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Fish and chips

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What’s your go-to comfort food?

WordPress picture library doesn’t seem to find images I want….

I typed in fish and chips in the search bar and it came up with fairy cakes!

But anyway Fish and chips is my favourite comfort food. Particularly when I’ve been out all day and am to tired to even microwave something.

Does WordPress even know what fish and chips is? Battered or breaded white fish like Cod or Haddock, deep fried. Sliced peeled potato’s in strips about 1 or 2 centimeters square also deep fried. Both till nice and golden brown and crispy.

Salt and vinegar to taste. Sometimes accompanied with mushy peas or tartare sauce or both.

Food to make you smile.

I see a dragon

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That old Pareidolia kicking in again.

The dragons head upper left, then a thin neck and body, looking a bit like a viking boat. Finally a great sail of a wing catching the glow from the setting sun.

This was last Monday and it lingered on my phone until I found it today.

I don’t see sunsets very often because I’m on the wrong side of the hill. This was at the top of our hill and there are still buildings and trees in the way and as the sun drifts northwest as it sets in the summer there is more vegetation in the way.

Thunderstorm overhead

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My hanging baskets are getting well watered. I took a video but you can’t really see the rain well. I looked up the storms on blitzortung.org which is a free thunder and lightening monitoring service covering the whole world. There is a line of thunderstorms heading up from the south from the Welsh border to around Derby passing over Stoke-on-Trent and rumbling north.

The closest lightning was about 2 seconds between flash and boom. That’s about a mile away as there is a time delay due to the speed of light being so much faster than the speed of sound. The last combination was about 12 seconds… 2 seconds equals a mile distance, 12 is therefore 6 miles. It’s going North.

One thing I’ve noticed is the rolling boom of thunder seems to last a lot longer these days. Starting soft before reaching a crescendo then gradually fading. There must be so much energy up there! And it’s just stopped raining… And the birds have started singing again…

Singing

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I went to the one to one session with the opera singer. I explained that Parkinsons affects your voice and throat muscles so I’m trying to keep singing as much as I can. She got me to warm up my voice, showed me how to stick my tongue forward to relax it and allow myself to hit higher notes. I was surprised at how high I could get.

Singing in front of a professional musician was nerve-racking but she was so kind and very complementary about my voice. I don’t think I’ll ever be professional myself, but it taught me ways to improve my technique. And it was wonderful to try something new and exciting. It also made me feel less anxious about my health.

Opera workshop

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Yesterday I went to an opera workshop as part of the project I’m in. My breathing can be bad because of my illnesses so I take any opportunity I can to keep my throat and lungs clear.

I’ve known for years that I’ve got an operatic voice somewhere inside me. Yesterday it escaped! We sang part of Nessun Dormo, which is actually about a man trying to get married to a Princess but she keeps killing off her suitors. She has to guess his name but he’s not sharing. I think she is called “Turendot”.

I managed to get a really high vibrato. I surprised myself because I got there late and hadn’t warmed my voice up. I’m amazed and going to do another workshop  on a one to one basis but I’m not well, My Parkinsons keeps flaring up, I have various other illnesses. But I’m pushing myself, probably too much. I don’t want to just sit in front of the TV. I want to live as well as I can for as long as I can.

Fire

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Today I painted a fire for the play Who is Molly Leigh…. Not the fire surround or the hearth, or the objects around it, but a piece of cardboard with a brick chimney backing  painted on it and a coal fire burning strongly in the grate.

I asked another maker what she thought and she felt the flames should be more yellow and red, but the photo I worked from showed bright white flames surrounded by glowing yellow, orange, and red. It’s funny how people’s imaginations have stereotypical ideas of how things should look. I really enjoyed adding bright colours in between the coals to make it look really hot.

Painting and reading

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Which activities make you lose track of time?

When I paint I lose track of time, the world goes away. Sometimes I lose myself completely. I know I feel pain in my arms nowadays, and I can’t always focus on the tip of my brush because I get slight double vision. But I have to do it. I’m under a compulsion to spread liquid onto a hard or soft surface (board, wall, or canvas) and recreate images or come up with ideas of my own….

My other passion is reading, I rarely read a book from cover to cover anymore unless it’s very short, my hands stick in place, my trigger fingers play up and I get cramp in them. But I do like using reading to send myself to sleep. I’m currently rereading The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. It’s a sci-fi novel set in the 1960’s? It’s also a very good film…. He was the author of Jurassic Park by the way.

Goodnight, off to bed to read….I might just lose track of time again. X

Another picture

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Quick painting of one of the project owners dogs. I painted for a few hours but came home shattered. I explained that I was really tired but I’m not sure they understood. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. You can’t always see disabilities. And people mask how they are feeling to try and feel as normal as possible.