Morning all I know I'm late, but nevertheless time to clock the silver linings and positive moments from the last 7 days.
So last Friday me and hubby decided to head to Sheffield, we had had the Pete McKee exhibition at the Weston on our calendar for an age, so we thought we'd make the most of a lovely dry spring day to head up there and we were not disappointed. The exhibition is called 'The boy with a leg named Brian' after a pair of hand me down trousers were worn by Pete as a boy with a patch on one leg that said the name Brian and he was asked what the other leg was called.
Growing up in a similar era in a town nearby, there were so many cross overs from my own childhood and I've always loved his style of art, very distinctly Pete McKee
The artwork of the local Green Un sporting newspaper that was always on the bar at my Grandma's pub on a Saturday night.
Painting of John Burkhill known as the The man with a Pram who has raised over a £1 million for McMillan over the years.
The water feature in the Peace Gardens where you see kids playing in summer.
A pair of home made samba trainers - the lines being added with Tippex back in the day
The Klix drinks machine, I have two strong memories of these, the one at the swimming baths where my Dad would treat me to a hot chocolate after swimming, he used to use his empty cup to tip the drink from one to another to make sure it was cool enough for me. The other is the drinks machine at school, I couldn't afford a drink from it as my Dad was unemployed at the time, but I did get free school meals, so I used to buy my ploughman's sandwich and two packets of biscuits, one for me and one for my bestie and then she would give me the money for the biscuits so I could have a drink from the drinks machine like everyone else.
Space invaders, hubby and I had a go on it it was good fun
and the painting
A great poem about Scalextric and toys at the time, being a girl I had a different list to Pete's list but I certainly recognised the things he had written about
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The Fletcher's bread van, it used to park just around the corner and you could walk and get a loaf of bread, when I moved to Stafford in the early 90s I got a bus into town, I giggled when the bus turned up as I was sure it was the same as the Fletchers bread van but with seats in it.
Alpine pop, we only had it for a short spell, the lads delivering on a Saturday used to run down the passage between the terraced houses with a crate of pop and deliver it, we couldn't afford it long term, but it certainly brought up some happy memories.
The horse from Castle Market
and the painting of Pete on it with his Mum
Button tins, my Mum's tin was smaller and always had the odd pack of needles in there so you daren't push your hand in for fear of being caught by the needles.
Top deck of the bus at the front, the best view
Kids enjoying the catch up the grown ups had (not).
I don't ever remember bathing in the sink, but I do remember my Mum laying me down on the draining board whilst she washed my hair in the sink, my hair was so long I could sit on it at the time, so it was always a mammoth task getting it washed.
The boy with a leg named Brian
Outside we got to see the 'Little Pete' statue, its a shame they didn't do small paintable miniatures of it (because I would definitely have bought one) if I'm honest, but they did do a hard back book of the whole Pete McKee exhibition which may have had to come home with me.
We then walked into town down West Street into town and headed to the Millennium galleries, I treated myself to a much sort after Phlegm art book (which is signed - win win) and then we enjoyed the exhibitions.
We weren't big fans of the John Hoyland paintings, just not my cup of tea, I didn't mind this one
We had a selfie in front of this one
and another
Like I said - strange
Mmmmm hubby was unimpressed
but then we went through into the other exhibition space that had been based around some strange John Hoyland ceramics called 'these mad hybrids' and had paired them with other strange artwork which we loved.
I loved the face
this huge tufted artwork
strange little ladders
and this giant furry sculpture
John Hoyland's work
and these, we'd seen some of this work before at Graves Gallery
this reminded me of an American footballer
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then we headed over to Graves Gallery for our final art fix
I loved this oil painting of Venice
But loved the Sheffield scene even more
A close up of the house, the colour way makes it seem very forboding
Which was in direct contrast to some of the artist's other work
We enjoyed a coffee at Zoobies and then headed back on the tram.
Saturday we headed over to my sisters for an epic build and paint session. Hubby set too building her new wardrobes and we set to painting her spare room, which was rather full so we had to work around the room. But we did it, then her old wardrobe was moved into her spare room and then we set to on the bathroom which was something of a disaster because we were almost at completion when she said she didn't like it. She had chosen a green colour, but it was quite dark unfortunately. I believe since then she has repainted it back to white, so at least it prompted her to get it sorted.
Sunday was a day of rest as we were both absolutely shattered, we enjoyed a lazy day, book reading and watching films and I did some scrapbooking.
The rest of the week has been a blur of work (hence my tardiness).
We did however go to the local theatre to see the Full Monty by a local amateur dramatics group, can I just say there are some very brave actors out there! As most of you will know the film is set in Sheffield because that is where the story originated (based on real life events), the musical however has been set in America, so it lost some of its fun local element if truth be told, but it was very good nevertheless and yes they did go the full monty - thankfully the person on the lighting desk was very quick to turn them off at the critical point
I hope you've had a good week too.
Hugs
