11 minute read
John O Shea : Life after Grayshott Spa 12Local Artist: Grace Ellen 21
What advice would you give to others wanting to take up painting?
Stay true to your own style - the more you paint, the more this will emerge. If you are painting landscapes, it’s always best to either work from life or your own photographs rather than stock images you will be more invested and have a deeper understanding of the scene. Exhibit your work even if you aren’t confident with it, you get invaluable feedback and meet lots of other artists.
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How can people view your work / contact you?
I have shows throughout the year listed on the exhibitions page on my website: www.graceellenart.co.uk, as well as a web shop with all my current work. If you add your email address to my mailing list on the homepage you will receive free tickets to shows and early access to new work. I have my annual open studio in Headley Down in June and private appointments can also be made throughout the year.
Email: graceellenart@gmail.com Telephone: 07805055558 I am on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/graceellenart And Instagram: @grace_ellen_art
Galleries:
No Naked Walls
Gallery – Bramley, Surrey Forest Gallery –Petworth, West Sussex Corner Gallery –Carshalton Beeches, Greater London SOTA Gallery –Witney, Oxfordshire
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Rob Willis v1 - for JAN 2017_Layout 1 09-Dec-16 4:21 PM Page 1
What New Year Resolutions have you made? After 23 years of being involved in golf coaching, it is important for me that I continue to put myself in a learning environment. There is a small problem with my new nominated skill of gospel choir singing. When will ‘Covid19 government guidelines’ permit singing again? Hopefully this activity will be resumed, possibly mid-way throughout this year.
In the meantime, playing golf seems like a very safe activity to be involved with. My game needs quite a lot of attention. I too, like so many people, will have to tolerate the peaks and troughs of this great game when returning after quite a long layoff.
This month I would like to share with golfers and potential golfers some interesting and tricky challenges.
Challenge 1: The ‘Swing Arc’ is an essential shape of all golf motions, there are varying degrees of swing arcs from putting to the biggest golf swing which is executed through the Challenge 1 ball. It is vital that every golfer can find where the bottom of the swing arc is, whether swinging a driver, fairway wood or an eight iron.
The best drill that I know for finding the bottom of a swing arc is to use of a golf towel (or tea towel, hand towel) and any kind of plastic bottle top, as pictured here. The challenge is to take a swing at the bottle top without moving the towel. I will always remember my first attempt at this drill, the towel went as far as the bottle top. Ooops! It took quite a large number of swings before I could move the bottle top without moving the towel on the ground. There was an instant improvement in my fairway wood shots.
JANICE ARNOLD GOLF GURU Janice Arnold Golf Guru
With some clients, during a fairway wood lesson, expectations can cause many mishit fairway wood shots. If the golfer believes that they should swing their clubface under the ball, then there is very little chance of success. I call the bottom of the ball 6 o’clock, the top of the golf ball 12 o’clock, the back of the ball in either 3 or 9 o’clock. The fairway wood generally contacts the ball approximately 4 or 8 o’clock.
Taking a few swings at a small bottle top off a golf towel soon allows any golfer to find the bottle top without moving the towel. Under these conditions, there are no expectations of performance. Then I place a golf ball on the mat for the golfer to hit and it immediately improves.
Challenge 2: Putter arc. This challenge requires very good eyesight. The equipment required is a pound coin (or 2 coins on top of each other) and a putter. Putt one or two of the pounds coins across the carpet to find the bottom of the putting arc. The putter arc is very shallow and it is important that the putter swings just above the grass, consistently without making any contact with the grass itself.
Challenge 2
Recently I did a trial putting a pound coin across the floor. A few air shots later, a few scuffed strokes with the carpet but then eventually a finely tuned stroke developed. It was such fun and it will improve your focus. Give it a go in the warmth of your lounge this new year. Hole more putts in the coming months.
JANICE ARNOLD GOLF GURU Janice Arnold Golf Guru
Also available to buy are ‘Balls of Steel’, weighting 5 times the weight of a normal golf ball. This ‘Ball of Steel’ allows a golfer to find the sweet spot of their putters and instinctively improve their putting stroke.
Challenge 3: Improving Golf Body Rotation (Do not attempt with any spine issues)
In the comfort of your home, as my photograph shows, you Challenge 3 can place your forehead on a wall or closed door, taking your golf posture with your hands hanging approximately below your chin. Place the palms of each hand together, rotate and extend your arms with shoulder rotation. How far can you go back while keeping your forehead on the wall, albeit with some head pivoting. This is the first part of this challenge, the second part of this challenge is to swing your arms with rotation past their start position with the trail foot leaving the ground with as much extension in the golfers trail leg also. This should cause some posterior tilt of the pelvis.
