.  I am told, as I called B&Q, that as I am not ready with a builder yet, that I can refuse the delivery, and it will be taken back to the depot.  "No!" I will cry on Saturday.  "You cannot bring that kitchen in here!  Can't you see I have Irish Men in the house?  Take it away to the Depot and Let That Be A Lesson To You!"  I have to be firm like this, because you can't cancel the order with less than 5 days notice to the kitchen deliverer people.  It takes 5 days for B&Q to a) pick up the phone and say "Don't do the Bognor Delivery just yet pal"  b) go in person to the depot and say "The Bognor Delivery?  Not just yet, hold off for a while"  c)  send a telegram to the depot saying "You know the Bognor Delivery?  They are not ready, don't do it"  d)  send an email saying "Bognor Delivery is Off on Saturday".  What I have to do is accept that with less than 5 days notice, the delivery people can't understand No and have to come out anyway.  So I make them take it back and that is fine, apparantly.  They pay for the petrol, the time, the manpower, etc.

Now, you must get on with your busy day.  I must go and wake up the Deaf Cage Fighting Son and give him some Food.  Then I must invite Ireland to the A Graceful Death exhibition on the 21 Oct, and plan a feast worthy of the Two Nicest Men In Ireland for Saturday night. (And erect the barricades in case B&Q try and slip a kitchen in later on in the day when we are not looking).

Hold On My Friends, I Am In A Frantic Battle With Time And I Am Winning -

www.antoniarolls.co.uk for my website
www.jesusonthetube.co.uk  for my other website
www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for the A Graceful Death exhibition, paintings from the end of life

Hold On, My Dear Friends, An Update Is Coming.  I Am Just At The Tail End Of Frantic.

This is a short, succinct and passionate blog.  It says I Am Coming Back, it says - Time, That Waits For No Woman, Has Upended All My Plans Recently And I Am In The Process Of Snatching Back My Days.  There.  That is how it has been here.  Bullet Points follow, to show how deadly succinct I am.

• 13 Year Old Son has had his Operation.  He has a new eardrum and no hope of any hearing in his left ear.
• He is home for 2 weeks with an ear like a Bash Street Kid, like a long trumpet on the side of his head.  His does hurt a lot though, and he is not feeling so good
• Coming round from the anaesthetic on the childrens ward (Son is 6' tall with deep voice.  Not an obvious child.) Son was wheeled in with his head in bandages.  "Thank you" he muttered to the nurses and as they were leaving he shouted out after them "You're fat and I hate you!".  The nurses chortled and said it was the drugs and they'd heard worse.  Son then told the ward that there was a party in the recovery room downstairs with a clown and a French man.  A little while later when my guard was down he yells "Fuck!" and that is when I put a pillow over his face.
• Son remembers nothing
• At least that is what he says
• A Graceful Death is going to Dublin on the 20 Oct.
• Loads of people to call.  Like the Glorious Clarissa because she says she has News for me.  That, my dears, is soooo tempting.  Clarissa is just fab to talk to, she is so interesting.  Take the morning off and phone her, I think.
• Finished 2 paintings, started another, made up 28 cards for a Methodist Church in Lancashire
• House needs a total clean
• Want a cleaner
• Anyone know a nice cleaner?
• Kitchen gets delivered on Saturday and no where to put it.
• But, ordered all the Kay Scarpetta novels I could on Amazon and they arrived in a lorry today.  
• Going to bed now to read them all, one after another.
• Oh I have been so busy.  There is so much more to tell you - but
• Another time.
• Blog tomorrow.
• Get the comfy chair ready, and have your secretary bring you tea and egg mayonnaise sandwiches tomorrow at teatime
• And I will write a very calm, very informative, very clever blog for you to read.

See you all tomorrow.  It's going to be a heavy night with Kay Scarpetta, better get started.