Brushstrokes of genius

I am sitting in another favourite place, with a view of great beauty from the window, looking out over the lake at the Nature Discovery Centre in Thatcham for tomorrow’s Green Halloween.  A wonderful variety of wildlife all living within yards of the lorry.  How lucky am I?  A warm log fire, food in the fridge and a good satellite signal for the tv for the Rugby World Cup final.  Just back from a walk around the lake with the dogs and a moment to write about the newly finished painting on the lorry side.

I met Rob through a friend and we were instant friends.  He is intelligent, funny and easy-going with a quiet, courteous manner.  Just my sort of person.  And a real genius with the paintbrush.  At the beginning of the season he had completed about a dozen bricks on the left hand side of the lorry and various things conspired against him completing the job until last week.  As the work then developed I could see what a great joy the end product was going to be.  Rob is a extremely talented and has not only completely captured the brief but he has also enhanced it to such a great extent.  I wanted the side to look like the back of the mansion town house my readers will know already graces the right hand side of the lorry.  Except I wanted it to be the back of a run-down tenement, so the whole lorry would be a little visual joke that onlookers would only see by walking all around it.

Rob has achieved that and more.  His trompe l’oeil painting of a brick built tenement with all sorts of wonderful things hanging off and living on the walls is a superb visual delight. He has also painted the rear of the lorry where the two pictures meet and whether you look from the posh or the down side there is no conflict.  It is clever and funny and I am so happy with the result. It is popular art of a very high calibre.

I have included a photo of it from the new side.

He has also added a range of creatures to the picture.  In total

·      A tortoise

·      A hedgehog

·      A rat

·      Two snails

·      A spider

·      A butterfly

·      A worm and

·      Seven ladybirds

adorn the ivy and the planting.  So I have a lovely challenge to children (and the child in the adults) who visit.  Find the Fifteen Fabulous Fauna.

A tin bath and scrubbing brush, dripping tap, a doorbell and postbox complete the whole picture, all of which look completely real. The bathroom window has steamed up with a message to passers-by and my real lace curtain falls seamlessly into its painted partner, so from any distance you wouldn’t know it wasn’t a real building. The wisteria is always in bloom around the bay window. 

The whole looks even better when the trailer is travelling behind.  My arrival in motorway service stations in the middle of the night brings a flurry of admiring glances.  People who I overtake and then overtake me are treated to the complete picture.  I love it.

I can’t wait till you see it for real. 

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Back to the yard

Returning to the yard after a long and very successful summer season is a real pleasure.  The place has a feeling of slight neglect with weeds and nettles poking up from corners and a bush of overripe blackberries missed and unpicked. My yoga space created last year in one corner of the workshop has cobwebs and dust and needs a good brush.  Everything in the workshop exactly as I had left it but somehow it all seems just that little bit different, as if all the tools had just been caught out in a secret dance hearing my return and hadn’t quite made it back to their original positions.

The leaf colours outside are wonderful and the sounds of crunching as I walk over the fallen ones is especially evocative.  The silence of my surroundings accentuate the small sounds inside the lorry.  The tinkle of the chandelier as I move around, the strange sad sigh my fridge door makes when I shut it, Mimi snoring on the sofa. All sounds ignored and unnoticed during the hullabaloo of summer fairs.

I love this period of reflection and review, time to think back over the highlights of the summer.

Sales of my DVD have gone well and I have received some great feedback from those who have seen it.  It will take a while before I recuperate all the investment in it but if sales continue this shouldn’t be too long.  Rhys is still entering the short version into film festivals and I will let you know how it fares.  BBC2 are showing some interest in a version of it so I will be following that up over the next few months.  I may yet become a TV star. (Be careful what I wish for.)

The show grew nicely this summer.  A couple of new venues including South Shields and Wanstead Park. The latter will become an annual event I think. The shows themselves changed in much the same way as they have always.  Gradually. I used Maff Potts’ ragtime suite as the accompaniment to a silent third show and had the great joy to work with him live at Wallingford Bunkfest. I included fire again in some shows after a year or so without it.  I’m a little ambivalent about fire in the show.  I’d love to hear what you think…

I’ve made a few changes to the lorry.  Foremost amongst these is a solar battery charging system.  Thanks to help and advice from Ralph and Geoff I have now a good quality pure sine wave 2000 watt inverter run from two leisure batteries and a large panel on the lorry roof running the system.  I discovered after a pricy mistake that a standard inverter (called a modified sine wave) doesn’t provide enough startup power for the fridge. However the pure sine wave one will and this means I can turn off the generator for long periods and run all the mains items in the lorry, including the fridge.  Ralph even found a digital meter which tells me how much power is left in the batteries.  I don’t even have to step outside to turn the inverter on as it has an inside remote switch.  I am really pleased with it and next year I plan to extend the system and add two more panels and maybe another battery, which on a hot summer day should be enough to completely power the stage and the lorry which will make me even more ecologically friendly.

Other changes too. I’ve just taken delivery of a new mattress to fit the odd space my bed takes up. The company (www.shipshapemattresses.co.uk) specialise in making odd-shaped mattresses and I’m very very pleased with the result.  It means I can spread over the whole bed and not have odd bits of foam making up the edges.  It's the most comfortable sleep I've ever had.  I even lie in bed in the morning occasionally just enjoying it.  Not something I am used to doing. Overall the lorry is becoming almost as perfect a small living space as anyone would wish for. 

The outside paint job has now taken a huge leap forward.  Rob, (who painted my silent DVD salesmen figure) has this week made significant progress with the other side and rear of the lorry.  I will wait till it is finished before I add photos, but I am thrilled with it and he is adding a wide range of delicate and wonderfully true-to-life fauna and flora to the picture.  His scene-painting experience, skills and expertise are really coming to the fore.  It really is superb.

So we’re ready for the winter, and a lot of Cat’s Paw Theatre work in the pipeline.  More about that next time.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander