#daniel smith paint brushes

[doodlewash]

TUTORIAL: How to Paint an October Sunset in Watercolor

October is a time of year with spectacular colors.  Let’s celebrate by painting an October Sunset. We’ll use wet-into-wet and wet-on-dry techniques, and paint the whole thing with a large flat brush. A flat brush that has bristles with a thin, chisel-shape edge will work best for the marks I’m having you make. Don’t worry if you don’t have the exact tools I’m using — I’ve added a chart of…

[beekindac]

Nothing special, just something blue and hopefully soothing to look at. I hope your week is treating you well and that you have a chance to bask in the sunspots.

For those that have asked for materials used, I am so sorry I didn't include that so much before. I started this blog to track my progress, get better at posting things (without feeling like I wanted to vomit), and hopefully provide something to make people smile. It honestly didn't occur to me anyone would care. 😶I have NO idea if I can add that to older posts, but I'll check with my trusty tumblr experts (my kids).

Otherwise, I use mostly Winsor and Newton Pro Watercolors, with a couple of Daniel Smith colors thrown in due to price mostly (Sap greens, Phthalo Blue, and Sepia). I use Arches or Baohong(Meeden) Paper, and my brushes I use most are the Aqua Elite from Princeton (Mostly because I save my WN Series 7 brushes I got for my birthday for commissions), and also I LOVE LOVE LOVE the 000 round from Christy Rice's collection.

Gouache is also Winsor and Newton Pro and I use their Student brushes (the bright blue ones) - these are actually the BEST starter brushes I have encountered. I wish I had found these when I first started. otherwise I use my older SNAP brushes from Princeton, sine you need a bit hardier a brush to stand up to the gouache.

***********************************************************************

Also - a note to anyone starting out in watercolor - quality makes a HUGE difference. While I would say work with crayola if that's what you have, just get to know it's limitations compared to the continuum of paints and you'll be fine (I.e. a lot of student paint can't be mixed well to get other colors). Chances are, if you can't get it to do a thing, it's because of a material you are using. Good paper can handle a lot more water, scrubbing, layers, pigment. good brushes don't drop all their water at once, they hold better lines, and more pigment. -- All things others better than I have said before, but it's SO true it bears repeating.

[helenetart]

The next mushroom for the Funguary challenge was one called cystolepiota. They appeared to be smallish, pale and slightly shaggy or fluffy looking, so I attempted to bring that element into the dragon's design.

Materials used: Canson Watercolor Paper, approx 5x7 Windsor and Newton Gouache Daniel Smith Paints Prismacolor Pencils Princeton Brushes

[epitomereally]

Celestial Navigation by @sabrecmc

18 year old Omega!Tony finds himself Bonded to Captain Steve Rogers. He isn't happy about it until he is.

An absolutely gorgeous story of learning to love yourself, even when you feel like you don't fit in & that you grew up wrong. I'm so happy to have gotten to bind this mammoth work for Sabre & as a gift exchange for @mourningmountainsbindery (who bound me this beautiful copy of Astolat's Let the River Run—JUST LOOK AT THAT COVER!).

Also to anyone who has @ed me lately (looking at u, em @powerful-owl & tacky @tackytigerfic particularly) & I've been derelict in responding, here is WHY.

This has been the longest binding project I've undertaken, both in page count and in time. My original message to Sabre was on March 16th—can't decide if I want to use the laughing or crying emoji here—and the colophon says I made the book in April 2023 (which was when I started typesetting, maybe). I had been randomly perusing dying videos on Youtube in bed on a Saturday morning, as one does, and came across a video showing how to spiral tie-dye. I IMMEDIATELY had a design premonition of the full design for this fic as a two-volume set, planted into my brain wholesale by the binding gods. I learned many new techniques throughout the process (edge painting, edge trimming/sanding, tie-dying/dyepainting, embroidery, typesetting meta from tumblr which copy-pastes with the worst goddamn formatting in the world, kill me now). Overall, alternately extremely painful & wonderful, and I'm extremely proud of this set.

Design-wise, I went whole-hog with the scifi stars theme. Endpapers are recolored versions of the star charts from the Apollo 11 mission:

Title page & chapter titles are both rips in the galaxy:

Epigraphs both star-themed:

Some more glamor shots because I'm so proud 💕

8.6 lbs // 3.8 kgs worth of books (~3000 total pages) 🥰

Celestial Navigation is also INCREDIBLY popular, and Sabre has been incredibly generous answering asks on her tumblr + writing additional one-shots in the universe. There is also a veritable volume of fanart. I was so inspired by seeing @robins-egg-bindery copy of ********, with its appendix of fanart & meta, that I promptly copied them.

fanart redacted because lots of the artists are no longer active on tumblr but just know i am ECSTATIC about the amount of art in these books

Lastly, I love how @clovenhoofbindery includes their 'Illustrator mess' with their bind posts, as a behind-the-scenes look into the wild process of designing these books. I don't actually have an Illustrator mess for this book (the chapter titles & title page pretty much came in one take), but I do have a DYING MESS. It took me sososo many tries to figure out how to get the dye to look how I imagined in my head. I ended up 'dye painting' instead of tie-dying in the end, but my inbox is always open to chat hand-dying/tie-dying/dyepainting (or what I did differently between any of these attempts). Numbers are the dying attempt.

Last process shot: I hand-dyed variegated linen thread to match the colors of the bind, which ends up being incredibly difficult to see on the finished bind, but was super fun while I was sewing!

Materials:

Body font: Kepler

Title font: Compaq 1982

Chapter number font: aliens & cows

Endpapers: recolored versions of the star chart used by Michael Collins during the Apollo 11 mission (archived at The Smithsonian)

Bookcloth: dyed using Dharma Trading Procion Fiber-Reactive Dyes

Title page and chapter headers: designed in Photoshop using the Ultimate Space brush pack by jeffrettalyn on DeviantArt

Metallic embroidery thread: Cosmo Nishikiito thread

I would dye for this embroidery thread. It is LIGHT YEARS better than the classic metallic embroidery thread from DMC: much easier to work with & much more sparkly. Literally so eye-catching; it truly doesn't translate to photos.

Paint for edges: Daniel Smith watercolor tubes in Iridescent Sunstone and Prussian Blue

Note: these are GORGEOUS watercolors. The color is so saturated and strong and beautiful BUT I don't think I'd recommend watercolors for edge painting. They went on very differently depending on the grit of the sandpaper I used for the edges + they sometimes bled into the pages + they had to be set with fixative, which then stuck the pages together.

[fayes-fics]

Portrait: I

Masterpost

PREV | NEXT

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x fem!reader

Summary: The first portrait session.

Warnings (for this chapter): none

Word Count: 1.4k

Authors Note: Enjoy! <3

I

It's an early spring morning when you watch from the drawing-room window, heart in your mouth, as he descends gracefully from his carriage, so elegant in a navy jacket over a maroon waistcoat with a soft gold silk cravat. You listen as your family butler lets him in, and before you can arrange yourself on the setee, he strides in business-like. All he knows is that he is here to paint a portrait of a bride for her intended. He already has his hand out to shake yours… until he sees it's you. 

