New paintings and regular art updates.
Scone, jam, cream and hot chocolate with massive marshmallows! My treat for getting out of the house with my friend after being stuck indoors for a few days. It was very creamy. An overdose of cholesterol. I liked the willow pattern bowl the xlotted cream was in. The sun was shining and it felt really summery.
I took this photo to remind me that I’d like to attend this event. But I can’t decide whether to go. It’s an evening workshop and I’m not very keen on going out on my own in the evenings. (it’s actually lunchtime till mid evening). Plus I haven’t been able to scan the qr code. Perhaps I need to go with someone else. Things are going on that I have to try to go to, but I need more enthusiasm.
What’s your favorite time of day?
When the sun is overhead
Light shines down on bright flower beds
Makes the hazy colours shine
On plants and flowers and bees divine
At the stroke of noon I see
Primary colours, one two three..
Red and blue and yellow too
And the other colours hue
Make me want to paint and draw
All the beauty that I saw
Afternoon is the key
Makes my mind feel oh so free
Mornings are OK I guess
But post meridians are the best!
Just back from singing at Middlewich with the Loud Mouth Women choir. It was a bit of a competition with a band playing over the road! There were performers all afternoon at the White Bear in Middlewich. But there was a restaurant over the road which also had a band on and they were over amplified so that a lot of the time they were drowning out people at the White Bear.
I enjoyed our performance although it was hard to tell if people could hear us. We sang along with Kate Barfield and Esther Brennan from the Boat Band so it was a bit of a change for all of us as we had never done anything like that before. I couldn’t take photos while we were performing but I got photos of the Raj circus act that followed us…. They did various tumbling, acrobatic and juggling tricks and really got the crowd going with their drumming. I’m tired out now! Fell asleep when I got home x
What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?
I need to start going to bed earlier. I’m always up late and it’s not good, then I get insomnia and I get up late. It’s a real dilemma to face. Not working also means I don’t have a routine to follow, and recent events have made me worse. I need to get out in the sunshine and boost my vitamin D but it’s easier to sit and feel anxious.
How do I do one thing to get me going again? Perhaps I should set my alarm every morning? Yes I could sleep through it, but at least it might give me the incentive to do things. Normally by the time I get up its after noon….
Why? Social media to some extent, and a constant need to watch the news. I’m caught in that dopamine trap of wanting to keep checking my phone, and yet I want to break away from it. I don’t read click bait but I do look at sites about politics a lot. I’m well informed. But why? it just ups the anxiety levels..
STOP!
Closed eyes against the sunshine
Dazzled in the low sun
He came in for five minutes
Ate some food
Said hello
Then off he goes
Enjoying the afternoon, bright
In the brilliant, illuminating light.
I sat and watched the sky, there was an interesting looking cloud, but it was too bright to see initially because if the low sun. Then after a few minutes the cloud gradually crept over the sun. We needed to rest as we were on our walk around our local hill. Sitting on the bench I could feel a cold breeze ruffling my hair and I pulled my coat a bit closer. Apparently a storm is due tomorrow so the gusts of wind might be the beginning of it.
‘and shall we have crumpets for tea ?’
I don’t remember where that quote comes from. But that’s what we had for our meal this afternoon. Toasted to a slightly brown colour and hot so that the crumpet is cooked through. I usually have butter or margarine on it but today I had butter and then as a treat a small amount of Greek honey.
The porous, sponge like consistency of the crumpet makes it good for absorbing melted butter. The top of a crumpet is full of a lattice of holes, whereas the base is solid, so these lacunae stay filled and only leak slightly. Yummy! I’ve also toasted crumpets, then grated cheese on them and then I gently microwave them for a savoury snack.
This bought back a memory of using a fork pierced through a crumpet and pushed onto the front bars of a gas fire. A tricky thing to do as the fire might burn your fingers as well as the crumpet! Cook the back first then the front, then take it off the fire and butter and eat. (Childhood memories of when life was more basic).
Walking home, Stoke-on-Trent, about 3.15pm this afternoon. The low sun barred by dark clouds. It didn’t rain but the bright sunshine really shone out behind the clouds. The lamp posts give a sense of scale. You can see the shadow of the cloud on the right cast at an angle so it gives an indication of where the sun is. It never emerged as I walked as the clouds were really slow moving.
We don’t see many planes overhead these days, but the last couple of afternoons we have seen a condensation trail as a plane has flown over.
Condensation because water vapour in the atmosphere condenses out on soot from the plane engines as the plane flies through the cold moist air. It makes a cloud that can hang in the sky for ages or dissipate quickly. In this case it was almost gone by the time the plane had passed over.
There are conspiracy theories that the trails are releasing chemicals into the atmosphere. This isn’t true but stems from some experiments years ago by scientists seeding clouds with silver iodide to create rain by giving water droplets a nucleus for the water droplet to form on.
So there is a grain of truth, but just that. The reality is far simpler. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail. For more information.
Mallaband-Brown