Please contact Janice by Text 07866459360 or Email: jarnoldpgagolfpro@gmail.com or book online via my website www.janicearnoldgolfguru.co.uk
A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A SNOWDROP GROWER
A Year in the Life of a Snowdrop Grower
On page 10 of the helpful [and amusing] little book “Bluff your way into Public Speaking”, I quote,
“Writing the start to a speech can often be tricky. You can sit and stare at the blank sheet in front of you for ever and ever.” The same can be true when writing an article or specifically an article about growing snowdrops. Where in the year does one start?
The problem was solved for me when a friend proudly emailed photographs of his first snowdrops of the year in mid-September.
The snowdrop ‘season’ had started once again. The photographs were of one of the twenty species of Galanthus [snowdrops] which grow in the wild. It was Galanthus peshmenii from Turkey, but somewhat challenging to cultivate here.
A little later, in October, G. reginae-olgae appears. It is named after Queen Olga of Greece, the Duke of Edinburgh’s granny.
In our garden these early snowdrops, which flower even before the leaves emerge, seem to be very prone to bud damage by slugs. Having lost so many flowers in past years, slug control is now used.
In an attempt to keep slug damage to a minimum, time is spent from October onwards scraping fallen leaves off the clump of emerging bulbs.
By Xmas the aptly named G. ‘Three Ships’ is in flower, but for me in Grayshott it has proved difficult to bulk up.
It is in January and February that the collection of snowdrops comes into its own and heralds the arrival of another spring, with a wide variety of flowers and leaves of differing shape, size, colour, and texture. February is the month for snowdrop lovers to visit gardens, buy, sell, and exchange their treasures, or just give them away.
I’ve said it before and will now say it again, “Every garden in Grayshott Baxendale’s late should grow a Galanthus.” As a keen photographer the snowdrops occupy my time in late winter, keeping up the visual record of what is in the garden.
The 8-inch plastic labels, two per clump for ‘belt and braces’ are checked and replaced where necessary whilst it is easy to see exactly what is there. Flowering will continue non-stop until late March/April when G. ‘Baxendale’s Late’ will finally drop its petals.
Usually in December, January and February we lift the pots which are in flower and were planted up in the previous March/April, clean them, add a gravel covering and check the labels before taking them for sale at a Grayshott Gardeners’ lecture in the Village Hall. [2021 may present a problem!] The members and visitors have been great supporters.
Once flowering is over the leaves start to die back. In late March/April it is time to lift and divide clumps of congested bulbs. This is done before the leaves die back and is called dividing ‘in the green’. The frequency of division, usually every 3-4 years depends upon the vigour of each variety. The alternative is to wait until June/July and lift the dormant bulbs, the problem then is that you cannot see where they are! 37 37
A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A SNOWDROP GROWER
A Year in the life of a Snowdrop Grower
About 150 snowdrops are potted up for Grayshott Gardeners and the pots are labelled and sunk into a holding bed and tended until the next December- February sales.
Bulbs showing any signs of disease are weeded out and destroyed to prevent spread. Yellow/brown necrosis on leaves is a sign of Stagonospora [ Narcissus Leaf Blight] and any affected bulbs should be destroyed. For those snow drop lovers who suffer from OCD and are, preferably slightly mad as well, there is another specialist technique for increasing your stock of bulbs. It is called ‘twin scaling’. It is time consuming initially and will take 3-4 years before the new plant will flower, but it is used by amateurs and professionals to bulk up new and expensive or rarer varieties. In February 2015 one bulb of a new snowdrop, G. plicatus ‘Golden Fleece’ set the record at £1390 [ plus £4 postage] for a single bulb, so it is worthwhile knowing how such an expensive purchase may be multiplied as much and as quickly as possible. In short, ‘twin scaling’ starts in about June when the bulb is truly dormant. The bulb is then sliced vertically into 8 or 16 segments depending on the size of the bulb, each segment having two ‘scale’ leaves and a small piece of the baseplate of the bulb is left attached. These tiny ‘twin scales’ are kept in barely damp Vermiculite in a dark place and after about 12 weeks, in September, a tiny bud will have developed between the two scales of each piece.
Eight segments shown here
Tiny bulb attached
Mistakes can be made.
The first year I carried out this technique I put my scales into the bottom of the airing cupboard for additional warmth. In theory, a good idea. Twelve weeks later every one came out looking like a deepfried chip and totally dead!
The next year they were successfully kept in the dark but in a cool cupboard.
The twin scales and buds are carefully potted up and by spring produce a thread of green leaf and a tiny bulb. The developing bulbs are potted on annually thereafter and four years later you should be rewarded with a flowering plant.
G. peshmenii
By September/ October when you have potted up your twin scales with buds, G reginae- olgae will be back in flower again.
That is a year in the life of someone who happens to like snowdrops. We are known by some as “galanthophiles” by others as “galanthomaniacs”. Either way we are ever so slightly mad! Gordon Rae VMH 39
