Merry Christmas

Thank you for following Ian Sidaway Fine Line and Ian Sidaway Studio and for your kind comments. I hope that you have a good Christmas and that 2020 brings all the good things that you wish for.

Twickenham

"I bless heaven, morning, noon, and night that I am in my peaceful house in old Twick."

(Louis Philippe. Duc d'Orleans)

"Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad ?"

(Dodie Smith)

Norfolk

"All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow."

(Grant Wood)

"I could dance with you till the cows come home. Better still, I'll dance with the cows and you come home."

(Groucho Marx)

Holkham

"Some counties vaunt themselves in pies and some in meats excel;

For turnips of enormous size fair Norfolk bares the belle."

(Old Rhyme)

"If this were the time or the place to uphold a paradox, I am half inclined to state that Norfolk is one of the most beautiful of counties."

(Virginia Woolf)

Felbrigg

"The Norfolk Landscape sends a shiver through my soul."

(Raffaella Barker)

"You can always tell a Norfolk man, but you can't tell him very much."

(Sidney Grapes)

Norfolk

"Often times within the circle of our sight there is neither house nor man visible. A grey church tower, a windmill, or a dark brow sail of a wherry in the distance breaks the sense of utter loneliness, but the scene is wild enough to enchain the imagination of many."

(George Christopher Davis)

"I am a Norfolk man and glory in being so."

(Horatio Nelson)

Bushy Park

"Art has one function-to reaffirm and glorify life."

(W.Edward Brown)

"Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope will keep them company to the end of the day."

(Winston Churchill)

The Orchard at Berth Ifan

"Give me a juicy autumn fruit, ripe from the orchard."

(Walt Whitman)

"Now's the time when children's noses

 All become as red as roses

 And the colour of their faces

 Makes me think of orchard places

 Where the juicy apples grow

 And tomatoes in a row."

(Katherine Mansfield)

Twickenham Farmers Market

"We're still here trying to get the word out that 330 farmers are quitting every week."

(Willie Nelson)

"Never be a food snob. Learn from everyone you meet-the fish guy at your market, the lady at the local diner, farmers, cheese makers. Ask the questions, try everything and eat up !"

(Rachael Ray)

Stag Beetle

"As I lie in bed I assume the shape of a big beetle, a stag beetle or a cockchafer, I think."

(Franz Kafka)

"It is amazing what a lot of insect life goes on under your nose when you have got it an inch from the earth. I suppose it goes on in any case, but if you are proceeding on your stomach, dragging your body along by your fingernails entomology presents itself very forcibly as a justified science."

(Beryl Markham)

Sussex Sheep

"I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion."

(Alexander the Great)

"It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them."

(Tiberius)

Alfriston

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life."

(William Faulkner)

"He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist."

(Francis of Assisi)

Florence

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings."

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experience of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his (her) roses."

(Ellen Key)

Elizabeth David

"It is not an exaggeration to say that peace and happiness begin, geographically, where garlic is used in cooking."

(Marcel Boulestin)

"Provence is a country to which I am always returning, next week, next year, any day now, as soon as I can get on to a train. Here in London it is an effort of will to believe in the existence of such a place at all."

(Elizabeth David)

Holkham Hall

"Hand any four-year-old a fist of crayons, and it is very, very few who don't get busy with them, drawing, colouring, scribbling. I have not stopped scribbling."

(Chris Raschka)

"With drawing, I am actually aware of creating something on a sheet of paper. It is a sensual act, which you cannot say about the act of writing. In fact, I often

turn to drawing to recover from the act of writing."

(Gunter Grass)

Blickling Hall

"You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life."

(Joan Miro)

"Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.

(Albert Einstein)

Paris

"It is a good thing to go to Paris for a few days if you have had a lot of trouble, and that is my advice to everyone except Parisians."

(Muriel Spark)

"And trade is art, and art is philosophy,

In Paris."

(Elizabeth Barratt Browning)