New paintings and regular art updates.
Where would you go on a shopping spree?
I’d buy more flowers
Bushes or trees
Filling the borders
Cheering for me!
I’d fill up my car
With baskets of bulbs
Glorious fruits
Perennials and shrubs
With a few new tools.
To complete the spree!
What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
Understanding how people cope as they grow older is important to me. I worked as a carer after I finished college for a few years. When you work with people doing the job you learn about aging, mental health issues, loneliness, coping with disability, loss and other issues. You also find that some carers are more caring than others. Some people should not be allowed in to work with clients.
I worked in two different places and the clients were more disabled at the second home, but everyone worked hard to support them. My favourite memories were shows we put on for the residents. One Christmas we did a talent show. I wore a fur coat, tinsel, a home made tutu and blue wellies. I then tried to dance the swan lake ballet, at the end I had someone come on and shoot me with a pretend gun! I came second to two carers miming “sisters” from White Christmas. They were dressed up and were very good, but one of their wigs fell off and I think that’s what won it for them..
When you are on a low wage, part time contract, you really understand how hard life can be and caring for older people teaches you how complex life is.
I look at the bedroom window and see my hubbys cask of ashes there. I tell him it’s a sunny day and I wish he was here. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this low, and I’ve spent most of the day in silence. I spoke to a neighbour and had a brief chat, but that was like a tiny sticking plaster trying to cover over a deep gash in my flesh. It was never going to hold for long.
I’m sitting quietly, the TV is on. I just watched a show where a nurse recently lost her husband in an accident and the tears started filling me up. Like an ocean overtopping flood defences. Now I feel tired out and just overwhelmed with sadness. I need to get out, but I won’t ask anyone. I need to talk but I’m struck dumb, I need to feel better but I feel so low. I’m saying these things here to get them off my shoulders and mind. Things have got to improve, they must.
I could see an odd colour in the sky last night at about 4am , just vague because it was cloudy. So I took a long exposure (60 second) shot.
I posted this on Threads and someone then told me it’s not possible to photograph an aurora through cloud? But I don’t know how thin or dense the cloud was and also my camera shake makes everything look extra blurry.
If this isn’t an aurora, (maybe reflected through gaps in cloud), what has caused this?
Have you seen this book? It’s a really strange and funny book illustrated with squished fairys. The story is that a little girl who accidentally snaps a fairy in her book, and then gradually collects more and more in her book. They are the essence of the fairys, their spirits, and incredibly cheeky looking.
Each illustration has notes of the capture alongside them. As Lady Cottingham grows up her writing improves and her speculation about the fairy world and the intensions of the “wee folk” gets more involved. I really enjoyed it.
Heros and Villans
Have to be the various iterations of Dr Who and his /her protagonists. In the early days I used to hide behind the settee when the Daleks or Cybermen came on the screen.
The first Dr Who was played by William Hartnell. I have had the privilege of watching almost all of them, (different actors have played him/her over the years. That is except when I didn’t have a TV in the 1980s. Of the modern villains I have to say I think the weeping angels (silent, only move if you close your eyes, creep up on you) were one of the scariest. I like it because of its English Charm. Which other country would have an alien traveling in a police call box, (a phone box for police). Bigger on the inside and travelling through time and space, THE TARDIS. My favourite!
Speaking to a friend in America about snakes reminded me that there are a few species here including the most venemous one, the Adder. It’s recognisable by the diamond pattern on its back.
My hubby was climbing cliffs in Devon when he was young and put his hand onto a hand hold. He realised to his horror that it was a nest of Vipers! He told me he had nightmares for weeks afterwards.
But there are grass snakes which are lizards not snakes, they have vestigial legs I think. We found one basking in the sand on a Devonian beach one summer holiday. It glinted gold in the setting sun. Wonderful.
Today is pancake day in the UK. The chance to eat something nice before Lent starts. Lent is a Christian tradition where people give up a favorite food until Easter. I guess in some ways it’s comparable with the tradition of Ramadan in Islamic culture, where people do not eat between sunrise and sunset until the end of the period of time when they celebrate the end fasting. I don’t know much about either religion, but it’s interesting that both are movable feasts (related to the phases of the moon).
Going back to pancakes. UK ones are bigger but thinner than the ones in America. The crepe suzzette in France is even thinner and served on a more regular basis. We tend to mainly eat them on Shrove Tuesday. Served with sugar or sweetener and lemon juice. Some people add blueberries or other fillings.
You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?
I’ve had a varied life, most of it devoted to art, but I’ve also managed to cram a lot of experiences into it.
I would then go on to detail sow of the art work I have done, but also the adventures I’ve had with my hubby, who was a most eccentric man. Our main mode of transport when we were younger was by bicycle and then a series of pulled old cars that consequently meant we had a lot of situations to deal with. My jobs were also varied and I would talk about as much as I could without disclosing personal information. I am not sure if it would be interesting to anyone else though?
This came up in my WordPress a few weeks ago together with a blog saying something along the lines of “wow, it’s amazing I’ve been with WordPress so long and here’s to another eight years.” I don’t mind but I do prefer to write my own blogs rather than some bot writing them for me!
I hope my blog is interesting, sometimes humorous, hopefully informative. I don’t think I am as varied as I used to be. Maybe I’m running out of steam. Anyway hope to be around for a few more years. Cheers x
Mallaband-Brown