Im drinking beer and thinking…

IMG_20180811_005718_339

I’ve not had that much beer, probably a bottle, because I’m sharing with my partner, trying to see which one is best. My favourite is a chocolate flavoured porter. About 6% abv. That’s quite strong but I’ve had less than a quarter of a pint and if I can spell that I’m OK. Just chilling.

So my thoughts are.

I’m lucky to be able to do this, sit and watch TV, have a roof over my head. Be able to paint and draw. Have enough money to feed myself and my partner, run an old car…,

I wish everyone had that chance. Could live in peace. I’m a silly old idealist. But I care about people. ….maybe this is the drink talking? I see people begging in the streets. It wasn’t always like that. We were more of a caring country I think, where did we go wrong!? Austerity is a word used to hide the cruelty of the rich getting richer and the poor, well..poorer.

The working poor is the latest thing. Doctors, nurses and police taking second jobs to earn enough to live on? When did that start? Ordinary people with three or more jobs to pay the rent?

I’m leaving this here…what is happening to the world!

Abstracting Angles

Take a picture and twist it,

Mix it,

Turn it round and bend it,

Don’t mend it.

Shake it up,

Blend it.

Shape that space,

No disgrace to fix it.

Give it Grace,

Make a place,

New is ace.

Change its face.

There’s no race,

Just keep up your pace.

Spin that pic,

Twin that pic,

Win that pic.

Love that pic.

That pic is sick!

(A possible Rap) x

Noises

IMG_20180808_223624_112

I live in an old house, which creaks and groans like old houses do. Normal, everyday squeaks….

But when we had new windows fitted we got a couple of added moaning noises. For some reason if the wind is in the south the kitchen window moans quite loudly, and if it is in the north the front window whistles. Still this is better than the road traffic noise we used to suffer from.

I am aware of other sounds, like birds thudding heavily as they land on the kitchen roof. The patter of their feet while you are in the bathroom. Water collects on the roof, so they often come down for a drink.

The loudest noise comes from the fridge. When the pump kicks in you can hear it groaning and whimpering into life, like a sad puppy…..it gradually settles down, but in the middle of the night when I’m making myself a coffee it can be quite disconcerting.

Other noises include the mad scrambling clatter of cats paws as they chase each other up and down stairs. One cat has a bell on his collar and it rattles as he moves. Little purring noises as they gather speed.

But the loudest noise of all…. when someone keeps talking when I’m trying to write!

Hanging baskets

This was my garden…….in 2017….20170831_153616

This was my back yard last year. Everything was lush and green with lots of colour. This year things are not as good, some plants are wilting in the heat, others have only just survived. I haven’t taken photos of them because its all a bit messy. Still I will persevere. We might be getting some rain on Sunday if we are lucky.

There may be some thunderstorms east of us but nothing due here. It’s so strange, we are a wet country usually. We are normally known for complaining about cold wet summers, and grey dismal winters.

Climate change? I don’t know. But something is going on.

Multiply up all the gardens in the country where the plants are struggling. Then think of all the farms that are having trouble, having to feed hay and winter food stocks to there animals because there is not enough grass for them. It’s not normal. While over in Europe temperatures have risen above 40°C.

But we are lucky in comparison with other parts of the world. Terrible floods, droughts. The world’s temperature has risen since the turn of the millennium.

We are worried by plastic in the oceans, maybe we should really worry about the climate before its too late. Climate scientists have reported that the weather could actually become so hot that we end up in a “hot house Earth” scenario.

If not for our generation, but for future ones we need to stop listening to business people whose interest is short term gain and move to a more balanced, less greedy world. If that means that rich western countries should share technology with the whole world then that’s what we should do. Rant for the day over. ..

Keyboard fixed!

The bug is fixed thankfully.

It’s useful having a computer shop just down the road…

Apparently it was an “unusual glitch” whatever that means. My normal keyboard shrank last week to a smaller version. I just thought it was an upgrade but apparently it was the computer downloading another version because the first one had stopped working, it was only when my computer kept flashing up “unfortunately, Samsung keyboard is not working” that I realised that something was wrong.

20180807_181152

So every couple of seconds the message flashed up, technology is like that, it tells you there is a problem but not how to resolve it. How do you sort it out when you cannot type in a question to Google, for instance, to ask what to do?

So, switch it on and off, switch it on and off and flick the SD card out and back in, then try to remove duplicated photos, clear cache’s, uninstall apps you don’t use. Clear the cache’s again. Run the anti virus, remove old unwanted emails and messages……

Nothing worked, though I had freed up memory on my external memory SD card…..So it had to go to the shop, they could not type anything in to even get on the internet to download a new keyboard. So they kept it in to fix. You don’t realise how attached you are until you have to leave your computer behind. Talk about separation anxiety! But it has come home fixed.

