Cat fish?

My friend gave me this. A hand painted ceramic cat with fish on it. One fish seems to be biting the tail of the other one, both they and the cat seem to be happy and smiling. There seems to be a sea shell below the head of one of the fish. Perhaps this is a fishing cat? It’s a flat back ornament with no decoration on the back. I think it’s sweet, naive, simple, a bit rough round the edges. But fun.

Prompt for today

Today’s prompt was Rooves (roofs). I looked out of all my windows and this view from the back of our house came closest to the remit. The sun was low and shining in as I drew this so I had to scoot across the bed so that I didn’t get completely dazzled. Most of the view is taken up with shrubs and trees. A few roofs in the distance, in silhouette. I managed to see more as the sun started to set, but it had to be done quickly. For our #bandofsketchers group.

Nail varnish cat

Late last night I decided to colour in a drawing with nail varnish. I did a picture of ‘the cat sat on the mat’, then I coloured in the background with marker pens.

I had difficulty taking a photo I wanted to include the sheen of the varnish but could only get it with the page tipped up. When you look at it straight on the image is a lot flatter. It’s just a design based on the old cat sat on the mat idea. I can imagine it being used as a children’s book illustration.

Time

Time flies so fast, and yet it takes forever. When I think of time, I think of Miss Haversham in Great Expectations, still waiting for love years after she was meant to be married, covered in cobwebs, locked into one moment of time. Time is seasons, the change from warm to cold to warm again, some years hotter or colder than others. But the world does not just move on its own. The Sun moves too. Circulating over billions of years around the Galaxy. And then the Galaxy is moving away from other Galaxies. The Universe is expanding. But time is a constant. Einsteins well known equation is E=MC2. E is energy, M is Mass, C2 is the Speed of light squared. Or 186,000 x186,000 miles per second. Time and Space are tangled up with each other somehow. I don’t know why or how. But its mysterious, it trickles through your fingers like sand. Disappearing and appearing. It makes me think….

Spooky Oak

Text taken from Wikipedia. I only heard about the Chained Oak today and I don’t live too far away from it!

Apologies to Wikipedia :

 an autumn night, the Earl of Shrewsbury was returning to his home at Alton Towers when an old woman suddenly appeared in the road ahead of his horse and coach. The coach stopped to find why she was there at which point the old woman begged for a coin. The Earl cruelly dismissed her, so the old woman stated that she would place a curse on him. The old woman told the Earl that for every branch on the Old Oak Tree that fell, a member of the Earl’s family would die. The Earl dismissed this and carried on his way.

That same night, a violent storm caused a single branch from the old oak tree to break and fall. Later that evening, a member of the Earl’s family suddenly and mysteriously died.

Now firmly believing the power of the curse, the Earl is said to have ordered his servants to chain every branch together to prevent other branches from falling. To this day, the Oak tree remains chained up.

Note, the Oak is near Alton Towers which is now a massive theme park in the county of Staffordshire, England.

Phoenix doodle

I drew some curves and spirals then started adding doodles, including a couple of birds and a face. I started using a fine line black ink pen, but it was running out so I turned instead to a black calligraphy pen. When I’d finished I decided to add colour. That helped accentuate some of the shapes. I could do more but decided to leave it. I called it phoenix because a bird seemed to ge appearing from the background.

I have a sarcasm gene

My hubby went shopping today.

I asked him to get savoury food.

So he got:

4 tins of tomatoes, a litre of skimmed milk, some mushrooms, brown bread.

Then, a large Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, mint chocolate matchsticks, grapes, iced buns, a chocolate toffee apple, clementines, bananas, two pomegranates, dried cranberries, two jars of honey, a pot of jam. He also got himself four bottles of beer and four cans of sweat cider.

I’m diabetic, so I can’t eat any of these and can’t really drink much alcohol. My sarcasm gene kicked in so I told him he was being ‘sweet’, I said he should get me some honey roasted ham or some duck in orange sauce. After I washed the shopping and put it away I asked him how much he had spent. I guess 90% of what he bought is for him.

Slightly annoyed!

Choosing vacuums

I had a candy vacuum which lasted ages. When it broke we got a Dyson, but we had problems because it had a small capacity and too many filters. Then we got a Vax, again too many filters and my hubby lost a seal in the bin when he emptied it. I tried sellotaping it but that didn’t work. In the end we got a Henry, the one with a face on it. It’s got a large capacity bag and you don’t have to clear the filters in the wheels every five minutes!