On lying under a peony and dribbling.

I heard a review of a book on radio 4 recently where the narrator rambles on in a stream of consciousness, while obsessing about and giving endless details of trivial things.  I shall base this week's blog on that author's style.

Or not.  I shall resist but that is how it may turn out. The best thing to do this week is to ask questions, and to answer them. Let us, then, begin.  Question one.

1.  What is the matter with you that you may need to ramble and obsess?

Nothing is the matter, I am in the empty space after being very busy and full of focus. This is the down after the up, the low after the high.  Working on the A Graceful Death exhibition takes an awful lot of work and concentration, and during the actual exhibition, I do 14 hour days.  Fine.  Love it.  When it was over,  I came home, I had the house to clean and reclaim from my dear lodgers and Giant Boy.  There was a small metric ton of laundry to do, food to buy, plates to remove from under the bath and so on.  The exhibition needed to be unpacked, re-catalogued, and repacked.  All that kind of thing is a lovely buffer zone between being extremely busy in the run up to and during the exhibition, and having nothing to do at all after the whole thing is over.  And now, today, I have nothing more to do.  I am sitting here on my sofa, and what I do next, is entirely up to me.  

2. What would you like to do?

• Warm up my own body weight in Cadbury's dairy milk chocolate and spend fourteen hours eating it.
• Organise the next big AGD here in Chichester and make the speakers, for this event, writers and carers.
• Paint the portrait of someone who is facing the end of life, write up their story with them, and let them keep it all.
• Lie in bed for a day dozing and dreaming 
• Lie on the beach in Bognor dozing and dreaming
• Write a book (a best seller in a single afternoon with no effort at all)
• Produce a play - or a read through - for AGD.  The late Sue Eckstein's play "The Tuesday Group" is the one I want.  Sue died recently, and I feel bad because she said I could use her play, but I felt very daunted and let it slide.  Her death recently made me understand that you just never know what is going to happen.  Now, I tell myself, is often a very good time.
• Find a venue for the "Conversations about the End of Life, finding time to think in our busy worlds".  I am looking to do this in Bognor.  And everywhere.  If you have a venue, let me know.  I'll bring the cakes.
• Win the lottery.
• Spend the lottery.
• Put Cornish clotted cream on the Dairy Milk above and lie in it.

3.  What are you going to do?

Have a bubble bath.

4.  I see.  And tomorrow?

Tomorrow, they say, is a whole other country. I do have a plan for tomorrow, it just feels as if I am going to ignore it.  I am the mistress of my own destiny, I say, probably to no avail.  It is possible that my plan for tomorrow will peter out and I will stare quietly into space and dribble. Should I be capable, here is my plan.

• Finish a really lovely portrait of an old couple sitting in their garden.  I have done the people, it is now time to put a tabby cat on the lady's lap, and add books, newspapers, pens, pencils and some African sculptures from their life in Africa, to describe who they are.  This means sitting in my studio in the sunshine, with a pot of tea.  I think I can do that.  
• Tomorrow is the day I have set aside too, to find a venue for the Conversations.  I have no idea where to find one.  I thought of lying on my sofa and willing someone to phone me up offering a nice central venue and waiving the fee because I am so wonderful.  As yet, that approach has never worked.  

The unfinished painting, the hard stuff is done, now it's just cats and books and African sculptures.  The normal stuff of life.

5.  What, then, is your conclusion? 

My conclusion is that I am very tired.  I am not needing to sleep, I am needing to day dream.  I am needing to give myself mental space, and to let all these ideas dance in my mind without trying to organise them. I do have more AGD events towards the end of this year, at an event in Ascot in the last weekend of September, and in Swansea at the end of October and the beginning of November, but that is a long time away, and I don't need to think about it now.  I don't need to think of anything at the moment, I just need to drift and dribble, as they say.  Oh, I have such hopes for the A Graceful Death exhibition and project.  I have so many exciting things to do, and so many projects to set up. But right now it is time to visit, as my cousin Maddy says, La La Land where the very act of lying down in the garden under the peonies is good for the soul.   It is at times of weariness when doubts creep into one's mind, when one feels as if one should do more not less, it is at times like this that one needs to step aside and be kind, very kind, to oneself.  Being in the low after the high, the down after the up, tends to make us bully ourselves a bit.  We blame ourselves for feeling empty, and for not having lots of things to do, for not continuing in the same productive and energetic way of last week.  But all things are cyclical, and all things wind down before starting up again. This time in the cycle when all that needed to be done, is done, is very precious and very prone to being misunderstood.  Standing still after moving  fast feels wrong. but it isn't.  It is just sensible before starting up again.  So that is where I am now.  Standing still.  In a precious moment.  Understanding that this part of the cycle is just as good and important as the busy one.  And on that happy note, I am going to find a peony, lie under it and eat some chocolate.

Sorted.

My lovely studio.  There are peonies, somewhere else in the garden, but I am not really fussy.  I can lie down under these sweet peas and eat chocolate.  I can lie down anywhere and eat chocolate.

Oh What a Week That Was! A Graceful Death in Preston Park, Brighton.

The exhibition was fabulous.  The exhibition is over.  A week has passed since I packed up the paintings, put the church back, and drove myself wearily but happily home from Preston Park in Brighton, all the way down the A27 to Bognor Regis, and home.

