400th Birthday

For me, it passed quietly, but there were grand goings-on today celebrating Bermuda's 400th birthday.

Let's see - some quick catch-up. A wonderful 6 hour painting workshop last weekend, held at the Bermuda Society of Arts in City Hall. The teacher is visiting from England, and has a farmhouse in Spain at which she conducts well priced workshops - that goes on the to-do list. There were 15 in class, of varying competency levels, and - as always - a lot of the enjoyment comes out of seeing how every one else handles the subject. The topic was 'luminosity' in watercolor painting, and we worked from some simple exercises to reproducing images from photographs she had copied for us. I can't say I was especially enamored with any of the subjects, but that was not the point. Felt I learned a lot, and it was rather like 'old times' - my drawing and painting classes in Florence.

I think I could do that endlessly.

The teacher bragged on her squirrel hair brushes, saying how much she preferred them to other natural and synthetic fibers, warning they hold a lot more water and so you have to get used to using them. Emma, who took the class with me, checked out the artist's equipment while on one of our breaks and estimated the minimalist subset of brushes she'd brought with her probably represented about $300 of gear.

Being such a neophyte, I hadn't realized I had any squirrel hair brushes, until I talked with Trevor. He pointed out that some he had given me were in fact squirrel hair. Woo hoo! Stuff to play with!

This is a long weekend holiday - Cup Match, a traditional cricket tournament, this year in St. George's, for some or all of the 4 days. Supposed to be rather wild...

We've a new hire (asst code enforcement officer, who , it turns out, is both an ex-postman and an ex-cop, and so knows the island fairly well. No code enforcement experience tho; he is trying to wrap his head around what we do and how he fits in to it. At present he is lodged in one of the minuscule cubbies so many of staff are in; however, since a new Asst Director is to arrive sooner or later, a rearrangement is in the works. Last I heard I move across the hall and into the Ministry's offices in a couple weeks. It is a short term solution while they get the space converted over - the intervening wall will be removed and the space redivided, but not for a while and it will be a disruption while that is going on. I'm tapped because I'm not in need of oversight, and considered pretty much unique in that regard. However, I will miss the company of my coworkers - since the kitchen is across the hall from me, I see most folks at least once during the day.

Stumbled onto a state funeral last week; the Health Minister had died while in the US of a heart attack. Seems to have been a popular fellow. The honor parade, with musicians and honor guard in striking uniforms, the funeral cortege drawn by horses, the family and friends following on foot, made the 6 or 8 block trek from what is called Alaska House to the Cathedral, past Parliament and past my office building. The funeral was taking place at 1, so when I dashed out for errand running at lunchbreak I found myself on packed sidewalks and in solemn-faced company. The funeral was aired on loudspeaker. Coworkers were taking photos and have promised digital copies; I'll post some once I have those.

I think that is it for right now. I'll look back at some of the more recent photos and see if there is anything to post for visual interest...

Site visits

I've needed to get to these sites for a while, and finally today, after work, I took a bus to the stop nearest these 3. Ramgoat Hill is a relatively steep haul; I had two sites on that roadway, one a minor set of additions, the other rather site-overwhelming new development. Spoke a while with the neighbors for that one - 3 generations gathered around the plan set, the babies immediately picking out the proposed pool, the adults the very full site - the only way the building fits is b skewed diagonally on the site-, the grandmother noting there was at least 10 feet of fill on the site, and cracks in the rock cut and retaining wall were worrying her before any work started.

For some reason soil compaction testing is a novel idea. Granted, most building sites are rock (altho there is sandy dissolving nonload bearing rock and good solid stuff), but filled sites I wouldn't want to put 3 stories of housing on without knowing a lot more about what I've got.

They've got a lovely site to live on, tho.

Since pictures from the sites themselves are unlikely to be of much general interest, I'm posting a few of sights along the way, including the rather lovely, tiny John Smith's Bay, a few hundred feet from my house - 3 bus stops, perhaps half a mile or maybe a bit more. IF the walking was easier - you are in the road nearly all the time, and traffic can be a bear - I'd spend time there. As it is, I've walked past it but not spent any time actually at the beach there.

Well, now - that's different!

We have a holiday coming up, and as these things do, meetings and deadlines get pushed around to accommodate it. Actually, that isn't correct - the meetings get canceled if there is not a quorum that will attend.

So, naturally, I wondered what was meant by a 'quorum' for our 10 member Development Applications Board. I'm used to it meaning a majority of the appointed body. Apparently, the definition doesn't require that to be the case (according to Wikipedia), and I had to go to the Planning and Development Act to locate the Bermuda definition.

Surprise! A quorum is a majority of the members currently present on the island, but not in any case less than 4.

And a decision is determined by the majority of the votes of those present.

Except in the event of a tie - when the chair, or designated stand-in, gets to vote twice.

So a project can be approved, or denied, by 2 people of a 10 member board.

Wow.

A bit of exercise

It is Saturday, so I have my painting class, the highlight of my week. Wish I was much better at this than I am, and wish I'd gotten in to it long ago so I might be better now! It is a test, each project, and I love it.

