Dog Heaven...

... in the heart of Hackney.

Dog Heaven from sarah on Vimeo.

Still Waters

'Hidden' by Brian Ayling

Just as we're getting all excited about blossom on the trees and the prospect of a barbecue Brian's latest painting hauls us back through the mists of time (well, a couple of weeks) to the chill of winter and early morning dog walks when you could see your breath in front of the vanishing trees.

Man With A Van Ruisdael

This is Brian's latest creepy painting. He tells me he's continuing the Northern European, Caspar David Friedrich/Jacob Van Ruisdael of Haarlem tradition of Romantic, gothic landscapes, typically featuring contemplative figures silhouetted against dark skies and barren trees. 

Have a nice day!

Van by Brian Ayling (oil on canvas 77cm x 102cm)

Get My Drift?

No. You won't like it. 

No. It's too deep. 

No. We'll lose you.

No. They have much longer legs than you.

No. Because I'll put you down and you'll want to be picked up again straight away.

No. You'll be all wet and I'll have to carry a wet dog around.

No. You'll get that sweet little jumper caked in snow.

No. You'll eat it.

No. 

Oh go on then...

Testing The Water

A perfect day for taking the new iPhone 5 to the park and testing out it's camera: how will it compare to Brian's iPhone 4 and John's iPhone 4G? Will it have a better zoom function? Will the colours be as good? We'll give it a thorough road test and let you know the results: an in depth analysis of all it's functions with plenty of examples so you can evaluate the findings for yourself. 
"Hey Sarah!! Listen to the funny noise this pebble makes when I throw it on the ice."

Testing The Water 1 from sarah on Vimeo.
"Let me do it again."
Testing The Water 2 from sarah on Vimeo.
"One more time."

Testing The Water 3 from sarah on Vimeo.
"Hurry up my fingers are numb."

Testing The Water 4 from sarah on Vimeo.
"Last time, then we'll have to go home. The dogs are frozen stiff and it's getting dark."

Testing The Water 5 from sarah on Vimeo.

Spruce Up Your Home

Hi-Vis by Brian Ayling 70cmx90cm

As all those poor, worthless, unloved Christmas trees are tossed out onto the pavement, why not enhance your home with some longer lasting greenery? Brian's just finished painting this dramatic landscape of Clissold Park: it'll last a life-time and promises not to drop (in price).

Autumn Colour

Penthouse

Should I trade all my worldly goods (yes, including dogs) for this view...

 Oops, wrong pic. THIS view...

Tempted.

Four Candles Please

When I went to Pilates last night I spotted something very familiar propped up in Kate’s hallway: a dirty rectangle of wood about the size of a kitchen-cupboard door and screwed onto it, in a haphazard arrangement, were a random selection of filthy door handles. We looked at each other, “General Woodwork” we said simultaneously. Kate had been to the closing down sale of our favourite shop of all time. (When I say ‘favourite’ I mean most visited. My favourite shop of all time is a vintage designer boutique in the cloisters of the Palais Royale Gardens – not having the guts to even enter the shop I have only respectfully admired the exquisite mannequins through the glass, expecting to be asked to move on at any moment.) 

The General Woodwork Stores on the High Street has been there forever and with stock from every decade of the last century gathering dust out the back it has been the most perfect place to find all the trimmings that we have ever needed to accessorise this outlandish place. A sturdy, beautifully carved piano leg, covered in cobwebs made the perfect newel post; funky, gilded door handles from the 70’s were just right for the Barry White bedroom; the biggest, brass, Victorian door knob for the front door; pretty, lemon-yellow, plastic handles for a 60’s kitchen; a whacking great big swathe of tree trunk came in handy for a shelf: they had everything you could dream of and more. Some years ago someone had painstakingly and unwittingly created works of art by taking one of every fixture or fitting in the shop and fixing it to the boards that lined the walls and it was one of these that Kate had procured and brought home.      

Unlike the Paris Boutique the staff at General Woodwork were not the least intimidating – three old boys, I think they were brothers owned the store and they never laughed at us once: smiled a little maybe when we explained some hair-brained scheme that we had in mind for, say, suspending a very heavy beaded curtain from the cornice or dismantling and reassembling an old cupola in the back garden. They’d listen patiently and then say

“I’m with you Brian... one of these might do the trick.”

GWS didn’t just sell fancy stuff: hundreds of tiny flat- headed, copper nails to fix the lead roof back onto the cupola; one extra large hook for the hanging chair; a yard and a half of medium-gage chain for said chair; plastic, recessed handles for sliding doors; hinges, nails, screws, bolts and brackets: anything and everything you could possibly need for any DIY project and the nice thing was nothing came in rigid plastic packaging and you didn’t have to buy ten of something if you only wanted one. Oh, and somewhere out the back they even had a box of dog biscuits to keep the whippets happy. We will really miss it.

