Name the professional athletes you respect the most and why.
Dame Sarah Storey won her 19th Gold medal at the Paris 2024 paralympic games today. She has competed at 9 paralympics over several years. She started out as a swimmer but then took up cycling. Her 19th gold was for winning a road race around Paris. She also competes in the velodrome. She was born in 1977 and was made a dame because of her abilities as a sportswoman. Her physical disability is an underdeveloped left arm and hand from before she was born.
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?
I do sometimes use the word awesome on social media. It sort of explains my thoughts about some of the images online. But to be honest it is too easy to use. You don’t have to think of more subtle descriptions.
An ‘awesome’ limerick:
There once was an awesome post
On a website I used to host….
I realised my words
Were really absurd
And I hated ‘awesome’ most.
I just think it exaggerates the importance of an object ot person. To look on something in awe, is to see something of great style, beauty or extraordinary complexity. You would not call a bag of crisps awesome. Nor would you describe a cup of cappuccino and a muffin at the local cafe awesome as you took ten photographs of them. My point is words like awesome should only be used in exceptional circumstances. I need to give it up.
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
The furthest I’ve traveled was to Germany on a coach. I went on a wine tasting trip with my mom. It was a four day trip and it was a bit disappointing because I had a cold.
We drove a long way from the Midlands through London to Dover. We waited for ages to get on the ferry, then across to Calais. I remember staying on deck on a cold wet afternoon because my mom had seasickness. Then on through France and Belgium to Germany. I noticed the countryside was similar to Britain but the electricity pylons looked completely different. Much sturdier and solid instead of our criscross filigree style. By then the cold was getting to me and I slept until we stopped at a petrol station and I tried to ask for aspirin, but used the wrong phrase ‘haben du’ informal, instead of ‘haben sie’, I didn’t know I was being over familiar.
One of our coach passengers thought we had gone into East Germany? Why, I don’t know, he was a bit odd.
After two days tasting (and snuffling) various wines and realising I liked ‘qualitatsvein mit pradikat’ the best. We had a trip on the Rhine, and to a cuckoo clock shop, and to a bridge over the Rhine to see statues of the Rhine maidens I think? Mom and I came home on the coach again. Just starting to feel better, the best bit was watching ‘the hunt for red october’ on TVs on the coach!
I don’t live in an expensive, ideal house. This is next door. Mine is in better repair, but it’s an old house built in the 1900s. It’s been changed so that it has a bathroom/kitchen extention. It took years to buy because we previously rented.
Someone suggested to me recently that I should downsize. To that ideal home the prompt asks about? But why should I? Unless my health deteriorates further. I know where I am. I have a large garden at the side of the house. It’s full of nature, an old pond, trees, squirrels, hedgehogs. Why do I want someone to buy the house and rip it apart. If I ever find the money I would repair and restore it. I guess that’s my ideal home. Maybe with a stair lift and storage for my art?
I like to share my art and ideas. I’m quite eclectic, a Jack of all trades. When I was little I was always getting bored, wanting to do interesting things. I was the one who held the snake and the tarantula when they were brought into school to show us what they were like. I used to climb up ropes and hang upside down from the top bar of the swings. I was very competitive and enjoyed running, then eventually cycling. Art was my main interest, and I’ve done many paintings and murals, but I also love science. I guess I should have been a teacher as I’m enthusiastic about explaining things. I guess that’s what my blog is about. Looking into nooks and crannies, finding things out. I’m possibly not as interesting as I think I am! But I hope people enjoy it.
I can’t post a picture because my WiFi is not working. But I can describe mid afternoon. On a sunny day, a gentle breeze. A patchwork of blue sky and fluffy white clouds. There may be a scent of rain after a passing shower. Ideally I would be looking out over a valley with a small stone built village at the bottom next to a stream. In my memory I can see large oak trees, ash trees, beech and weeping willows. There are blue or purple hills in the distance.
Birds are singing. Robins, blackbirds, skylarks. Looking for food for their broods of fledglings. Sounds of running water from the stream and ducks quacking as they glide across the local pond.
The UK can be overwhelmingly green in the spring and summer. Autumn isn’t always as colourful as fall in America. But what it lacks in reds and oranges is made up for with fruit ripening on blackberry bushes, raspberries and the mushrooms snf other fungi in the hedgerows. And I love a quiet winters afternoon with white snow.
The hedgehogs will be sleeping on autumn days, waiting for cool and misty evenings. Life can be calm in these dreamy days. It’s not all wonderful but I’m thinking of an idyllic day.
Mallaband-Brown 