how to get rich quick - I have solved it at last

Transition 2 © Caroline Fraser

I have work hanging in Rye Art Gallery.

It looks great.

But unless someone buys it I will be seriously out of pocket.

But do not fear, reader dear.....

I have found a solution.

A way to earn £150 per hour.

That's 30 of these little blue things.

HOW? I hear you ask.

Well here is the secret....

my OH ( other half) is always losing things.

Keys, phone, comb....

Actually not phone; it is always in his pocket, just so he can check how windy it is when it seems to be windy in the garden; and then tell me that

the phone says 'it is not windy'

Even though it clearly is.

You get the picture. We have conversations like this daily.

'my phone said it wasn't going to rain'

'my phone says it should be sunny'

The phone is really extraordinarily useful.

BUT NOT AS USEFUL AS ME

While I am busy thinking about how art looks better in white spaces and not on a  crummy table in a college exhibition space, OH has lost his shirts.

my rose, someone else's chair

TWO OF HIS FAVOURITE SHIRTS

my lake picture, someone else's sofa

I am tired of listening to this stream of lost things.

I decided to offer cash to find the shirts.

£5 to be precise.

He agreed. I wandered upstairs and found said shirts in his wardrobe, within a minute. Back down in two.

HOW DID YOU FIND THEM? I LOOKED THERE THREE TIMES?!

What can I say?


I just took the money, and ran.

my rose, someone else's sofa and another someone else's sofa

All I need now for him to lose something every 2 minutes and I'll be off on that dream cruisebefore he even has time to check the weather.

on entering my second childhood - barbie dolls and bird stones

Primrose

Other half (OH) is getting worried about me.

I have spent my weekend collecting stones and leaves. Stones that look like eggs and stones that have faces. Camber Sands has a plentiful supply, and unlike shopping, stone hunting costs nothing. It is a fine way to spend time on a lovely beach when they skies are grey and the wind is blowing too hard for making photographs.

He feels I am regressing towards five years old. Meanwhile he is advancing rapidly to adulthood, for he has a new telephone.

OH has joined the land of modern technology with a 4G mobile device. He is very pleased with it. I taught him how to send a text message. He is advancing rapidly. Soon he might learn how to take photos with it too. I have avoided upgrading my phone for fear of taking even more photos than I already do.

I haven't told him about my Barbie doll. It would reinforce his view that I am rediscovering my childhood. I found her in an Oxfam shop. She likes to go out in the garden and explore the spring flowers.

When I was 5 I didn't play with dolls, and I have never before owned a Barbie. There is only one problem; she doesn't have many clothes. She has a short skirt. And that is it. No knickers or even a brassiere. And I am not going to go and buy her any. She will have to make do with what she can find.

I chose her for her blue eyes.

Who could resist them?

she can hide behind a rock

In the interests of public decency I have fashioned a top for her.

She looks ravishing in pink.

She can look a bit 'naughty' without her top on. We won't go there. That's a very different story.

Barbie and the magnolia tree

She is hoping to feature in a book of flowers one day.

The main thing is that she injects a bit of frivolity into my 5 year old life, and fun at five is so much better than dullness in my late 'several decades after 5's.

Which brings me onto age and beauty. Barbie never ages. I sadly do.

Have you tried the new how old do I look app?

I couldn't resist it.

I was delighted to be told that I am 4 years younger than I really am. I tested it again on a second photo taken in India a few weeks earlier. That made me only 2 years younger than I really am.

I pointed out to OH that going to India added two years to my life. And it certainly felt like it.

OH pointed out that the holiday had taken two years off my life and that I was now 2 years younger as a result.

We beg to differ.



Anyway........

I shall carry on collecting stones, for that is what I do.

stone eggs

And just so that I can say to OH that I did something with the leaves that were adorning the kitchen table, here is one that looks like a fish. It is from a Magnolia Grandiflora.

leaf fish

I shall carry on playing with my barbie doll.

owl stone

And I shall carry on looking for birds and other animals.

owl

For if nothing else, it will stop me taking pictures of litter.

tree with red plastic bag

For a few minutes at least.

Until the next time.