Early dawn

Posted on January 16, 2025January 16, 2025 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Classical music, Cocoa, Gardening, Insomnia, milky drink, Radio, Sleepless, telephone, TiredLeave a comment

Last night was another sleepless night. I tried a milky hot cocoa then quietly listening to a classical music radio station. I’d stayed downstairs because I have a chesty cough and it’s better to sleep sitting or pillowed up. Finally at just after 7am I gave up and went to bed. I took this photo at the top of the stairs as the faint light blush from the sunrise started to colour the sky. The view is blocked by various trees including a large straggly goat willow. I managed to get comfortable and slept. Then unfortunately someone rang me at 9.15am! After that I’ve been ringing other people so I suppose I’d better stay up.

Comet

Posted on January 15, 2025 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Astronomy, Comet, Life, Memory, Solar system, southern Hemisphere, Sun, ThinkingLeave a comment

There is a Facebook post saying there is a really bright big comet that will appear in the sky tonight. I do get annoyed with these sort of posts because they are so illogical.

I decided to reply: If it was in the sky we would have seen it coming. It wouldn’t just appear. It might be travelling at a few hundreds or thousands of miles an hour but it wouldn’t appear instantaneously. There is a comet called Atlas (not sure of the full name) that is in the southern sky after recently passing the sun. It’s only a low visability comet and is starting to fly out of the solar system. Visible with binoculars just before sunrise. Gradually dimming as it becomes more distant.

Heart

Posted on January 15, 2025 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Comfort, Death, Greif, Hearts, Hope, Life, Loss, Short story, Thinking, Very short storyLeave a comment

‘I still keep seeing hearts, and it makes me feel like smiling when I do’, she said.

It was over a year since he’d gone, she realised, and things had been hard. They hadn’t discussed anything, it was so unexpected.

About a week after he had died she found a pink, heart shaped petal on her pillow, she had left the window open for some fresh air and it had just appeared, probably on a gust of wind.

She spoke to her sister again. ‘it seems to happen about once a week, I will spot a heart shape somewhere. Daft things like a bubble in the bread was a little heart, heart shaped crisps, presents with them as decorations, stones on the beach, it just keeps happening’.

She remembered the heart shaped cloud that had floated over the house for an hour, just above his shed. Above where he had worked on his bikes and train sets. She knew he was still with her, keeping an eye on her. Maybe one day they would be back together.

Sky

Posted on January 15, 2025January 15, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Colours, Dawn, Description, Dusk, ever changing, Memory, Poem, Poetry, Sky, View, WorldLeave a comment

A crystal ball above our heads

A droplet of water magnified

Held to the ground, pulled down,

Curtains draped with fog

Moisture smears the view

Like glasses rinsed and wiped?

The sky’s the thing

Ever changing

Sometimes black, grey, bright.

Rainbows and thunder

Rain and snow, a marvelous show.

Is it a red sky tonight?

A face

Posted on January 15, 2025 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Colour, Drawing, Ears, Eyes, Face, Fine Art, Learning, Mouth, Nose, SketchingLeave a comment

Making up faces, good practice if you don’t have anyone to draw. You can work out eye shapes and sizes, how would a long or short nose look? Big or small mouth thin or thick lips? Are the ears visible? How long or wide is the face, what shaped chin.

Drawing is a skill, practice does help. 10,000 hours is meant to make you an expert. Millimeters can change things, hair, makeup, colour, looking in different directions. Up down, sideways, three quarter view.

Please keep working, practicing, enjoy it.

Glass cat

Posted on January 15, 2025 Posted in Cat, Memories, UncategorizedTagged Cat, crafted, Front door., ginger cat, Handmade, leaded light, my design, Stained glass, Window2 Comments

It still amazes me that my friend Phil made us this ginger cat, leaded light window above our front door from a design I drew out for him. It’s proper stained glass with lead holding it all together. It’s about 27 years old. We had it done because the half moon of glass that is above the front door was only single glazed and this does help the draught a bit. I’m so glad I had it made. X

Hubbys tricycle

Posted on January 14, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Antique, Bike, Conversion, For sale, Fun, Memories, new wheels, restored, Tricycle, TrikeLeave a comment

I need to move on. I’m not going to ride this and I’m not sure if anyone will buy it. It’s a trike conversion. The back wheels and stays are bolted onto a bike frame so it can be adjusted to different sizes. We refurbished it, adding new wheels in 2022. A friend has stored it for me for over a year but it’s not fair to expect him to keep it.

So with regret I will try and sell it. If anyone here is interested I’m in the North Midlands of the UK. I’m willing to sell for a fair price.

I hate AI

Posted on January 14, 2025 Posted in UncategorizedTagged AI, Annoying, artificial intelligence, fake, Garden of Earthly delights, Heironymous Bosch, Irritating, ThinkingLeave a comment

Something is creeping into the Internet and it really irritates me. I guess hate is too much but it’s annoying.

I just saw a short video where a white meringue turns into tiny polar bears and peaches start wriggling about, then a large lobster changes into something alien and a white and yellow parrot sits happily in a frying pan where an egg is being fried.

The images all look perfectly realistic, and if you didn’t know you could imagine they were real, but I see a grotesque version of reality, like Heironymous Bosch has returned from the past and has created his AI vision of the Garden of Earthly delights.

AI can be very disturbing and it’s getting everywhere. It’s like looking at someones hallucination. A strange trip into a distorted mind. I want it to stop. Human imagination can be simple or warped, but AI? It’s just too fake for me, for some reason I can recognise it and I don’t like being tricked.

One day away

Posted on January 13, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Beach, Coach, Coast, Day trip, Holiday, Life, Memory, Poem, Poetry, Time, WalesLeave a comment

Last year I had a day trip

Went to the coast

Of Wales

It rained on the way

And it was blustery

By the beach.

I went on a coach

Can’t drive that far

Anymore

One day away

My holiday

……

Driving to Plymouth

Posted on January 13, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged 1980's, bloganuary, bloganuary-2024-13, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1816, Devon, Driving, Memory, Motorways, Plymouth, TravelLeave a comment

Think back on your most memorable road trip.

In the 1980’s we went to visit a friend from college for the first time. It was a journey we would make every couple of years until he moved up to the North of England.

We lived in the Midlands and I’d learnt to drive about 6 months before. I was driving a Morris Marina.

We took the M6 then M5 motorways until it ran out and changed to an A road. We stopped off for breakfast at a service station because the journey was about 240 miles. I hadn’t been on a motorway very often and as we came out of the service station I ended up on the North bound slip road! I did something illegal. I reversed back down the road and then took the South road!

Luckily the route was very simple, we got to Plymouth, and the house we were visiting was a few hundred yards away from the motorway junction. I remember we took bicycles on the roof of the car so the rest of the week was spent cycling to beaches and visiting various interesting places. The trip back was uneventful!

This was pre satnav and we used maps to navigate. To be honest I still use an A to Z if I want to find somewhere. But my driving is restricted to short journeys these days.