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Zoom 🎶 singing

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Last night we had fun trying to sing together as a group on Zoom. It was a laugh, we all tried to sing together but the delays on the line meant that most of the time we were badly out of sync with each other….

Then my cat jumped up and kept getting in the way. She was walking backwards and firwards in front on my camera, so I grabbed her for a couple of minutes, I must have looked like a Bond villan! My friend who was hosting the meeting, tried to play music for us to sing to, but we couldn’t here it. At one stage he had three screens and two mice and keyboards on the go trying to get it to work. I admired the effort as it was the first time he had tried to do it!

Next week we will have another go, but it might be best to mute everyone and just sing along with someone leading the choir. As it was we were too busy falling about laughing instead of trying to sing the tune. I’ve never heard Molly Malone sung like that except as a raucous chorus in a pub on a boozy night out. It was a fun night though with friends.

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Water

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I’ve just been reading a Facebook post discussing whether spring water is better than tap water, on the premise that tap water had more minerals in it.

I know that in Britain the water quality is regulated and that government checks that quality regularly.

Water from springs perculates through rocks with minerals in them. Over thousands or millions of years they pick up the minerals as they are dissolved by the water (rainwater will also contain dust particles from the air, and organic matter from the ground before it gets into the rocks). Then it depends on the geology. That’s why we have hard water and soft water. In some springs the water can be hot. Some were used by the Victorians  as purgatives as they contained high levels of things like sulphur. They were used as cures and remedies, the idea being that they cleansed the body.

Modern tap water contains a few additives like fluorine. But in measured amounts. My dad used to call it ‘corporation pop’. Not dangerous.

Two frogs

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Hubby often goes down to the pond at night to look at the fish and feed them. The pond is deep so you can’t see them easily in the daylight. He has got a few minnows and goldfish in there. But over the last couple of nights he’s disturbed a frog that plopped into the centre of the pond. Tonight when he went out two matching frogs were looking back at him from either side of the pool.

So I asked him which one he’d kissed?

Lol.

Sea or Sky?

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I posted this and other photos to my Instagram page and a friend commented that they looked like views out of an airplane window of the sea with islands in it.

I had concentrated on trying to see animals in the image. I can see a snarling bears head at the top left of this one for instance. But it reminded me of a holiday in Dorset one year. Driving up over the hills of the county, just before we dropped down towards Weymouth  on the coast, the sky looked like mountainous islands with sea, bays and inlets running through them. I wish I’d been able to take a photo…

The sky had been a pale wash of pastel colours, the sun was setting, but because we were heading due south its glare was catching the sides of the clouds, they were lit up with gold on one side and greys on the other. The ‘sea’ was all pale pinks and blues. If we had not  spent all day driving I would have pulled over. The image faded as we headed towards the caravan site, but it was the precursor of a lovely week away. Maybe I can find some old snaps of the places we visited.

I often look at cloudscapes and see landscapes.

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Just a pre lockdown photo.

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In February I was painting scenery and props for our local pantomime, Aladdin.

We were acting in front of about 140 people for four performances. One on Thursday and Friday, and a double performance including a matinee on Saturday. To think just a couple of weeks later we were in lockdown. I saw hundreds of people over those few days, and then no one for three months except on the way to and back from the shops.

I wish I could go back in time? Go back to a time where there was laughter. Fun, silly jokes, time to be with friends. Life was much less worrying then, despite global warming and pollution! I wonder what will happen when things return to normal if they do?

Canal view

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Photo taken by my friend who went for a walk with my hubby yesterday. The Trent and Mersey canal. Near Middleport pottery heading south west along the canal. He saw a group of swans swimming along the canal. There are apparently Carp, Roach and Pike in that section of the canal.

He actually walked thirteen miles! A half marathon. He’s feeling it today. I’m impressed and amazed. I’m afraid a mile is enough for me. I think I need to do more exercise and seeing the photos I’m jealous of the walk he did.

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Trifle with cherries and blueberries

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Sunday tea. Trifle. Raspberry jelly with cherries and blueberries, raspberry blancmange, whipped double cream.

I made up a pack of sugar free raspberry jelly with half a pint of boiling water. Then I added almost half a pint of cold water (you can substitute a small amount of sherry) and mixed it up. I washed and pitted the cherries and put about a mug full of them into the jelly liquid so they covered the base of an ornate glass bowl I use to make trifles. I added about the same amount of washed blueberries, spreading them out with a spoon to give an even coverage. I put the bowl in the fridge to let the jelly set fully. (there are alternatives that don’t contain gelatin). This afternoon I made up a pint of raspberry blancmange (you could use custard instead). I left it to cool in the pan rather than putting it directly onto the jelly as it’s heat would melt the set jelly. Once the blancmange cooled I spooned it onto the jelly. After a couple of hours in the fridge I whipped up a tub of double cream. I added a bit of sweetener before I whipped it. That goes on top

Serve in a glass bowl if you want to be posh. I just got the breakfast bowls out. In this case the cream slid off the blancmange and the jelly broke up because I’d put too much fruit in. So beware spooning it!

The result was delicious. Yum

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On the table….

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Today’s Stoke-on-Trent urban sketchers challenge was what was on your table..

Luckily the cat got on the table as I approached it. Otherwise it’s just books and a box and a carved wooden sphere. The n gauge railway layout my hubby has is out of view. Too difficult to paint! Sketching with a Cotman watercolour set I treated myself to for my birthday last month.

I haven’t painted with watercolours for months. I liked the free flowing colours. Less restrictive than acrylics. Although I did let paint bleed into some parts I dabbed it off with a bit of tissue. I found drawing out with the brush instead of a pencil much easier. I hate having drawn lines in pictures. The other thing was leaving areas white. It’s good to leave negative space and not completely cover the paper. This is turning into an interesting sketchbook. The prompts really make me think.

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