Matisse and Morris - no, not William

Thursday evening. I could, if I'd tried really, really hard, have made it to a poetry event at the Brewhouse (Taunton) for National Poetry Day. Instead I marked it by chatting to our local peripatetic poet and current Chaired Bard, who was attempting to sell his poetry scrolls on the High Street - oh, and signing up to an internet dating site... as in, actually subscribing rather than hovering on the sidelines as I've been doing for about a month now. Not expecting much, but you never know.
I won't bore you with yet more accounts of golden sunshine and thick white duvets of mist on my way to work today - it was a glorious morning though, and Ella Fitzgerald agreed. Although on my return I was feeling so bouncy I changed to Manu Chao.
I have to admit I was feeling decidedly stiff this morning, not only from a hard gym work-out on Tuesday but also - last night I went along to see what the local Crow Morris team was about, and ended up with a fierce aerobic workout while learning the very weird steps and the more conventional sets/changes of their repertoire. This is for an event in three week's time so I doubt I'll be up to scratch by then, we'll have to see how desperate they are to make up another eight (danced in teams of eight, in black rags with feathers and sticks).
The tutor (the quirky painterly one) apologised for the coldness of the room, and suggested that I might prefer to start off clothed, at which chance I jumped (gr.) especially as I'm currently experiencing one of my increasingly rare periods. (Before you ask, tampons. And last June.)
They were studying Matisse this week, and he spent quite a while trying to explain what he wanted - a 'flat, 2D graphic approach' like his later work, so an 'interesting, challenging' pose for me. He told me it was for the first part of the session, and they'd change after the tea-break, but I knew it wouldn't; he's said that before and I always end up having to hold it for the whole three hours. As was, indeed, the case again. So perched on a green-covered chair in my black trainers, blue jeans and olive-green jumper, one foot bent beneath me, a knee in front of my face and an elbow on it, head in hand, I prepared to while away the session by musing on my recent Poetry for Personal Growth session, the first in a course I've devised and am running in my home town.
In the break, the tutor told me that the plans for our contracts were coming along. And I told him that he wouldn't have me for Thursday mornings after half term because I've agreed to work at a local private school - four hours at ten pounds an hour every week being too good to miss, at least until Christmas.
I think the students were quite relieved to see me clothed this week, and it did help with the project too. Flat areas of colour, licence to move things around if they wanted to, or change colours from the original (one gave me a fetching plum sweater), and the results were laid out on the floor at the end for my perusal. Not bad at all.
Driving home, the clouds could have been painted by Utrillo.
(Think that's who I mean).