Cold research

New Lockdown, Third Week, Wednesday

 

It was cold this morning and even I questioned the wisdom of wearing T-shirt and shorts with open sandals on my earlyish morning bike ride.  Admittedly, I was wearing a windcheater, mask and helmet which added to the general warmth, but my hands were definitely less than warm.  I mention this because, even when my legs are cold to the touch I do not feel too much discomfort, therefore for me to complain of the cold means that it’s, well, cold.

     It did get better during the day and we were able to have the window of the living room open without too much discomfort, but the reality of the second half of November is beginning to make itself felt.  And that is depressing because we have months of non-summer to look forward (!) to.

     The good news is that the swimming pool should re-open on Monday with the same restrictions as previously, that is, only ten people allowed into the pool during any one hour, meaning that the pool will have to keep to a maximum of two people per lane and reserving your place is essential.

     I have just checked and the booking app has the activities for Monday 22^nd of November listed, but greyed out at the moment, so they should become active towards the end of this week.  I will have to check in daily to ensure a place as, believe it or not, the 7 am slot for swimming is quite popular!

     I have to admit that it will be relief to get back into the groove of early morning swimming, as I am not the world’s greatest bed-lazer.  Although the is an initial spasm of resentment when the alarm does off at 6.15 am, it soon passes and I knuckle down to demands of the day and I think that I am becoming more or a ‘morning person’ than a ‘late night denizen’ – especially as I usually go to bed at around 10 pm nowadays!

     And perhaps the early morning start will encourage me to start filling out my notebook again.  This, of course, depends on what the swimming pool café is allowed to do.  If they can serve a limited number of patrons who sit physically distanced then that is ideal for my creative exercise.  If not, I really will have to make time to start a tradition of filling in the thing at another period in the day.

 

My Catalogue Raisonné is taking shape, and, at the moment, I am bogged down in the detail of the thing.  Getting accurate measurements and remembering (which I think I have not in my notes) that height goes before width in the dimensions of paintings and prints is a trick I should have learned by now.

     Finding out more details about the Habitat prints is becoming very difficult.  In 1999, the Habitat store in the centre of Cardiff had a scheme whereby a number of their employees were given training and the opportunity to produce a limited-edition print.  I bought three of the prints, two of which I have, and the third got lost in the move from Cardiff to Catalonia (together with a raku plate depicting fish).  I cannot fully decipher the signatures and there appears to be no information on the web about the scheme or the artist printmakers.

     Just to give you some sort of idea about the quality of the sales assistants in Habitat at the time, one of the printmakers with whom I spoke was actually a fully trained architect, but he couldn’t get work as an architect and so working in Habitat was at least in or around some sort of cutting edge design.

     I have Googled what I think the names are but have had no luck yet.  I will print out their signatures and see if anyone out there recognizes the handwriting or the signatures.   

 

 

I would dearly like to find out more about the consequences (if any) of the scheme with what happened next in these young print maker's careers.  Do get in touch if any of what I’ve mentioned happening twenty years ago rings any bells.

     And, before you ask, I have tried to contact what is left of Habitat these days, and they are only taking queries about problems in sales and delivery owing to the pressures of Covid, so no luck there.   I am patient – up to a point and will be satisfied with eventual knowledge as long as it comes soon!