His whole stance changes, and you know in an instant that he recognises you from the gallery that night. Now, up close, you see how tall he is, the turn of his aristocratic nose and his eyes that are the haziest blue you have ever seen. It's impossible to look away. 

There is something charged in the air as, instead of shaking your hand, he delicately takes it up to his lips and brushes the lightest of kisses across your knuckles. There is no skin contact, seeing as you are wearing silk gloves, but even that simple gesture has you undone. You can feel the warmth of his fingers and his lips through the material, and you have to school your breathing; your stays suddenly too tight around your ribcage.

“Miss y/l/n,” his voice is a veritable rumble, and your body is aflame. You are his. Completely. There is no other man you wish to know, wish to marry. Ever. You want him to take your hand and run. Run far away until the name Thomas Baden-Smith is but a distant memory…. “Show me where you wish for this portrait to be painted.” he cuts into your yearning reverie.

You stumble, almost dazed, towards the chaise you have set up in front of the fireplace for this exact purpose. His gaze flits between you and then around the room.

“The light there is not quite right,” he opines with a head tilt. “I would like to move you,” he adds, drawing closer. You sit there dumbfounded for a second until you realise he is looking at you expectantly, waiting for you to get up so he can rearrange the furniture.

“Sorry, good sir,” you apologise and jump to your feet, stepping aside, not missing how his nostrils flare at the honorific title you bestow upon him.

He moves the chaise, so it is on a diagonal. Then asks you to sit again as he moves to stand in front of the window. All you see is his silhouette as the bright sunlight blazes behind him.

“Perfect!” he exclaims after a moment of consideration, gesturing for his valet to set up his easel where he stands.

The valet does so and then bustles quickly from the room. It is just you and Benedict now. And the grandfather clock in the corner, loudly announcing each second with its pendulum swing.

You decide it is good that you cannot see him so well with where he has chosen to stand. Perhaps you will be able to sit still. Not think about the tingle you still feel on your knuckles where he kissed you, barely a chaste brush as it was. Just last year, you shared a stolen kiss with your childhood friend Daniel behind the greenhouse, his tongue in your mouth, his hands grabbing your bottom. But that was nothing compared to the split-second Benedict Bridgerton’s lips burned a metaphorical hole through your glove and your heart. And indeed, the polar opposite of the disdain you feel every time you are within a few feet of your intended, albeit the very reason you are sitting here in the first place.

You have to force yourself to concentrate as Benedict details how the process will work, explaining it will take around five hours and that he will paint the portrait over the course of five sessions. Adding that he has heard from a good friend that this is the most successful approach, as after an hour, people tend to get restless about sitting still.

“Do you have a pose in mind, or would you like me to suggest one for you to adopt?” he asks, and your mind goes blank. You honestly had not even considered that.

“Nothing in particular. Just something acceptable for my future husband to hang in his hallway,” you answer quietly, reluctant to vocalise the reason he is here.

Something flashes in his eyes, and it dawns on you that perhaps your parents did not elucidate why they requested his services. 

“Right, well,” he bustles, seeming a little off-kilter, “we should endeavour to capture the very reason he fell in love with you….” 

“He does not love me,” you cut in, desperate to clarify, “and I certainly do not him. Not all people have the privilege of marrying for love, Mr Bridgerton,” you end, your voice brittle.

You see him nod and swallow heavily as if he has words he doesn't want to allow to escape. “Permit me a closer look to determine the best pose?” his request gentle and respectful. 

Suddenly he is kneeling in front of you as you perch on the chaise. You have to fix your gaze on a spot on the wall behind him; you dare not look at him as he seems to study your face.

“You have a face that captures the light perfectly,” he murmurs, and you know a blush stains your cheeks and creeps lower your collarbone feeling heated and prickled. A gasp catches in your throat as a long, elegant thumb and forefinger delicately grab your chin and move your face to be slightly in profile. It's his bare hand on your skin. Your body flushes hot, and there is a sudden pulse at the apex of your thighs; you have to swallow hard to tamp the saliva filling your mouth.

“That's it,” his tone triumphant, “don’t move.” 

Your eyes dart to meet his even as you keep your head where he requested. There is a split second where your gaze holds, and his pupils enlarge as you slowly draw your bottom lip under your teeth without realising. There it is again. That jolt that you ardently want to believe he feels too.

It's almost a relief when he clears his throat, stands up and walks back to his easel, puttering around with paints and brushes as you watch in your peripheral vision. Just as you think you are back to an even keel, he peels off his jacket and rolls up the frilled cuffs of his crisp white shirt, exposing his toned forearms. You feel a galloping tightness in your chest, yet again, you cannot look anywhere but him.

“This is to prevent charcoal or paint transferring,” he explains, erroneously assuming your intense stare is borne of confusion rather than abject enthrallment. 

“Of course…” you respond, shaking your head lightly to rid the reverie of thoughts your mind is supplying, tumbling images of your fingertips tracing over the vein that runs from his wrist to his elbow.

“At first, I like to sketch an outline as a guide for my painting,” he explains, and you just nod, unsure of what else to do.

And then all is quiet as he concentrates on the task at hand. It is a strange trance-like state you enter as the moments tick by. Holding the pose as you hear charcoal scratch over the canvas. Attempting to syncopate your heartbeat with the gentle dull rhythm of the grandfather clock. Anything to school your body’s reaction every time your eyes stray to him.

Half an hour has passed when the pins and needles start to creep into your limbs, your body more on an even keel as it adjusts to his continued presence. Your brain feels like it needs some stimulation, and alas, you cannot read a book, so decide conversation it must be.

“How many young lady’s portraits have you painted?” you ask as he seems to change for a different pencil.

“None,” he admits with mild contrite, “you are my first. My speciality is usually landscapes.”

“First of many, I am sure,” you affirm. “Once they see your work here, you will have a line of customers.”

“You flatter me, miss,” his cheeks heating a delightful shade of pink as he dips his head and continues his work. Not without his eyes twice darting to yours and then looking away. 

You pretend not to notice the ache in your chest his humility causes as the clock strikes the hour, signalling the end of your session.

And when he leaves a few moments later, wrapping up the canvas without letting you see it, you feel strangely bereft—as if he has taken a little piece of you with him out of the door. 

Benedict taglist: @makaylan @foreverlonginguniverse @iboopedyournose @colettebronte @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @margofiore @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry @ambitionspassionscoffee @chaoticcalzoneranchsports @nikaprincessofkattegat @baebee35 @crowleysqueenofhell @bridgertontess @fiction-is-life @lilacbeesworld @angels17324 @broooookiecrisp @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @eleanor-bradstreet @divaanya @musicismyoxygen84 @benedictspaintbrush

[shadesofmauve]

Colors!

My thumb's been fucked up by a steroid shot to the point where I can't hold a pen to draw, but the light touch of a watercolor brush is mostly okay, and I had dot cards for Daniel Smith and DaVinci paints, so I've spent the last few weeks unleashing my manic color goblin.

Friends, I've painted so many happy little rectangles. And it has been a journey.

I've found that one of the most-referenced sources for pigment lightfastness is a hard-coded website straight out of the 90s that also talks about UFOs and human evolution. (I don't know what the guy says about human evolution, because I'm afraid to find out, but it makes me very happy that a site like that still exists).

