Alone

Hubby

You birthday was today

But there is no voice

No laughter

No sudden shout

Of annoyance or glee.

You were here, then gone

Lost in space

Not forgotten by me

But gone from the world

We always held hands

Grasping our dreams

Let’s go out

Take a trip?

Now I stay still

Remembering but not visiting

Still waiting

For your non return.

Seeking shadows..

One big disadvantage of having to have eyedrops to open up your irises is it’s blinding on a bright sunny day when you leave your opticians. I was dreading having it done today and the sun shone brilliantly as it has done for the last week. I was searching for my clip on sunglasses for ages before I found them. Their lenses are bigger than my current spectacles so they were good because they covered my area of vision better than my normal glasses. I did find that as I waked towards the sun the light leaked round the edges and made it impossible to see through the dazzle. I found it difficult to cross roads. So I wandered along next to buildings trying to find as much shadow as I could and got home safely.

We need rain….

Rain clouds

What I suspected is true. Parts of the United Kingdom have had their driest March   in 60 years. I even went out and watered my plant pots today as my daffodils are starting to wilt.

My Cherry and Pear trees still have tightly furled buds and are not showing any sign of opening, their blossoms held in stasis until the rain swells the plant cells to make them pop open.

March is usually wet and windy for at least part of the month. But not this year, the clouds lifted and blue skies sparkled. I guess the farmers are starting to panic now. It was so warm today I left my coat off and wore a tee shirt.

Anemometer

My Anemometer is spinning round

Twirling and twisting…

Maybe March winds have arrived?

The old saying goes

March is either in like a Lion and out Like a Lamb

Or vice versa…..

Today was gusty as a growling lion

Soon it’s paws might carry it

Across the land

Howling and Roaring.

Then gentle showers of April

Will come again…

Hello Spring.

Monty Python!

What makes you laugh?

I wanted to find an image to represent Monty Pythons Flying Circus, but WordPress doesn’t have any pictures of it and I couldn’t find an image I was able to share from Google.

So I made my own up!

Monty Python was on British TV from 1969 to 1974. I wasn’t allowed to watch it when it was first shown because I was too young. But I saw and enjoyed it later on.

It’s cast, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, together with other actors and comedians created an anarchic, silly and surreal brand of humour, consisting of a series of  sketches, often with a running joke threaded through them. Often the sketch would peter out and a cartoon foot would come down from a precenium arch and squash the characters. That is what my illustration is about.

Notable sketches included the dead parrot sketch about a pet shop selling a Norwegian blue parrot which was actually dead, also a dance where two men dressed in uniform take it in turns to slap each other in the face with fish, one eventually falls into the sea. Hells grannies was about a gang of frightening grandmother’s who terrorise a town. They all made me howl with laughter.

Once the TV series stopped the pythons made films like The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, and Monty python and the Holy Grail. The cast aso made their own separate films for instance a Fish Called Wanda and Time bandits among others.

As this is a long time ago you might not of heard of them. Go look them up. It’s worth it!

Astronomy

What’s something most people don’t understand?

There’s a lot about astronomy I don’t know. There is a branch of science known as astrophysics for instance that is about light speed and gravity, red shifts, dark matter, black holes, dark energy, pulsars , neutron stars, the list is enormous.

I do try and understand some of this, there has been a TV programme on the BBC for decades called the Sky at Night. I’ve watched it since childhood. That sparked an interest and we did have a cheap  telescope for a while. I’ve seen Jupiters moons through it and Saturns rings.

I’m amazed though at web pages about flat earth believers. Some of the things that they post are very odd and nonsensical. I don’t understand how incredibly silly some of them are! No offence meant but they worry me.

Waiting, another prompt from Esther.

Esther Chiltons weekly prompt is waiting. I remember my school holidays.

I was waiting and waiting for the summer holidays to come. I remember being about 11, we had recently moved house and I was at a new school. We had a real garden, trees to climb, a swing and seesaw that dad had put up and I wanted to explore the area. My new friends and I would find new places to visit, the local arboretum, canals and the far end of the Broadway where my uncle and aunt lived. I was getting old enough to walk a few miles, or cycle around country lanes to go to parks for picnics. Those few weeks were really worth waiting for, everything seemed more colourful, exciting adventures like jumping across the local brook, or trying to collect insects. As I tried to balance on walls or climb up into the laburnum tree I was learning about the environment. At the end of the holidays I decided to get more interested in nature and was made a tree warden at school. That holiday was worth waiting for.

Sketch time

Reading out

Writing group today, I sat and sketched a couple of the group. Most of the stories and poems are autobiographical, I want to be more fictional. The woman writer was very atmospheric, giving a feeling of ‘place’. Using unusual descriptions to evoke childhood and adult memories of being drawn  back to the sea. My poem about love was well received. I’ll keep going.

Fern time

Ferns are growing in the wall again, catkins are appearing on the trees. My snowdrops have flowered and now the daffodils and helibores are in flower. Soon the tulips will open.

I can’t wait for warm breezes. Marigolds, wallflowers, wisteria and nasturtiums. Blue skies and then the fruit blossoms. The days will be longer and it might help me feel better. I hope the bees and ladybirds arrive soon.