New paintings and regular art updates.
Summer photo, a couple of years old
The red and green spark off each other
Scarlet red shines in the garden
Drifts of arching flowers in the bed.
Sunlight needed to keep them growing
Shade stopped them in their tracks.
Gone now, the memory of them still cheers.
What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
When I was fitter I used to swim. I’m not fast but have stamina so I gradually built up the distance I could swim. My preferred goal was breast stroke.
I found out that a mile was about 40 lengths of the pool so I set a goal to see if I could do it. I slowly built up the numbers, I was limited by the time it was taking me to finish it but after about two or three months I managed it. I have to say I never swam that distance again!
These were my plants in summer, now they are starting to wilt. I will be sad when they are gone. I want to time travel to next summer till the next lot of flowers can be planted. I might get some winter flowering pansies to cheer the yard up in the meantime.
I’ve bought loads of bulbs to put in the big garden for winter/spring. Somehow I need to get them planted.
What would you do if you lost all your possessions?
What would I do if I lost it all?
Cry for lost memories
Weep for my tranklements
Sigh for my paintings
Scream for my cats
But remember them all
The good times
The joy that they gave
And try to make a new start
A way to cope
Seeking for comfort
Hoping for help.
Loss can destroy
But hope can strengthen
Survival would be my goal.
I decided to optimise my photos as I haven’t done it for a while. Now it looks like 50% of my photos were taken today. Plus they are all mixed up. If I go back a few hundred they were suddenly taken in March. I wish it wouldn’t do that, I’ve been searching for something for half an hour because I wanted to share it? Can I find it? No, so I just decided to post a photo of an old factory from a few months ago. And great to see an undemolished chimney.
What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?
I voted when I was 19 and followed the family, we were tories, I wanted to see a woman prime minister. I had not left home and had no idea what the real life was about. Then I went to college. An eye opener. I had to live in an old house with no fire, just an open coal fire. The toilet was outside, I showered at the college, I realised that this was not unusual, people had to manage.
Most of my friends were caring, thoughtful and Labour voters. One was in CND, this was the era of protests against Cruise missiles. I saw what Thatchers laws were doing to people. You could see the rich getting richer, the poor, poorer. It was the era of the Yuppie. What can I say? I had to change. I’m glad I did.
My conclusion about this.? My family had held me in one way of thinking. Reality changed my mind. Don’t be afraid to think.
We met in the September
Moved in together in October
16 years later?
We married.
In 9 minutes it will be our anniversary.
My first without him.
We never really celebrated
He wasn’t into birthdays
Or Anniversaries
A quiet meal
A glass of wine or beer
We were going to be together forever.
The shock when he went
Backed me into a corner.
Nowhere to go
Nothing to do
Surrounded by stuff
That holds me in
Trapped in a corner of sadness
Missing him
And tomorrow? In 5 minutes?
24 hours lost in greif
Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.
My hubby and I were on holiday in the South West but the weather was bad and so we decided to stay our last night at a local youth hostel.
We arrived and booked a double room. But were then asked if we could stay in dormortaries as a group of foreign students had arrived and the teachers wanted to sleep seperatly from their pupils.
We agreed and I politely tried to say I only spoke a little of their language.
Evening meal and then bedtime. The girls I was sharing the dorm with started talking and continued chatting and giggling late into the night. I had absolutely no idea what they were saying and spent two or three hours with the pillow over my head trying to block out the sound.
It was awful, I felt so out of place, I barely slept and had a long cycle ride ahead of me in the morning.
Would I do it again? Yes to be polite, but I might have to think about it first
Two big solar flares have recently flung energetic plasma out into space from the sun over the last couple of days. The radiation released arrived at earth quickly and blacked out some of our short wave radio signals, but matter can take days to arrive. So this weekend there may be another aurora show then. I’m getting my camera ready! I just hope it’s not cloudy..
Lucky to get my painting “mend him” into the Brampton open exhibition in the Brampton museum and art gallery, in Newcastle under Lyme. Staffordshire. It’s on from 14th October I think. The painting is a portrait of my hubby I started last year and finally finished a couple of months after he passed away. I miss him. This is my in memoriam tribute to him.
I had decided to enter it as “not for sale” but the gallery wanted all images to be up for sale so I put a large (very large) price on it to virtually guarantee it won’t be sold. It’s very personal to me, but I wanted people to see it.
It’s acrylic on canvas and I started it in my Studio in Spode Site, Stoke. I finished painting it there after I decided to leave due to not being able to afford the studio rent any longer. It means this is the last painting I completed there.
Mallaband-Brown