List

Because of everything that’s been happening my life recently I have got behind on #bandofsketchers prompt so here is a list of some of the things I’ve missed. I hope to feel enthusiastic again but I have a health issue that needs investigating and I feel stuck again. One step forward two steps back. All being well everything will be OK. Fingers crossed, I’ve got enough worries without something else coming up!

Facing my fears

Six year old sketch

This came up on Facebook memories and I thought it was so close to how I’m feeling now. Jangling nerves, my heartbeat spikey, thoughts all over the place moving at a million miles a second. Suspicious of everyone. Anxiety and tiredness mixed into a morass of stress. It’s been a bad few days and I don’t know if it’s going to get better. Fingers crossed.

Artrage oils digital drawing.

Royal news

I have seen on TV that the Queen of the UK, Queen Elizabeth II, is ill and is resting comfortably. What is worrying about it is that all of her family is travelling up to Balmoral in Scotland (about 45 miles from Aberdeen). Our BBC TV station is reporting about it at the moment, lots of speculation is going on. Buckingham Palace is not giving out much information.

Queen Elizabeth has been the ruler of Britain and the Commonwealth for 70 years. She is 96 years old, and recently has been suffering from mobility issues. Today she has been placed under evaluation after further medical consideration.

Not everyone is a royalist, but I do feel sorry that she is ill. Perhaps there might be more news later.

Masked

I was just stopped in the street by a woman who said ‘you know there’s no one around?’ I looked about me and said ‘yes I can see that’. Then she said ‘so you don’t need a mask’ I looked at her. Why tell me this when I had just forgotten to take it off, but why did it matter to her? Then she said ‘it might make it difficult for you to breathe with carbon Dioxide building up behind it.’

Oh I really wanted to say something, like ‘oh dear, so many people collapsing after wearing a mask for more than five minutes!’ or ‘ they are permiable to air, they just stop viruses’. But I bit my lip under my mask and said ‘no I’m OK. I’m used to wearing a mask at night, I have sleep aponea’. ‘Oh that OK then’ she said. I said ‘goodnight’ and walked off. But then called back ‘I’m still cautious about covid’. Perhaps people belive it’s over? But it’s my choice to wear a mask.

Wet

I looked out this morning and the wind was whistling down the hill and rain was pouring down. But we had it lightly, about eighty miles and further north of here, rivers have flooded and a couple of footbridges have been swept away. Then later today there was news of someone possibly being swept away by a river.

When I think about the buildings collapsing into flooded rivers in South Asia recently it just underlines how much rain is being dropped on the land in some places. Because the atmosphere is getting hotter it can hold more water which consequently precipitates in greater amounts when it does rain. Flooding events that were once in a decade or a century are becoming more frequent. We have to act. I don’t know about political slogans like ‘levelling up’ but I think the heavy rains are ‘levelling down’ and washing the ground away from humanities feet!

Stressed

Oh hell!

I feel so stressed. I had a message a month ago from my Internet service provider that they were no longer supporting other applications that could be used to pick u your email. I thought a) it might be a scam, or b) it wasn’t that important. But speaking to a friend I realised I did need to sort it out. But when I tried today I couldn’t get it to accept my password? Why? I tried an old password, still no. And it kept saying it was sending a verification code to my land-line. So I needed to add my mobile number somehow!? Hair pulling ensued? What! I looked at my old password ( I know I shouldn’t write it down), and underneath the old password in tiny writing was another one. Could it be? Yes! Now what? Give us another email address to recover you email to. OK I could do that. Then find my email application and copy and paste a one off password (which I’ve made sure I wrote down)….

Done!

Suddenly a lot of the tension in my shoulders has dissipated. The fear that has been building up for weeks has reduced. All I can say is, that was very complicated and I hope I never have to do it again!

Extinction

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So many animals, not just big ones, but tiny ones, insects, fish, are going extinct.

Why? Because of hunting, pesticides, over fishing, plastic, fires, people encroaching on the places animals live.

Why? There are too many of us, but we could all try and live more thoughtfully. People need space, and food. But there must be ways of dealing with our needs that doesn’t cause harm. We are too busy consuming to realise we can’t always have everything we want. If we could live in a more sustainable way? I remember in the 1970’s there was a comedy programme called ‘the good life’ where a couple tried to leave the rat race and live a better life by growing their own food, making their own clothes, but it didn’t always work.

It’s too simplistic to expect that to work worldwide, but I think we should try.