Setting Up

Vicky, a lovely and excellent AGD Brighton Setting-Up elf, setting up.  Vicky runs community arts projects in Bognor and  is in huge demand so I am very lucky to have kidnapped her for the day and  given her an exhibition to set up.  Thank you Vicky Hulatt.

It took the whole of Monday with the help of Vicky, my daughter Lexi, and Storyteller and Soul Midwife Jade Parsonage-Buck.  By Monday night, the whole church had been remodelled and turned into an exhibition space for the A Graceful Death exhibition.  It was absolutely wonderful.  The paintings, the stories, the poems, the films were set up in this glorious old Heritage church, without touching any of the walls (we used chairs, tables, easels, gravity etc.  The walls were fragile and could not be touched by anything), and the exhibition took on a grandeur and dignity which reflected the church entirely.  Outside, we decorated four of the church's A boards in pink and red bunting, and we hung the festive colourful plastic flags one gets with party poppers for kiddies parties from Sainsbury's, in the trees and railings, so that the church, which was well hidden from the road, could be found.  On Tuesday, at 10am, we opened.  On Tuesday at 10.10am our first visitors came.  On Tuesday at 10.15 our first visitors left.  They wanted to see the church and didn't know there was an exhibition on.

10.01 on Tuesday 20 May, the exhibition is informally opened by me.

The Opening Party

Team AGD Brighton hosted, with aplomb, an opening night that could have gone either up, or down.  Of course it went up.  Many people came, including my old friends the South Korean film crew.  They got very lost, and I had to go and stand in the road to help them find the church.  This became quite a theme, many people went to a number of other churches in Brighton and wondered why I had lied about there being an AGD exhibition on.  Many times I had to go and stand in the road and wave people into the little track that lead from Preston Drove up to the church.  The exhibition was formally opened by Glynn Jones, Chair to the Friends of Brighton and Hove Hospitals and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex.  A most delightful, interesting and beautifully dressed man, I liked him very much indeed.  The Friends of Sussex Hospitals provided a bar, and took all the worry of providing drinks and nibbles away from us.  Documentary film maker Clare Sturges came all the way from Cardiff for the day which was wonderful.  Clare is working on a documentary film on Soul Midwifery, and is an engaging, intelligent and lovely person, it was really good to see her again.  Sarah Stone from Dying Matters came along, and Rosie Brown from Ehospice magazine came too.  We were also very happy to welcome Colin Matthews, Vice Chair of the Brighton Fringe Festival.  There were professionals and friends, those working in the palliative care field, and those having a passionate interest in it, all coming to support us on our opening night party.

AGD Team Member Rev Canon Peter Wells on the right welcoming people, as they arrive for the Opening Night event.  The South Korean film crew are in the background.  I stand in the middle with my Shoot an Arrow at me I'm a Target dress on.

`The Exhibition

Day two opened.  Day one had seen visitors during the day, some intending to come, and some not.  Some had tracked us down as we were part of the Dying Matters Awareness Week and the Brighton Fringe Festival, and others had read about a nice ancient church in Preston Park and had ambled along to have a look at it's ancientness.  Most of them stayed and were very moved by the exhibition, a few ignored it completely and took photos of the ceiling and floor and asked us what we had done to the church.  The church, I said, has transformed itself for this week into an exhibition on what it means to die.  What is the end of life, and what does it mean to die?  Eeeek, they said and fled.

Wednesday saw our first event, a guided presentation and public discussion on Preparing for Dying.  It was the first of our sessions, and people trickled in tentatively.  We had about half the people we had hoped for. Our speakers for this session were Eleanor Langridge, Dementia Speaker on end of life care, Rev Canon Peter Wells Senior Chaplain at BSUH and Rachel Reed from St Barnabas Hospice in Worthing.  Alan Bedford, former NHS Chief Exec and non exec Director of the Martets Hospice was in the chair.  It was a moving, thoughtful and fascinating session.  Everyone attending learned much about planning for dying, and listened to some very experienced professionals, .

 Thursday's event Supporting the Dying had a good many attending and by Friday, the Communicating with the Dying and Working with the Dying events were very full indeed.  I cannot thank our speakers enough for their time, their insights, their intelligence and their support of the A Graceful Death week.  Thanks to Team AGD Brighton, thanks to Nigel Spencer, Peter Wells and Rachel Reed, we were fortunate to have consultants, doctors and chaplains from the Martlets Hospice in Hove, St Catherines Hospice in Crawley, St Barnabas Hospice in Worthing, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals and Brighton and Sussex Medical School.  Nigel, Peter and Rachel work within the hospitals and hospices, and arranged the talks and the speakers to reflect some very important topics.  Planning, supporting, communicating and working with the dying.  They also arranged an entertaining and amazing Early Evening Salon on the Art of Dying, Ars Moriendi, on the Thursday at 6pm.  We were treated to a wonderful talk by Rev Robert Easton, Chaplain to Brighton College, on the mediaeval woodcuts that were a sensation then, and from then on until the last century, showing us how to prepare for a true and Christian death.  And, we were entertained by some clever and witty cartoons created by and used for teaching by a Consultant in Elderly Medicine at BSUH, Dr Muna AlJawad.  And on the Wednesday evening, Nigel held an excellent Dementia Information Session.

