It's 1969 and 1926 here at the bookshop in King Street Ramsgate and about 1180 in Canterbury Cathedral

 So here is the King Street bit for 1969

and for 1926.

Sketching in Canterbury for me today, hence a couple more Kelly's Directories for Thanet.

I have started paining another watercolour sketch in the cathedral, this is from sitting in the chancel looking up the north west transept.

I started painting the round window and the bits around it today.

I decided to use a whole sheet of watercolour paper which is a little bit smaller than A1 size, I have to cart this around rolled up in a tube that straps on my back. A bit like a quiver although I am too old and wearing too much to be mistaken for Cupid.

I painted my first large A2 (half as big) watercolour sketch from seat about 2 years ago 

 Some people like it and some don't, for anyone interested in the painting I was doing in Canterbury about 2 years ago here is a link to a page of progress photos

The quiver wosisname worked fairly well, at one point the end fell off, but repaired with a bit of string. I was a bit worried about what to rest the paper on, my A3 sketchbook opened out to A2 and resting on my legs and the back of the chair in front of me worked OK.

If you want closeups and/or more photos of Canterbury and my activity there today this is the link to the photos on my camera card

I was amazed at the number of empty retail units in The Butter Market, photos in the photos.

Arabella Dorman artist, Canterbury Cathedral, Mrs Organ Morgan’s Dreams, old Thanet photos, cold weather, some sort of Sunday Ramble

 I am starting with pictures of the frozen sea at Ramsgate and Margate in 1963.

If you were a child in 1963 then the very cold winter with the very deep snow is something that you probably remember. Useful in a way as it serves as a definite time marker in childhood memories. I would guess the cold snap over the next few days will be the end of winter and I doubt the sea will freeze.

Canterbury today, my plan – which started reasonably well was to go to the cathedral and carry on painting my watercolour in the North Chancel Transept aka the martyrdom.

This really is a spot the difference as after not very long the organ started and the music being played was what I loosely describe as modern classical, the organ sound comes out of the pipes and the loudspeaker system – a wall of sound. When it’s loud people give up on trying to speak in the cathedral and resort to signals in the way they do in an iron foundry. Music isn’t something I understand and without a recognisable tune, I do a runner; which I did.

The visual artwork in the cathedral at the moment is hanging clothes.

I am a painter and my views on installation art are generally left like Mrs Organ Morgan’s dreams; silent. I publish plenty of pictures but talking about it is not my bag.

But this one is different as the clothing once belonged to refugees, mostly left on the Isle of Lesbos and so I concede that the exhibition works and is very much worth seeing, feeling if you can.

Here is the link to the blurb on the Cathedral’s website https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/whats-on/news/2018/02/15/suspended-cathedral-to-host-unusual-artwork/

The artist can paint and draw too, here is the link to her website http://www.arabelladorman.com/work/

Some photos of this today on my camera card, here is the link http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/218l/id8.htm  

Cathedral entrance is £12.50 which if you gift aid it lasts for a year, alternately if you attend a service you can get in for nothing. The sung services 11am mass and evensong which is around 3 on Sundays have a very good quire. 

Next the rest of the old Thanet pictures 

The only one that said anything on the back was this one from 1909

 This is Grange Road in Ramsgate and I would guess from the hats Edwardian, late 1890s to 1915

These two after and before the shopfronts of York Gate in Broadstairs may interest some

I went out into Canterbury in search of noise cancelling headphones, but failed to get any - is powerful enough the right word?

Phone photos next

Canterbury once a week, for me and many other people who live in Thanet is basically because of Westwood Cross, which is the out of town shopping centre that devastated Margate and Ramsgate town centres.

So as I am essentially forced to go there so that my family can engage in shopping combined with an environment that is visually pleasing, the alternative would be painting pictures of Westwood Cross. I did try this for a bit - but you know how it is.

This really comes down to shops and particularly the chain shops being part of normal human leisure activity for a great many people.

Obviously working in a shop, as I do with the bookshop I am very aware of changes in retail, something that I think is very worrying is that during the last couple of years Canterbury has lost a huge amount of retail space, the two that most impact on me are the St Margaret's Street Waterstones which I think was the largest bookshop in Kent and Chromos which I think was the largest artists material shop in Kent.

For any dedicated followers of the bookshop here in ramsgate here is the link to the pictures of the books we put out Saturday.

On the tower pumper windmill front here is the conclusive proof that this is Margate the Google Earth link to the picture of the house in the photo, which is till there. 

The Dark Tower in the Bookshop

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” - Jane Austen