New paintings and regular art updates.
Someone asked a question on Facebook about posts sticking up through a beach in lines.
I have a relative at the coast and had wondered the same thing myself. I asked and found out that they were used to slow something called longshore drift. It’s where over time tides moving along the coast shift sands sideways. Groynes (boards) between the posts held the sand back and stopped the beach being washed away.
My friend sent me this photo (I don’t have an attribution for it). This was a few year’s ago when it was open and the Leopard Hotel was running ghost tours and serving lovely food.
Then one of the owners died and it was taken over by a family member. I don’t know what happened but I think Covid didn’t help. In the end it closed and the owner moved elsewhere. Although the frontage looked OK it needed a tremendous amount of money spending on it as it was partly derelict in the back upper floors.
The hotel stood empty for months, it was bought by an entrepreneur who may have been going to turn it into flats. Unfortunately someone got in and apparently set up a cannabis farm in it (what I heard). Then it simply burnt down. Some of the frontage may remain but the place is boarded up.
I was involved for a while because I painted the murals in the back room, the Arnold Bennett Suite. I never got decent photos in there. I do hope it can be restored.
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
Old, not a word I dread, as long as my mind and body continue to work. I want to keep going. I don’t think there is anything after life, I seriously doubt it, so I want to be me for as long as I can.
Health is the problem. Co-morbidities are flung at me at a rapid rate. One thing or another to take tablets for, carefully balanced to keep me going. Unless the pharmacy can’t get my pills, they are out of stock, suppliers let them down. Almost every month there is a problem where I’m left owed something.
After all that I would like to leave a legacy of my art. I hope my paintings won’t get thrown out, maybe I can keep going for seberal more years. I will try.
What are your biggest challenges?
My biggest challenge seems to be movement inside and outside the house.
Inside I’m unsteady, I use my stick because my feet get muddled sometimes. They twist round each other and trip me up. Going up and down stairs is fun, especially when the cats decide to sleep on the stairs it’s a good job they have white patches so I can see them in the dark.
Outside is a challenge too. Just getting down the steps, hanging on to handrails, then walk a few steps to get to the car. But I get nervous driving, in the past I had hubby with me. Now? I get lifts with people if I can if I’m going any distance. I imagine myself stuck with a flat tyre, or out of petrol, or lost, or too tired to carry on. What happens if the person I’m going to see is out? I think I drove less that 500 miles last year. Memory is of driving all over the country, no longer. My challenge is to get better? I wish.
Had a quiet day. Upset stomach (you don’t need to know). Slept most of it, kept warm. Left the milk outside too shaky to get it.
Interesting dreams, and nightmares. Cats kept me company. Paws for thought. Like miniature lions on plinths, standing guard while I snoozed.
Memory of watching rain then snow fall, then rain again. Had a bit of breakfast at 2pm, but nothing else but black decaff coffee. Stomach cramps stopped more.
Listened to radio at 5pm. Unbelievable words from across the pond. Not President yet talks about invading Greenland, Canada as 51st state, going into Panama. Am I delusional? Later a spokesman said he was joking. Piecing it together he also spoke about windmills killing whales, dripping taps, expelling millions. I’m not the deluded one.
Normal posting will resume tomorrow hopefully.
Facebook memory. This was clearly more than a year ago, (hubby died December 2023) but I probably posted it to Facebook then. It still shocks me to see photos of him pop up like he was never gone. X
Something is being planned. Over several years the Penkhull Mystery Plays involved the local community in theatrical projects to bring people together. The plays bought a mixture of fact and fiction, history and spirituality together to create a one day festival of fun to penkhull village Green. Usually in early or mid July.
Up to 400 people would be involved in making props and costumes, acting and setting up the play and other work. All these activities built around the central performance where local adults and children got together to bring stories such as the history of the Trent and Mersey canal, Jonah and the Whale, the song of Solomon, a history of the 1842 peasants revolt in the Potteries and other interesting and fun stories onto the village green as a substantial play.
The organisers also included singing and making music for the shows. Writing scripts, putting on seperate performances for the day including morris dancing, maypole dancing local choirs, brass bands, Ukelele players and a tower of song where individual musicians could perform. There was also an annual tug of war competition and circus skills workshops on the village green. A recent introduction was the Titchy Theatre where new writing was put on as playlets by a small number of volunteer actors. There were also stalls for such things as bakers and crafters and local charities together with plant sales.
It was only as Covid began that the Mystery Plays were toned down and had to be suspended. But with the 100th anniversary of the uniting of the six towns into the City of Stoke on Trent and the 20th (is it 25?) Anniversary of the Mysteries it feels like an important time to bring it back to Penkhull.
Things have got in the way and I have hit a block with my painting of a teapot. I mean both physically and mentally.
You can see some of what is obstructing it. I need to move things, it’s just that I am mentally stuck. I think its the low light levels as this seems to get me every year. One day soon I hope have this finished.
My hubby always fed the birds at this time of year. I just realised that I need to take over. But I rarely get out in the garden because of being so unsteady and the fact that there are uneven steps,and the pathways are covered in leaf mould. I must make a plan to try and get out and feed them, other than that I think I will ask a friend.
Four images through my window.
I heard there were aurora last night, so at about 4am I took some very shaky photos. I think the pale whitish dots near the top of the photos was a star or planet that left a trail. The yellow colour was a neighbour’s lights.
I don’t have a tripod and as I have Parkinsons disease I can’t hold the camera still. So this is propped up on a pillow, 1 minute exposure. Sorry they are so blurred.
Mallaband-Brown