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Cats and boxes

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Apologies for my lack of skill in rhyming…..But here is just something I had to write when I saw these two! I am trying not to use plastic bags, so sometimes get shopping in cardboard boxes.  My tom cat has decided  one is his. So what happens when you bring in a new one? A confusion  of cats….

Maybe cats and cupboards?

A confusion of cats,

Sits in a box,

Shrodinger puzzle….

Which box to choose?

 

Cat on a cupboard ,

Cat sitting up high.

One cat – both boxes,

The other has none.

Share or not share?

 

Cats have ideas,

Sure of their wills,

always delightful,

and bonkers

Still!

Mow Cop

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Mow Cop…..

If you ever drive on the A34 between Stoke-on-Trent and Congleton, look to your left as you are driving North, just past little Moreton Hall. You might catch a glimpse of Mow Cop on top of the hill…

Mow Cop is a folly, built to look like a castle, and it stands above the village of Mow Cop, giving views of the Cheshire plain and Shropshire and the Welsh hills.

We decided to visit today as a group I am in- Stoke USK, (urban sketchers group) is due to visit on Saturday but I can’t make it.

I did some brief sketches of the castle and the view, clouds were quite low over the plain and rain was threatening. I irritated myself because I started the castle drawing too far over the page so had to start again.

While we were there we saw a carved stone with lettering on it. I could just make out the words. “To the Glory of God
A camp meeting near this spot on May 31st 1807 began the Religious Revival led by Hugh Bourne and William Clowes known as Primitive Methodism (unveiled?) By the president of the Methodist Conference 13th May 1948”

I knew that the Methodists had started in the area; Bethesda chapel in Hanley , the city centre of Stoke on Trent, is currently being restored. I imagined people gathering at Mow Cop, listening to the Victorian preachers, in rain, wind and hail. A romantic view I know. But the place is very atmospheric.

We finally tried to walk up to the castle, but the steep steps defeated me so I only got half way up. Richard managed a bit further.

Want to visit?  The castle is a bit difficult to find. Once you are on the hill you can’t see it as well. However there is a good sized car park when you get there. You will see a National Trust notice board and it gives the opening times. Roads approach from the A34 and a road from Tunstall in Stoke-on-Trent.

Hanging baskets

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This was my garden…….in 2017….20170831_153616

This was my back yard last year. Everything was lush and green with lots of colour. This year things are not as good, some plants are wilting in the heat, others have only just survived. I haven’t taken photos of them because its all a bit messy. Still I will persevere. We might be getting some rain on Sunday if we are lucky.

There may be some thunderstorms east of us but nothing due here. It’s so strange, we are a wet country usually. We are normally known for complaining about cold wet summers, and grey dismal winters.

Climate change? I don’t know. But something is going on.

Multiply up all the gardens in the country where the plants are struggling. Then think of all the farms that are having trouble, having to feed hay and winter food stocks to there animals because there is not enough grass for them. It’s not normal. While over in Europe temperatures have risen above 40°C.

But we are lucky in comparison with other parts of the world. Terrible floods, droughts. The world’s temperature has risen since the turn of the millennium.

We are worried by plastic in the oceans, maybe we should really worry about the climate before its too late. Climate scientists have reported that the weather could actually become so hot that we end up in a “hot house Earth” scenario.

If not for our generation, but for future ones we need to stop listening to business people whose interest is short term gain and move to a more balanced, less greedy world. If that means that rich western countries should share technology with the whole world then that’s what we should do. Rant for the day over. ..

Keyboard fixed!

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The bug is fixed thankfully.

It’s useful having a computer shop just down the road…

Apparently it was an “unusual glitch” whatever that means. My normal keyboard shrank last week to a smaller version. I just thought it was an upgrade but apparently it was the computer downloading another version because the first one had stopped working, it was only when my computer kept flashing up “unfortunately, Samsung keyboard is not working” that I realised that something was wrong.

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So every couple of seconds the message flashed up, technology is like that, it tells you there is a problem but not how to resolve it. How do you sort it out when you cannot type in a question to Google, for instance, to ask what to do?

So, switch it on and off, switch it on and off and flick the SD card out and back in, then try to remove duplicated photos, clear cache’s, uninstall apps you don’t use. Clear the cache’s again. Run the anti virus, remove old unwanted emails and messages……

Nothing worked, though I had freed up memory on my external memory SD card…..So it had to go to the shop, they could not type anything in to even get on the internet to download a new keyboard. So they kept it in to fix. You don’t realise how attached you are until you have to leave your computer behind. Talk about separation anxiety! But it has come home fixed.

Thank you one stop computers in stoke. Very helpful and they only charged me half of what they estimated.

Cheers and thanks x

Don’t stare at me. .

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Instead of poetry a few words……

Large green eyes, look out of a dark green face. Paper thin skin, layers of chlorophyll ? What are you,  green, sap green, olive green, hookers green, lime green, a green apparition. Staring eyes that cast a spell over my mind. A sneer on your lips, worldly thoughts cascade in your brain.

What are you? Again, I think. Some mammalian plant? A simulacrum of humanity?

Leaves break out through your skin, vines, ivy, convolulus. Grow longer, twisting violently across your face. Your hair is fern fronds, feathery, tiny leaves on twining stems….