I've learned you can make lovely purples with a cool red and phthalo green, which actually MAKES SENSE, I GUESS, but is still a bit weird and awesome even though I understand the color theory.

I've painted with the Danger Colors.

(Cobalt, manganese, chromium, and cadmium. DO NOT LICK).

I've finally spelled phthalo often enough that I can remember it!

And I've fallen deeply, desperately in love, then had my heart broken.

It's name was DaVinci Phthalo Turquoise (pigment code PB16). When I painted it out it was beautiful; smoothly flowing into a perfect fade, the deepest, most inviting pool of cool, saturated perfect teal. I burst into song. A choir of angels descended to sing backup vocals. I never used to believe in love at first sight, but I was wrong.

...then it dried.

It dulled so much. It was still fine. Nothing special, but fine. Whatever. I'm over it. I am a strong, independent artist. I don't need that kind of negativity in my life.

There's still all the other colors. Colors that didn't betray me. Much.

Here, Monkey is helping model the last swatch tests, which helped me choose which cool red to buy. The phone doesn't capture all the nuance, but they also started out fairly close. (I went with column 3, DaVinci's PV19 quinacridone rose madder).

So... if you're one of those tenacious, patient people who follows my fic, and you've been wondering why I haven't posted, I suppose I really just have one thing to say:

Colors go brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[aldoodles]

*fall to knees* please please please what watercolors do you use they look SO GOOD AND SOFT WITH YOUR STYLE

1) Omg thank you.

2) Please pardon how long this answer is going to be, I loveee talking about art supplies!!! A lot of painting comes down to how the materials interact, so I’ll mention both my paints and paper choices below.

I use lots of different kinds of paints but! I primarily use Da Vinci and American Journey these days (they have the same manufacturer as far as I’m aware.) I also have a Lukas paynes gray in there

behold my crusty lookin main palette:

Other great brands I work with are M Graham, Daniel Smith, and Mijello. You really can’t go wrong w them! (Mijello behaves a little strangely on arches paper specifically, so beware of that)

If you’re looking for a good, relatively inexpensive set you can snag a Prang semimoist watercolor palette for about 8 USD (last I checked) and those are nice to start out with if you use them on good paper. They changed their blue formulation recently for some reason, so it flows a little weirdly now, but it still gets a good review from me.

If you can grab arches cotton cold press paper, I find that that distributes the water best for my workflow and gives layers a softer, more uniform look than hot press papers or cellulose papers. Though if you’re on a budget or can’t afford cotton paper from arches, you can try strathmore series 400 paper or the canson xl watercolor pads. Those are the less expensive options I’ve had the best luck with.

For paint brushes I use the plaid round detail brushes (it’s like five dollars for a pack of ten, so I have a like thirty of them in all different sizes.)

If you can choose between nice paper and nice paint, I would upgrade there paper first, you’d be surprised how much a nice surface improves the painting experience.

Plz let me know if you have any questions!!!

[threegoblinart]

Been following you for while and after seeing a couple of your WIP it made me wonder... What exactly ia your process? And the step by step strategy you follow every time you draw.

And if you use any kind of reference, if you don't mind me asking of course

Ooh fun.

So to start, I still consider myself in a big learning phase. I stopped drawing for a decade and have spent the last 4 years relearning a lot. I only started water color coming up on 2 years ago. So take anything I say with a big grain of salt.

One big thing I've been working on is the process, having drafts, etc.

Using a recent painting I can illustrate my ideal method for illustrations (my landscapes skip numbers 4 and 5).

1) research, I use Pinterest a lot, as well as stock photos and posing apps. References are super important to me and I rarely start drawing without them.

2) thumbnails, this is relatively new but things turn out so much better when I do I rough sketch or two (or more)

3) sketch layer in blue pencil

4) round two in purple pencil (below is half way done with step 4) so you can see the two colors

5) round three in light brown ink

6) watercolor painting

(the yellow is masking fluid) that was removed later)

7) second ink layer, and highlights

For supplies I like (I'm not rich, and feel I can say most of this can be acquired on a modest budget, especially over timing and taking advantage of sales)

🌼Pilot Color Eno mechanical pencils in light blue and purple

🌼Factis Black erasers

🌼Stilman and Birn Beta sketchbooks, Baohong paper and in a pinch masters touch paper from Hobby Lobby when I need something super affordable

🌼Windsor Newton professional or Daniel Smith watercolors, pricey but last a long time. (Buy them on sale a few at a time, I have 5 ml tubes and haven't replaced one yet in almost two years). You don't need a lot, I started with about a dozen and that was plenty to start with.

🌼Washi Tape

🌼Princeton Velvet Touch Brushes (rounds in size 2, 4, 6, 8 and a large brush for washes is a great start, you need tons of specialty brushes)

🌼Dr. Martin's Bleedproof White

🌼Sakura Micron Pens (I main use brown, light brown and black in 005 and 01 size)

I don't believe in hoarding art knowledge so please ask any questions. If you're just starting I advise getting at least quality student grade materials, reddit and other sites are great for finding affordable supply recommendations.

If you're interested in watercolor there are a lot of great tutorials out there, I started with a free landscape class from thewritingdesk on Instagram!

[communicatingcreativelydj]

A Great Combination!

Recently, I posted a Watercolour I painted using Baohong – The Master’s Choice Rough, Block Watercolour Paper. This time however, I decided to paint with Daniel Smith and Sumikondo Japanese Watercolour paint. The materials used are as follows: Baohong The Master’s Choice Artist Rough texture, Block Watercolour Paper Daniel Smith, and Sumikondo Japanese Watercolour paint Neef brushes Size: 15…

[fallowhearth]

Ok so I did actually go ahead and upgrade my 1990s scrounged-from-mum's-garage watercolour paints, dollar store brushes, and multimedia paper. I only bought three small Daniel Smith tubes (a primary triad I knew would create a lot of good colours for Australian landscapes) and a 12-sheet pad of cotton paper. I really wanted to see for myself how much I was struggling against materials vs skill issue. And. By god. Everything is so much easier. It all makes sense now. This is my first painting with these paints, brushes, and paper, so I was still learning how they all behaved. But damn. It looks like I intended to. Like it's not perfect or amazingly artistic or anything but it was just so simple and the materials did what I told them to do. Incredible.

[jjschronicles]

Hi do you recommend any books or tutorials for Painting watercolour the way you do?

I just saw your rendition of Sanguinius and it was stunningly beautiful ❤️

Hi there, thank you so much for your question 😊. I believe watercolor can be a bit challenging compared to other methods. It’s difficult to control the outcome during the process, as the intensity of shades tends to lighten as the paint dries. Also, watercolor requires careful time management to apply the paint at just the right moment when the paper is at the desired level of wetness. I think starting with mixed media might be more helpful. For instance, you could combine watercolor with acrylics and wax or oil-based color pencils to achieve more controlled results.

For tutorials, I personally followed cafe watercolor on YouTube. He draws majority landscapes. I think watercolor landscapes are important to practice because this kinds of art uses the most unique technique of watercolor, “wet in wet”. If you master this technique, you are the master of watercolor ☺️. Cafe watercolor’s video is very detailed and provided some fundamental watercolor techniques.