Kate says “What are you going to do without it?”

“Move” I reply. “Sell up and move to a modern flat where everything’s already done.”

And I have just the place in mind…

Up at the reservoir they’ve built a 29 storey tower block with views all over London and beyond. Brian and I are going to have a look at an apartment there this afternoon up on the 23^rd floor. It’s still a hard hat area as they haven’t been fully kitted out yet. Perhaps I can request a 70s style kitchen and an 80s dining room and I’d really like a 50s bedroom and a Mad Men lounge. Hmmm... maybe a new build isn’t for me after all.

Dog walking at the reservoir yesterday.

Pup Fiction

How lovely! Here's ye olde Stokey balloon seller and his missus fussing over the pup. "We'll pop back later and buy a bunch of of your beautiful balloons" I lie. 

"Oh they're not for sale darling. We're just actors and you're in the middle of a film set"

Should have guessed.

Park Life

DOWN

Yesterday was a terrible day. It ranks as one of the worst ever. I’m not talking about the dismal weather; that would be reason enough to feel depressed but it was a day so sad that it had the potential to cloud my life forever.

At 11 am, my next-door neighbor, June called. She said there was a mother duck and baby ducks in her back garden. June is 80 years old. Jack her husband is also 80, he had gone to Wickes to buy a sink. She didn’t know what to do. Clueless about ducks ourselves, Brian and I waded in. John followed with the camera. Huddled under some dripping wet shrubbery was the mother, as sleek as an otter and gathered around her were eleven exquisitely beautiful, dark-brown, fluffy ducklings. I called the RSPCA – they said leave them alone; the mother would lead them to safety. What? across Lordship Park? on the zebra? and what about the cats, the magpies, the foxes? They must have come from the park, but why? I think they were heading to the reservoir. In a panic we decided to try and capture them and return them to the safety of the lakes in Clissold Park. John ushered them up the alley beside the house as Jack pulls into the drive. June, Jack, Brian and I lay in wait with a large towel and an old, fabric garden-bin. The family gave us the slip behind Jack’s Mercedes and somehow ended up in the deep gulley that runs around the basement bay windows. John jumped down and started to fill his pockets with tiny ducklings while the rest of us fretted in the relentless grey drizzle, watching. All the time the agitated mother was communicating in soft, urgent croaks while her offspring chirruped in response. Buses, cars and vans rumbled by a few yards away. I could hear our dogs barking in the basement next door. It was going to be much more difficult to catch the mother. With a couple of flaps she was out of the gully and pacing the edge. Then she was back in the gulley, frantically trying to round up her remaining chics. John calmly threw the towel over her, swiftly wrapped her up in it and handed the bundle to me.

“Here, hold tight while I get the rest of the babies.” She was panicking and I couldn’t contain her in the towel; she wriggled her way free and flew into the sky. With one hand John made a motion of pointing a gun at me and firing it, with the other he scooped up the final chic and dropped it into the garden bin. What now? We searched the sky and waited. The ducklings were going crazy at the bottom of the bin. It was my idea for Brian and Jack to take the babies to the park and empty them onto the bank near the lake in the hope that mum would make her way back there and find them. June and I would wait and see if the she came back to the house. John returned to the Xbox, tutting. We waited in the rain for ten minutes and then headed towards the park. As we entered the gates I could just about make out Brian and Jack in the misty rain at the far end of the lake. In the middle of the choppy grey water was the cluster of ducklings, bobbing about, helpless. A couple of pessimistic, dog-walking acquaintances were looking on in horror.

“They’re only a couple of days old, they wont survive out there without their mother!”

“The terrapins will pull them under.”

A heron stared at the fluffy knot as it drifted towards the island. This was all a BIG mistake.

“Call Trent Park Nature Reserve.” Someone suggested. I wanted to wade into the lake and scoop the babes back into the bin. I wiped the rain from my iPhone and googled Trent Park. There was a mobile number – I called it and gabbled the predicament to a sympathetic bloke at the end of the phone.

“I’ve been working with ducks for twenty-seven years. It’s hopeless. Once a duckling is separated from it’s mother and is in the water it will only survive for a few minutes. Their down isn’t like feathers; it’s not waterproof. It becomes saturated with water really quickly and they just sink. Even if you could get a boat out with a net you’d be lucky to save even one.”

“Okay, thanks, thanks anyway.” I staggered to a bench and watched as an adult duck approached the brood.

“Maybe that’s the dad!”

