Rock of ages......

I read with interest that Bryan Ferry, 66, the rock god with the matinee idol good looks and Roxy Music’s frontman, has married for the second time. Shame, I'd pencilled him in as a possible. Anyway, it turns out that this time around Bryan has married a woman he was apparently introduced to by one of his sons, Amanda Sheppard, 29. About the age gap he has said:

“You never meet people your own age who aren’t married. Unless they are divorcees knocking about, that sort of thing.”

What does that mean? Is he himself not a divorcee?

I went out with a divorcee the other day, H, 56, he was knocking about on the internet. Like most things from the virtual world of the webb, the picture of H hid more than it revealed. About 10lbs more. The evening we met was particularly cold and he wore a large puffy jacket. H is a director and I recognized the coat as the sort of thing one wears on location, or up the Eiger. Usually these warm but heinous garments are black. This one was cream so H resembled a sort of grubby Michelin Man.

“Any good with zips?” he asked.

He had got himself trapped in his anorak.

“Oh good he said,” when he was finally released, “we’ve got 15 minutes, can I get a chocolate malt?”

I was so completely taken aback by this request I just nodded.

“Great, do you want one?”

I didn’t. We walked around the corner to Ed’s Diner to get one for him. He chatted 19 to the dozen, that's OK I thought, nerves?

"Are you sure you don't want one?" he asked.

I still didn't. I wanted a vodka and tonic. Then he ordered two chocolate malts. Oh, I thought he has bought me one, that is kind of sweet. But no. They were actually both for him. He then asked me if I’d liked the movie, 'Sideways'.

“I loved it." I replied, "It’s one of my favourite.”

H hated it. How can you hate ‘Sideways’? I kind of knew he would hate the movie I’d chosen for us to see, ‘The Artist’. He did.

I wonder how long my date would last if I rock up, over weight, clutching two milkshakes? Age seems to bring with it a gross imbalance of effort between the sexes. Maybe I should try Bryan Ferry’s approach…...

And here is a picture of Howath in West Yorkshire, the closest place I could find amongst my snaps to Hockney country.

Top tip: do what ever it takes to get yourself down to the Royal Academy of Art to see David Hockney: A Bigger Picture.......... there are no words, un-missable........ if it doesn't raise your spirits you have no spirits. It's because of him I went to art college and set my life on it's course.....

Date.....line.......

Just before Christmas I had a haircut: a cute bob, very French, very Louise Brooks. It was well received by family and friends. It worked with both a smokey eye/nude lip look and a flash of liner and a full-red-call-me-Marilyn pout. I was tres pleased. I was also pretty happy at the thought of a date with a prospective beau, v tall, v handsome, I'd met after, and I'm sure because of, the haircut. So happy, in fact, that I was still smiling after reading a text he’d sent while walking to the art shop to buy supplies to make Christmas cards with (4 years at art college not wasted……). I was doing the flash of liner and full-red-call-me-Marilyn pout look that day, the bob gleaming in the winter sun, and as I passed a man walking towards me……50-something, tall, slim, full-head of greying hair…….he smiled at me smiling. I went into the shop. I stood before a vast array of art materials making my choices when I realised the man from the street was now in the shop. I made my purchases. He bought a pen. We left together.

“Are you an architect?” he asked.

I’m not. He was. He asked if I worked near-by. I do. He asked if I go to the pub on the corner where everyone goes. On occasion I do. He asked if I’d like to go there for a drink, gave me his card, said give him a call. I didn’t.

That was then, this is a new year. The date that gave me a smile ended with a frown and so when I saw the architect’s card on my desk I thought, why not? Now, I did think it through, I did Google the practice, I did establish it was in fact his and I decided it was unlikely he was an axe murderer. I also wondered why he’d assumed I was single. And whether he was.

I called him. He did remember me. He was delighted. Happy new year....... We met that evening. In the pub on the corner. 6.30pm. He bought me a vodka & tonic. He was married. But his wife didn’t understand him. I did though. I finished my drink, suggested he explain the problems he had with his wife to his wife and got the bus home.

And this is a picture I once took of a boat on a beach in Goa.......just to remind us that somewhere else the sun is shining, the weather is hot, the sea sparkles silver in the morning and ripples gold in the evening........ and because now I can upload pictures I shall.......