I also followed Lioba Bruckner on YouTube. Her work inspired me a lot. I like art nouveau style as much as she does, that’s why I followed her🥰 I think if you like my Sanguinius portrait. You will mostly likely like her style as well.

Another important thing is, you need a good canvas for painting watercolor. I always use 300gsm paper, preferably pure cotton. Also, I think it is better to start with A5 or A4 sizes for practice. Large size canvas require better management and planning especially for watercolor. For paints, I think they are not as vital as canvas. You can get affordable basic ones, and pick some special effect shades from brands like Daniel Smith. For brushes, I think natural hair bristle brushes are the best. Synthetic brushes holds less water and pigments, so it is bit harder to use.

Hope those tips are helpful😁

[artofrenee]

Watercolor painting of my ginger cat, Miauwsie, nickname is mouse, because he is scared of almost everything except me. 🤣😘

Instagram | Deviantart

Materials:

- Daniel Smith watercolors

- Hahnemühle Torchon watercolor paper - 275 grams

- Rafael watercolor brushes

[hanedasama]

Pssssstttt pspspsssppsspss

May I be allowed to know what art supplies do you use when doing your traditional watercolor art? It looks so soft and beautiful x3

Thank you for liking my paintings, I'm very happy!🥰🥰🥰

I usually use a brand of watercolors called Van Gogh's for practice.But Daniel Smith, Holbein or M. Graham,Smink, all of these watercolors I buy some of my favorite colors to use and usually buy liquid paints.

At the same time, I use brushes to paint, and my most common watercolor paper is Fabiano, but the watercolor books you've been seeing lately are made in China, and they're a brand called Bao Hong!

Hahaha, you see, I don't really have regular watercolor supplies, I think it's best to experiment more! I'd be happy if these helped you!🫶☺️

[helenetart]

The next mushroom for Funguary was a Turkey Tail. I find these mushrooms to have a really interesting shape, which I thought would lend itself well to a scale-like material on the dragon. I also attempted to show it stretching its wing out after camouflaging by a tree. 

Materials used: Canson Watercolor Paper, approx 5x7 Windsor and Newton Gouache Daniel Smith Paints Princeton Brushes Prismacolor Pencils

[avesmx]

i haven't had a ton of time for art lately with all my schoolwork, but i wanted to take a quick break and decided to do a side-by-side comparison of student-grade watercolor paper and 100% cotton watercolor paper. both are the fluid brand, 140lb cold press, and i used daniel smith watercolor paints. i didn't do a perfect scientific method here - i should have activated these with a mister (didn't bring one with me to where i'm staying right now, that was my bad) and i don't have great control of the flow in my water brush so some of these had more water than others.

that being said! i think the cotton paper definitely absorbs the paint more evenly - you still get the "outline" that tends to happen with watercolor, but the paint inside the outline looks more even when that happens (quin red, quin burnt orange). non-granulating pigments sometimes look granulated on the student grade paper (quin magenta), and granulating pigments sometimes look More Granulated (bloodstone genuine). the 100% cotton paper also has a much finer texture than the student-grade paper, despite them both being cold presses from the same brand, which i found interesting. also for these brands the cotton paper is a warmer off-white color than the student-grade paper, though there are extra-white cotton papers on the market if you don't want that warmer tone.

personally, i don't think i'm super fussed about the fiber content of my paper, but i understand why some folks are - plus, 100% cotton paper is acid-free, which is important if you're painting something you want to last a long time. i am planning to do a second test with some lower-grade angora watercolors and some ecoline watercolor brush pens, just to do a more thorough comparison of the two papers.

also of note, a lot of the primatek, iridescent, and duochrome paints are much harder to activate on the dot cards (and, presumably, in half-pans). i would recommend using those colors straight from the tube, or activating them with a mister if you're using them off a dot card or a dried palette (which you should really do anyway, but especially for these colors).

[bethtoad]

Blog: March 2023. (Not Waving but Drowning)

Hi All!

     I’m afraid during the 2022 Season of The Witch, I was hospitalised in October with Covid and pneumonia, and Halloween’s feature of ‘The Druidess’ was thus put on the back-burner.

I still have pneumonia, and warned I could be re-admitted I’ve to wear a mask, that might pose a problem were it not that I like lookin’ like the Phantom of the Opera. Up and about more and more, (ergo I’m off to the Opera in a few days to see the production of ‘Carmen’) I’ve not been idle. Whiling my time with an outline of an Anthology of Stories, Poetry & Prose, that I’m about to submit to publishers.

I lost my beloved little pensioner-pup Hadrian (Emperor of Home) the day before I was taken into the R.V.I., I would not have left him otherwise and we may have simply winged our way up together, to the Dog Star in the sky. And having lost our beloved Brucy the Poosy some Christmases back who was a victim of the local pet poisoner, aspects of them both are in the sea mammals in one of the stories.

Not sure when I’ll be back, so in the interim (albeit I’ve not spell-checked the errata yet) I shall leave you with the ‘Contents List’ for said anthology, and two of the chapters, plus a preview of the full {synopsis} for ‘Where The Dancer Is The Sand’, thus to lend a gist of where I’m at right now, and say farewell to my two little boys.

Credits: to poet Stevie Smith for blog’s heading, and the following song by Pat Benatar.

Keep your eyes and fingers crossed for moi if you will, and keep yourselves safe happy and smiling!

TOAD x

HADRI         

He used to be somebody’s baby

Someone used to hold him close, and rock him gently

He used to be the light in someone’s eyes

He used to matter, He used to matter …

BRUCY

Someone cared if he lived or died

Someone held him in their arms when he cried

And when he hurt, someone kept the world away

Somebody loved him, Somebody loved him …

(Synopsis: WHERE THE DANCER IS THE SAND)

The story references, an imaginary island in Northumberland, an Irish theme, an unrequited love for ballet, and a haunting, thus is a ghost story.

Its title, is ditto to the poem that inspired it.

I’d started outlining said anthology, and too childish to include in the collection of more adult themed poems, I wrote this story around one of them. Which I threaded into the narrative lending an ethereal voice to the words of a missing thirteen year old child, Mariah Daniels. By way of her reveries, or eulogy.

There’s an island cottage called Coquillage

A mirage upon the land

Where Halcyon sings the melody

And the dancer is the sand

The empathy and provenance is authentic, as I wrote the verses when only a year older than Mariah, tweaking this word and that up to my nineteens, like a painting I couldn’t set my brush down on. It was in memory of my Sand-Dancer daddy and an imaginary happy home we shared, before I was witness to his suicide at nine. Lines such as the following ..

The garden has turned to wildness where my father once whiled his hours

And my swing no longer swings there amongst the dewy flowers

.. have been altered to fit Mariah’s scenario. Her name comes from an old song, ‘Mariah, they call the wind, Mariah’; the name of the cottage, from a song by Marianne Faithfull.

Set on Wynd Island, that’s a diminution of Childy Wynd, the heir to the throne of Bamburgh in Medieval times and sibling of the Laidley Worm-Dragon. The island can be reached by a narrow causeway from the mainland. Abandoned, it houses only the ruins of an old church converted from a much older monastery, foundations of a bygone lighthouse, a tumbled down abode once called ‘Cockleshell Cottage’, a petroglyph of a dragon in its cave, and the ghosts of its past said to haunt the island.

