Cadmium colours

In the 1980’s My hubby worked for a few years in a cadmium colour factory, they processed the raw pigments to get  colours from pale yellow, through orange to red and deep matoon red. He bought me jars and jars (empty coffee jars) of the colours home, but as they are made of a heavy metal I decided to give them to a friend who knew how to use them and grind her own oil paint.

I don’t know if he was allowed to bring them but I think he knew I would love the colours and I did. They were the purest colours I had ever seen. To quote Rudolphs song “you could almost say they glowed”. As Cadmium is similar to Lead though, I decided not to use them.

I keep sleeping

What a day! After a busy morning trying to sort a few things out, I had some lunch, then found myself falling asleep in front of the TV. Later a friend rang up so I helped her work out how to fit a firestick to her TV. I looked it up on Google and got her to find the HDMI cable, we then spent an hour trying to sort out how it worked. I joked I would never be able to talk down a plane in distress! Ten minutes later another friend rang about a burst pipe, asking if I could help in some way. She doesn’t have a computer so I gave her some numbers of local plumbers. We spoke for so long that my phone went flat.

Then, I don’t know if I was mentally exhausted but I just fell asleep, then slept on and off till now. I must have missed half of the programmes on TV. I never saw the end of Oliver! the movie. I need to wake up to cook something for tea, I might just have some noodles.

Cat sculpture

It’s a bit of a dark photo because it’s so grey at the moment, but this is a twisted wire cat my friend Steph made recently. I treated myself to it as an early Christmas present. I need to have a clear out so I can display it properly. I’m thinking it needs to go on a windowledge. Got to ponder these things. Happy Boxing Day folks X

Up to 100% effective?

I chuckle when I see this on adverts, ‘up to’ means that the percentage efficiency could be anything from 0% to 100%! But we are fooled by the top percentage. It’s the same sort of trick where a price is £9.99 instead of £10.00, the brain is tricked into thinking it’s a more than the 1 pence you actually save!

So think before you buy and be aware of tricky marketing, please!

Nativity, church window.

I found a photo

This time of year is called Christmas and this stained glass window is in Bethesda chapel in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. It depicts Mary, mother of Jesus. I’m afraid the photo is a bit blurry and small, but it is one of my own pictures.

Around 2000 years ago stories were written of a tale of a child born to a virgin woman. The baby was visited by shepherds who were told to see the him by an angel. He was also visited by three Magi or King’s bringing gifts of gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. His family fled as refugees into Egypt to flee the massacre of innocent baby boys by Herods troops.

In later life, after performing miracles by looking after the poor and healing the sick, he was crucified by the Romans as a type of rebel, or freedom fighter, but he was trying to get people to love one another, care for each other, forgive each other’s sins.

The stories were collected into a book called the Bible  and the new Religion called Christianity was born.

Christmas eve

I wish I could do something about my new neighbour but I don’t want to speak to him. He’s there now, I think he does a bit of hammering to let me know he’s in. I thought my house was on fire when I came home from visiting a friend, but no he was just burning stuff in the back yard again. The smoke was drifting over the top of my kitchen. Anyway his front door just slammed and he drove off. Happy Christmas eve! I’m going to finish my banana butty and cake bar tea.

I don’t know

Share what you know about the year you were born.

I was born on a beautiful planet

A long time ago.

We hadn’t visited the moon

And Superman hadn’t flown.

The world was overpopulated

With a few billion less people

No such thing as a Tesla existed

But we were not bothered.

Shops mainly closed on Sundays

And had half days in the week.

Butchers shops had sawdust

My head was a lot closer to the ground!

No mobile phones, lucky to have a phone box

Wimpy meals instead of McDonald’s burgers

Coffee was in a bottle, liquid, with chicory?

Sweets had not shrunk.

No sweeteners, no noodles, except in Vesta  meals

We hadn’t been decimalised!

We were not in Europe (common market).

And Dr Who hadn’t time travelled yet.

Enough information?

Can’t sleep again….

No I’m not waiting for Santa, that’s tomorrow night. I’m just tired out, too tired to sleep, the bedding on my bed is too heavy and presses on my feet. These old legs ache at the knees, so when I turn over they hurt. My hips are starting to hurt too. If I had the money I might treat myself to a reclining chair? But then I worry the cats would get in the mechanism. Oh dear, possibly squashed kitty! I struggle to get up   from the bed, I think my arms are not as strong and it pulls on my back as I try to fling my legs out to combat my upper body weight. I’m currently exposing myself to decaffeinated coffee to restore my fluid levels but attempting not to take a stimulant (but as you can see from my writing I’m fully awake). Why do brains do this (keep you awake with plans, worries, anxieties, also hearing my heartbeat and the traffic noise outside, even the cats snore!).

Tonight will soon be this morning, 7am, maybe I should tire myself out with a bit of housework? My coffee is getting cold. Good morning.