Names?

From the fuzzy grey of my brain I seem to have developed a need to think of an unusual name that I could, if I ever wrote a novel, use as a character.

This normally happens when I’m half asleep, it might be a continuing dream. And like a dream, I think of a name and then almost immediately forget it!

I don’t have a list, I didn’t think of writing names down. But I think each name is a little complicated, perhaps having several syllables. Is this normal? Is there a name for it? (like nominative determinism, where a person’s name relates to their job… A Mr Kitchenn as a cook for example?)

I am trying to think of names….

Buttercup Sylvester

Pamela Praline

Humphrey Othello?

Or maybe

Martia Stephinkos

Greg Carlos Carlisle?

I think I come up with better ones when I half asleep.

Thanking God?

I just read a random post on Facebook that said if someone I knew was dead that was younger than me, that I should take a few seconds to Thank God for Saving me!

I thought about this and replied:

“This is really upsetting, I have lost people recently and to think someone could be so crass as too say they weren’t worthy in some way? Also what about all the innocent  people that die in wars, hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters? Was that because they didn’t pray enough? I’m proudly agnostic, I don’t pretend to know the “truth”.”

The point is that whoever wrote it does not know the people I’ve lost, cannot say if they were good or bad. Their deaths were random. A big finger didn’t come out of the sky and strike them dead.

When someone you know dies, it’s a body blow, it’s overwhelming. It’s not a competition to see which one of you is a “winner” in some deities eyes. And if I could bring them back for one second I would. Maybe I’d be more inclined to pray, but I can’t, so I won’t. We don’t live in a fairytale.

2019 remembered, Biggley!

Trump Mania 2019

I just found this Staffordshire flat back ornament I decorated at the British Ceramic biennial back in 2019.

Whoever designed it came up with a quirky idea of Trump on a boat, legs facing backwards, the symbol of the crucifix and people weeping next to it? A monkey and a possible tea chest. There is a lion as a figurehead at the front.

I don’t remember what it was meant to depict but it’s certainly a confusing image. How did he get elected? Is he running away from the world? Is he a clownish figure? Five years later I still don’t know!

Kitchen cupboard

Just saw this on Facebook, from the 60s or 70s.

We had a pale green cupboard, I think the same sort?  I remember the crinkly glass in the windows. We also had a cool pantry room, I don’t remember a fridge. I’m sure I remember my Mum stuck marble patterned plastic on the cupboard to make it look better. I’m not sure it did? I think it was sticky back plastic vinyl that she used? I may be wrong. We also had a boiler and mangle and a free standing top loading spin dryer, the water collected in a bowl below it’s nozzle. It dried better than my washing machine now.

We didn’t have fitted kitchens then.

The Moon landing

What historical event fascinates you the most?

It’s fantastic that in my childhood men landed on the moon, not once but several times. Using computers that barely had the memory of a pocket calculator.

The race for space started after the second world war, when Wernher Von Braun went from Germany to America to continue research into rocketry. In the meantime Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and his Russian team were working on the problem in the USSR.

The teams gradually designed rockets that could travel into space. There are many books about the space race that are worth reading, telling the tale of the triumphs and tragedies that happened as the race continued. First one country took the lead then the other.

It all culminated one July day in 1969, I remember being bought downstairs to watch the landing. I hope to see people go back there.

Halloween

I saw a weird thing tonight, I walked past a field and I saw, I think I saw? All the pumpkins were still in the field, but already carved. Each had a grotesque face, and light flickering within them. But the stems were still attached and no smoke or burning smells? Very odd.

Its Halloween and I felt crrreeeped out, but an hour later I quietly walked back. I had to know what was going on. It was only when I was on the path and walking in the opposite direction I saw what I’d missed before….

The sign saying

“Ready carved pumpkins, let us do the work, you take the credit” and “tealights included”.

I wished I’d gone to bed!

Baited breath

He said that, she said the opposite

People scowl

Cats and dogs growl

It’s all “their” fault

They cause guilt

We want more money

For billionaires…. Funny

Why care for others?

Let’s be selfish, like brothers

Cain and Abel?

It comes down to a pottage mess

And everyone feels duress

But we wait with baited breath

In hope there will be no deaths.

An end to conflict

Restore your peace.

Let’s be friends!

Playing

Woven sunsets. Duplicated, symmetrical, flipped and rotated in the Incollage app on my phone. It’s hard to know when to stop. But it’s oddly satisfying to play with patterns.

I have a tenancy to create a lot of these, I guess I’m “pushing the envelope” a bit, but only certain patterns with minimal details work X