Thank you one stop computers in stoke. Very helpful and they only charged me half of what they estimated.

Cheers and thanks x

Don’t stare at me. .

image_2018-08-05_224520

Instead of poetry a few words……

Large green eyes, look out of a dark green face. Paper thin skin, layers of chlorophyll ? What are you,  green, sap green, olive green, hookers green, lime green, a green apparition. Staring eyes that cast a spell over my mind. A sneer on your lips, worldly thoughts cascade in your brain.

What are you? Again, I think. Some mammalian plant? A simulacrum of humanity?

Leaves break out through your skin, vines, ivy, convolulus. Grow longer, twisting violently across your face. Your hair is fern fronds, feathery, tiny leaves on twining stems….

Your body is green as grass, a cauliflower and cabbage mass of leaves, courgette fingers, marrow thighs, feet stretching into the mud, but mobile like a human woman.

Veins like phloem and xylem gather fluids, rise up your trunk. Transpiration instead of breath. Are you deciduous or evergreen? Do you have an autumn season and wither into winter? Or are you still young in the cold months? Red berries blossoming on your lips? Heart of Oak or Yew?

You stand and stare at me. Looking into my room, glass holding back your strength. Your witch like hands or twigs beat on the widow pane. You cannot enter. But I cannot leave. Trapped by your tangled leaves. Tendrils fight their way in through the letter box. Green woman, earth, Gaia ….

 

 

Organ grinders

One thing about Britain, and in this case specifically England is that we have our fair share of eccentrics, collectors, restorer’s and skilled artisans.

Today was a case in point. I met some lovely people who restore and make their own organs and are known as organ grinders because they turn a handle at the back of the machine to work a set of bellows to play music.

Apparently you can get various sorts of organs. A lady showed me how hers worked, with a roll of paper, held on a tube (a bit like a toilet roll). As she turned the handle to pump the bellows the paper roll passed over a series of holes attached to pipes at the top of the machine. the paper was slightly waxy or plasticised, it had small holes cut in it and as each set of holes lined up with the organ pipes it played a note, pipes that were covered with the paper did not play. The lady told me the organ was made in Germany by a famous maker. Sadly I forgot to get a note of his name.

Other organs music was on flat peices of card joined together like a jacquard pattern for weaving. One even had a sim card in it and all the player (grinder) had to do was turn the bellows handle.

The owners of the machines were all dressed in Victorian costume and were dotted around the Etruria Industrial museum. They were there for there national meeting and had come from all around the country. They are staying for a week and will be here until next Sunday.

X

Late…..

IMG_20180802_163505_746

A few years ago I promised to do a painting of a friends dog.

I did not realise that I would only now be painting it. Why? I honestly dont know, I moved, she moved her work place. We lost touch with each other. The photo sat on a shelf for years. I still had a contact number for her, and saw her relatives at various gatherings, but I didn’t do the painting.

Now I’ve told her I’m getting the photo back to her… I didn’t say I would do the painting, but I will try and get him done in time.

I might post a finished photo here, but if not it will be on my Facebook  Art page. I hope she likes it.

Insomnia

IMG_20180326_163254_350

Insomnia bites at my mind.

Makes sleep impossible,

Hides the remote to my dreams,

It gives no respite to my need to rest,

I am a prisoner held in its bright grasp.

Sleep, eludes, escapes, disappears.

5am ..the sun is rising on another day….

Shall I try again for a brief nap?

The click clack of the clock invades my ears,

Makes me hear the dawn chorus….

The radio susserating quietly by my bed…will I drift on …

Onto a narcoleptic ocean, softly, softly, gently falling…

AWAKE!

Phantasms

IMG_20180724_164324_761

Phantasmagoria….

I looked up the definition, it says it is a “shifting medley of real or imagined figures, as in a dream”….. noun.

I had not really thought about the word Phantasm until I saw it on a programme earlier today. It makes me think of ghostly figures and ectoplasm.

I don’t know if I believe in them, but there are people that do. A local pub which used to be a hotel is supposed to be one of the most haunted pubs in the country. The Leopard in Burslem, Stoke on Trent, is know for its spooky atmosphere. Several TV shows have been filmed there to explore the ghostly emanations. There is a story that there are phantoms in the cellar, and ghost hunts regularly take place there.

I can imagine figures walking through the public bar, or in the back room. Floating above the ground, disappearing behind curtains or into walls. Spirits caught between the past and the present. The stairs that lead downstairs feel particularly eerie. There us a geological fault in Burslem and the building has a strong lean to one side. If  you drop a ball on the floor it will roll to the other side of the room. The Leopard has a long history and is very interesting to visit.

I have not seen anything myself, but some of the staff and customers say they have. Whether there is such a thing a Phantasms is not something I can prove or disprove. I think I will keep an open mind.