One of my favourite poems

There’s a reason why I haven’t been so active with this blog. My mother died last Tuesday.
We have been looking at readings for the funeral mass.
Although this isn’t totally appropriate for the death of a mother, this poem by Thomas Hardy is one of my favourites as it seems to encapsulate all the emotions about living life to the full. Carpe Diem!

Best Times
by Thomas Hardy

We went a day’s excursion to the stream,
Basked by the bank, and bent to the ripple-gleam,
And I did not know
That life would show
However it might flower, no finer glow.

I walked in the Sunday sunshine by the road
That wound towards the wicket of your abode,
And I did not think
That life would shrink
To nothing ere it shed a rosier pink.

Unlooked for I arrived on a rainy night
And you hailed me at the door by the swaying light,
And I full forgot
That life might not
Again be touching that ecstatic height.

And that calm eve when you walked up the stair,
After a gaiety prolonged and rare,
No thought soever
That you might never
Walk down again, struck me as I stood there.

Caricature Entertainment at Xmas Company Parties!

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If your company is holding a Christmas (Xmas) Party this year, you might like to have a more original form of entertainment than the usual magician, string quartet or balloon modeller!

A caricaturist can draw up to 12 caricatures per hour at these events. The onlooking guests get a lot of fun out of watching and the ‘victims’ get all the fun plus they take away a unique memento of the evening.

Each caricature can be preprinted with company logo and details.

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The Second Fastest Caricaturist in the World – and that’s Official!

Yes, folks, it’s the shy and retiring Steve Hearn:

Steve Hearn

Caricaturist, caricaturist and former purveyor of pharmaceuticals to the gentry, Mr Hearn was kind enough to feature me in his blog recently. Although it depends on your definition of ‘kind’.

Steve is a relative newcomer to the caricaturing scene, having only spotted the bandwagon loaded with easy money about ten years ago. He duly boarded the aforementioned vehicle and is now so much at the forefront of his profession that it could be said that he is DRIVING the wagon.

The photo above doesn’t do him justice. He looks more like this:

Caricature of Steve Hearn

Steve looks much older than he is which can be put down to his inhalation of various fumes at Procter and Gamble. In fact, his exposure to so many noxious chemicals explains a lot. He is an active member of the National Caricaturist Network which is an American organisation despite the fact that he lives in Essex. An avid networker, Steve makes a habit of joining organisations and then getting thrown out. Obviously his incredible gifts of intelligence, charm and good looks are seen as too much of a threat to most people.

An explanation of the headline: Steve entered a ‘World’s Fastest Caricaturist’ contest once and came SECOND. And there were as many as twenty entrants out of the whole world. What next, Steve? World domination can’t be far off!

Seriously though, he likes a laugh does Steve and none better than when the laughter is aimed at him!

He’s got a blog, but it’s not much good.

What a lovely man!

The sensational Dr George Sik (sic) commissioned yet another imaginatively-conceived caricature of one of his friends. Here it is:

Caricature of Craig Rowson

And his reply was:

Another hit! The cheque is on its way! The women looked astonishingly like Craig’s real ex-girlfriends. Were they drawn from life? If so, you should be charging extra!
Cheers!
George

Wasn’t that nice?