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Category Archives: automaton

Automata, Blue Sky and A Song

19 Mar

Playing with automata yesterday was great fun, such intricate work.

What a glorious blue sky today. This weather vane is at Burncoose Nursery where I called in after singing to see the magnolia blooms  (nearly over) and the rhododendrons.

A good friend sent me a video of us singing this morning., Pachabel’s Canon. This is one of my favourites and one I brought to choir 13 years ago after we went to WOMAD and I learned this piece there at a workshop. I love all the parts and start with the basses, moving round all the parts and coming back to the tenors to finish. If you watch carefully , you can watch my progress!

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2026 in art, automaton, community, Cornwall, craft, environment, friendship, music, nature, Postaday 2026, singing

 

Plants, Automata and Pancake Day

04 Mar

What a beautiful day in every way! The sun shone and the sky was blue. I met friends at Community Roots where we potted on lots of celery and celeriac, admired our growing tomato plants and laughed along with the team. Later I visited the Contraptions exhibition, we met two enthusiastic young gardeners, a friend called round with some books to swap and finally I made pancakes, both savoury stuffed and, to finish, CrĂŞpes Suzettes.

Salad leaves

Baby tomatoes, many varieties

 

We have a couple of Esther Smith’s pieces – I love her work.

The last remnants of the pancake batter made a rather pretty lacy pancake pattern.

 
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Posted by on March 4, 2025 in art, automaton, community, Cornwall, environment, friendship, growing, nature, Postaday2025, volunteering

 

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Hares and Trees

18 Nov

I thought I would show you one of my favourite pieces today, a kinetic sculpture made by a local artist, Esther Smith. When the handle is turned, the hares race around  inside the grove of trees. I love it.

 
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Posted by on November 18, 2024 in art, automaton, Postaday 2024, sculpture, Uncategorized

 

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Lost Words, Shadow and Relief

10 Jun

I have just finished reading one of the most enjoyable and pleasing novels I’ve read in a long time. Someone on our Italian trip was reading it and recommended it. She was right.
“The Dictionary of Lost Words” is an imaginative and engrossing story about words, language, love and loss all tied up in the life of a growing-up narrator who is five years old at the start in 1886 and helping her “Da’ in the Scriptorium. The novel ends in the 1920s as the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

The evening sun makes lovely shadows above the mantlepiece – here of a beautiful piece of Esther Smith’s work, an automaton of a Hare and a flower.

We have had a torrid three weeks with a medical problem hanging over me. Today, it has been resolved and all is well, much to our enormous relief.

 

 
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Posted by on June 10, 2024 in art, automaton, books, Celebration, Happiness, Postaday 2024, sculpture, Uncategorized

 

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