Cold day

Posted on November 10, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Blue sky, Central heating, Chilly, Cold, Grey clouds, Home, Warmth, Weather, Window2 Comments

Reflected in the car window bue sky and grey cloud. The air is chilled and breezy, a little plastic windmill with curled coloured sails spins in the wind. I don’t want to go out, I’m staying in and keeping warm.

Cold air is circulating near my feet, warm air rises, so it can take a while for it to descend and fill the room. Having cats popping in and out, that can’t close the door behind themselves doesn’t help.

It’s fearful to wonder what the bills will be like this winter. Fuel costs have apparently come down, but not for customers. I guess it’s good in one way because it reduces how much power we are using. But that means extra layers of clothes, in my case a tee shirt jumper and a cardigan. But it’s no hardship compared with being homeless in winter. A “Lifestyle choice” according to our Home Secretary, what an uncaring attitude.

Screen time

Posted on November 9, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged answer, Computer, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2114, Life, Phone, Screens, TimeLeave a comment

How do you manage screen time for yourself?

I don’t manage it well, when my hands get tired I put my phone down, or when I watch something on TV. But I think I’m addicted. I like a couple of word games and play them on my phone, then there’s art, and taking photos of things I like.

Currently I’m watching a very old Alfred Hitchcock film from the 1930’s. It’s a romance. TV screen…

Apart from that I’m on a few social media platforms (too many for my own good! ).

To be honest I wish I could turn the clock back and STEP AWAY FROM THE SCREENS!

Bench

Posted on November 8, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Bench, Breath, gust, Leaves, Life, Poem, Poetry, Quiet, Relax, Rest, Robin, settle, Time, trilling, Wind2 Comments

Sit on a bench

Be quiet

Listen to a Robin

Trilling his song.

The wind floats leaves

Wafted from branches

Zig zagging down.

A sudden breeze

Twirls and swirls

In a mini tornado

The gust stops

Leaves settle.

My gaze settles

My breath, released.

For what?

Posted on November 8, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged 1 minute., alarm, Cooking, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2113, Oven, Thinking, Time, Timer2 Comments

Do you need time?

A time to live, and a time to die, as the saying goes. We all sometimes need time to accomplish things. But then we need time to rest.

For some reason when I’m cooking I know exactly when to go back to the oven. The timer will invariably be at 1 minute to go. If I had waited longer the alarm would go off. I don’t know how I do it?

I’m always late, I somehow manage to leave five minutes later than I would need to, to be on time. I guess that is my procrastination.

I think I need time to sort myself out. Mire rest, less rushing.

Cloudscape

Posted on November 6, 2023November 6, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Blue, Clouds, Grey clouds, Life, Memory, Photo, Rain, scudding, shower clouds, Showers, Sky, white clouds2 Comments

I love piled up clouds, dark and threatening, but with bright white patches, and blue sky (enough to make a sailors britches). You know a heavy shower is on the way, but it won’t last long, and the sun will be shining again.

When I used to walk to school I would chase the shadows of clouds. They would drift along the pavement like lapping waves. I don’t seem to see them any more? Maybe their edges are too fluffy. Or they don’t scud past anymore? Has the, weather changed in the last fifty years…?

Low pressure

Posted on November 4, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Barometer, Bonfire night, Britain, Fireworks, Guy Fawkes, Low pressure, Parliament, UK, Weather4 Comments

Just looked at my Barometer, it’s dropped to 957 millibars which is the lowest I’ve ever seen it. The pointer has dropped all the way down to “stormy”. And yet fireworks are going off all around us. It will be bonfire night, or Guy Fawkes night in the UK tomorrow. (Remember remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot). This was in the reign of James 1st when Guy Fawkes and fellow plotters tried to blow up the houses of Parliament by getting gunpowder into it’s cellars. The British people celebrated the failure of the plot by burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes and letting off fireworks.

So the weather isn’t good for it tonight. I doubt there will be many bonfires because of all the rain we have been having. But the fireworks are crackling and banging all over the place, and it’s not even the 5th yet!

Leaving home

Posted on November 4, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged a year to remember, Cared for, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2109, flat share, Friends, Home, leaving home, Long ago, Memory, Politics, Remembered, Travel9 Comments

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

Leaving home was a big shock. I was miles from home and very nervous. But now all these years later I would go back in an instant.

I met fantastic people, some of whom I have stayed friends with for years. I met my partner, I learned to manage my life and become a grown up. I realised my wish to be an artist, and that has never left me. I started to understand other people’s perspectives on life and how they did, and didn’t, manage.

To be honest, my whole understanding of life and politics changed completely when I left home. I had been protected and had a good life, with enough to eat, a safe place to live, and a caring family. Leaving the nest was hard, but as I moved into a shared flat, the resulting change wasn’t too drastic.

Meeting new people, with different ideas to mine was an eye opener. I don’t think I really appreciated how strange and mad the world was till then. I feel like I didn’t really exist till I moved out of home.

Travelling home was not easy, being away from family was hard. But I made a success of it. I wish I could go back though, just for the enjoyment and knowledge I absorbed. I would not want to be me now, all those years ago. I would want to experience it all fresh and new. But then yes, I’d come back to my current life, renewed.

4 years ago

Posted on November 3, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Landscape, Memory, Photo, Photodirector, playing fields, textured, Time, Trees, Winter2 Comments

View of trees and local playing fields up our hill. It was four years ago. I took a photo during the winter and the trees looked skeletal. I put this through photodirector a couple of times to get the textured look. It almost looks like looking through a wet windscreen, where the lines are blurred and smeared. I think I might paint it.

Silver birch

Posted on November 3, 2023November 3, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Autumn, Blue, Leaves, Memory, showery sky, Silver birch, Tree, Trunk, WhiteLeave a comment

Silver birch trees are much whiter than they used to be when I was a child. They still have dark marks on their trunks, like upward facing arrows. But the dirty grey bark of polluted air in the past decades has seemingly reduced. But particulates still float in the air, and carbon dioxide is increasing, so maybe the trees will get bigger as they absorb the gas?

This beautiful example is starting to lose it’s leaves. Shown against the white and blue of showery sky.

Cutter?

Posted on November 3, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Acrylic on canvas, Art, Commission, cutter, Painting, Prompt, Ship, Sketching, Wip2 Comments

#bandofsketchers prompt for Thursday was Cutter. I hope this is a cutter? In April I did a tall masted ship drawing on the theme Voyage. A friend saw it and wants a painting of it. This is my work in progress that I thought fits the prompt cutter…acrylic on canvas.

Mallaband-Brown

Category: Memories