Handsome men (a strange subject).

                                           

In my constrained opinion, the male world is made-up of 99% very ordinary looking men, 0.5% ugly men, and 0.5% good looking men. The 'ordinaries' rule; being either really ugly, or really handsome, is extremely rare.

Being one of the 99% (I don't consider myself really ugly), I have always wondered what it must be like to be 'staggeringly handsome'. Somehow I imagine it must be a burden, and I'm quite happy not to be a part of that 0.5%.

Back in the mid 60's I had an Italian girlfriend who was possibly the most beautiful woman I've ever encountered. Walking down the street with her was quite an experience. Heads turned almost constantly, and she was stared at openly by all who saw her. She enjoyed the fact that people found her beautiful, but the unwanted attention it caused troubled her hugely. It eventually paid a major role in her tragic life.

Having said that, I would quite like to be 'handsome' for just ONE day, to see what a difference it makes to daily life. I'm sure that people treat good looking people differently; one only has to witness the lives of celeb 'actors', or 'top models' to see that in action.

I'm very happy the way I am, and I very rarely look in a mirror. I couldn't give a monkey's how others see me. I have reluctantly accepted the genes that I randomly received, and just get on with it!

p.s. Trying to find an illustration for this wasn't easy. I'm no expert.

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez.

In about 1966/7, when I was managing the small 'Fine Art Gallery' in London's Devonshire St W1, I met a lady who's name was Marevna. Just by chance I was recently looking at a self-portrait by someone called Marevna; and I put two and two together!

I'm certain that she'd said she had been the wife of Diego Rivera. We had conversed in French, so I may well have misunderstood the meaning of 'femme'.

However, she was a fascinating and ebullient woman, and we spent several pleasant hours together over a period of several weeks, after which she invited me to stay at some estate in Mexico, where visiting painters were lodged in small cottages and got together in the evenings to discuss 'artistic things'.

Thanks to Wiki, I now discover that she had in fact been the 'mistress' of Rivera, and had a daughter by him.

Marie (Marevna) Bronislava-Stebelska had lived in Paris, where she met Rivera, then later in London (where I met her).

Goodness knows why she invited me to stay at Diego's estate in Mexico; I had absolutely no intention of going, and I don't suppose she had any right to invite me. Both Rivera and Kahlo were deceased by that time, and I have no idea what connection she had with his estate.

Discovering her self-portrait recently (above) brought it all back, and I remembered her well. She was much older when I met her, plumper, and more 'matronly' looking than in the self-portrait. I also remember her name as being Mar-ee-evna; now I know differently.

I wish Wiki had been around at the time; if I'd known her interesting history I would have delved!

A wee snippet of London life in the mid 60's.

Weird Weather.

Over the past few weeks we've had every type of weather imaginable; other than snow.

We've had a couple of nights of -2 C frosts, hot sunshiny afternoons, strangely warm winds, rain, drought, clear skies, cloudy skies; you name it, we've had it.

Having to cope with all that have been my newly planted tender vegetables, and I worried. The poor things were forced, for a while, to live beneath plastic pots to ward off the frosts, but I'm pleased to say they all survived.

Not so lucky were my table grapes. I only have a few eating grape vines, and they were looking really good; now they are totally frosted and it'll be Autumn 2018 before we have another chance of home grown grapes.

Otherwise the tips of the Fig trees were all nipped, but they will produce fruit I'm sure; they always do!

This time of year is always precarious, false hopes make us unwary. It pays to be vigilant in April/May. It should settle down now.

Some corner of a foreign vegetable garden.

Last year I sowed a selection of wild flowers on Monty's grave at Haddock's. This year there's been plenty of vigorous growth, but only Poppies have appeared. Goodness knows what happened to all the other varieties.

I'm writing this because I've recently noticed what I imagine is a new pet cemetery quite near to us. It is a small walled area on a rocky hillside on the edge of a tiny medieval village, with two small graves, not unlike Monty's (see below). I quite expect some child insisted its father made a special cemetery for Tiddles, or Rover.

Monty's, and the two graves above (you'd have to enlarge the photo), are reminiscent of the Late Bronze to Late Iron age 'cists' that are the simplest form of graves; a plain circle of stones covering an actual burial pit.

As long as we remember our poor old departed companions; that's all that matters. I don't think Monty would have wanted a fancy mausoleum.

For Rachel.

Certain fields around us are awash with Daisies. This is a tiny corner of one such.

EU Trade negotiations.

                                                   

With the UK still by far the biggest world-wide consumer of French Champagne (the UK drinks well over 31 Million bottles annually), one has to ask the question "How would its producers react to Britain's exclusion from the EU's 'single market', if Brussels was to play silly buggers?".

International trade is reciprocal; you buy this from me, I'll buy that from you. This applies to cars and cheese, just as it does to Champagne, and if the European market was closed to a non-EU-member such as the UK, then presumably the UK markets would in turn be closed to them. Can you imagine the wrath of Champagne producers if Brussels caused their sales to be decimated. French shotguns and muck lorries would rightly storm the Elysée Palace.

The EU has too much to lose to make irrational decisions. The EU's economy is not the best, whereas the UK has the world's 5th strongest. If VW, Audi, Mercedes, Peugeot, Fiat, Porsche, Renault, Citroen, or even Ferrari no longer had access to the UK market, they wouldn't be too happy.

So, watch your step Junkers, and tell that Matron Merkel to keep her jealousy under control; she's been making some very dangerous pronouncements recently. Bad decisions have a nasty way of bouncing back on you. The UK can just as easily buy their Fizz from the USA or Oz, and in fact the UK herself produces some of the world's finest!

As for paying the EU's £52 Billion exit fee; I think this could be paid, but only after receiving an Access Fee of £55 Billion from the EU to trade with a non-EU Britain.  What's good for the Goose....

Come on Mrs May; get your bloody iron-fisted negotiating act together, and make sure they understand what they'd be missing out on, should their exports be in any way blocked by an independent UK.

Northern or Hen Harrier.

                                

I'm not bad at identifying wild birds; they've been an interest of mine since I was quite small.

Over the past 10 years or so I've occasionally seen a hawk-type bird that kept me guessing. It flies quite close to the ground, covers a huge area very quickly, then disappears. It's been turning-up just once a year, then we don't see it again for another 12 months.

It is basically all pale grey/white, but with black wing tips. I did think it was a Goshawk, but having recently studied it quite carefully through my binoculars, I'm now 99% sure that it's a Northern Harrier a.k.a. Hen Harrier.

I'm sure it will remain in the area because this year we've seen two of them together, and presume they will breed. I do hope so, it's a stunningly beautiful bird.