Blanaid's display

We met Blanaid on the gravel path and passed over the photos for her photography display. Lovely day.

Painted my first successful oil painting, on a small plaster on wood panel. And submitted it for the Oxford House Open Exhibition. Crossed fingers. I think this may be a way of approaching the autobiographical sketches in a more substantial way. Have to prep up a few more small boards.

I really enjoyed the concert on Saturday and am hoping to take a few serious lessons with one of the sopranos who soloed. Quite excited about what I might be able to achieve with a bit of guidance and help. Maybe a solo with the choir one day.

Autobiographical sketches 82 - honeymoon in Turkey

Autobiographical sketches 81 - honeymoon in Turkey

Autobiographical sketches 80 - police at Wapping

Autobiographical sketches 79 - sieve head

Continuing the theme of men with things on their heads ...

We had great parties in the eighties. And I remember this big blond chap putting a sieve on his head pretending to be a soldier.

Autobiographical sketches 78 - elastic band man

It was in those days when you saw very vulnerable men who had survived the war wandering the streets. One chap, who was always around the bottom of Burdett Road, by the Seaman's Mission, used to always wear a brown overall tied at the middle with a rope, newspapers poking out of his boots and an elastic band around his head which secured bits of plants arranged around his dome like a natural crown.

Autobiographical sketches 74 - moving house with Anne Marie

When I swopped my Mile End flat with the Bengali family in Clerkenwell who wanted to be nearer the mosque ... Anne Marie helped me, and them, move. Thanks Anne Marie.

Autobiographical sketches 73 - tent poles

When my boyfriend and I went to Ireland we lost the tent poles on the train. A man in a back street of Dublin made us some for our ancient cloth tent. He sawed them to length. The tent never had the same stretch again.

It was too heavy anyway, what's wrong with a modern tent. Nothing, especially when it comes to carrying it.

I did have short hair then. It didn't suit me.

Autobiographical sketches 72 - Getting Married

Here's me getting married. This was the first time I got married. The second time was just very stupid. As was the first. But I shouldn't have bothered the second time as there was no point at all in that. Anyway, I was very happy the first time as you can see.

Autobiographical sketches 71 - Hong Kong

On the way back from South East Asia I went through Hong Kong. Stayed at Chungking Mansions.

My boyfriend at the time tried to smuggle watches into South Korea for some dosh while I went swimming on a roof top pool. They set off the alarms at customs and he only got a bit of money. I spent that in Hong Kong during the time he was there so it wasn't a living wage.

Anyway, we all decided to go home. I didn't like the urban life of Hong Kong after Thailand and Sumatra, I'm more of a country girl. Which is why I live in London????

Autobiographical sketches 70 - trumpet lessons

I used to learn trumpet with this brilliant player from Ghana. He was a big fan of Booker Little, who I still like enormously. I don't play the trumpet now, but I could if I wanted - just give me six months to get my embouchure back.

Because my bottom teeth are so wonky he said to me to put the trumpet against my top teeth as they are straighter.

I was always so itching to sing that the trumpet was never going to totally stick with me. It's a great thing, a great instrument to play but nothing beats the voice for me, the sensation of singing, the use of words ...

Autobiographical sketches 69 - meeting Matt first time around

Autobiographical sketches 67 - teenage trip to Hadrians Wall

Autobiographical sketches 66 - burning the dead rats

This was when I lived in Cassland Road in Hackney in a Patchwork Housing Association shared house. The woman downstairs had kept rats and being a bit of a flake, they had died when she forgot to give them water and food. Being traumatised by what she had done she just covered up the cage and put it in a corner. A few years later, we moved in and found it. So we burnt it, being a bit freaked out, rats and cage, in the back garden.

I see I have imaginatively located the Georgian architecture of Cassland Road back in some kind of nineteen seventies land, which was the domestic architecture of my formative years. Shame I wasn't brought up in a palace or in some kind of shabby chic Victoriana.

Autobiographical sketches 65 - dog tries to get ducks

Autobiographical sketches 64 - lobectomy

Autobiographical sketches 63 - goitre

Autobiographical sketches 59 - Camping in Ireland, donkey

Autobiographical sketches 58 - Camping in Ireland

Autobiographical Sketches 54 - Bolton hiking