Peaches

Peachs on a bush. This was an espaliered bush where the branches are held against the wall horizontally. This allows the fruit to set on the branches and grow bigger and more juicy as the summer goes on. The photo was taken at the Dorothy Clive garden n the Staffordshire countryside. I would have loved to have tasted one of them.

Under trees

The trees are full of leaves, bulky and heavy laden. They clean the air, drawing in carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. I hate to think of when these trees will be gone. They may become aged and diseased. I think of them 50 years ago, how big were they then? Saplings or bigger? How old are they. What is their life expectancy? I hope they see the next century safely. Their dark green canopies giving continued shelter even as the climate heats up.

This doesn’t happen…

Describe your ideal week.

My ideal week would be to go out to a studio, paint for a few hours, make good progress on a painting. Go to choir practice. Cook tea for me and my hubby. Sit and chat about our days.

My ideal week would include going for a walk with him, he might go for a cycle ride to see a friend. He goes to bed early, I stay up late to read or watch TV.

In my ideal week I would sleep well, wake refreshed. Go for a drive somewhere with my hubby. Visit a national trust property.

In my ideal week I would try and paint some more, take some photos, go on the Internet.

In my ideal week I would still have my hubby, I would still have my studio, I would still be doing art or at least more than I am now. I’m just struggling to get back to something like an ideal week.

Face in a landscape

Painting from a few years ago. I sometimes come up with ideas I like, but I don’t keep doing the same things over and over again. I’m not sure if I could keep repeating an image with just little changes. Once you start doing that you might as well be creating Christmas or birthday cards.

I like being experimental. I might not always get it right but if I continue I learn with each effort. This acrylic on canvas is quite surreal, but why not?

Can’t watch!

I started watching the paralympics tennis and our man was loosing. I tried ignoring it and he started to win. Now I’m caught between wanting to watch and see who wins and not watching so I don’t jinx it!

It’s odd to feel I have any influence over the outcome. But listening to the game seems OK? Very strange. I’ve had this happen in other situations. The football world Cup was on, I watched, we lost. So I’d rather not watch and allow others to see the result no matter what happens!

Heat, Esther Chiltons blog prompt

The heat from our bonfire used to toast us when we had our Bonfire night celebrations on November the 5th. To remember the story about Guy Fawkes and his attempt to blow up Parliament hundreds of years ago. But we were more interested in seeing all the colourful fireworks, Catherine wheels, jumping Jack’s, volcanoes, rockets and squibs. Then we would all go inside to eat jacket potatoes from the hot oven with lashings of butter and salt. Happy memories.

Did I really write lashings?!

Guy Fawkes night is traditional in the UK. Children try and collect money to buy fireworks by making ‘Guys’ to be burnt as effigies on top of bonfires. Nowadays the back garden bonfires are discouraged and larger organised events are the norm.

Germany on a coach

Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

The furthest I’ve traveled was to Germany on a coach. I went on a wine tasting trip with my mom. It was a four day trip and it was a bit disappointing because I had a cold.

We drove a long way from the Midlands through London to Dover. We waited for ages to get on the ferry, then across to Calais. I remember staying on deck on a cold wet afternoon because my mom had seasickness. Then on through France and Belgium to Germany. I noticed the countryside was similar to Britain but the electricity pylons looked completely different. Much sturdier and solid instead of our criscross filigree style. By then the cold was getting to me and I slept until we stopped at a petrol station and I tried to ask for aspirin, but used the wrong phrase ‘haben du’ informal, instead of ‘haben sie’, I didn’t know I was being over familiar.

One of our coach passengers thought we had gone into East Germany? Why, I don’t know, he was a bit odd.

After two days tasting (and snuffling) various wines and realising I liked ‘qualitatsvein mit pradikat’ the best. We had a trip on the Rhine, and to a cuckoo clock shop, and to a bridge over the Rhine to see statues of the Rhine maidens I think? Mom and I came home on the coach again. Just starting to feel better, the best bit was watching ‘the hunt for red october’ on TVs on the coach!

Cartridges

The obligatory post on Facebook was asking if you knew what these were to prove you were a child of the 90’s. Why? I knew what these were before the 90’s!

Most people answered these were from fountain pens, but I disagreed, these were from cartridge pens.

A real fountain pen was one with a bulb in it that you squeezed to suck the ink up, or a lever on the side that squashed the inner bulb flat and when it was released pulled the ink in. I always used quink ink.

The cartridges were from cartridge pens, you just unscrewed the back half of the pen and swapped them out when they were empty… The only risk was if the cartridge leaked, the top end of the pen had a bit of metal that pierced the cartridge to allow the ink into the pen and nib. Sometimes you would end up with a pocket or pencil case full of ink if they leaked.