New paintings and regular art updates.
Last year I used to go to to life drawing class on Wednesday evenings. But the winter weather put me off and now I’ve lost the habit because I have been so busy lately. I would love to go back, but it depends on the rest of my life. I enjoy drawing and was going out with urban sketchers too. I need a big wall planner I think!
Anyway I hope you like this drawing of a musician playing his guitar.
X
We have a couple of magpies in the garden. They have decided to build an untidy nest in the top of a tall sycamore tree. I know their reputation for collecting things to line their nests with, but today I witnessed both of them picking up twigs over twice their body lengths. I watched the resulting tangle with amusement. Both of them had the long twigs held horizontal in their beaks. The trouble was, like a dog with too long a stick trying to get through a door, the sticks got caught on branches as they tried to fly up to the nest. Once the twig fell back to the ground and it took the magpie a few minutes to get it firmly back in its beak and properly balanced.
Seeing them both high in the tree top trying to tuck bits into their nest was fascinating. I do worry for other local birds as they have been known to steal baby birds but I do admire their tenacity.
X
I wrote three little plays for the Titchy Theatre yesterday. They were read out at the show. I will post them here one a day.
Monster (tourist to reporter – look south or some such channel)
Reporter : so where did you see it?
Tourist : down by the quay, you know, the harbour?
R: and was it big?
T: well… It was as big as a boat, no… A ship
R: what did it look like?
T: er…. It had glowing all over it
R: what sort of lights?
T: Well… Yellow-ish. Like Glowing yellow eyes, and I think it had huge teeth too!
R: why?
T: it seemed to have a grill or something over its mouth, but you could see light shining through… You know… Glowing like an alien?
R: did it make a noise?
T: yes, a very low humming, and a metallic, clanking noise.
R: so…. how do you feel?
T: very scared. I’ve never seen anything like it before
R: can I ask you where you’re from?
T: oh yes. Stoke-on-Trent
R: so … Have you ever been to the seaside before?
T: oh yeah. You know, magaluf, Malaga, Ibetha.
R: and there was nothing like this there?
T: No… Just always sunny, and at night we went off and partied… The other thing I remember is this long wailing noise! I mean, it was foggy, so I could only sense the looming figure the Monster…. .!!
R: OK. Well…. We checked with the Coast Guard… .
T: Yeah??
R: the wailing noise was from the lighthouse foghorn.
T: Oh
R: And the big, dark, lit-up ship thing.
T: Yes?
R: Was a car ferry…….
Christine Mallaband-Brown
Waiting, it’s like watching paint dry.
The time goes on and the paint shrinks slightly, maybe wrinkles as the water evaporates.
I’m sitting with my phone waiting for a call, hoping that it will ring soon….
Still waiting, another hour gone.
Still waiting, the paint is half dried, now it’s tacky…
Oh what can I do while I’m waiting? I can’t go out, because I need to be here when it happens. I will ring the number….
Oh no! No answer! Are they on their way? Not answering because they are driving? Where are they coming from. Is there traffic? Are there traffic jams?
Waiting…. Time trickles through the hourglass faster and slower. The paint is almost dry. The fine grain of the brush strokes smoothing out.
A call! We are on our way, but, (there is always a ‘but’) there is a major accident….. On the motorway….. Grid lock….. Have to change our eta…. Etc….
The paint is cracking and peeling…. They never arrived. Now I’m waiting again for someone new 😕
7% my battery is dying
7% my battery is drying up
6% and almost midnight
6% will I post in time
5% it’s 23.57 time is ebbing
4% it’s going
3% in the red zone.
2% last minute
1% categories
Help!
Ah, I forgot! We are now in British summer time I have another hour…..oops battery is gon… …… … . ..
A scrambling, ground cover plant with pointed shiny green leaves and striking purple flowers. They have five petals that seem to spiral down to the pentagram at the centre. I think you can also get white and also blue versions with variegated leaves.
We just got this plant for the garden where I’m hoping it will take over from the ivy that is covering a large section of ground.
it’s not often that you walk down the road in your local town and see a duck and a drake walking down the road in front of us. Crossing by a taxi rank. There is a river called the Trent that runs through the town, but it is in a culvert until it comes out near our local football ground.
When people say hello to each other in Stoke they say “hello duck” where in other places it might be “hello chick, or hello dearie”.
So we hope the ducks found the river or flew off to a park. I didn’t know who to contact and neither of them were injured. Just taking a walk….
Today we went to the Harpers Titchy Theatreup at the village hall. We went to listen to short plays written by about 17 people (including my partner and myself). The stories were varied and ranged from subjects about flying a plane to Lancashire in 1963. The name was chosen for a gentleman who passed away last year.
The idea was to write on about two pages of a4 paper. A play or poem to be read by up to 3 or 4 people.
My stories were about monsters and overhearing a conversation. My partners was about childhood memories.
I don’t have the originals because they were hand written and had to be typed up. When I get them back I will copy them to this site.
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Another plant I love in the spring are Helibores. The flowers range from bright white, pale green, pink and green and deeper pink. Sometimes the flowers are upright and you can get double species, but mainly their flower heads droop down and you need to lift up the flower to see its true beauty. There are sometimes dappled patterns and flecks of darker colours. The centre of the flower is quite prominent, backed by a slightly darker centre.
The leaves are deep green and shiny, sometimes five lobed. The borders are sometimes slightly serrated. I don’t know all the types of Hellibores there are but if you want an unusual plant that flowers early in the year and keeps flowering into April then they are worth getting. They offer some food for early insects. If you like your tulips and daffodils you could also try these. They are easy to keep and I grow mine with pulmonaria which come up a little bit later.
These are from our garden. The reason why they are not still in the garden? We had to have a tree cut down and they were likely to be squashed underneath its limbs. And so they are now in a vase in the kitchen.
In fact we have had a lot of work done over the last couple of months so plants have been squished a bit. We also need rain to bring the perennials that are still dormant underground into leaf and flower. Hopefully we will have some more significant rain in the next couple of weeks.
I particularly love the tulip flowers. I go for dark rich colours….. If we ever get the garden done I will post some photos.
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