I did this years ago. I still love this little watercolour doodle. I splashed blue paint onto the paper then I think I added the cat… I loved adding his frowny face. Poor cat, getting soaked. X
An old doodle
Category: Memories
Annual Orme exhibition
Our Orme group continues to meet and create new art.
We are holding our annual exhibition, with paintings, sculpture, jewellery and other art and crafts available. There will be festive refreshments available.
We have new artists who have joined this year so there will be different work amongst the art on display. If you are in the area of Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire, on 23rd November 2025 why not come along?
Old willow tree
Old willow tree
Standing tall
Your long thin leaves
Now wave and fall
From green to gold
And yellow hue
Fluttering against
A sky of blue.
Then wind blows strong
Storm comes along
Your leaves are shredded
And stripped
To lie among
The fallen mulch
For slugs and snails
To munch!
Bonfire night 2025
For the last couple of weeks fireworks have been going off in the UK to celebrate bonfire night and possibly eid and Halloween too. But last night was the loudest and longest session.
I’d been out and was driving home. At the top of our hill I could see the flashes and bangs of massive fireworks across the city. The weather was clear and dry so I could see a lot of sparkling colours. I’m glad I went home, my poor cats were petrified. I’d forgotten to leave the radio on to drown out the noise. They soon settled down though x
I was driving so couldn’t take a photo but decided to try and draw an idea of a rocket going off in my Artrage app.
Quick Robin
My paintbrush flittered quickly
Across the canvas
A blob of red and brown
A touch of white on a rotund belly
Fluffed up to keep out the cold.
An hour of painting
Green sprigs above
Snow below
Footprints trail
Sparse grass protrudes
Hop on the way
To Christmas.
Rain
It rained very heavily a few days ago.
I wrote this poem in response :
Rain flowed down the hill
Flooded the gutters
A wall of water
In the midst of it
A man on a mobility scooter
Drove it through two feet of water
Flash flood wheel chair hero!
The man on the scooter was videoed, it made the local TV news! Legend! I think it’s on tiktok in Stoke on Trent.
He’s still here x
My old cat seems to be a bit better, he’s eating more and has gone back on to solid foods. He is more friendly and active too.
I thought his life was over, but he’s somehow stabilised. I’m hoping he keeps going, as long as he’s not in pain. The anxiety has settled a bit in me too. I don’t worry about going out as much now. I can’t explain the relief I feel. And he’s getting lots of love. He’s lying on the mat near the heater at the moment. Paws tucked under. Typical loaf position.
Old pottery
Old buildings in our city don’t always last. They are often left to rot. Trees and bushes grow out of brickwork, splitting the seams and unzipping the building. Making the ancient pottery a ruin.
Some places dismantle buildings. For example the Black Country Museum in Dudley, West Midlands, England. It often numbers each individual brick of a house, or factory, or school and rebuilds it within the grounds of the museum. It has working chain makers and underground canals that run through caves with fossils imbeded in the walls.
Meanwhile our industrial heritage in Stoke on Trent is gradually rotting, or is even burnt down by arsonists. We really should take better care of out industrial archeology even if it means donating it to the black country museum.
Autumn dawn
Reddish sky in the morning
Shepherds take warning….
And they should! A few days ago we had a red dawn, this photo was taken as it faded.
The sky soon clouded over and later we had a deluge! Water flowed down the hill so fast and deep that it overwhelmed the drains and poured out of gutters onto the pavements. At the back of my house it came down the window in a sheet of rain and the water snuck into the wall and plaster around the window frame. I’ve never seen anything like it.
There was a flash flood in the centre of town with rain water up to people’s car headlights. Shops that were safe at the front had brown water knee high in their store rooms….
It might have been a microburst but it was very stormy. The winds were blowing trees about. It was more than the usual thunderstorm. Thankfully it blew over after about twenty minutes.
Climate change is here. I don’t know how places like Jamaica and Cuba and Haiti coped with last week’s hurricane. I feel so worried for them.
An extra bank holiday
Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.
I’d invent “autumn bank holiday” for Britain.
We have lots of bank holidays in the UK but there is a big gap between the bank holiday Monday in August and then Christmas. I know America has a thanksgiving holiday and maybe we could have something in late October?
Not halloween! Not everyone celebrates that so I’d literally call it autumn day. To enjoy the change of the season. The mists and mellow fruitfulness. The changing leaves, autumnal flowers, the ripening of fruit, fungi fruiting, the start of animals gathering food for winter.
An outside day to explore and enjoy the season and a day of rest for the day, keeping a warm evening to enjoy seasonal foods.
Mallaband-Brown 