Thursday's session, Supporting the Dying with, standing, Team AGD Brighton member and Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner from St Catherine's Hospice Crawley Nigel Spencer, Chair Professor Bobbie Farsides from BSMS, Consultant Dr Mark Bayliss from BSMS, and Consultant Dr Simone Ali from Martlets Hospice in Hove.

And the following day there was -

Friday's session on Communicating with the Dying.  Left to right, chaired by Professor Bobbie Farsides from BSMS, with Chaplain Dawn Allen from the Martlets Hospice, Consultant Cathy Gleeson from St Catherine's Hospice Crawley and Consultant Rose Turner also from the Martlets Hospice.  

Some personal observations on the exhibition

One man came into the exhibition and spent a long time looking at everything.  On his way out, he told me he had cancer, and I saw that he was indeed not very well.  He said that he felt kinder to people on his way out of the exhibition than he did on the way in.  At each AGD, there is one person for whom I say, this is the reason the exhibition is showing in this location.  My friend here was that person for this exhibition.  He was smiling as he left, and I felt as I often do while showing AGD, taken out of myself and given a gift from a stranger that could, if I received it correctly, enhance my understanding of life.

I spoke with many people.  I spoke with a man who said he had prepared himself as best he could for his death, including telling his children (all grown and living independently) which was not easy but was a very good move.  He had heart trouble and knew that he could go at any moment, any day.  This man was nearly 80, energetic, strong willed and full of life.  I liked him very much.  He brought his wife along the next day, and I was impressed because I don't think it was an easy place for her to come to.  They did not stay long.

Perhaps the best story for this week was a group of school children who arrived in the late afternoon on Monday when we were setting up.  They were 14 years old.  One fellow came up to me with his friend and told me the exhibition was a celebration of life.  I congratulated him on his perception, and listened as they talked amongst themselves about painting the dying and what it looked like to them.  All the kids read the poetry and asked questions about the people in the painting, and agreed that it was not a spooky exhibition, but it was quite sad.  They left to have a smoke.  When Lexi looked in the book for comments and thoughts, one of them had written, "I am not scared of dying any more. Name aged 14"

The lad who told me it was a celebration of life returned twice to the exhibition, and sat while people viewed the paintings and writings.  He listened to the films and interviews on the TV screen and laptop provided.  I offered him a rock bun towards the end of the week, (Nigel provides the most extraordinarily good rock buns) and asked him why he kept coming back.  He didn't know, he said.  He just understood it.  I wonder now if he had experienced some kind of loss, and had not finished processing it.  He was such a quiet, perceptive and wise youngster.  He did not want to speak much, and he left on the Friday afternoon and did not come back again.  He took my card.  I said if his parents allowed it, I would like to speak to him about what he understood in the exhibition.  I have not heard back from him, I don't suppose I will.

Conclusion

A full, exhausting, uplifting, affirming, sad, loving week.  I worked 14 hour days with the help of Lexi, Nigel, Peter and Rachel, all of whom had full time jobs to attend to as well as doing AGD with me.  I met a lady who had lost her husband many years ago, and looked around without her glasses first.  Then she came back with her glasses and cried.  We talked and she was fine, it was the remembering and the details in the paintings and the words that had struck a chord with her.  An American lady came to the Opening Night and returned each day for all of the sessions.  She was interesting and felt inspired to work with the dying somehow.  She will do so, she was a smart and focussed lady, and was putting all her plans into place to learn as much as she could. By the end of the week, she had already got herself an interview to volunteer at a local hospice.  These are some of the people that make everything worthwhile.  I meet people, hear a little of their lives, listen to what has been their particular story, and I wonder at the resilience of human nature.  Some people carry around the saddest of stories, some people don't.  But they all keep going, and those that turn up at the A Graceful Death exhibition are my teachers.  I have loved showing in Brighton.  I have loved meeting everyone, and I have loved the hearts and souls in the people, the characters, and the drifters that float into my line of vision so briefly in the exhibition, and out again.  I particularly loved the group of tiny school children dressed up as Victorians who were brought into the church by their teachers, also in Victorian costume (I think they were doing some history work at Preston Manor next to us).  I stopped the teachers at the entrance to explain that it was an exhibition of the end of life, and all credit to them, they said it was fine, they just wanted to see the church.  It would have been too late anyway, the Victorian tots were in the exhibition anyway, gaping at the pictures and skipping around pointing at the most graphic of the paintings with whoops of pleasure.  The teachers looked around, paid attention, and left with all their jolly little olden days school kids all clutching literature on painting the dying and interviewing them to show their mummies and daddies.

Aha!  Here we are, Team AGD Brighton.  Left to right, Mandy Preece, Soul Midwife, Peter Wells, me, Nigel Spencer and Rachel Reed.  Perfick.

And here is the final photo of the week.  After the final closing thoughts and meditations on the exhibition on Friday night from Peter, Lexi and I made our presence known.  Again.

Lexi and me as the last visitors leave to go home.  I was asleep in my dinner within half an hour of this photo.

Alan took me out for a celebratory dinner and by pudding, I was barely able to keep my eyes open.  A week later, I am still tired, but so proud of the exhibition, the people who put it on, the speakers who gave their time and expertise, and to you, the public who came and took part.

Next stop, Swansea in late October and early November.

We open on Tuesday. What's that? You are bringing your entire household? Oh good.

