Garden guide

Posted on April 5, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Biddulph Grange, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1899, Dorothy Clive garden, Eden project, Gardens, Plants, Rode hall, Trentham Gardens, VolunteerLeave a comment

What job would you do for free?

I’d volunteer for a job as a garden guide if I was looking for something to do. There are several beautiful gardens in this area. Rode Hall, Trentham Gardens, the Dorothy Clive garden, Biddulph Grange garden or further afield I would love to work at the Eden Project in Cornwall. I don’t actually know enough botany but I would try hard to find out their Latin and English names, it would be embarrassing to confuse my Aqualegia with Calendula or Gerbers. I would enjoy the exercise and chatting with people who enjoy nature including the birds insects and mammals that thrive in beautifully tended gardens.

If there is no such job I would just go and do it anyway. Each season has its beauty. One inspiring book is a very old story called the Secret Garden. I can’t remember the author though.

Gymnastics

Posted on April 4, 2024April 4, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged athletic, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1898, flexible, Fun, gymnastics, Life, Olympics, Strength, turn, TV, TwistLeave a comment

What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?

Watching gymnastics over the years reminds me of Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci with their virtually perfect performances at the Olympics. Oh how I wished I could twist and turn my body like them! My abilities were more along the lines of running and cycling. But I always to watched them on TV and I have continued to follow the gymnastics ever since.

It’s not just the female gymnasts, the men are brilliant too. The competitions are different, with apparatus based on the physiques of the male and female body. Balance, poise, strength and flexibility all are important to these athletes.

Looking forward to Paris 2024.

Yes

Posted on April 2, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged cowpox, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1896, Illness, inoculation, measles, Prompt, smallpox, social distance, Vaccine3 Comments

How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?

Yes, I followed the rules, wore a mask, have the vaccines. Used hand sanitiser and kept at a social distance. I have had a mild case of covid and am fine. But I worry that not everyone has followed the recommenations. I got it this year, which means it’s still circulating in the population.

Another worry is that Measles is on the rise again. There is vaccine hesitance that has been passed on to other diseases meaning that there could be another epidemic or pandemic. Measles is a nasty disease and can cause dangerous health issues including death.

Vaccination or inoculations were introduced by Edward Jenner I think? He used cowpox to prevent people getting the more dangerous Smallpox. I think he saw a farm girl or farm hand who had had cowpox and was apparently immune to smallpox. I might be wrong though. Check it out. Science is not always good but I don’t think we would be well off without it.

Breakfast

Posted on April 1, 2024April 1, 2024 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Breakfast, Cat, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1895, Food, hour, Poem, Poetry, Porridge, Struggle, Tablets, Tangled, Time, wobbleLeave a comment

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

The excitement of porridge

The joy of tablets

A cool shower

If I can afford it

Trying to get dressed

Without getting tangled

Feed the cats

Work out what I can do today

It all takes time.

Wobbly arms and leg

Don’t help my balance

Feel like I’m moaning again

Let’s just go back

To bed…..

An art school?

Posted on March 30, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged art school, Challenge, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1893, Idea, Life, Name, Reuse, School, Thought2 Comments

If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

I’d like to be able to open an art school for anyone that wants to be involved. If I had the money to open it, it would be free to artists and art enthusiasts.

Would I name it after me? Possibly. Or call it the CMB art school. I would like to think that it would encourage creativity in all aspects of art. I have an idea of saving a derelict building for perpetuity and the school would be housed within it.

I would also try and involve local schools to seed the idea of arts and crafts in the children’s minds. It’s a pipe dream. But I like it.

Two soups

Posted on March 30, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Bowls, Comedian, Comedy, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1892, diners, Funny, hilarious, two soupsLeave a comment

What makes you laugh?

Have you ever seen the “two soups” sketch on the “Victoria Wood as seen on TV” sketch show?

It stars Julia Walters as an elderly waitress.

Two diners are seated at the front of the set, chatting and choosing from a menu. The waitress comes out of swing doors at the back of the set, apparently the kitchen. She is white haired and elderly, she slowly stumbles towards the diners. She takes their order and licks a pencil and proceeds to write it down. I can’t remember all the dialogue but it is funny. The decision is they will have “two soups”.

A bit more conversation happens while the waitress totters off to the kitchen, she is very wobbly with age.

After a wait she comes out of the kitchen carrying two bowls of soup, one in each hand. They are held loosely and because they are sloping the soup is gradually pouring out of them. She approaches the table and the bowls are clearly empty. She plonks the dishes down on the table. “two soups! ” she proudly announces.

It’s hards to explain but it’s so funny!

An artist!

Posted on March 28, 2024 Posted in Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Artist, Childhood, Colouring, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1891, Drawing, Etch-a-sketch, Figures, Life, Memories, PaintingLeave a comment

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Give me crayons, give me colouring books. Books with paper covered in dots that you wet with a paintbrush and colours emerge.. Dot to dot books, pages with squares on that I could turn into patterns. I might have been a bit older than five for some of these, but I always wanted art things for my birthday or Christmas. I must have heard of artists because I always wanted to be one. I got an etch-a-sketch machine to draw with, I loved that.

My sister wanted to be a musician, she eventually borrowed a violin from school. I got jealous because my parents said I was doing art and they couldn’t let me have a musical instrument, so I overtightened the strings on the violin and they snapped ( bad/very guilty memory!)…

Now? I’ve been an artist all my life. I started drawing when I was a child such as historical people in tudor dress, Asterix the Gaul, horses, clouds, all sorts of things. I still do that, anything is interesting to me.

Science

Posted on March 27, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Astrobiology, big bang, Chemistry, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1890, hard, Memory, Programme, Science, TimeLeave a comment

What’s something most people don’t understand?

Science is hard, it is very difficult to understand or often to explain. I think the world is split into people who get science and those that do not.

I don’t know if you have to have a particular brain? I found science hard, and being a girl didn’t push myself forward in classes. The boys always had their hands up shouting me sir, me! Answering the teachers questions.

And yet I eventually found I loved science. I used to watch a BBC programme called Horizon which had a great many subjects from Chemistry to Astrobiology, to the Big Bang as subjects of hourly shows. Suddenly my interest was piqued. I started to understand things and got more aware of science and it’s ramifications.

I also loved the Sky at Night, a monthly astronomy programme, it’s only short, 20 minutes, but really interesting. And then children’s programmes used to be informative, including the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. I remember seeing one about magnetic levitation of trains, it was a lecture by Professor Eric Laithwaite. Wonderful.

So my take from this is that you might not like science, but give it a chance, it helps you understand the world..

Digitally

Posted on March 26, 2024March 26, 2024 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, ArtRage app, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1889, Design, Digitally manipulated, Life, Pattern, Photodirector app, SketchingLeave a comment

How has technology changed your job?

My ‘job’ isn’t really one, I don’t make sufficient money to make it worthwhile so I guess it’s more like a hobby. But as digital technology has improved I have been able to include it more into my art and mark making.

This image started as a digital drawing in Artrage. I then ran it through filters on the photodirector app several times which came up with this image of a tree. I like being free to experiment with art and seeing what results.

I don’t

Posted on March 25, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged ambition, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1888, Life, Memory, Poem, Poetry, Prompt, Stress, TimeLeave a comment

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

Look at the sky, it’s blue,

I love that wonderful hue

I could ignore it

Pass it by

Be driven hard

Ambition charged

But then I’d miss the best of life

While dealing with the anxious strife

No time to stop and stare they say

Is not, for life a good way.

Try not to stress

Though I confess

I walk on sometimes

And miss sunshines.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: dailyprompt