Purring cats

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Purring puss

He loves his new basket

Curled up warm and snug!

But jealousy arrives with his sister

Who loves it too.

Squabbles ensue, much chasing,

up and down stairs,

behind the curtains…

Scooting backwards and forwards,

In and out the basket,

one after the other.

Till finally,

they both ignore it,

staying in seperate places.

Eyeing up the basket,

at an impasse….

Neither willing to trespass.

Wish I’d bought two.

Colour and pattern

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Slinging a pattern on here today because my brain is a bit fried with this cold and I was looking through some old digital sketches and I liked the colours in this.

I don’t know why, but spirals are the main shape that make me happy. Those and waves like those on the Japanese prints of the sea near Mount Fuji.

Spirals are amazing, found in galaxies and whirlpools, tornados and hurricanes. Waters spouts, spiralling growth of climbing plants. Water spiralling down a plug hole… Even the double helix of DNA.

Patterns are interesting, makes life interesting too.

Stop the world, I want to get off?

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Memories play tricks, but I’m sure there were moments in my life when I was happier, or fitter, or could remember more facts. Or even remember the name of the hole in the top of a car that let’s sunlight in…. Roof window? Sky light? OK I know, it’s sun roof….

Some years ago I think I was content. Can’t remember the exact date, but we went on holiday a couple of times and I was fit enough to go cycling…. But the world turns, and I keep getting older. The things you get used to change, not necessarily in the way you want.

I don’t suppose anything can stay perfect, or you can stay content forever, it would just be nice for it to stay that way for a bit longer.

Four

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Four faces, four seasons, four points of the compass. Why four. Why is a four leaf clover lucky? Four wheels on a car, for stability? Four suits in cards…. Four quarters, but that’s just quarters. The four winds.

But then I can’t think of many other fours. And why four anyway? We have ten fingers and ten toes, and for that matter the British culture used to have twelve as its main number, twelve inches in a foot, twelve pennies in a shilling. But then there are all sorts of other numbers, 1 for winning, coming first, two’s company. Threes a crowd, bronze medal, third place. Who wants to come fourth? Seven and eight are supposed to be lucky numbers. Thirteen may be unlucky?

However you look at numbers all of them will be imbued with some story or other. That’s what humans do. Tell stories….

Middle word poem

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Sometimes I just try to write random poems using the middle word of the suggested words on my screen… It can be interesting, or just plain weird. Here goes…..

X and I will try and get it done for you,

tomorrow morning,

and the rest of the week

after the rest of the week,

after the rest of the….

I need to get my head round,

the back of the building,

and get the detail and shading correct

on the way to the airport

to get the computer set up.

So I can take over the role

of the rest of the team,

at the end of the week

after the rest of the week,

after the rest of the week……

I need to get my Xperia by Sony today

and tomorrow from 10 till 4.

Tomorrow morning,

and the rest of the week

after the rest of the week…..

I will try and get it done

for the Brampton tomorrow morning

and the rest of the week

after the rest of the week…..

(the rest of the week seems quite important in this one)

July at Westport lake.

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It’s good to look back at old drawings as the days grow colder and shorter. Remembering warmth and colour, the view from the cafe there, then a gentle walk round the lake. Watching the place mature over the years, the trees have grown up so tall. Now Staffordshire wildlife have taken over running the site there has been a programme instigated to improve the area and make it more wildlife friendly. I saw four cormorants perched on a man made island there a couple of months ago. I thought these birds were costal, but maybe they are coming inland like gulls.

Must visit again in the near future, maybe if it snows…. Then I can re draw this scene…

X

I like noticing things…

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For instance, this is the just after full moon. Its in the same place in the sky as it was over the last few days, but not at the same time! I know the Earth and Moon orbit each other, and the moon is tidally locked with us. Which means it has one side always facing towards us. But as I say its in about the same place, but each day its a bit later, so after 5 days it’s moved from being there at 2am to 6am…..

Think about it. The Earth rotates in 24 hours, if the Moon is coming up later each day it must be going round the Earth at a certain speed. I don’t have the mathematic skill to work that out but if it takes 6 days to move 4 hours then if you multiply 4×6 you get 24 (hours) for it to end up in the same place so if you multiply 5(days)x6 you get 30, which is approximately a month to get to the same place in the sky and appear again at 2am. The Moon waxes and wanes while doing this. From that you can tell approximately where the sun is in relationship to us. If the half moon, and all the other phases are facing one way before full moon, the Sun is on the lighter side of the Moon. If its curved the other way as the moon starts to go away from full, then it’s on the other side. You can guess when the sun will rise from this, the smaller the area of brightness the more to the side of the Earth the sun must be. I can’t work out whether the sun would be rising sooner or later depending on its phase. I can see in my mind that if you were looking at both Earth and Moon from space they would be lit from the same direction, but sometimes you see the Moon in daylight, so I don’t know how that works. I think I would need to start drawing very long thin triangles, based on say a quarter of a centimeter on one side and 93 centimeters on the other two to work something out (based on the ratio of distances from the Earth to the Moon and the Earth to the Sun – .5:93…this is just scaling down the siz. I’m thinking in miles because I don’t know the distances in kilometers…. Its all got a bit complicated….

I remember once watching the moon every day for a week from the top of the hill, each day it got closer to the setting sun, till finally there was almost an eclipse. Somewhere on Earth there must have been an eclipse in the following day or so, but we missed it because the sun had already set.

Friday the thirteenth

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Out of luck today, the result of our general election didn’t go the way I wanted. I usually stay up all night to watch the results, but as soon as I heard what the exit pole said I decided to give it a miss. No last night I went to bed about 1am, which is actually early for me. I would  have gone earlier, but I was watching a couple of documentaries about Maori art and they were far more enjoyable than election results. I think I knew it was going to be bad when I saw the results would be on Friday the Thirteenth.

I look forward to more austerity and homelessness, worse health care, the sale of the NHS, more crime. But I’m not bitter, just sad.