Spooky Oak

Text taken from Wikipedia. I only heard about the Chained Oak today and I don’t live too far away from it!

Apologies to Wikipedia :

 an autumn night, the Earl of Shrewsbury was returning to his home at Alton Towers when an old woman suddenly appeared in the road ahead of his horse and coach. The coach stopped to find why she was there at which point the old woman begged for a coin. The Earl cruelly dismissed her, so the old woman stated that she would place a curse on him. The old woman told the Earl that for every branch on the Old Oak Tree that fell, a member of the Earl’s family would die. The Earl dismissed this and carried on his way.

That same night, a violent storm caused a single branch from the old oak tree to break and fall. Later that evening, a member of the Earl’s family suddenly and mysteriously died.

Now firmly believing the power of the curse, the Earl is said to have ordered his servants to chain every branch together to prevent other branches from falling. To this day, the Oak tree remains chained up.

Note, the Oak is near Alton Towers which is now a massive theme park in the county of Staffordshire, England.

Phoenix doodle

I drew some curves and spirals then started adding doodles, including a couple of birds and a face. I started using a fine line black ink pen, but it was running out so I turned instead to a black calligraphy pen. When I’d finished I decided to add colour. That helped accentuate some of the shapes. I could do more but decided to leave it. I called it phoenix because a bird seemed to ge appearing from the background.

I have a sarcasm gene

My hubby went shopping today.

I asked him to get savoury food.

So he got:

4 tins of tomatoes, a litre of skimmed milk, some mushrooms, brown bread.

Then, a large Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, mint chocolate matchsticks, grapes, iced buns, a chocolate toffee apple, clementines, bananas, two pomegranates, dried cranberries, two jars of honey, a pot of jam. He also got himself four bottles of beer and four cans of sweat cider.

I’m diabetic, so I can’t eat any of these and can’t really drink much alcohol. My sarcasm gene kicked in so I told him he was being ‘sweet’, I said he should get me some honey roasted ham or some duck in orange sauce. After I washed the shopping and put it away I asked him how much he had spent. I guess 90% of what he bought is for him.

Slightly annoyed!

Choosing vacuums

I had a candy vacuum which lasted ages. When it broke we got a Dyson, but we had problems because it had a small capacity and too many filters. Then we got a Vax, again too many filters and my hubby lost a seal in the bin when he emptied it. I tried sellotaping it but that didn’t work. In the end we got a Henry, the one with a face on it. It’s got a large capacity bag and you don’t have to clear the filters in the wheels every five minutes!

Clocks going back

Oh no! Clocks go back tomorrow night. What does that mean? Lighter mornings, but it goes dark an hour earlier.

They did an experiment in the 1960’s I think. They kept British summer time for about three years. It stayed lighter in the evenings. The other effect was that there were less accidental deaths of children because they were not going back from school in the dark when they were tired. But it didn’t catch on because sunrise in the North and Scotland was at about 10am. The idea has been suggested a few times since then but was voted down in Parliament. Maybe one day they will change it permanently. I wish they would. It also saved money and reduced power usage. So maybe its worth it.

Time flies, digital drawing.

Since we are in the Autumn and Halloween is coming up I thought I would draw something spooky in ArtRage oils. I don’t use the application very often, but it has some nice features including a metallic sheen if you turn the tool for metallic oil up. The writing the cracked paint and the lines on the clock were drawn in the Sketch app. I do like mixing things up a bit. I know it’s finger painting, but I like the imprecise way it looks, sketchy and a bit rough.

In our paper…

Spot the problem…??

Hmm…. Apologies for using this image, but it just points out that even people who should know the rules can make mistakes. I wonder why they are not wearing masks, and why they are so close? Are they related? Have they been sharing a ‘bubble’? Did the photographer usher them together to fit them in the photo? This is the leader of our local council, if she does not follow the rules why should her electorate? Or should we ignore her example and follow the rules? I think so!

Tier Two

Painting done at Orme Group

I was really looking forward to going back to our Orme Art Group, which is meeting for the first time in months. I was only going for the afternoon, but I was going to start doing something new. Then government decided to impose Tier two restrictions in our area. Most of the group will still be in Tier One but not me. Oh well, I have to admit I was a bit nervous of seeing people inside for the first time in months (and yet I’m happy to go shopping). Its strange how this pandemic can affect your confidence.

Maybe one day things can get back to normal, I can see my friends again. I can paint with them, spark new ideas, have fun. Do workshops learning new techniques.

Fingers crossed

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