June | 2016 | Sally Porch

“Sally, you’ve been a bit uninspired recently (or are you too busy to blog?),” wrote Lorelle on Facebook yesterday.

Lorelle knows me very well – she should do – we have been friends since I was eleven or twelve years old, when we lived across the road from each other at Mountjoy Terrace in Wynnum, Brisbane.

“Uninspired?,” I thought to myself and chuckled.

Of course, it might seem that way when my blog posts are few and far between or they consist of mainly photographs, but the truth is that I’m far from uninspired and desperate to get back to writing every day, not only my blog but also serious writing, especially after last Monday.

It was the day after the bicycle event that my brother Robert had organised, and in which Chris and I participated (also one of the busiest days in Dawlish owing to the Radio 1 Roadshow coming to Powderham Castle), and we were painting the table and chairs out in the studio garden. The weather was sunny and warm, the perfect day for catching up with outdoor jobs (after the long wet winter that had encroached upon spring), and we would have felt guilty just lazing around or staying indoors, on the computer. Now I enjoy listening to audiobooks, plays or interesting things on Youtube while I’m painting so we opened wide the French doors of my studio that we might hear better a recording of the writer Ray Bradbury speaking at UCLA in 1968.

The next best thing to being creative is listening to someone who inspires one to be creative and original. Ray Bradbury was witty, clever, interesting and an inspiration; and it was fascinating to note that this particular speech was given one year before Neil Armstrong made his “leap for mankind” with the Apollo 11 expedition to the moon.

I remember as a schoolgirl being enthralled by Ray Bradbury’s “The Illustrated Man” (what about the suspense of “The Veldt”?). I didn’t know that Bradbury was so prolific a writer or that my husband had read every one of the author’s books. Chris says he has them all if I want to read them but I’m a multi-tasker – I still have so many mundane yet necessary things to do that I think I’ll stick to Youtube audiobooks for now. Yesterday, whilst at work on my sewing machine, I began “The Martian Chronicles”; this afternoon I shall be helping with painting the floor of Rosie’s barn and tomorrow I’ll be back on Mars but thinking of humanity – I can hardly wait. Maybe I’ll be painting pictures at the same time. And soon, hopefully, I’ll be back in the flow with regular blogs (not blocks!). In the meantime, as you can see from the photos, I can always find a few minutes to repair a flower fairy with a broken head…