Tuesday begins the A Graceful Death exhibition.

I know, the A Graceful Death exhibition opens in a couple of days.  What's that?  You are coming?  And bringing your whole street with you?  Oh well done.  And your extended family too!  How wonderful.  You are all welcome.  The exhibition is challenging, and truthful.  It is about what it means to die, and it is good to come and meet all the people I have painted through their written word and their painted images.  It is an exhibition about love, life and how normal we, and the dying, are. What better way to ask what dying is like than to ask the dying themselves?

Many thanks to Rhona Reedie for designing this poster and all the graphics for the exhibition

We have a full schedule of events, the programme is below.  We cover Planning for Dying, Supporting the Dying, Communicating with the Dying and Working with the Dying.  Our speakers are all experienced professionals working with the dying, and are wonderful and informative speakers.  Each will speak for a while, and then we will open the conversation and debate to the rest of us.  It will be fascinating listening to who says what.

I hope to meet you there.  Come and see the paintings, talk to me and the team, write in our book of memories, listen to our speakers, debate with our speakers and take part in the whole event.  (There will be cake, there always is.)

I am extremely grateful to all the participants who have given time out of their busy worlds to take part in our panels.  Here is an event you may be interested in, though all the events will be excellent, Thursday evening 6 pm - 8 pm we are holding an Early Evening Salon on the Art of Dying, Ars Moriendi - see below

On Wednesday, Nigel Spencer will be holding a Dementia Friends session, and on Friday evening I will be talking with my old friend Mandy Preece, about Working with the Dying.  To end the exhibition, after Mandy and I have had our session, the Revd Canon Peter Wells will sum up with thoughts and some gentle, insightful words.

The Opening Event, however, will be on Tuesday from 6 pm to 8 pm. I am delighted that Glynn Jones, Chair to the Brighton and Hove Hospitals and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, will speak and open the exhibition.  We will also, if they come, be filmed by a South Korean documentary film crew who will be making a three part documentary about end of life matters to be shown in South Korea.  They are filming many many different people and events, A Graceful Death is just one of many.  But I am very grateful and happy to take part in any way that is helpful. I am also trying not to hope for a tour of South Korea, but that is natural.  I would think that.

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What is happening right now?

I am wearing denim, if that is what you mean.  Very chic for a 53 year old Mum.  I am tired but happy.  I am on my sofa, thinking that if only I was hungry I would eat something, but I am not and it doesn't seem fair.  I have to say I have had my supper, so I am not suffering, not really, but if I had left a chink of space, I could have spent some time deciding on pudding.  Oh well.  I think this is just procrastinating.  For the exhibition next week, all that could have been done, has been done.  It will be put up on the Monday and I have the help of my daughter Fancy Girl, and a local artist and friend Vicky Hulatt.  Thank you a million times to both of you, by the way. Tomorrow is a day of laminating all that I see, with my new laminator, given to me by the illustrious Mrs Pemberton who is really Olivia Fane.  She writes under her maiden name and came by yesterday with exciting news.  (And a laminator and some funds for AGD.  God Bless you Olivia!).  Olivia, clever, challenging, wicked, funny and so un-politically correct but oh so right in every way, independent, eccentric Olivia, will be on Woman's Hour this Monday talking about her new book "The Conversations, 66 Reasons to Start Talking".  Listen in, Radio 4 from 10 am onwards.  Olivia says she will be on at 10.30.  She will be talking about her conversation on Nagging.  Very good.  She is very entertaining.  

Tomorrow.  Tomorrow, then, I will pack up all my paintings, all the words, all the bits and pieces, laminating everything as I go.  I will buy some essentials for the exhibition, like sellotape, name badges, black marker pens and flowers.  I will assemble everything eventually, and pack up in my studio, transporting all to the car, in a Zen frame of mind, so that I am living in the present and not concerning myself about the future (which is about the amount of stuff still to do).  That is my intention.  I will probably do a bit of everything all at once in reality, and tumble somehow into the car, having sellotaped the laminator to my elbow and then I will have a Chinese takeaway and go to bed early.  

Bit of extra news

Now I am going to have some tea.  I have found some space and I shall fill it with some PG Tips.  See you all next week.   

Me and Steve having a moment of quiet before an exhibition last year.

Apple Pie, Driving a South Korean TV Company to the Wrong House, and AGD

I bought an apple pie and some custard recently, and no one has eaten it.  It is in the fridge looking at me every time I open it, and I am sure I saw my name on it.  As it has been a long and intense few days, I am going to eat both the apple pie and the custard.  It is a well known remedy for tiredness after long and intensive days, it is scientifically proven to make one happy, jolly and full of sunshine.  It is in the oven now, and already I feel better.

Yesterday

Yesterday, A Graceful Death exhibition went to the Dead Good Day Out, a Festival of End of Life Events (sounds like crazy wilful dying on the spot, and cheering people as they leap off high rise buildings, but it wasn't).  It was held in Southampton, and was a most creative and interesting event full of activities around death beliefs and customs from other cultures, and from our own. I met, amongst others, green burial directors, children's hospice nurses, memorial artists, death mask makers, and a ukulele band. So many things to see, so many different and interesting people to talk to, it was a wonderful event.  It is very easy for me to swan around when I do these kind of things, and not spend as much time as I should within AGD listening to people.  There is always so much colour and activity going on elsewhere, I think it won't matter if I just disappear and meet this exciting person here, chat to that fascinating person there, and if anyone wants me, they will come back.  Or wait.