The duck gave an aggressive quack and the duckings skimmed across the water in fear.

“No, I don’t think he’s the dad.”

June and Jack were trudging home and as we followed them along the side of the lake the current was dividing the bunch and the fragile balls of fluff were dispersed amongst the reeds.

We returned in gloom. June and Jack tried to make optimistic comments like,

“I’m sure the mum will find them” and “It wasn’t your fault.” Brian didn’t say anything.

The rest of the day was dreadful. John was getting ready to go on holiday to Croatia and wanted a haircut. I wasn’t in the mood and accidentally had the clippers on the wrong setting and shaved a bald patch above one ear and he went spare.

I googled abandoned ducklings.

“Ducklings can become separated from their mother for a number of reasons but in the majority of cases it is due to human interference.”

Brian gave the dogs their evening walk around the lakes. He reported no sightings of the duck family but tried to make out that that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They were probably snuggled up with mummy duck on the island.

I didn’t sleep last night. The image of the tiny, vulnerable ducklings adrift on the lake haunted every moment. As I shifted about in bed I had a horrible pain in my chest. I couldn’t bear to think about the grief of the mother duck and the gruesome death of her babies.

At 6 am I got up. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. Brian was in the shower. I shouted through the door,

“I’m going to the park to look for the ducklings. I know it’s hopeless but I have to. I’ll take the dogs.”

As I opened the front door both dogs tugged on their leads and pulled me down the steps; probably next-door-the-other-way’s cat. Then I saw her, the mother duck at the bottom of the steps near the gully. I ran back up and banged on the door and rang the bell. That was the most heart-breaking of all outcomes: the mother duck comes back to look for her babies and not a single one is here – because I took them to the lake and they’ve all been eaten by terrapins. Brian opened the door and I fell in sobbing.

“Hang on!” he shouts. All the babies are here too! Look! Huddled on the corner of the gulley. See, you were right. You were right to take them to the lake. The mother was watching all the time.”

Indescribable joy and more sobbing. John had left at 1am to catch his flight but Brian managed to get all the ducklings and the mum into boxes and Jack drove us up to the reservoir where we left them in the long grass. After a moment they slipped down the bank into the water and glided off. The mother turned and looked back at us several times before disappearing into the distance. When I called the guy at Trent Park to tell him of the happy news he said that all the ducks that he has rescued and released safely over the years have always looked back at him and he takes that as a thank you.

When I got home I asked Brian,

“What if they come back AGAIN? That would be awful.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll flood the gulley for them!”

“Brilliant! I’ve always fancied a moat.”

Wet Canvas

Like we haven't seen enough 'dramatic' skies over Clissold Park this year to last a lifetime....

Annual Anatolian Cultural Fete setting up shop in Clissold Park. Two weeks of stormy weather - guaranteed.

Brian has decided to paint a series of 'Dramatic Skies over Clissold Park' landscapes. Thanks B, now we can enjoy them indoors as well as out.  

'(It's All) Kicking Off' by Brian Ayling

Some Front

Inspiring Weather

ANOTHER grey day in Hackney...

... inspired another beautiful, rather tasteful and not overly expensive considering the size (5ft x 4ft)  landscape by Brian [buy through Hackney Chateau quoting discount code:WKD-ART]

Down-in-the-Dumps Dog

Whippets don't like the wet. Enzo is so miserable even the promise of 'massive savings on ice-cream' doesn't lift his mood. 

Come on boy, lets take you home and give you a new hair-do - that'll cheer you up.
Some hours later...

Hahaha... Conde Nast Brides Magazine were shooting here yesterday and they asked Stuart from Groom Dog City to bring along Molly, the cutest Bichon Frise, dyed pink for the occasion. Stuart was telling us that he uses completely safe and natural vegetable dyes that gradually wash out - apparently she was even brighter when he first did the colour last week. 

Just Like In The Movies

I was looking for a parking space in Queen Elizabeth's Walk when a movement on the pavement caught my eye. Before I knew it a duck and a stream of eleven ducklings, scarcely any bigger than bumble bees crossed the road in front of me. I stopped right there in the middle of the road, rummaged for the mobile and frantically tried to open the car window. It was no good, they were moving fast, the ducklings like the tail of a kite, rippling in an articulated row behind their elegant mother. I'd have to jump out and follow them. I glanced in the rear-view mirror and a white van was a couple of inches from my back bumper. Shit. The geezer was getting out. I braced myself for a string of expletives. "Quick quick!" he shouted in an eastern European accent."I've seen this only in the cartoons! It's so sweet" and he pranced off with his iPhone, held at arms length, in the direction of the ducklings.

Dark Spring