I remember Walsall illuminations over the years. We went most years as children, it was always wonderful to wander through the Arboretum, a huge park in Walsall. The lights as we called them usually ran from September and the leaves that were starting to change, were lit with coloured lights, some of the light displays were brought in from Blackpool. The beauty was that you could walk through the park, eventually coming out by the boating lake where you could see a spectacular light show, especially in later years when they used lasers and fountains. Part of the charm was that they kept some of the tableau for years. Like the clock family. These were clock shaped with legs and arms and the hour and minute hands formed the faces. They were fibre glass and painted bright colours. With bulbs placed in them to light them. There was always a fair on in the park so children could go on the rides and have candy floss. It’s ten years since ‘cost cutting’ closed them down. So sad……
Today’s #uskstoke challenge was to draw something to do with restrictions. The box is being posted up to Lancashire with a bike frame as we can’t deliver it directly to hubbies brother. So I think this counts? Pencil sketch, 6b, on an A6 cartridge pad. Tried to do the writing on the box as neatly as I could. X
We contacted our local bike shop because my hubby wants to send his old bike frame to his brother so that it can be tidied up and restored a bit. If we were not nervous about going to visit hir brother, and they were not under a local lockdown, we would have taken it in the car. But no, we can’t travel there as we would not be allowed back!
So this is a HUGE box to put the frame in. It’s about six foot by four? It’s sitting in the living room because it’s too wet to pack it up at the moment. No doubt the cats will try and get in… Sending cats to Lancashire? Not likely!
One of the best things this year have been the begonias in the hanging baskets.
I’m not certain, but I think there are male and female flowers. Because some are big and blousy and the others are smaller and more simple. Whichever they are, they have been beautiful this year. The colours are subtle and amazing. They have also lasted a long time. I’ve only had to dead head them a few times. I’m hoping the weather does not get cold too soon so I can enjoy them for a few weeks longer.
I see faces in a lot of things. Tonight’s wispy clouds reminded me of a face. I think these are interesting clouds. You could see that the wind was pretty strong up there. The clouds were being blown across at 90° to the direction they were moving in, shearing them and dissolving them. The weather has cleared up a lot today, but it looks like we might be in for another bout of rain tomorrow.
Does anyone else like spotting clouds too? I used to lie down and look up at the sky. There is a lot up there!
He was stern, bearded, he was a patriarch and knew it. He had always been strict with the women and girls in the village. They could come and go, but were not allowed to go to lessons, while the boys had schooling, and of course the best food and clothes.
Nothing would change his mind, that was how things were and that was how it would always be.
His daughter, turning ten years old, looked up to him. But she was clever. Too bright for washing clothes till her hands went red, too clever for feeding the chickens or wringing their necks and plucking them when the time came. She could do everything girls five years older than her were capable of. She stitched and sewed, she span wool. She was useful and her father knew it.
‘father’ she would ask. ‘Why is the sky blue? How old is the world?’ Or ‘why are the clouds that shape?’ One day she even asked why the moon waxed and wained. Her father would just say ‘none of your nonsense my girl’ or ‘get back to your laundering’. The daughter turned round sadly and carried on with her chores.
For two years this carried on, until one day the father became ill, he took to his bed, and despite his wife’s care he only grew worse. His eyes were closed when his daughter bought his supper to him one evening. She spooned some broth into his mouth, he retched, but she persevered. Little by little he supped the food. Later she came to check on him and he seemed a little better.
A week later he was sitting up in bed. His daughter came into the room and he held her hand as she gave him more broth. ‘what’s in this food’ he asked ‘it tastes strange, bitter’ ‘just herbs’ she said.
When he had fully recovered the father asked his wife what she had used to make the broth, ‘it wasn’t me’ she said. ‘Daughter talked to the old women, she made the broth after speaking to them’.
Later he talked to his daughter ‘how did you know how to cure me?’ ‘I asked questions like I always do’ she said.
Finally his mind changed. ‘you will go to school my girl, if you can learn such things off old women, I want to know what you can learn in class’.
The daughter started school and after four years she was taken into college. Finally she was trained as an apothecary. From then on the father insisted all the children, girls as well as boys, should be taught.
My hubby keeps collecting seeds and nuts at the moment. His plan is to put them in pots and try and grow them, then pass them on to friends? But what if no-one wants them? I do not need any more trees in our garden. We have two oak saplings already, a twenty five year old walnut tree which is sixty foot high, a willow tree, a pear, two or three apples, a sycamore, a mountain Ash, an Ash tree. Also a eucalyptus, three leylandii, plus others and lots of bushes. But no, he’s not satisfied. The garden is where two houses used to stand, there isn’t enough space for more plants.