Your body is green as grass, a cauliflower and cabbage mass of leaves, courgette fingers, marrow thighs, feet stretching into the mud, but mobile like a human woman.

Veins like phloem and xylem gather fluids, rise up your trunk. Transpiration instead of breath. Are you deciduous or evergreen? Do you have an autumn season and wither into winter? Or are you still young in the cold months? Red berries blossoming on your lips? Heart of Oak or Yew?

You stand and stare at me. Looking into my room, glass holding back your strength. Your witch like hands or twigs beat on the widow pane. You cannot enter. But I cannot leave. Trapped by your tangled leaves. Tendrils fight their way in through the letter box. Green woman, earth, Gaia ….

 

 

Talk time

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I miss talking to people sometimes. I have a tenancy to isolate myself as I have said in the past. But today was a good day, I saw an old artist friend who has an idea for a travelling exhibition, and my work fits with it. It’s great to get some positive vibes. Also, a painting that I did a couple of years ago was bought at my exhibition. Someone really admired it and decided to buy it. I feel like a parent seeing a child move into the world. It’s amazing how attached you can get to things, and to see something you love go to a good home gives me a glad feeling inside.

In fact what started out as a quiet weekend has turned out very well. People were interested in my exhibition and some of the new things I have went down really well. I have to thank a friend for creating necklaces for me from some fused glass I made in a workshop earlier in the year. Also a photographer who turned some of my paintings into cards. Again they sold well.

I have not made a fortune, but it has boosted my confidence. Even the chap that came in and said my art was not his cup of tea was not rude, just honest.

The only bad thing is that I seem to have caught a cold! Maybe talking to all those people meant I picked up a bug. We will see….

Icelandic poppies

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Richard just brought a pot of Icelandic poppies in from outside. He said he wanted to enjoy their colours. I understand why. Our garden is not really visible because we have high window ledges so the view is blocked off.

These poppies are nodding their heads because I have the fan on to cool the air in here. Outside it hit 30C again in the yard. It frequently does at the the moment because its very sheltered and south west facing, trees and hedges surround it so as the Sun goes down it gets cooler. That’s when we water the hanging baskets (which keep wilting in the heat).

We are getting green tomatoes but despite the sunshine  they are not ripening much. I think I need to trim some of the lower branches.

I will try and get a good photo of the yard soon, if the plants recover a bit. In the meantime enjoy the Icelandic poppies……

Exhibition time

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It’s that time of year when I have a small exhibition of work at Etruria. An area of Stoke on Trent in the Staffordshire.  This year it came round fast.  I didn’t really know it was going to happen till a couple of days ago. I think I was feeling a bit down and so I hadn’t organised things very well.

The building it is in is an old warehouse next to the Trent and Mersey, and Cauldon canals. It’s a very old building, with an old canoe up in the rafters, and half a model canal boat up high at one end I the room. It also has some of the largest long legged spiders I have ever seen….but thankfully once I had set up they went into hiding.

Anyway its happened, its up. I’m selling cards and necklaces as well as paintings. I am not really good at doing that. I can be polite, helpful, and enjoy explaining the work I have done, but I don’t like selling, putting a price on things.

I’ve spoken to a few artists recently and they feel the same way. They want to be creative, because they are creative, not because they want to run a business. …

Anyway I think people enjoyed what they saw at the exhibition, I had some good feedback.

What  want to do now is start working on new art!

Organ grinders

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One thing about Britain, and in this case specifically England is that we have our fair share of eccentrics, collectors, restorer’s and skilled artisans.

Today was a case in point. I met some lovely people who restore and make their own organs and are known as organ grinders because they turn a handle at the back of the machine to work a set of bellows to play music.

Apparently you can get various sorts of organs. A lady showed me how hers worked, with a roll of paper, held on a tube (a bit like a toilet roll). As she turned the handle to pump the bellows the paper roll passed over a series of holes attached to pipes at the top of the machine. the paper was slightly waxy or plasticised, it had small holes cut in it and as each set of holes lined up with the organ pipes it played a note, pipes that were covered with the paper did not play. The lady told me the organ was made in Germany by a famous maker. Sadly I forgot to get a note of his name.

Other organs music was on flat peices of card joined together like a jacquard pattern for weaving. One even had a sim card in it and all the player (grinder) had to do was turn the bellows handle.

The owners of the machines were all dressed in Victorian costume and were dotted around the Etruria Industrial museum. They were there for there national meeting and had come from all around the country. They are staying for a week and will be here until next Sunday.

X

Feathers

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I guess you can make a bit of art out of anything. This was an attempt to draw a peacock feather. I thought of how feathers have been used for centuries to make quill pens?

How many million words were created and written from ink and a feathered quill?

Then I thought about what ink is made of. I used to use something called quink ink. When you use it with water it splits from black into blue and brown colours. I would paint pictures with it. This was years ago, it may have changed now. Ink used to be made of  things like oak galls. It is interesting that before paper was used in the west vellum was the surface people wrote on. Many of the laws set down in this country’s parliament was written down with quill pens onto vellum. Other countries used ink and brushes, and I think you can see the different characteristics of the shape of letters depending on what mark making tool was used.

Feathers have been used for so many things. Pillows, duvets, feathered dusters, cushions, even burnt under peoples noses to revive them when they fainted.

It is interesting that dinosaurs sometimes had feathers and birds evolved from them, so feathers have been around for millions of years.