From the hospital window

 I am afraid my sketching at the moment is pretty minimal. I did this on the day I left hospital, trees in the park over the road.
This is still an on going thing, although the pain on the whole I am coping with, sleeping on ones back at night is rather a trial.
The physio seems to think I am doing well but I think I need to do more sooner and am frustrated.
After doing some pretty minimal exercises one is so tired, but as every one tells me its not 2 weeks from the op yet and to take it slowly.
I can walk relatively well.
I think I am just an impatient person!!
John is doing a superb job of looking after me and it will be a shock to my system when I have to get on with doing it all myself, especially the cooking. He is a very good cook.

Boats and doorways

My last couple of sketches. I may do a couple more next week when I get home, we will see how things go.
Typical boat and dwelling on the beach at Jimbayan and the other is the door way and entrance to the resort we were staying in.
I have been pretty busy and as the power will be off tomorrow I have had to do a few things I was going to do before we left for Adelaide.
I hope to be back on the computer some time in a week, depending on how things go.

More Bali sketches

 The first was a quick line sketch of our Batik class and the second was of the pool at Ketut's place, I was sitting waiting for my room to be cleaned and in the breakfast area which is above the pool.
A lovely place to swim, I did most days.
We walked along the cliffs at home this morning, wet and we got pretty damp while walking but it may be my second to last walk, look on my other blog here for the photos I took this morning.
Double click to enlarge.

Bali Sketchbook

I dont know what blogger is doing but I have been told these were not in the last post.

More from my Bali sketchbook

Blogger is being a pain again!!
I am not sure if this will get up.
Any way, the top sketch was done while I was sitting on my little veranda facing the villa over the path and garden and looking down towards the pool. There were other rooms upstairs.
The next is trying to give an idea of the statues and the ferns and plants that grew in and around them.
It is cold and wet here now so this is bringing back lovely memories.
Trying to dry clothes at the moment is not easy.
I have had blood taken for the hospital too this morning and now feel rather drained, after days of not having a lot of pain in my knee it has come back with a vengeance.

Batik class at Nirvana, Ubud

 I sketched this statue with an orchid in her hair at the place we went to to see the special coffee that is eaten by an animal (dont ask!!) /the others were buying things and I sat and waited as I was tired. I actually sat next to this statue.
We had a Batik class at Nirvana a day or so later and so I decided to use this as my base for my Batik with a few ideas thrown in by the master Nyoman Suradnya it is not as easy as it seems and although I knew the principals of batik doing it is another matter.
My finished product.
You can see why it was so tiring, sitting hunched on a small stool in the heat and humidity and feeling old and fat!!
The last photo is of Cynthia and one of our lovely young helpers in the compound at Nirvana.
You can stay there if you wish it is very central to Ubud but at the end of a quiet lane.
The class ran from around 10am to 2pm, with a lovely lunch thrown in, I think it was the rather spicy baby pig wrapped in a lovely parcel of a leaf and then brown paper and string.
We went a little over time but it was a great day to spend part of a day.
If I remember rightly we went to have a cold drink along the main road of Ubud afterwards and watched the passing throng of tourists, buses, motorcycles and cars go by.

From my Bali sketchbook

 I am home and safely at that but it was a long day when we left and when I arrived and since then it has bucketted down with rain and I have been unpacking, washing, tidying and generally getting very tired.
I go to hospital on the afternoon of the 17th for the knee replacement op and am supposed to be first on the list in the morning.
since I came home my knee has really been giving me hell, and yet when I was in Bali I walked a huge amount, over rough pavements and it hardly hurt at all, but then I was on holidays!!
I have hardly had time to tidy up my sketchbook, as well as the photos, but thought I should at least put these pages up.
we stayed in a lovely place in Ubud called Ketut's place, and most mornings and evenings I sat out on my little undercover patio and sketched what was around me.
On my table was a little wooden ashtray with pigs heads carved around it and on top a pot with a different little arrangement of leaves and flowers every day. Of course I had to sketch that.
The frogs were quickly sketched from a watercolour painting done where we had our batik class, not at all good, but I did later encounter a long thin brown one one night in the torch light after rain.
I love frogs.
Bali was magical, I may never go back, but the tour arranged by Cynthia was really very good (any one want to know email me and I will put you in contact with her). She knows Bali and where to go for textiles and silver smiths, batik and cooking classes as well as a lovely orchid garden and the museum/art gallery in Ubud.
Where we stayed was the best, close enough to the hustle and bustle for even me to walk to but far enough away to feel like part of that mini village and Ketut and his wife and children were tops, really lovely people.
Oh and I bought on the last day in Ubud a wonderful book called Bali Sketchbook, far better sketches than I can do and lots of wonderful explanations and we saw so much of what is in there.
Enough for tonight, I need to rest this knee, more later.