New paintings and regular art updates.
I enjoyed painting this a few years ago, I used a phone app to change the texture of a photo then worked off that. This is acrylic on canvas. I keep meaning to do a few more pictures like this. It’s just deciding what images to work from. I’ve hit a bit of a block recently so I’m hoping if I do something like this it might encourage me to do more.
It’s a bank Holiday weekend in the UK so of course we are having 60 to 70 mile an hour winds and very heavy rain in places. We had a bit of rain this morning but not as bad as other areas. Scotland was one of the worst places with very stormy weather. And Leeds festival was hit yesterday, with video of tents blown away in the wind. A food festival was damaged and all the market stalls knocked down. And an articulated truck was almost blown over on the Humber Bridge near Hull. The bridge was later closed to traffic until the storm had passed.
The weather might be a bit better tomorrow, but it’s almost inevitable that with it being a bank Holiday that it won’t be that good. Meanwhile temperatures have been mostly cooler than normal this summer. We have had a few hot spells, but not to the same extent as recently. Apparently the jet stream is to blame and the remains of hurricanes from across the Atlantic coming our way. Happy holiday!
What’s your favorite recipe?
Ingredients
Jelly powder or cubes to make up about a pint of jelly. Choose your favourite flavour.
Fresh fruit, I use raspberries, blueberries or strawberries.
Blancmange powder or if preferred custard powder to make a pint.
Pint of milk.
Two tablespoons sweetner or sugar.
Fresh double cream, choose how much you want.
Toppings, can be glace cherries, or chocolate sprinkled on top or hundreds and thousands.
Make up a pint of jelly /sugar free jelly with about 3/4 of a pint of boiling water and a little slosh of port or sherry and add raspberries or blueberries or strawberries or a mixture of all three (I don’t use sponge fingers as they are too sugary.).
Let cool then store in the fridge overnight to set thoroughly.
Next mix blancmange powder or custard powder with a small amount of milk from a pint and sugar or sweetener to taste.
Put the rest of the milk on to boil, as it starts to boil carefully pour into the custard or blancmange powder mix, stir it in and then pour back into the pan, bring to the boil while stirring and let it thicken on the hob over about a minute.
Turn off the heat and let it cool. To stop it being too hot to pour onto the jelly (it will melt) place the pan of custard/blancmange into a larger pan of cold water (without getting the mixture wet) this allows it to cool, stir it every few minutes to stop it going lumpy and setting. When it is cool enough pour over the jelly.
Finally whisk the cream into stiff peaks and put on top of the custard/blancmange.
The sugar free version is nice to have if you are diabetic but still want a treat.
Serve in nice glass bowls if you can. This gives 6 good sized portions.
Paws stretch out
Greeting me
Just saying hi
It’s nice to be
Warm and relaxed
On a cold evening
Wind swirling
Late August
Good night.
My friend posted a video of a caterpillar stretching and then the back end moves forward to meet tne front so the middle of it rises up in a hump.
I posted the question “Inchworm” and she agreed.
Then I remembered a song “Inchworm, Inchworm, measuring the daffodils?” from a film I watched in the 1960s. So I googled it. It’s actually “measuring the Marigolds”. It’s a film with Danny Kaye from 1952 about Hans Christian Andersen.
Wikipedia says:
The song’s lyrics express a carpe diem sentiment, with the singer noting that the inchworm of the title has a “business-like mind”, and is blind to the beauty of the flowers it encounters:Two and two are fourFour and four are eightThat’s all you have on your business-like mindTwo and two are fourFour and four are eightHow can you be so blind?
Subsequent verses include the lines “Measuring the marigolds, you and your arithmetic / You’ll probably go far” and “Seems to me you’d stop and see / How beautiful they are”
Loesser wrote a counterpoint chorus that, sung by itself, has become popular as a children’s song because of its arithmetical chorus:Two and two are fourFour and four are eightEight and eight are sixteenSixteen and sixteen are thirty-two
In the film, a children’s chorus sings the contrapuntal “arithmetic” section over and over inside a small classroom, dolefully and by rote, while Andersen, listening just outside, gazes at an inchworm crawling on the flowers and sings the main section of the song. Loesser loved the intellectual challenge of such contrapuntal composition, which he also did in other works such as Tallahassee.[1]
How would you design the city of the future?
Cities are working out how to store water and prevent flooding, with massive tunnels below them to allow water to flow away. Storage spaces to trap water then release it slowly as the waters receded. Having beavers upstream in rivers to dam and slow the flow of water downstream. And also reinstating rush beds or filter beds to hold onto the fluid and clean any sewage that has leaked into waterways. You could also build buildings up on higher ground or stilts. Or raise buildings in heavy rain or storm conditions. There is still a lot we can do to combat climate change.
I think we mainly assume that a hero will be called Prince Caspian or something similar. Being of noble blood, and handsome. Fairytale books and films lead us to this definition. Only stories like Beauty and the Beast where at the end the Beast turns into a handsome Prince slightly subverts this.
But what happens if the hero has an ordinary or odd name? Maybe Euphonio Grunt-Ffungus? His name being a long lost memory from generations ago of the families profession of truffle hunting!
What heroical task would Euphonio complete? Would he rescue a cat from on top of a giraffe? Fight off a venomous kangaroo? Hide chocolate from a dragon? Kill a giant spider that’s threatening to engulf the palace?
I think this kind of hero would be in a comic fantasy, not a serious story. But we cannot chose our names, let alone our ancestors.
Transport; I wish I could still cycle, but I stopped a few years ago. Driving a car didn’t help, the more I used the car the less I used the bike. That was because I had a accident that damaged my bike so it came apart while I was riding it a year later. It took a year to get it fixed and in the meantime I got the car. I used that for work and to travel further with my hubby. I did keep cycling for a few years, bur as I say I gradually lost my fitness and confidence. I still have the bike, it’s in my house. It’s a classic, I hope one day someone else can use it.
Written for Esther Chiltons prompt “Travel”,
What motivates you?
Those who read my blog know I haven’t been well and I’m currently waiting for test results. My doctor has told me not to overdo things, so I’m motivated to protect myself and I’m resting. That doesn’t mean I’m not doing things, but I have to do them slowly and carefully. I’m even having to use a walking stick. My friend explained i had it set at the wrong height. Too long.
I have for that reason been a bit slow at blogging recently.
Scone, jam, cream and hot chocolate with massive marshmallows! My treat for getting out of the house with my friend after being stuck indoors for a few days. It was very creamy. An overdose of cholesterol. I liked the willow pattern bowl the xlotted cream was in. The sun was shining and it felt really summery.
Mallaband-Brown