Setting up for the Dead Good Day Out, the stalls and participants getting ready for the moment the doors opened

But twice yesterday I was pulled up short and reminded that it is often the person who is hard to communicate with, who is not easy to want to stay and listen to, who needs time the most.  A lady came to speak to me who seemed to not be able to finish a sentence without starting another.  It was hard to follow her, and though she was wanting to talk, I couldn't work out what she was trying to say.  I wanted to move away; I am ashamed to say I thought she was taking me away from other people.  I did move away, but she joined me again when I was talking to another man.  This happened again and during that second conversation, my lady mentioned that she was interested in painting, and was interested in painting her son who had died when he was a teenager. I understood then why she had found it hard to speak to me, she was working up to mentioning her son, and I had not noticed that she needed some careful listening.  Having mentioned her son, and as I understood that she had a huge burden to bear, she became distressed, apologised, and left.  And I thought how brave she was.  She did not give up, she said what she was going to say, and though she did not stay to talk of it any more, I hope that having said it, she will find a way to get out his photographs, and to paint his portrait.  Oh dear, my poor lady, I am sorry I didn't understand when I should have.

The second lesson in giving time and not judging, was with an older lady who I found rather disconcerting.  I can't say why, there was something about the way she seemed to stare, and to wait a bit too long before speaking.  I wondered if she was a little eccentric. She had short dyed black hair, and white eyebrows, which I kept wondering if she knew looked odd, or whether she didn't care.  She wafted over and away, gazing at me and looking as if she was about to say something, and then moving off again.  Later that evening, most people had left, the event was over, and we were all packing up and away.  I was taking paintings down, putting them away, being very busy, longing to get home and have a cup of tea and some silence.  One person was left, my little lady with black hair and white eyebrows.  And she was still looking at the paintings and reading the stories.  I don't remember how we began to talk, but she was very taken with a new addition to the exhibition, about someone who had died young.  I had displayed an email from the parents of this little girl, which had moved her.  I gave her the email, and she began to cry.  Oh my funny little lady.  Her friend had committed suicide recently and she was unable to find a way to talk to the mother of her friend.  "What should I say?"  she said, "she won't reply to me, and I was so close to my friend.  I think the mother is too distraught to talk to me, but I want to talk to her."  The email from the parents of the little girl had spoken of the need to love yourself, and it was this that she wanted to tell her friend's mother.  Here it was again.  The moment someone chooses to say what is so hard to say. It isn't always when I am sitting and giving my full attention.  This time it was not only when I was distracted by packing up, but I had dismissed her as simply eccentric with nothing to say.  I stopped what I was doing then, as I understood that this was the moment for her, and listened to a deeply grieving person.  She left after a short while, with the email I had written out for the exhibition, and I continued to pack up feeling subdued and sad.

Interim report 

I have just had apple pie and custard.  My strength didn't quite return after one helping, so I have had another and yes, the scientists are right.  I feel a bit better.  I have had the foresight to give the rest to Giant Boy and my older son, Interesting Boy, so I am in no danger of going overboard and eating apple pie and custard till it comes out of my ears and defeats the purpose of cheering one up, instead sending one to A&E with pie and custard poisoning.

Today

A team of camera men and a producer from Korea Educational Broadcasting System came today with their translator, to film AGD in the studio, to do an interview with me and to interview Claire Rudland, one of the sitters from the exhibition, who is an absolutely wonderful speaker about the journey through fear, pain and illness towards death, the dying process, except that she did not die.  She recovered.  And since then, she has lived every moment, good and bad, with a view to making every day count.

Claire talking to the interviewer, who was fascinated with her story.  Claire was cold and wrapped herself in the Studio Spotty Blanket.

Despite getting back really late last night, and despite having to undergo bonding moments with Giant Boy over the Eurovision, I got up very early this morning.  I had to clean the house, make a bathtub load of soup (for the Koreans), and unpack the car of AGD paintings, leaving them casually catching the light and looking intriguing in the studio so that the South Koreans would gasp as they walked in through the studio door and say in Korean, Blimey O'Reilly, we are glad we came.

And so, the whole of today has been given over to having Korean camera men filming the studio in the studio, outside the studio in the garden, through the studio windows; filming interviews in the studio, filming me getting into my car, filming in the car seat next to me going off to collect Claire, filming me getting out and taking them to the wrong flat, filming me not knowing where the hell my friend lived, filming me phoning her and getting them to the correct place in the end, filming Claire and I saying hello, and then getting in the car to film me driving us to my house, and our conversation.  "You've changed your hair!" "Why yes, I have!  Do you like it?" "Oh yes.  Lighter at the front" and so on.  I wondered whether we were meant to be profound and whether they will dub a philosophical conversation over our journey home.  Claire was a real hit, she moved the team to tears talking about the mystery of life and death.  She was, she is, so articulate and clever.

When all the filming was over we had a late lunch of soup and bread and bananas and chocolate and crisps.  That's all I had in the house.  Both Giant Boy and Interesting Boy joined us, and we had a party.  It was a relief to relax with the South Korean team and find out about them and their lives and world.  They are filming the opening night of A Graceful Death in Brighton on 20 May, so I will happily see them again.  We all liked them very much.

