Happy Easter, Pinch and a Punch, April Fool and old local pictures.

The pictures should expand with a bit of clicking on them.

The mystery of Easter has often expressed itself in strange ways to me. This certainly dates back to the days when I was a contemplative religious. The idea was that you did a fair amount of contemplative prayer, meditation type of thingy and during Easter something would sort of happen.

Some sort of manifestation of the risen lord type of kidney, I think would be favourite – although some sort of sign that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Wosisname, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Is what I generally get these days.

Anyway I had a bit of this sort of thing today. Who moved the stone? “April fool.” Only for me it was teapot timing glasses.

With the very early written versions of the new testament, the main one being the Codex Sinaiticus which was written down around 300 AD, the gospels stop at discovering the empty tomb and being afraid.

As blog followers will know I have been painting pictures of the inside of Canterbury Cathedral, however the heightened state of activity in the cathedral over Easter means that this isn’t really possible.

Painting, as I have been, in the cathedral – one slowly becomes aware what a complex and difficult management operation the cathedral is. Entrance for instance is £12.50 for a secular visit but obviously free for a religious one. The actual congregation isn’t really very big, and yet the cathedral is the centre of one of the world’s religions.

April fools jokes get more difficult every time I try, there is so much improbable reality – that we may now actually be farming spaghetti nanoscientifically, if not we probably will be soon.

Is suppose the movable feast of Easter Sunday may eventually become Easter Egg Day and even unmovable, a complex world now, miracles are commonplace but at the same time much less common.  

Canterbury for me today, family commitments, I spent some time in Electo Chocolate Cafe, which I think is the most successful winter painting locations.

I get the feeling that this may turn into a watercolour painting

On the watercolour front I have just had a bit of a run in with a tube of Winsor Red

 on the whole I would say that if a tube has 2/- written on it and won't come unscrewed, you may be best advised to leave it alone. This is an indicator that the tube dates from before currency decimalisation in 1972 and as most of the tubes from around then say 17 ½ p on them i.e. 3/6 or nearly twice as much, so a long time before, then probably the thing has developed one of the greatest forces of nature - force of habit.

I now have a strange smelling red finger that may be related to the stain in The Canterville Ghost and feel the culprit may date from Oscar Wilde's time. perhaps I need Pinkerton's Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent.