A lot of people

Posted on October 12, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Consideration, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2087, Family, Friends, Helping, Money, Thinking, Time7 Comments

If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

I’ve actually thought this through. I would give some to family and friends, it turns out you can gift someone £3000 without having to pay tax. But I would give more than that and gladly pay it. Then I would think of acquaintances to help. I would try and share a reasonable amount. Having done that I would buy a small house and garden, a bit bigger than mine now, but not huge. Enough to neatly fit paintings and books with a warm studio with plenty of light to paint and draw in. A natural garden with pond. It would not be too far away from family and friends. Obviously the cats come along too.

I would have to ensure I could pay all my bills each year.

Finally I would try and donate to charity… I would have to support local as well as national charities.

Deleting photos

Posted on October 12, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, deleting images, freeing memory space, Jetpack, Photos, Pictures, WordPress, Writing5 Comments

My plan on Jetpack /WordPress only gives me a smallish memory for photos and I keep bumping it up to 100%. I want this blog to have either my art and images but sometimes I also use the free photo library on here.

Unfortunately I cannot add new images unless I delete some ols photos, so I’m trying to remove my most boring pictures. That’s not too bad, but the more new ones I add the more slightly better photos I have to delete. It also means I have to optimise decent photos to take up less space.

So if you come across a post without a picture it will probably mean I have deleted the picture to free up space (sorry).

Playing with

Posted on October 12, 2023October 12, 2023 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Black and white cat, Cat, Catnip, Fun, Funny, Newspaper, Playing, Snoring, Tuxedo cat2 Comments

His catnip toy…

It’s a bit old so I sprinkled some fresh catnip onto a newspaper. The reaction was astonishing, ripping the paper and quickly trying to eat the catnip. After ten frenetic minutes he’s fallen asleep and is snoring! No doubt he will wake up and play again soon… X bless

Afternoon tea

Posted on October 12, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged afternoon tea, Eating, Food, posh nosh, Salmon, sandwich, shrimp, sushi, Tasty2 Comments

Sandwiches, salad, sushi

A bit of everything in the salad. Spring onion, pickled onion, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber, mayonnaise. Salmon and Shrimp Sushi, with a bit of ginger and wasabi, and a few smoked ham sandwiches. It was tasty,

Ballooning

Posted on October 11, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Anxiety, Balloon, Climbing, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2086, Fears, heights, Memory, Nerves, Prompt, Safety4 Comments

What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

Fear of heights and flying have held me back from doing this, but if I knew I would have guaranteed safety, no risk of the balloon suddenly deflating, or getting caught in a gale, or plummeting to earth, I might have a go.

I’d have to be on a tethered line, and maybe not go any higher than ten or twenty feet!

Why am I scared? I suffer from vertigo if my feet leave the ground, so even jumping can make me dizzy (I exaggerate), but I think I know where it stems from.

When I was young I was happy to climb up the outside of the swings or the big slide in the park or the ropes in the school hall. I’d climb to the top and hang upside down. So when I was a teenager and went on a school trip I was fine. But I borrowed some binoculars from the school teacher and climbed up a steep hill. I’d wanted to see the view. BUT, when I tried to climb down it wasn’t as simple. The surface was scree, loose small stones, I could feel the ground sliding away beneath me and I couldn’t use both hands because I was holding onto the binoculars for grim death! I finally got down in a flurry of dust and rough rocks, but I think it shook my confidence, I know from then on I was much more cautious and nervous about heights.

Ivy flowers

Posted on October 11, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged anthers, Bees, Gardening, Holly, Ivy, Leaves, Life, like anemones, Poem, Poetry, Pollen4 Comments

Little spidery flowers

Unfold like sea anemonies

Trapping bees in their anthers.

Pollen spreads to flowers,

Ivy will grow black berries

In the winter.

To go with red holly berries.

“The holly and the ivy

When they are both full grown….. “

View

Posted on October 11, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, art and craft group, Black ink, Coloured pencil, Drawing, Sketching, Sunday, View5 Comments

Sunday’s #bandofsketchers prompt was View. I haven’t done much actual drawing recently. I’ve just joined a small art and craft group so I opened the blinds to draw the view, but there’s a lot of plants, in the way.

Completing a college course

Posted on October 10, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Age, College, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2085, Learning, Life, Memories, qualifications, Time1 Comment

What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?

I realise that sharing information about what course I did isn’t good on the Internet, too much info gets stolen or misappropriated.

I’m giving a rather obvious clue without, stating dates and times. It was a big leap up from what I did before. But it gave me confidence to do other things. My goal was to get a good qualification and I did. I have done other courses since and sometimes I’ve done well and other times not so good. But you have to do the best you can and try and work out where you went wrong so you can rectify your mistakes.

All I can suggest is try and gain the best qualifications you can. Don’t let people tell you off or try and talk you out of it. The world is a big place and having qualifications can hopefully make it a little bit easier to live in.

Gardening woe

Posted on October 10, 2023October 10, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Anxiety, authority, bully, Council, Gardening, id, land survey, Life, Overgrown, tree surgeon10 Comments

Someone banged on my front window this morning, insisting my garden is overgrown (it is) and saying the council wants him to cut our trees down! I asked his authority and he said he was doing a local survey for the council and they would take action unless I got work done? He had no id and was really bullying and pushy. He had tree surgeon and land survey written on his vehicles. I said I was already going to get the work done (I have someone who can help). He said neighbours had complained. (the neighbours houses are empty!). He then glanced at the hedge and said he would charge £550. By then I was shaking and my anxiety was high. But I held my ground and asked him where he thought I would get the money from? He replied he has four daughters and needs to work 6 days a week! I told him to come back in a few weeks and it would be done (why?). It was only after speaking to my councillor that I realised he had not shown me his id, he mentioned no laws or legal information, and he did not mention where his authority for coming round and making demands came from. I put in a written complaint to the council. I think it was a scam, and if in fact he did represent the council he was not professional. He was a bully and demanding. I cannot imagine him being employed by them. Beware, Cold Callers can be very persuasive.

The French Impressionists

Posted on October 9, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged Art, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2084, Fine Art, France, Impressionists, Life, Painting14 Comments

Who are your favorite artists?

Renoir, Pissaro, Degas, Monet, Manet…. And many more artists. The beginning of a modern French movement, that started to move away from classical art towards a more emotional, abstracted style of art.

The French Impressionists held a ‘salon des refuses’ in 1863 of paintings that had been refused by the official Salon. It was organised because so many paintings had been refused and the Emperor Napoleon III arranged it.

Many of the upcoming French Impressionists were part of this exhibition.

My favourite artist is Monet, from his repetitive paintings of haystacks, to his paintings of the facade of Rouen Cathedral in the 1890s in different light conditions and colours fascinated me. Then his later huge paintings of waterlilies when he lived at Giverny. This was as he got older and his sight was affected by cataracts. I think I remember reading that he was one of the first people to have a cataract operation?

Of course the Impressionists were only the start of changing artistic styles. Post Impressionists, fauvists, expressionism, pointellism, then cubists and so many other schools of art.

Basically there are too many things to talk about. I have books about the Impressionists somewhere? I don’t know where.