The Korean Producer in the studio with a drawing of Claire I did, trembling with nerves, for the camera, in case I made her look like a telly tubby and South Korea would think I was a fraud.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I shall lie around peeling grapes.

AGD set up ready yesterday, and the artist in a dress that looks as if she wants you to do target practice on it.  

Don't forget, A Graceful Death Exhibition next in Brighton 

20 - 23 May 10am to 10pm 

St Peter's Church, Preston Park (next to Preston Manor) Brighton BN1 6SD

Facilitated discussions 

Wed 21 "Planning Dying" 2 - 4 pm  

Dementia Information 6 - 7 pm

Thurs 22 "Supporting the Dying" 2 - 4 pm

Ars Moriendi, early evening salon on the art of dying 6 - 8 pm

Fri 23  "Communicating with the Dying" 2 - 4 pm

"Working with the Dying" 6 - 8 pm

Closing thoughts to end the exhibition 8.30 pm.

Entrance free, donations accepted.

Email me on antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com for more information

Pooped on the Sofa. And a Moment of Peace.

This sunny Sunday afternoon I am, quite suddenly, alone.  I dare not breathe in case it ends, and I hear someone else in my house.  I can feel the air itself whoop for joy, I can feel the house expand, and most of all, I can breathe.  It has been busy.  My house has been like Paddy's market.  From last weekend, we had a count down to yesterday, when my lodger in the annex moved out giving a subliminal signal to all the other lodgers to move rooms, taking with them all their worldly belongings, to set up home in a different part of the house.  My annex lodger had been here well over a year.  Within seconds of announcing he was leaving to go back home to Sri Lanka, the lady who lives in one of the rooms upstairs had announced that she was having the annex.  The lady in one of the other rooms bagged her room and the new Polish man decided to move into the second lady's room.  A room, the smallest room in the house, ended up being vacant.  Into this moves a lady who lived here before a year ago, who wants to come back.  Fine, I said.  All is well.  Let the action, at ten in the morning on Saturday, begin.

It was like the starting line in the Disney film "Cars," with revving engines and wheelies in the air.  The first lady from upstairs, who does not like to wait for anything she wants, was more or less camped out at first light in the kitchen of the main house, from where one enters the annex.  I had said to her to let annex man leave first before she moved in, but such was her determination, I wasn't sure that she was going to be able.  "He is sensitive," I told her,"let him leave before you bring your new kettle, microwave, toaster, bed, wardrobe and bubble bath collection into his space."  And so, ever helpful, Lady 1 camped out in the kitchen here, her nose squashed against the glass panes of the annex door, and tried to find things to do until the annex lodger left to catch his plane.  Lady 2, who was the opposite, came in from night duty on the day of the big move, and fell asleep at the kitchen  table.  We were all curious about how she was going to move the stuff from her big room, so much stuff that you couldn't open her door, across the landing to Lady 1's old room.  We also wondered how she would then get it all through the door and manage to get in herself.  Amongst ourselves, we expected that she would sleep through the whole move.  She did wake up though, and move everything but quite a lot of it is still in boxes on the landing.  I took a car load of things she didn't want to the tip, and we all believe her when she says she can actually get in to her new room over the top of all the bags and boxes and bin liners full of clothes.

Polish man had to wait for everyone else to move first.  Unconcerned, capable and with a serious face, he cleaned not only his own room out from top to bottom (ready for the lady who used to live here to come back in), he cleaned Lady 2's room for her.  Now, all the lodgers are finding new lives in different parts of the house, and reinventing themselves to suit their upgraded status.

I on the other hand, am spent.  For a while, it was like four refugees moving their households across my landing to and fro, up and down stairs, with piles of unwanted furniture and bedding growing in the garden as old things were discarded to make way for the new.  As landlady, I am sorry but I went out.  I came back when I thought it was all done, and so it was.  I have taken all the old junk piled up in the garden to the dump, I have cleaned up the trails of debris and I have even changed my sheets.  Peace is nearly reigning, as everyone gets used to their new bit of the house.

As I sat down to write this afternoon I heard the front door close, and realised with a surge of joy, that everyone had finally gone out and that quite suddenly, I was alone in the house.  The joy of it took me by surprise.  Today, I have been up since dawn helping out at a fun event on the Bognor seafront, and yesterday, I spent the afternoon with a friend helping her with her Open Studios.  Last week, apart from having the new A Graceful Death exhibitions in Southampton and Brighton to arrange, apart from talking to a Friends of Sussex Hospices Ladies Luncheon Club about AGD, I cleared out half of the garage and took it to the tip.  Then I tidied up what was left so that if I really wanted to, and had no scruples, I could rent out the garage as an abundantly over furnished living space with no windows, so tidy and neat it is. I also began my new painting, a commissioned double portrait of an older couple sitting in their garden.  So today, the day after my house was turned upside down by much heaving and pushing and pulling of beds and televisions and suitcases, by hoovering and cleaning with supermarket own brand squirty cleaning stuffs and hot soapy water, I feel like I have been run over by a truck and it is all that I can do to make myself a huge lunch and eat it alone and gleeful on the sofa.

