Full on day!

Posted on March 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Choir, Choir practice, Enjoyment, Happy, Music, Singing, Spode, the factory floor, YogaLeave a comment

I started out today at the Factory Floor at Spode singing with our choir and another choir. We were with the Boat Band who played cajun music first. Two of the band are our choir leaders. We sang before lunch was served and then again afterwards. It was great fun.

Then I went home for a rest, but I decided I felt well enough to go to yoga class. I haven’t Bern for a couple of weeks. I do chair yoga because I can’t get down on the floor and I can’t do inverted postures. My blood pressure is too high for that. Even so I felt tired afterwards, but it made me realise I have got over the cough and chest infection I’ve had for a few weeks.

Straight after yoga I sang with the other choir I am in. Each song was fun. I felt my voice getting clearer and I was able to hold notes I hadn’t been able to last week. We are learning some new songs and I was pleased that I could hear the tunes and pick them up. I had a really good day. I hope it carries on like this. X

Need to take better photos…

Posted on March 21, 2023March 21, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Fine Art, Jug, Painting, Pottery, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Teapot, Willow pattern2 Comments

Three pottery paintings I did a few years ago. The one of the jug is going to a new home soon. ❤️

I took them to a joint performance of our Clay chorus and the Starfish choir because we were singing a song about the Willow pattern (this is based on a Spode platter) and also a ship called Hispaniola bringing pottery clay from across the seas that had been written for us by Mark Whitter. I was very proud to have my work appreciated.

I am making cards from these if I can so I need better photos to show them clearly .

Was that YOU singing?

Posted on March 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged compliment, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1881, Memory, Music, Odd, Piano, Singing, StrangeLeave a comment

What was the best compliment you’ve received?

Years ago, I was in my twenties, my friend and I were staying somewhere on a residential course. She was a musician and there was a piano in lounge of the house we were staying in. I asked if I could try singing something (it was before I had singing lessons).

I’d just finished singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ and a man came in. He looked at us both and said to my friend ‘you have a lovely voice’ . To which she replied that it was me that had been singing! Then the man said something like ‘was that YOU singing?’ I think he was surprised because I wasn’t pretty and I had big glasses and probably didn’t look like a singer (what do they look like?). He said ‘you were very good’ again and left! I take that as a big compliment even if it was a bit strange…

Buds on the willow tree

Posted on March 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Gardening, Birds, Life, Growing, Blue tits, Willow, Buddlea, Buds, old willow, fuzzy catkinsLeave a comment

Ooo the fuzzy buds are opening on the old willow tree in the garden. Once they fully open the blue tits will start pulling at them, I don’t know if they get the fluff out of them to use in their nests or if they are eating insects on them?

I’m not sure what type of willow tree it is, I think it’s a wild type, one that floats in on a seed and grows, a bit like a buddlea Bush, we have them too. They sneak in, but the butterflies love them. Which reminds me, I need to prune the buddleas, you have to cut them back by two thirds before they start growing in the spring, so that’s a job to do. Spring is on the way! Gardening begins.

The Owl and the Pussycat

Posted on March 20, 2023March 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, bookcase, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Memory, nonsense poetry, Objects, Owl, pussycat, the owl and the pussycatLeave a comment

Went to sea, in a beautiful pea green boat…

They took some money and plenty of honey, wrapped up in a five pound note….

A nonsense poem by Edward Lear, who also wrote the Dong with the luminous nose and the Yonghie Bonghie Bo. There used to be a TV show in the seventies that included these characters, but the animation was very weird and too colourful if that’s possible with the poems set to odd music, and I’m afraid it actually put me off reading them!

I also get Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll ( who wrote Alice in Wonderland etc) mixed up.

I realised this morning that I have the iconic animals sitting on my bookcase in the bedroom. They are a tiny cat made by an artist friend and an owl I made of clay pressed into a mold. I hadn’t put two and two together before. I guess that anything can spark a chain of memories, there’s a phrase for it in semiotics, about signs and signifiers, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it!

Bike before, Car now.

Posted on March 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bike, Car, carbon footprint, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1880, Memory, tandem, Travelling2 Comments

You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?

When I was young I could cycle forty miles in three hours (including hills). We once did a hundred mile reliability trial in five and a half hours, we used a tandem. The one we rode on was two bikes welded together. One of the chain wheels was on back to front so a pedal unwound and fell off during the ride.

After I sustained an injury we got a car because my bike was damaged in the accident. It went in to be fixed and the shop lost it! I don’t drive much or very far now. In fact I travel less than I did when we cycled. Most places we go to are only a few miles away unless we go on holiday. I drove less than a thousand miles last year, so I guess my carbon footprint must be low.

No, I don’t use the train. If you go anywhere from Stoke-on-Trent on the train it’s hard to find one that comes back late in the evening so you either can’t spend a long time away or you have to come back the next day. We are also bypassed by the West Coast main line I think…. Bad for a city! Bus? Yes sometimes, but it depends again if there is a bus back and the routes keep getting changed or cancelled. And planes? Are you kidding…. Too scared.

Reflected

Posted on March 20, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Sky, Photo, Playing, Tree, Building, Spring, catkins, Roof, horizontal symmetryLeave a comment

I still like this photo that I made into a mirrored image, the tree is just putting out catkins as Spring comes closer. But my favourite bit is the roof on the right. It sort of looks like a fish or a strange bomb? or a plane?

Sour

Posted on March 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, apples, Art, Autumn, Colours, Drawing, Felt pens, Green, Life, Sketching, Sour2 Comments

Slightly late for Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt sour. My sour is really gentle, crab apples. You can add lots of sugar to calm them down and make crab apple jelly. Felt pen drawing, tried to make it a bit impressionistic.

Waiting for coffee

Posted on March 19, 2023 Posted in Uncategorized, SketchingTagged Art, Cafe, Coffee, Drawing, Fun, Hubby, Life, Middleport pottery, Sketching, Urban sketchingLeave a comment

Hubby yesterday, we had gone over to Middleport pottery so I could draw with the Stoke on Trent Urban Sketchers group. We decided to grab a cup of coffee but the cafe was very crowded and I’ve just got over a cold and didn’t want to catch another or worse. I decided to sit at one of the big round tables outside and so took the opportunity to draw my hubby and the canal and view behind him. The pointy thing about a third of the way in on the right is a church steeple but my ink brush wasn’t thin enough to get a point on it! Anyway I was pleased with the results.

Cabbage

Posted on March 19, 2023March 19, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged cabbage, Discussion, isolated, photosynthesis, Science, sulphur, sulphur compound, Thinking11 Comments

Green leaves are good for you, full of vitamins and minerals…. Don’t over cook them. Cabbages are lovely but they do smell. My hubby says they have mercaptans, a compound with a hydrogen and sulphur compound in them and Di methyl and tri methyl sulphide compounds. Sulphur is one of the essential elements in DNA and RNA, I’m not sure which amino acid it is in but they include Adenine, Guanine, Cytosene, Thiamine in DNA and Urasyl in RNA. (I learned this from my O level biology).

Thinking of school reminds me of school dinners and the cabbage smell from the kitchens! The cabbage was cooked till it was a wet soggy mess… Not hard to chew, but not nice.

Some plants and animals actually live on Sulphur compounds deep in caves and deep in the oceans because there is no light for photosynthesis. They can have anaerobic metabolisms if there is a lack of oxygen. Then the caves they are in can become acidic.

This was part of a discussion with my hubby, he’s the scientist, it’s interesting to talk things through. I do find things fascinating. (if any of this is wrong please tell me in the comments, I am not a scientist).