Top tip: don’t talk to strangers……

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb......

As I have reported previously on these pages, I am not a natural gardener. But having had a modicum of success with tomatoes and rocket and basil and coriander last year, I thought, hoped, that fruit and veg maybe where my green fingered talents lay. So, my gardening friend gave some plants to plant. The ruby chard started well and then sort of died. The brussel sprout has done anything but, the kale started well but has stopped and the cauliflower is all cauli and no flower. But the rhubarb has thrived. I was told the two types, the names of which I now forget, needed to winter before they could be picked and crumbled, roasted, fooled, whatever..... and low, through the dank soil they continue to poke and bloom.....

Grow my pretties......

Doctor, doctor I I've got rhubarb

Don't' worry you can get cream for that.....

Rain lashed London shone in the bright morning sunlight. Stick trees poked the high blue sky through thin chilled air. On the bus I saw a baby cocooned in his buggy, nothing but his round, hairless head poking out. He had the look of a man of 80 rather than his 18 months, I domed forehead, knowing blue-grey eyes, a down-turned mouth slow to smile a toothless grin. He peered about him with a world weary gaze. The bus stopped to let a funeral procession pass: 4 large long black cars following a hearse containing a giant, wicker eco-coffin, a coffin-shaped, man-sized, moses basket with a lid with toggles to keep it fastened....from the cradle to the grave......

Top tip: Go see The Artist........I'm not sure it's quite 'the greatest movie ever' but it's delightfully charming and very beautiful.....

Merry Christmas everyone.......

As we hurtle towards 2012 I have taken a moment to stop and wonder .......2011 has not been a great year. More a year of loss than gain, of too much death and disappointment. But then I got to thinking and looking at pictures and actually there were a lot of other things that happened too.........

Like it snowed a lot......

and I went to France......

and I went to Argentina.......

and walked on a glacier in Patagonia......

and went for a drive in Salta.......

and stayed in a beautiful Finca........

and had a coffee in Buenos Aires.........

and saw Patti Smith sing.........

in Amsterdam........

and grew my own radishes...........

and went to France again..........

and hung around the pool...........

in the hot sun........

and got to write a lot.........

and ate homemade crumpets with jam and cream and a glass of Prosecco in Dorset......

and got these in the secret Santa.....

and finally learnt how to upload a picture on my blog........

And I thought, there's quite a lot to be thankful for really......... so Merry Christmas everyone.......

Top tip: count your blessings!!

A Christmas cracker......

I know we're dashing through December ..... if not through the snow.....but I'm not really feeling it this year. I don't care who knows if I've been naughty or nice, sleigh bells can ring I'm not listening and baby, I don't care if it's cold outside.

I went to Judith Owen and Harry Shearer's Holiday Sing-Along and sang-along......... glorianaing and jingle-belling and walking in a winter wonderland; I've bought my card to make Christmas cards, started hiding presents under jumpers and in the back of my closet where I shall forget I've put them and just baked my second batch of mince pies in three days (pastry from scratch, mincemeat from a jar..... life's too short) but still, it's not beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I've bought a large, pink, not-actually-Victorian glass bauble and am wearing my Sarah Lund meets Santa, Killing sweater in strawberry with a pink, green and yellow pattern, and have collected jars to fill with homemade chilli jam (so much easier to make than it sounds) to give as gifts and am drinking whisky and ginger to get into the spirit.......any spirit. But the spark and glow of yuletide has yet to burst forth and rise up from the ashes of Christmas past, fill my empty stocking-of-joy and raise a cup of cheer to one and all. Hopefully the cold snap of a turkey drumstick, crackle of re-gifted wrapping paper and pop of fizzy wine will fill the bleak mid-winter air and soon I will begin to feel a lot like Christmas.

Did anyone see Black Mirror: The National Anthem, Sunday night, Ch.4 ? I've never been much of a fan of Charlie Brooker, who wrote it, till now: it was brilliant. Fabulously acted by Rory Kinnear and Lindsay Duncan, this pig's tale of the unexpected had me squealing in hysterics and horror. Go watch it again if you missed it.

Top tip: Mrs. White's Physick Rose Youth Serum, it's utterly delicious.