The central characters are Feargal O’Finnigan, populary known as Fin. And his wife, Mary O’Finnigan, nee Souvestre.

On securing the deeds to the island, Fin sets about rebuilding the old cottage from the ruins.

Caption: Fin’s concerns about the hauntings.

[He had heard-it-all about Ghosties, Changelings, Goblins, Little People and Leprachauns back in Ireland. And with a granny stirring herbs in a cauldron hanging over the open-range peat fire, a suspicious looking straw fairy with horns on top of the Christmas tree (and he never bought the line in was Rudolph’s mammy), a broom and shillelagh under her bed and a seance every week after bingo, wee-folkgood-folk whattiva-folk were second nature to him. Fin was happy to live and let live even if the living’re dead, so long as no Clurichaun pilfered his malt tipples.]  

On completion of their new home Mary named the cottage, ‘Cobwebs’. Fin went out on his fishing boat to sea, and Mary stayed home tutoring in French literature on the Open University forum. One day Mary rescued an injured seal cub trapped in a fissure on the rocks, and ‘Rocky’ was adopted by the O’Finnigan‘s. A short time later a young walrus scenting Fin’s haul, waddled up onto the garden, and bumped his head on the trompe l’oeil fish basket on the shed. And dazed and confused, earned his name ‘Wally’ and another place in the family . Both cubs thence absorbed most of the O’Finnigan’s time, and received their land mama and dadda’s unconditional love.

Caption:

[When Wally couldn’t access Rocky’s dog-flap in the back door, he simply took the whole door off its hinges, one day. That was hung with tarpaulin, until Big Dadda put his BIG CU CHULAINN foot down. And installed a new door with a Wally sized flap.]

Caption: Mary’s view on hearing about the dreaded Waterbairns, said to haunt the island. Whose giggling Singing Hinny voices are heard echoing across the surf by many a trembling mainlander; whom Mary, living on the island herself has never seen hide nor hair or tail of. Or ever heard one titter from.

[‘Is one to infer from that, the community is somehow suffering from a kind of mass hysteria, from reading too much Kingsley?’]

Caption: Response at Hermon’s loud rude remark about the tea at the Lit & Phil.

[.. dust rose, eyebrows rose, feathers from Hermon’s Vivian Westwood hat rose, and Mary could swear the ears on the taxidermic dog rose.

Hermon’s smile rose to the size of half a saucer.

And Mary felt she might have made a friend on these shores in Hermoine Binx, preferably known as, Hermon.]

Caption: Cobwebs.

[The cubs contentedly full bellied and fast asleep on the rocks just outside the back door. Fin stood behind Mary with his arms wrapped about her waist and head tucked on her shoulder, as they looked out of the window onto the sunset. Their faces a crystalline kaleidoscope of Amber, Amethyst, Peridot, and Turquoise from the stained-glass spiralled cobweb, leaded across the pane.]

Never knowing an Irishman personally, the concept of Fin’s gregariously loud and quietly literate character took shape on watching a programme hosted by Imelda May (the title of which eludes me). The show didn’t so much give birth to Fin, but exuded an infectious childish wonder and awe at the poetic beauty of the Island of Ireland, that mirrored my own views on the piece of the Sceptred Isle, that’s Northumberland. Having ‘Ulysses’ and the complete works of Joyce and W.B. Yeats on my shelves already, the maxim of know thyself may have been a little at play re’ Fin …. were it that is,

I drank like a fish, fought like a fisticuffs , and tied my hair back like a pirate.

Albeit tie it back like, Dick Turpin.

Those who’re familiar with St. Mary’s Lighthouse & Island, across the causeway from Whitley Bay. And have watched its seal population (from a considerate and imperative distance), shan’t fail to see the allusion.

For stripped of its existing structures the island and locale presented the blank canvas for: the Isle of Childy Wynd.

***

(January Journal, 2023. Monday, 6th)

Got up this morning at 8-30, the air outside the window was so blazing white I thought I was looking at the Northern Lights. Until I opened the back door, and the yard carpeted white, the air was filled with tumbling snow so prolific in its descent it was almost opaque. Which I stuck my nose out into (as yerdo), then thought better of it with long-covid-pneumonia and closed the door; showing I was thinking laterally today, or I’d have been out in the yard barefoot on it. And after an annus horribilis 2022, in tandem with the first snowdrops shooting up in the garden yesterday, I recalled Prevert’s lines:

There’ll always be a chink

In the Winter wall

To give us a glimpse of Summer

It’s only that it’s a long Winter, that’s all.

Switching on the T.V. to watch the morning news, I came face-to-face with a walrus. Named ‘Thor’, he was basking his ton-plus frame lazily or dozily before agog Northumbrians on the shores of Blyth, (when he ought to have been in the Arctic.) Maybe methoughts he’d read on the wind of a quarter-ton little brother?

Fancifully of course.

Yet it transpires I wasn’t so far off the mark after all: About the incongruous non-indigenous arrival (out of the blue), of Wally on Wynd Island.

The programme continued, asking the public to look out for and report sightings of whales, dolphins, and further sightings of walruses. (You just couldn’t make it up!)

Soon it’ll be reported locals have heard the mermaids singing through Bed & Breakfast bathroom windows in Whitley Bay!  

Time and tide waits for no one (not even the Toad) and wasn’t sure that I’d make it to this year, but whatta HOOT that I did!

Come, dear children, let us away;

Down and away bellow!

Now my brothers call from the bay,

Now the great winds shoreward blow,

Now the salt tides seaward flow …

                         (Arnold)

Thorsday’s Child signing off for now.

THE REMARKABLE ROCKET II

(Jude The Absent)

In (A Stream) throughout juniors, Suza failed the Grading Exam (11 Plus) having failed to attend and sit it. Resulting in allocation to the (D Form for dunces) at Ralph Gardner Secondary Modern School For Girls.

And now thirteen, she is in Third Year.

Albeit unsurprisingly not at school today, and having bypassed the school homework on Thomas Hardy with a look of prolonged disdain, she is diligently writing in her journal. That she has religiously kept up since writing her Memoirs at four.

Hopes of a Happy New Year dashed, compliments of that piece of maudlin’ misery by (Hard-up for a cheery word Hardy) that’s been polluting my school-bag for days. And if that’s not enough my bike, whose break thinks it’s a Luftwaffe ejection seat (and whatta Hoot to break then fly, hence I get covered in more puncture repair plasters than the bike does). Anyways it went and chucked itself in the air this morning, and has got a buckled wheel. Roddy next door says he’ll find a new wheel, and technically being’s it’s his bike, too right that he oughtta.

Which I guess makes this bag of misery only three-quarters full.

Note:

Better hide this new Five Year Diary that I got off Santa for Christmas (filling up already with passive-resistance nonconformist anarchy and subterfuge), because what’s giveth can be taketh away, and if Mum finds and reads it she’ll kill Meadowell’s answer to Biggles.

***

(These Little Boots Are Made For Walking)

Third Year soon going into Fourth Year.

After morning assembly, and the collective singing of the School Song:

Valiant guardian boldly standing

On a barren windswept land …

The following finds Suza suitably windswept in the classroom, pensively musing on the view of the Barren Windswept Land stretched out into infinity before her.

I’m 13 going on 14.

And my bogus Grammar School scarf is tightening round my neck like the hands Caligula said he wanted to strangle all Rome with, in this dunce-dustbin called School. Sat here in front of a desk with my king-learia-posteria glued to the seat and head en route to the empyrean, to distance myself from this torture.

In short if the school board take Mum to court for my absenteeism again, Mum’s gonna take my head off and chop up my bike. (Now I understand why these’re called, salad days.)

It’s morning in English class, and Miss has just asked us to write an essay on where we live. (Shoulda been about where we are as I’ve a copy of Dante’s Inferno burning a hole in my school-bag.)

Sally at the next desk’s reeling out a yarn about the days when she lived by Haggie’s Rope Works. Celia on the other side’s floridly writing about Northumberland Park where the swans from the lake fly over her facing Victorian townhouse. I live on the Meadowell council estate, and have just run out of margins in my exercise book to continue my games of solo noughts n crosses.

Northeast of Eden

In the ninth century A.D. prior to the Danish conquest, this Sceptred Isle was known as Angel Cynn, race of Angles. And Venerable Bede of the Tyne, wrote in the gens Anglorum scripts about an incident in ancient Rome. On appraisal of two golden haired slaves said to be barbarian Angles, Pope Gregory exclaimed ‘They look like angels!’. Henceforth Papal orders were decreed to convert the pagan angels to Christianity, in their isle of Briton far away, reputed by the staunchest Roman tribune to be the End Of The World Where There Be Dragons. From thence arose the ecclesiastical identity of the the Angles & Saxons into English.

Myn entrance into the world was at the House of Cardinal Air, under the morning star of The Light Bearer, on the day of Saint Michael. He whom with blazing sword flashing didst cast the fallen angel asunder from heaven, to slither evermore across the world of man as a worm-dragon.

And there be many forms, shades and guises that the angels present themselves in. Be they the seven holiest, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Chamuel, Zadkiel, Uriel, Jophiel. The numerous eyed, seventy winged Almighty Metatron. The fiery-red three-faced six winged Seraphim. The shimmering four winged Kerubim, whose lightning flashing extretions begats further multitudes of angels. The tallest one Sandalphon, whose height spans the universe. The nine heavenly Choirs. The twenty thousand Charioteers of God. The Orphanium wheel angels. And amongst God’s infinite legions, Auhabiel and Bahaliel the Angels of Love and Terror. Azrael the Angel of Death. Notwithstanding, Satanael-Iblis-Samael the Fallen Angel, once reputed to be the most beauteous and beguiling angel of them all.

And whilst there be more roads that lead to Calvary, Purgatory and Hell than to Paradise, the maxim sayeth that All Roads Leadeth To Rome. Thus I begin myn pilgrimage on the road to, Pons Aelius.

At the borderline south-east of the Land of the Free, wherein she who wed the noble Scythian Celt in the Biblical times of the drowning of the Egyptian Army and the Exodus is ever remembered by name, Scota the Pharaoh’s daughter.

At the first stepping stones into olde England, whose patron saint is George the Dragonslayer. I venture due south from the castle of Berwick, past the castle and abbey ruins of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, consecrated by saints and immortalised by gospels: Whose sacking by Viking marauders was reported by the native Votadini, as the coming of queer winds from the ocean horizon, lightning flashes and fiery dragons across the the sky, (namely the longboat fleet masts).

And onto Bamburgh, where Boreus blows the wind beneath the wings of gulls across the waves rocks and sand dunes, and whispers through the hill heather still cloaked in royal-purple hues upon the land, that true as red and white roses once did battle here, here once upon a faery legended time stood a Kingdom, renowned and revered for knights of valour throughout all Christendom: Its castle bearing the legend of Childy Wynd heir to the throne of Bamburgh, whose sister the once lovely Princess Margaret was accursed by their wicked stepmother into the Laidley Worm-Dragon.

In the now Dukedom of Northumberland, I venture on and anon due south to the Priory and castle ruins of Tynemouth. Burial ground of Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, King Osred, and the Sainted King Oswin of Northumberland; and sacked by the scurrilous Viking, Halfdan. Also entered into the annals of Northumbrian legend is the Wizard’s Cave in the cliff beneath, or the latterday colloquial ‘Jingle Geordie’s Cave’. From whence the knight Walter the Bold, harried by demons, hobgoblins and dragons guarding the legendary treasure therein, didst steal away thus bounty with sword shorn from the jaws of hellfire and damnation. Traversing past the Black Middens of North Shield’s Fishquay sands, following the river bank. Until I enter into the Meadow Of The Well, and stand before the house of myn father.   

Miss slapped a star on my essay, Miss from R.I. came in and banged on another, then Miss from history whacked one on, and Miss from dram ..

Well, there’s enough spit’nd bacterial-sputim on that pile of junk in my school-bag to overflow a pitri dish, and paper stars to make a constellation.

Think I’ll make a paper rocket to zoooom up through those stars, right outta here ..

  ‘I HOPE you’ve been to school today and that’s homework you are writing there, young miss.’

.. and must take a book as it’s gonna be a looooooooooooong journey.

***

I’m nearly 15.

Careers Miss wants me to go to art school (Impressed)

Headmiss wants me to go to teachers college (TRAUMATISED!)

Song Credit

Valiant Guardian, R.G.G.S.M. School Song, written by school’s Art Teacher Mrs. Doig.

JOSIE’S TUNE

Josephine Zara Baird-Hetherington is of upper class bourgeois Russian parentage, whose father Serge had been shot by the Bolsheviks, as a dissident. Hence her mother Svetlana’s arrival on the shores of England with their tiny baby in her arms. After one war ceased, the Cold War took up the mantle of grave family risk, and with new Anglo  identities they entered into the upper echelon society, of the ‘City of Dreaming Spires’. Josephine was thus educated at boarding school, finishing school, and the best colleges across the globe to the highest academic standard. Holds a doctorate in archaeology and geology (etcetera), notwithstanding has a proficiency and fluency in languages to the highest level of a polyglot.

Suzanne Eliza Llewelin is a recalcitrant unschooled teenager, educated at the Autodidact Academy whereat she surpassed the national curriculum. Whose bilingual proficiency and fluency in foreign languages is, Geordie.

Tynemouth Prior’s Haven sands was the frequent destination of Suza, racing at breakneck speed on her bike down the Priory bank, past the castle ruins embankment. En route to her own private haven of peace and quiet, where Mother of Pearl was not the sort of mutha to earbash her shell-ears incessantly, and school was shoal only for fishies, ergo it was Suza’s personal piece of heaven.

This day, chagrined at home life, school life, and boys who were her friends suddenly goin’ loony and wanting to teach her the facts of life, Suza stood pelting pebbles into the sea. When a voice from behind her said:

 ‘Here, let one show you how to skip them right across the waves.’