But!  I had better get myself back in the upright position.  Any minute now, my Polish lady who used to live here is coming back.  Her knock on the door will mean that this unexpected time of peace and quiet has ended, and I will have to get off the sofa and rejoin my household.  I will decide then whether or not to bustle about again, having benefited from this afternoon of unexpected peace and quiet or whether to give up and go to bed.  I think I will go to bed.  I will talk to everyone again tomorrow.

In the kitchen yesterday watching all the comings and goings with nervous eating of a corn on the cob. Taken by Giant Boy and told to smile and act natural.

Art, End of Life Conversations, and Rain.

It is good that it is still raining outside, it makes me concentrate.  When I have paintings to do that require silence and peace, I listen to YouTube tapes of 10 hours of falling rain, on my headphones.  I can work in the sunshine, yes, but that is a whole different set of feelings.  Nice ones, of course, but today it is raining and today I am at one with the rain.  In a healthy kind of way.  And inside, on the sofa, with a pot of tea.

A Graceful Death News

I will be joining the "Dead Good Day Out" event in Southampton on the 10 May.  It is a wonderful community affair, full of workshops, talks, discussions and fun things to do.  AGD will be there, and I will talk for a few minutes on what I do during the day.  Come and see us all, it will be a really dead good day out.

Preparing for the A Graceful Death at St Peter's Church, Preston Park, Brighton is taking up much time.  I have the help of a supportive and hard working team, and I could not do it without them.  For this exhibition, we are hosting facilitated discussions from 2pm to 4pm on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the exhibition.  The topics covered will be Planning for Dying, Supporting the Dying, and Communicating with the Dying.  It is so important for us to engage with each other, to be aware of how much information, support and interest there is for end of life issues.  The Dying Matters message for this Dying Matters Awareness Week is you only die once.  Not only do we have to be prepared for our own deaths, but we must be prepared for other people to die.  Our family, our friends, even strangers.  We can make a difference to other people at the end of life not by coming in and changing everything.  Most dying people have medical care, have family, have friends around them.  We can do much by simply acknowledging what is happening, by listening, by being honest and by not running away.  It is surprising how many of us need to learn to do this and to not run away.  It is with huge pleasure that we, the AGD Brighton Team, can offer informative, interesting and helpful facilitated discussions within the exhibition.  Please go to this link to see the full programme

www.agracefuldeath.co.uk

Thanks to Graphic Artist Extraordinaire Rhona Reedie for this poster below.  

Have you a South Korean documentary tv company coming to film AGD in Brighton?

Why yes!  How did you know?  I am talking to a South Korean documentary television company about filming the exhibition during Dying Matters Awareness Week.  I think this is excellent, and am looking forward to meeting them.  The name of the programme is Docuprime, and it is for the Educational Broadcasting System in South Korea.  

And,

I have written a guest blog for the Dying Matters Coalition, and hope that it will be available soon on their website.  I will let you all know when it comes up by linking to it from this blog and having a party on my sofa.  Dying Matters is a hugely successful and informative, no nonsense website with all the information and advice you could possibly want for end of life matters.  It is part of the National Council of Palliative Care, and is an excellent place to find out all things and every thing about death and dying.  You can see their website here

http://dyingmatters.org/

Progress for our new project "Conversations about end of life, finding time to think in our busy world"

This community based informal and friendly discussion project, begun by Gail Martin Stevens (who runs a family run funeral service in Lancashire) and me, is finding real interest.  I went up to Mossley in Lancashire to do our first one with Gail, and was impressed at how people needed, and wanted, to talk about end of life.  We are hosting a session in June here in Bognor.  The 7 May session has had to be postponed, and because A Graceful Death is taking over May entirely, we are planning a gentle June Conversations. 

Community Organisers, a local charity that helps local communities support and engage with each other, is helping with our Conversations project.  Fourfold Visions, a community arts organisation is also on board, and I am finding that other organisations have had the same idea as Gail and me, and are very interested in promoting the Conversations project.  Good, I say.  And thanks.  In June, then, Gail and I will host a Conversations here in Bognor.  We aim to take these Conversations to wherever they can be taken.  It is an uncomplicated, affirmative and vitally important discussion that we all need to be able to have.  More on this as I organise it.

Gail's family run funeral company is featured here in an earlier blog, have a read, she is wonderful!

- http://antoniarollsartistextraordinaire.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/a-funeral-company-caring-for-living.html

What else, Antonia?

What else indeed!  I am really looking forward to speaking at the Friends of Sussex Hospices Ladies Luncheon Club on Wednesday.  The Ladies Luncheon Club is full of ladies who work very hard indeed to support and fund raise for local hospices.  I am very happy to be asked to talk, and very happy to meet them.  I thank the Chair for Friends of Sussex Hospices, Kathy Gore, for this opportunity.  Kathy has tirelessly supported the A Graceful Death exhibition, from the very first exhibition in my house here in Bognor in 2009.  Thank you Kathy.

Is there any more?

That is quite a lot, matey.  I am talking to Alan about going away to a remote Scottish Island in June, we both like the idea of being far away for a couple of days.  I do have a portrait to paint this month, a double portrait of a couple, and I have a Kitchen Fairy to do too.  This, painting, is where I plug in my earphones and listen to hours and hours of rain falling and cars swishing by in the far, far distance, on You Tube.  So back we come, full circle.  I began the blog with the sound of falling rain, and I will end it with falling rain.  It is all very romantic (from inside).  I will end it now with you plugged into the sounds below for the next ten hours, and please don't thank me, it is my pleasure.  Until next week, fare well.