Today poor Emma was trying to help me with perspective. I 'get' it, but I'm rather analytical about it, have to work at it, and I'd very much like to get to where it comes more readily and naturally. It is one of those 'know it when you see it' - or, even more, when you don't - kind of things - you know something is off, but you can't quite figure out what. Arg! But today's efforts went well.

I used much of the rest of the day to visit sites for which I have applications to review. It would, of course, be easier with a car or bike, but that is not my reality so bus and foot it was! Did mean I got a fair amount of uphill and downhill hiking in today - and more in the morning, if it isn't raining then.

Bermuda really is a small place, and a friendly one. Today provided an example of that. My bus driver on the #3 route, from Swizzle Inn to Mosquito Hill/Bridle Hill, was a social sort, and we chatted away til we reached the stop I wanted to get off at. After my site visits, I walked from Middle Road to North Shore on Store Hill (you are following along on your maps, right?) - buses there run every 15 minutes, while they are hourly on Middle Road. While waiting for the next bus into town, one heading away from town beep-beeped at me - it was the same driver, now driving the #11 route. I hopped on my bus, rode til the point nearest my next designation, walked the distance to two more sites and the hardware store I wanted to visit on St. John's Road and Bakery Lane, then, walking back into town, there he was driving the #4 route, and beeping and waving like a crazy man. The coincidence obviously tickled us both.

A productive if low-key day...the sort of day where you notice the rainbow in front of the one billowing white cloud in the very blue sky, and the new crop of tiny baby chicks tootling along behind their mom. Walking lets you notice the scents - the jasmine, for instance, just lovely.

a few more, and finally a basically finished piece

Another lovely day at the studio (I hadn't labeled them but three or four of the pictures posted last night are at the studio, so there you have a sense of how i spend my Saturday mornings!) I need to do something more with the fern-flocked light fixture over the doorway, but otherwise it is as done as I'll get this version. I'd posted the earlier, minus door and sky, version yeseterday.

And some others, no particular theme, tho I seem to take photos of flowers and plants a lot.

Three of us today, Win with her oils - or possibly acrylics, not sure, Liz today producing a really nice drawing. All 3 of us incline towards overworking a piece; I think I'm a little less so, but I do get fussy. Lovely ladies all. I'm the baby of the bunch, a nice change.

Warm and humid; temperatures in NC have been higher, humidity here has been higher. Yuk.

Hi, Gang!

It has been a while since I've managed to eke out some time to write up anything to post - and this won't be a long one.

Part of it has been work-related. I've a number of cases, and don't seem to move thru them as fast as I'd like. Our intake system leaves a great deal to be desired, which doesn't help, and I honestly don't think I'm that much slower than everyone else - I do end up with a lot of non-case assignments and meetings. Anyway, I end up dragging stuff home.

I've given myself a deadline for the last time I'll do that, tho; I need the down time to recoup, and I'd like a life outside work again. Sounds familiar, I know.

Lovely having visitors for a week-long stay; unhappily for them their stay started out with a day of heavy rain, and more days of off and on rain. Happily for me, that meant they stayed at the apartment the first day, which meant they were on hand to mop up the water streaming in from the suddenly badly leaking roof. They spent the day putting down beach towels to soak up the drips (and sometimes water sluicing down the wall, not dripping), wringing them out, tossing them in the dryer and putting them down again in what was probably about an every half hour schedule. The power bill will be enormous; I've already warned the landlord I will be handing the abnormal part of it to him.

This did require moving everything out of my bedroom closet, and washing/drying a certain amount of that, which had gotten soaked in some unsuspected leaks - quiet ones, since they were dripping into all this soft cloth.

(A week later, the landlord did show up and patch the cracks in the stone roof. He hasn't been inside to repair damage inside, but he was shown some of the areas. We have had two days with torrential, coming-in-sideways rain showers that ran for 10 to 20 minutes, and it seems to have passed that test - tho there is something weird going on in the closet, still to be checked out.)

However, that perhaps balanced with the good times they had. I did have a friend do portraits of them; we did all attend my painting class; we had a grand last night's dinner at a restaurant on Front Street, with some terrific appetizers and soups. We did get to the exhibits at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute - they've a Titanic program on right now, and they were taken with a show at the National Gallery.

They did, however, delete all my pictures of them off my camera. Phooey.

I'm happy with painting class, and while I don't manage to finish a thing, I've some partly-done studies I'll post. It is a learning process. I fight it a bit - that taste for precision and tight focus is not necessarily best expressed in watercolor - but it is all good for me. Emma is a dear.

I did have a quickie checkup today establishing a relationship with a doctor on island in case of future need. Since I haven't been to a doctor or had a checkup of any sort since I left Durham in 2004, I have a bunch of tests to go thru, all that 90,000 mile checkup stuff - bone density, mammogram, colonoscopy, bloodwork, etc, and a thorough checkup. That comes up in late August and September.

My focus is drifting off to the work I've brought home, already, so I will end this. Back later! No particular rhyme or reason to the pictures - my efforts at watercolor painting, clouds, whatever. I haven' taken a lot of pictures that don't involve water damage lately.