And on turning around, Suza stood face-to-face with the most beautiful androgynous boy she had ever seen, piercing ice-grey eyes, hair styled into a Beatle cut grown longer to the collar, that with the sun shining behind burnishing it to gold had the effect of a halo. An angel in a reefer jacket, asphyxiatingly tight drainpipe jeans, and wearing Chelsea boots.

And Gabriel, was a girl.

 ‘I saw you a week ago, sitting up there on that cliff ledge pensively looking out to sea, so resembling a mermaid with long-long hair blowing in the wind. Was it sketching that you were doing?’

No response from Suza, who smelled something fishy afoot. And it wasn’t the kippers from the quayside smokehouse blowing downwind.

‘I so hoped, to see you here again ………. Cat got our tail?’

 ‘It’s tongue.’

 ‘Aah! the siren can talk. How do you do! I’m Josephine. Josie, to one’s friends.’

Josie reached out for Suza’s hand, and shook it.

‘And, ahem, you are?’

 ‘Suzanne Eliza Llewelin. Suza, to my friends.’

Forgetting that she still held Suza’s hand, Josie unconsciously tightened her grip around it. Generating warmth around initially chilly fingers that was a strange sensation that perplexed Suza as she looked down at the attachment. Seeing the frown beginning to furrow between her arching eyebrows, Josie relinquished her hold and grinned sheepishly. Exposing a glimpse of front teeth that overlapped each other, that Suza observed slightly marred this vision of beauty. Then Josie widened her grin and the pristine whiteness of them made for a dazzling smile, that to Suza, was perfect beauty.

Nonplussed at such weird thoughts about, a girl. Suza put on her bogus Grammar School scarf, slung her shool-bag over her shoulder, and made to leave, when the buckle on the bag’s strap opened and her books fell out. And Josie bent down to pick them up from the sand, while Suza fastened the buckle.

 ‘Hmm, Herodotus, Socrates, and Nietzsche.’

 ‘Yeah, I couldn’t get the “Bunty.'

Josie’s eyes lit up like luminous twin moons, and she grinned ear to ear at Suza, and said:

 ‘Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Should one not have a regular peruse at “The Three Marys” one is positively stuffed, and have to resort to reading any banal old rot.’

To deflect the gravital pull of the strange girl’s stare, Suza turned her head away in the direction of her bike, a modicum of kudos creeping into her expression at clever-clogs understanding her language. And tossing Josie a wide eyed sideward glance, she said:

’Bye!’

***

Suza’s thoughts throughout the following days, often drifted back to the strange girl on the sands, ‘Stranger On The Shore’ coming intermittently on the radio didn’t help, for like the incoming swell and surge of the tide, the memory of Josephine kept flooding back again.

A week later, around the same time as before, Suza breeeeeezed down the Priory bank on her bike. And parking it on the rocks, raised her hand above her eyes to shield out the sun. And peered across the sands, at the jaunty coloured little boats  peppered across the bay and amongst the dunes, and across the pebbles to the frothing surf of the shore. No one was around.

And walking across the sand and the pebbles, she stood for a long while looking across the waves. Feeling inexplicably disappointed, though she wasn’t sure why.

Then two hands coved her eyes .

And she turned around, and there was Josie.

‘Gosh! I am so glad that you came back, did you miss me?’

By the toothy knowing grin on Josie’s face Suza deemed the question rhetorical, and reciprocated the smile but said nothing.

They walked across the bay to the dunes, whereon finding a little green boat named “Bombs Away” they sat down inside it. And face to face talked at length in getting to know one another.

‘Where is it that you are from, Suza? You don’t speak with the Geordie dialect.’

 ‘With parents from both sides of the river, I’m a fiercely proud Geordie. I live with Mum in a downstairs council flat on Meadowell estate, just along the road in North Shields.’

’Oh! Poor you.’

‘Poor me?’

‘One only meant that, even I a stranger here have heard negative stories about Meadowell, and you somehow don’t fit in there.’

‘You’re listening to the wrong stories, I love it there.’

‘Name two things that you love.’

‘I can name more.’

‘Please do.’

‘I love that every street and avenue on the estate is named after a tree: Hawthorn Gardens, Blackthorn Grove, Laburnum Avenue, Cedarwood Crescent, etcetera. I love love that the local park has a clock-face flowerbed that each year for all the flowers’re interchangeable, points to three o clock in summertime for always. When our neighbours hung their walls with Hal and Da Vinci portraits, and cross swords and shields hang above each doorway; and didn’t care that the quasi nobility all comes from Woolworths. For I love the obligatory bowls of plastic fruit polished to shining with Pledge on the sideboards. I love the vases overspilling with plastic red and yellow roses in pride of place on the windowsills, (1 Free With A Box Of Daz) generating stockpiles of soap powder in cupboards, before those roses were no longer there for the picking. And the florid floribunda flocked wallpaper and faded ex-shop-window-display Toile de Jouy curtained, purchased on Provi’ tickets at the end line sales at Binns and D. Hill Carters. And moreover I love my neighbours, who work hard every hour God gives to furnish their little palaces, who have never been anything but kind to me.’

‘Gosh! That is a thought provoking picture you paint and a rather beautiful one too, Suza.’

‘Consider it as one I painted earlier, as I’ve just quoted the beginnings of a school essay I started a year ago.’

Josie laughed, and said:

‘You little cheat, you had one quite going there. Did you finish the essay? I should love to read it.’

‘No, but the subject we’d to write about was “Working Class Values”, a tad too provincial for your delicate sensitivities anyways.’

‘One shall pretend not to have heard the skit in that remark, minx. You have a decidedly Welsh musicality in your stanza and delivery, do you have Welsh blood, Suza?’

‘Not a drop but I’ve been surrounded by it all my life.’

‘Cryptic. Define, surrounded by?’

‘Not when you sound like a teacher.’

‘ …. We, ahem don’t like teachers?’

‘We, me, one, myself, I and moi, do not. Anyways Jos, what was your first impression of Tyneside? Of which there’s much-much more to, than Meadowell. ’

 ‘Warts removed or Warts and All?’

‘The full Cromwell.’

‘Hmm, we don’t happen to have an essay conveniently tucked in the pocket of one’s mind, so let one see …………………………………………….’

‘Spill.’

‘Do keep it in mind that one’s views have somewhat changed since ..’

Suza fixed Josie with a look.

‘Ok, as you insist. One’s first impression on driving through Tyneside, was of backlanes strung end-to-end with washing lines hung with laundry, grubby unkempt snot-nosed children running uncontrollably through the streets shrieking, packs of barking shitting mongrel dogs. And jabbering women pouring out of factory gates wearing headscarfs and hair-culers in clouds of Woodbine smoke, one had to close the car window against. One was not, to say the least impressed, and wondered what on earth mother was thinking of in moving up here.’

 ‘Well, three or so years ago I was one of those snot nosed children dancing round washing lines, and our Butch one of those barking sh….ng dogs. Still is, actually.’

 ‘Good golly gosh! One meant no offence in that, and the inference was not that you lack culture and class, Suza. On the contra ..’

 ‘No offence taken. However I do not, or have ever subscribed to the nonsensical concept of the British class system. Believing unequivocally that all mankind’s created equal. With the exception of the Ruling Classes ergo the Hunting Classes, who’re monstrously unevolved.’

Josie, who was blooded at the ripe old age of three, and had riding and hunting in her D.N.A., felt suddenly dry mouthed, and with bated breath asked:

 ‘Ew! Why sew?’

Conscious that her voice had shot up a number of octaves and if it shot up any higher, Butch and his pack of merry shitters would hear her.

And as she’d quickly come to expect, Suza answered candidly sew:

Suza observed in Josie a classic raging southern snob, but a likeable and immensely interesting one. So she put off her idea to get on her bike for a little while, amused at watching clever-clogs making one faux pa after another, and enjoying the sound of dropping clangers.

Girls to Josie, were as prolific and easy for the pickings as the pebbles on the beach, and she’d picked them on every beach across the world from Ipanema to Saint Tropez. Her charm offensive never failed, her intellect never failed to impress, and her beauty never failed to stun. Sooner or later she’d discard them and brush her hands clean of guilt like sand-grains through her fingers, leaving none to hold her heart. And the girl up on the cliffs, on that chilly little bay overshadowed by ruins and rocks, in the far frozen North; was to be merely another conquest to warm and pass away some time, whilst her mother recuperated from an illness, having moved to Monkseaton on leaving her stepfather.

Until the day she’d got up close and Suza turned around, on the shore.

Having tossed and turned and barely slept those following days from a strange pining, the feeling was alien to her.

And as love up to then had been naught but another bloodsport, Josie was was loathe (and unaccountably afraid) to lose this love.

 ‘I bet that you have a horse, Jose.’

 ‘I most certainly do, his name is Charley, on account that he has a penchant for ..’

 ‘Barley, yeah I wasn’t born yesterday clever-clogs.’

Having been foiled, Josie pulled a gurn at Suza, that she reciprocated. And the two Quasimodos pulling their eyes down with fingers and lolling their tongues, on looking at the infantile spectacle of one another howled with laughter.

Then the mood mellowed, and Josie romantically spoke of an innate notion she felt the instant they met, that she’d known Suza all her life. From another life.

Suza’s idea of fine romance, was to tell the boy next door she’d known since seven: To stop buying soppy lockets and cards for Valentine’s Day, and mortifying her with a record called ‘Rag Doll’ for her fourteenth birthday. And to next time (if he must), bring her a nice spanner wrapped up in a great big bow or a puncture repair kit.

And doing exactly as he was bid, last Christmas he turned up at her door with a spanner in a bow, plus a puncture repair kit, and an even bigger hallmarked-locket.

Suza concluding that there’s some who just can’t be taught, continued to put up with her friend (two years older than she) in spite of his silly-self only because he was, Roddy.

And in Suza’s book that was mighty fine of her.

 ‘You’ve been quietly digging up the dirt under every tree where I live, whilst keeping shtum about that City of Gleaming Tires you’re from. So spill.’

Josie rolled her eyes skyward and lowered them back to Suza grinning, then with a raised eyebrow said:

 ‘Tut Tut!’

 ‘That isn’t an answer.’

‘There is plenty of time to talk of oneself, right now all I want to talk about and hear about, is you.’

‘Compared to what you’ll have obviously done in your life, that must make for one boring listen.’

‘Boring? Listening to you Suza, is almost like falling down the bl*#dy rabbit hole.’

‘You inferring I’m outta my tree in that smart remark?’

‘On the contrary you are very much in your tree, only the forest is on a parallel universe, where I have never enjoyed so much being. You confound one, Suzanne Eliza Llewelin.’

Suza looked at Josie quizzically, then digesting the concept of having a broader spectrum than Meadowell that went infinitely beyond the Blue Planet, smiled wide as a widemouth frog and playfully punched Josie’s nose, that Josie reciprocated with a kiss on her fingers.

A quiet pause ensued, when Josie with eyes downcast and hooded immersed herself into pensive thought, so deep and unfathomable to Suza her equilibrium countered by taking her own thought-waves in the opposite direction.

Josie silently anguished over what to tell Suza about her life, and what not to, fearing that should she know her wholly she’d look at her see everything she found abhorrent. The prospect made her feel like crying, having never cried over a girl in her life.

Staring up at the sky faraway in thought, Suza was oblivious that Josie’s deep gaze had risen and focused on her.

 ‘Penny for them?’

Suza smiled.

 ‘Do you know any, Betjeman?’ Josie asked.

 ‘Yeah, I know old “ I am dying and DONE FOR what on earth was all the FUN FOR?” ‘

 ‘ ….. Hmm, John Betjeman is one’s all time favourite poet.’

 ‘Oops!’

 ‘Anyway, ahem, there is one of his poems that whenever I think of it I see you, and when last I read it, which as it happens was last night, I thought of you. Not that one shall ever tell you which poem, you egalitarian rebellious little ..’

 ‘Phew!’

Josie stuck her nose right up-close to Suza’s and eyeballed her with an unamused glare, and Suza squinted a grimace back, and each waiting to see who could keep it up longest, they unanimously bust out laughing and rubbed their chilly noses together.

Then another quiet moment ensued, albeit a less fraught one, that was finally broken by Suza who was staring across the bay to the sea, whilst Josie contented herself with staring at Suza.

 ‘Y’know, Jos. Old Bede who penned some of the Lindisfarne Gospels up there in the Priory, deduced what pulls those waves out there.’

 ‘Pit ponies?’

 ‘The moon. And Caligula sent out his troops to stab them all.’

 ‘What, the pit ponies?’

 ‘Look clever clogs, you’re a fast learner but don’t kid a kidder. To stab the waves, of course.’

 ‘That of course, makes ahem much more sense.’

Noting the mischief in Josie’s eyes, Suza indulged her gameplay.

 ‘Of course what the emperor was really targeting, was Neptune.’

 ‘Whatever else would that batsh*t loon target.’

At which they burst out laughing again.

 ‘You know, it’s been a hoot, Jose. But I really must fly now, or Mum’s gonna kill me.’

 ‘I shall drive you home, one’s car is just parked up there.’

 ‘I have my bike.’

 ‘No problem, I shall ahem simply hoist it up on the roof-rack beside you.’

 ‘Ho-Ho, sore loser.’

 ‘And what is it, that you perceive one has lost?’

 ‘Hopefully, that mawkish malady of Betjemanitis you suffer from.’

 ‘One shall kill you for that another time, leaving you to your mother to tenderise in the interim.’

 ‘Nice!’

Josie reached into her pocket and took out a small penknife, and looking at Suza opened the blade purposefully.

 ‘My cue to go?’

 ‘Do hold on a tic, minx.’

And Josie bent down and carved something into the wooden boat, that getting the better of Suza’s curiosity, she lent over and read.

 ‘I get the “J & S”, but what does that French looking word say?’

 ‘Always.’

This love, this love is a strange love

A fated kind of gaoler

This love …

(Song Credits)

Josie’s Tune, recorded by Chris Rea

Stranger On The Shore, recorded by Acker Bilk

Rag Doll, recorded by The Four Seasons

This Love, recorded by Sarah Brightman

(Josie’s Poem to Suza)

Myfanwy at Oxford by John Betjeman

‘Sphinx the Minx’ illustration (after) Leonor Fini