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Gorgeous!

Neophyte wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2017 3:52 amGorgeous!

what a lovely and unexpected comment, i am not used to this, people here are normally reticent to speak - thank you!
earlier (sepia) version:

Few on this site are more reticent than I (sadly), but I couldn't help but comment on the beauty of that portrait! The sepia one is gorgeous, also...as are so many of yours. I was awed the first time I came across one of your renditions and looked up other Geoffrey posts in amazement...but posted not a word. Just know, I am very thankful for all of your offerings, Geoffrey!

Neophyte wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2017 9:45 pm Few on this site are more reticent than I (sadly), but I couldn't help but comment on the beauty of that portrait! The sepia one is gorgeous, also...as are so many of yours. I was awed the first time I came across one of your renditions and looked up other Geoffrey posts in amazement...but posted not a word. Just know, I am very thankful for all of your offerings, Geoffrey!

well, knowing how to respond to such a message is not easy. some while ago, on a dark wintry afternoon, i was walking in the parking area of a shop, when i saw a pram rolling at full speed straight towards the busy main road. you see, the bonnet was up, and acted like a sail for the wind. my hand caught the handle as it rushed past, just as it was about to run directly into the path of a juggernaut. i wheeled the pram back to the shop, lowered the bonnet a little, and saw a beautiful little baby waving its arms, looking at me. just as my foot pressed onto the brake, the mother appeared and asked me to please not interfere with her child. i should have told her what had happened, but she seemed so angry, and that was a natural response - so i just nodded and went into the shop. i was quite certain a person's life had been saved that day, and all the hardships and problems my useless existence had endured up to that time seemed more worthwhile - perhaps there was a purpose to it all.

then, while shopping, i remembered what happened when i was about seven years old, how i slipped on seaweed growing on the end of a groyne that stretched far into the sea. so frightening, i couldn't swim, couldn't reach the groyne to climb back on, just splashed, panicked, went below the surface, swallowed the salty water. my sister told me later that a lady called mrs cole had pulled me back to the shore by my hair, and that sunbathers had almost given up trying to resuscitate me when water filling my lungs spluttered through a choking mouth. so, the lady who saved me from drowning must also be responsible for saving the infant in the pram. i suppose i could take some of the credit, but not all, not by a long shot. it occurred to me that maybe someone had earlier saved mrs cole's life, and so on, and so on - a rope dropping into the pit of history.

so thank you, dear neophyte, but allow me to suggest that these paintings i produce are probably merely the result of fate, a series of irrepressible coincidences. it is nice when people praise them, it confirms to me that people have a seed of goodness in their personalities. yet i feel guilt, too - because my person has the right to accept applause only on behalf of those who actually built the catwalk upon which i strut like a peacock. it seems to me that i am the result of a 'butterfly effect', someone sitting in a chain, in a complex system of links thrusting me towards a destination planned by some mysterious force that has no idea what it's doing.

This very day I was brushing the hair of a passing Nun when the handle of the hairbrush snapped and was deflected into the eye of a Baby who was pushing a pram with his depressed mother inside. It turns out that the mother had been interviewed some years earlier by the very same nun that I had been assaulting. She had been rejected for the vacant post of Head Doorman at the Convent nightclub. The mother leapt out of the pram, screaming "I can walk again!". In celebration he kicked the Baby hard and it landed on the nun's head, killing her instantly.

In itself this was a common enough incident but the undertaker and myself were both wearing grey socks!!!! Amazing coincidence, or what? Spooky happenings here in Molde. I am sorry that my tale was so mundane but I wanted to share.

I too am the reticent type but Neophyte has inspired me to break my vowels of silence, particularly æ, ø, and å.