Early on a Rainy Easter Day, News from the Artist Extraordinaire.

It is quiet this morning, and raining.  Giant Boy went to his Grandmothers yesterday, the lodgers are at work or asleep, and I am wrapped up on the sofa with tea, at 7.00 am.  It is Easter Day.  It's blinking early. God dammit.

Happy Easter to you all!  Big hugs.  Now, down to the blog and here is all you need to know about where to come in May.  A Graceful Death is showing twice in May, in Southampton and in Brighton.  It would be lovely to see you there, and lovely to meet those of you who read this account that I have not yet met.

A Graceful Death is coming here for one day

A Dead Good Day Out is a fun day, a day for the family and a day to enjoy taking part in workshops and activities around death and dying (sounds sinister but it is not) and if you want to, to go deeper and find out more about coping with what dying means.  For example, my dear Soul Midwife friend Mandy Preece, will be joining Hospice Nurse Jenny Cane, from 4.15 to 5 pm to help with emotional and practical tips for when someone close is dying.  And for the more light hearted, there will be a ukulele band.  From 1.00 - 1.30 the Southampton Ukulele Jam will be singing "Fine Songs for a Good Life Lived and if need be a Fine Funeral".  

A Graceful Death is showing in the Church itself, on the altar, and will be easy to find.  It will be a full, jolly, interesting, creative day out for everyone.  I am looking forward to it.

A Graceful Death in Preston Park, Brighton.

Thank you to Rhona Reedie for designing this invitation.

The exhibition will open on Tuesday 20 May at 10am.  It will be open from 10am to 10pm daily, in order that all of you who have to get to us from work, can do so. To see the programme of speakers and events, please go to the newly updated AGD blog here, where I will update information for this exhibition 

 - http://agracefuldeath.blogspot.co.uk/

We are part of not only Dying Matters Awareness Week, but part of the Brighton Fringe Festival too.  I am really happy to have the support of the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, and thank them for their help.  This month, I will be writing a guest blog for the Dying Matters Coalition, about A Graceful Death, and hope that it will bring more visitors to take part in this event.  I like the idea that AGD is an umbrella, under which all people can come and discuss, share, remember, think of and educate on all matters to do with the end of life.  You must come too, and take part with us.  Write me a poem, tell me what you think, tell me about you.  Look at the paintings, read the stories, listen to the interviews by Eileen Rafferty, the film by Neill Blume, experience the wonderful music composed by Lizzie Hornby, read the poetry written by members of the public who were moved to do so, write your own poems, put a prayer or intention into the blue bowl of blessed water given to the exhibition by a wonderful lady.  Come and listen to the speakers, take part, for example, in the evening event on Thursday - (see the link to the A Graceful Death blogspot above for full programme details) -

An early Evening Salon on The Art of Dying - Ars Moriendi.

Contributors: Dr Muna AlJawad, Consultant in Elderly Medicine, BSUH,  Medical Students at BSMS, Rev Robert Eastern, Chaplain to Brighton College, And You!

What else, Antonia?

Well.  Dunno really.  I feel so very busy at the moment, that I revert to moron when asked what else I am doing.  I am writing a lot, for Dying Matters guest blog, for the online magazine e-hospice, for a new online magazine called Day By Day, and lots of Facebook updates.  

Paintings - well!  I have just done a God's Study, a light hearted snapshot of God's study as he pops out for ten minutes, leaving all his reading material and papers on the desk.  I have done a couple of these, and adapted them to the person who commissions it, for example, in this painting there is reference to Dad's Army.  The person for whom this is painted is a Dad's Army fan, and wanted it included. The clock is at five minutes to eleven, a reference to the television programme, Five to Eleven, on poetry and prose, that he produced back in the 1980s.

God's Study, always room for more stuff.  Not being delivered till next week, I may add more nonsense to it...

I have a portrait to do, and a Kitchen Fairy, and some decorated stones for Gail Martin Stevens who runs the Elizabeth Way Funeral Services oop North.  But God is good, time is but a man made construct, and I will have them all done.  

Finally

Date and Time - May 7th.  Here, in Bognor Regis.  2pm to 4pm. Free.

Event - "Conversations about End of Life, finding time to think in our busy worlds".  With Gail Martin Stevens of Elizabeth Way Funeral Services, we are hosting informal conversations with tea and cake, to begin this important discussion - what do you think about dying?  What happens if someone close to you dies?  Have you ever thought about it?  A safe, easy, jolly, serious, laid back, informal, whatever you want session with me and Gail, thinking about end of life matters, within our busy world and lives.

Place - No 18 Waterloo Square, Bognor Regis.  A community led venue, specialising in youth advice and help.  Also home to community arts organisation Fourfold Vision, who are supporting these end of life conversations in the community.

Come and chat, eat, discuss, ask questions, tell us your story, think, contribute, or stay silent the whole way through and run like blazes when it's over.  Whatever you like. All are welcome, disabled access. Email me for more details antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com

Post script 

It is Easter Day.  Happy Easter to all of you.  I love you all.  Mwah.  I'm going to my mum's later to eat chocolates.