Old pottery

Old buildings in our city don’t always last. They are often left to rot. Trees and bushes grow out of brickwork, splitting the seams and unzipping the building. Making the ancient pottery a ruin.

Some places dismantle buildings. For example the Black Country Museum in Dudley, West Midlands, England. It often numbers each individual brick of a house, or factory, or school and rebuilds it within the grounds of the museum. It has working chain makers and underground canals that run through caves with fossils imbeded in the walls.

Meanwhile our industrial heritage in Stoke on Trent is gradually rotting, or is even burnt down by arsonists. We really should take better care of out industrial archeology even if it means donating it to the black country museum.

Autumn dawn

Reddish sky in the morning

Shepherds take warning….

And they should! A few days ago we had a red dawn, this photo was taken as it faded.

The sky soon clouded over and later we had a deluge! Water flowed down the hill so fast and deep that it overwhelmed the drains and poured out of gutters onto the pavements. At the back of my house it came down the window in a sheet of rain and the water snuck into the wall and plaster around the window frame. I’ve never seen anything like it.

There was a flash flood in the centre of town with rain water up to people’s car headlights. Shops that were safe at the front had brown water knee high in their store rooms….

It might have been a microburst but it was very stormy. The winds were blowing trees about. It was more than the usual thunderstorm. Thankfully it blew over after about twenty minutes.

Climate change is here. I don’t know how places like Jamaica and Cuba and Haiti coped with last week’s hurricane. I feel so worried for them.

An extra bank holiday

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

I’d invent “autumn bank holiday” for Britain.

We have lots of bank holidays in the UK but there is a big gap between the bank holiday Monday in August and then Christmas. I know America has a thanksgiving holiday and maybe we could have something  in late October?

Not halloween! Not everyone celebrates that so I’d literally call it autumn day. To enjoy the change of the season. The mists and mellow fruitfulness. The changing leaves, autumnal flowers, the ripening of fruit, fungi fruiting, the start of animals gathering food for winter.

An outside day to explore and enjoy the season and a day of rest for the day, keeping a warm evening to enjoy seasonal foods.

Prompts

My friend in our #bandofsketchers group asked me to come up with some drawing prompts. This is my reply. The list could be a poem!

“Sorry I’ve not been doing much again. I’ll try again soon! New prompts:

Ideas and dreams
Sugar
Black and white
Green and red
Purple and yellow
Orange and blue
Blurred
Stitches
Games
Holding on
Silly
Ripples
Fish
Floating
Suspended
Itch
Hobby
Strap
Festival
Flop
Book or booking
African
South American
Asian
North American
Australian
Shower
Sunny
Slope
Feed
Fright
Parrot
Hold
Amphibian
Resting
Testing
Opera
Bulge
Seaside
Steps
Happy
Miffed
Splatter
Gold
Metal
Chomp
Sold
Smell

I think these can be quite open? Hope this helps.”

Spaceweather.com

What are your favorite websites?

I’m interested in astronomy and follow Spaceweather.com

It’s full of information about comets and meteor showers, solar flares and corona mass ejections that can lead to auroras at the north and south poles. There are so many different phenomena that you can find out about there, and images of astronomical events.

Take a look, you might be surprised ar what’s up in space and how it affects us down here on Earth

Where did this come from?

WhatsApp photo of a rainbow a friend sent me. For some reason it appeared in my gallery. I get all sorts of photos from friends and I wouldn’t normally share them, but this is Yorkshire terraced house rooves with a rainbow above them. I like the sunset. You can just see an arc of colour in the sky.

The rainbow is above the houses, and the fronts of them are catching the sunlight. It shows how the sun must always be on the opposite side of the sky to a rainbow. The prisms of the rain drops scattering the light.

When I was younger I saw a rainbow coming down to the ground in front of me. It was about 50 yards away. As I walked towards it, it moved away at walking pace. Then I started to jog and it moved away at the same pace as I was travelling.

It was fascinating, and it stayed in my memory, so everytime I see these beautiful  light shows I appreciate it.

My 20’s

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

Random photo of a jumper I knitted in my 20’s!

I did my fine art course.

I met my boyfriend.

I cycled everywhere.

I made good friends that I still know.

I created lots of art, including murals.

Basically, despite bad things happening in the world I was very lucky to have a great time. Plus there was punk rock, TV shows like ‘the young ones’. I also bought a bicycle and cycled many miles around the north West of England. My boyfriend and I went cycle camping up to the lake district and cycled round Devon and North Wales on holiday. It’s surprising how far you can go on trains and bikes.

I have so many memories that I still recall. Life was simpler then, I am glad I have them. Plus I knitted the jumper (I never made one before). I remember adding patterns that I completely made up including the red arrows on the sleeve, and space invaders on the bottom of the jumper!

Life I had that I’ll never go back to. I wish I could!

Who are you?

I’m looking  at my stats and I’m confused. Over 1000 people have been looking at my posts today. Usually it’s more like 67, what’s going on. This week it seems to be mainly American and last week it was China.

I wonder if this is real or bots? I can’t imagine my ramblings are sufficiently interesting to attract this level of scrutiny. Has anyone else had this experience? Will this continue or gradually ebb away?

So many questions, so much puzzlement? If anyone can answer or have I bored everyone enough yet?

Table tennis

I went back to the Parkinsons table tennis club this week after a few weeks off because of eye surgery.

I was pleased that I could just hit the ping pong balls but I was very unsteady on my feet. I was also cautious of bending forward. Time will tell whether I improve. I really think I need to discuss things with my Parkinsons nurse. I just want to be safe and careful.

Exercise is important, moving around, keeping active. If I don’t my muscles will atrophy. I think I need physiotherapy. Wish me luck. I’m so tired I’m going to get a nap.

Edge, Esther Chilton prompt.

Nebula ?

I wrote this post as a response to Esther Chiltons weekly prompt.

Edge
On the edge of the galaxy, in the streaming snow of stars, a snake like creature swims the dust lanes.
Pure energy, it feeds on supernova and quasars.
Many thousands of years old, it has started to glow. Corruscating colours flowing along it’s length.
What is this Edge creature? Totally alien, made of quantum fluctuations, entangled electrons. Perhaps when it ripens the galaxy will twist like a newly lit Catherine wheel on bonfire night.