Yesterday I did the All Creatures Great and Small matinee, first two episodes. I can't watch longer than that without getting in a blur. I have the whole season to watch.
I really like very much the casting. They acknowledge the vet's a Scot, give Glasgow vet college its due, and the characters talk like people, not like quaint old parties. And Helen sounds local, not like a poncy London visitor. These are huge improvements on the sadly classist original production.
But the location is further west in the Dales, not the most beautiful part where the original was filmed. It's still lovely but you can do better, on where I lived, Gribdale, now in the North York Moors National Park. Then it was just where we lived!
The first painting I ever exhibited, and the only artwork I've ever declined to sell, is this
It's the view from the back of our house, across the moor with Roseberry Topping sticking up there in the distance. I climbed this when I was three. It's just under mountain height, family day climb, walk from the house, up the hill, down, walk home.
I remember my Dad putting down his handkerchief for me to scramble up on my knees, so tired. White handkerchief against green mosses and lichens. My Mom told me in later years that when we got home, I was too tired to get my foot over the step.
The painting, you'll noticed, has a very low eye view, close to the ground. That's because I painted from the memory of being about three. I saw everything like that, as little kids do. Small rises in the foreground loom like little hills.
The far view is the Cleveland Hills, the mental framework I carry permanently. The shapes get into my art all over, wherever there are sinuous lines. Even in the silver-work of the art doll. So much more, but another time.
This is a couple of dales, valleys, east from the setting of the first All Creatures, from which a lot of the scenes were familiar to me. Not so much with the new production.
But it's okay. It's so much better in ways that matter to my social little heart.
Then I got on making the pockets for the Useful Robe, with notches to echo the neckline. I need to try on, to situate them right before I attach them.
And even though it was getting late, I just had to try spinning a bit of that merino silk, and it feels wonderful, fine but strong, slides along. Oh, a pome!
Good day. Listening to an Andy Carpenter while I worked.
