Imagine 500 villagers with flaming torches. Domesday Morris dance group amongst them wearing ‘tatters’ (white shirts and black trousers and boots with waistcoats with strips of cloth hanging loose, topped with hats covered in ivy and bird feathers.
Plus Penkhull brass band, and us, the Mystery Singers choir regaling the crowd with various Wassail songs.
We walked around the boundary of Penkhull and sang in front of the ancient ‘bloody’ apple tree halfway down Trent Valley road, then around to local pubs to sing a wassail to all of them. For the first time in ages I felt happy.
Someone bought some metallic paints in to an art group I go to. I could have painted flowers but I did a ginger cat instead. I enjoyed using curving brush strokes. It only took a few minutes to paint but it cheered me up.
I have metallic paints somewhere in the house but I can’t find them. I intend to have a clear out so hopefully they will turn up.
Sometimes I play punk pop music (blonde, ultravox etc) get a torch and shine it on the glitter all in the living room! Totally bonkers but I like remembering my youth.
Also the sunlight through the back window sometimes catches the globe and sparkles shine around the room. I am a very visual person!
I’d played with this photo of a sunset and posted it to Facebook three years ago. I think I was mesmerised by the colours. The branches add interesting structure and the chimney and small lights show humans existence in the world. I can’t recall where I took the original photo.
I’ve sold half of my miniatures in the last couple of days, I’m only charging £2 and the canvases are 80 pence so it’s hardly a goldmine, but I’m enjoying people liking them! So now I need more of them to paint. I’ll try and get some done this week!
I think they make nice Christmas presents or stocking fillers. X
If you’re in the area why not come to our concert in a few weeks time. You’ll be supporting Penkhull Players and our plans to put on another pantomime in the future. We are practicing ancient and modern songs, there will also be solos and poems. Its going to be fun.
I’m reading an old Issac Asimov book. The stars like dust. It’s one I had in the 70s and haven’t read it since.
Asimov mainly wrote books about robots and formulated the three laws of robotics. But this book is about galactic intrigue and the attempts of a young man called Biron Farill, who is the main character of the book, to escape the Tyrrani who rule the Galaxy and are trying to assassinate him.
I have completely forgotten the story, it feels old fashioned but has intrigue. I can imagine watching an old film, some of the settings, seem clunky. But it’s worth reading, and I’m enjoying it.
Our choir sang at the switch on of Christmas lights tonight. We sang for about twenty minutes and included traditional carols and other seasonal songs.
The only problem though was the traffic! It felt like hundreds of cars were on the way to the venue. Everyone was driving in the right hand lane as we had to turn right at a roundabout onto the venue. Our choir leader had a asked for designated parking, but was told there would be plenty of spaces. Unfortunately half the city seemed to be fighting for them!
We were dropped off while my friend went to find somewhere to park the car. We had to fight our way through a packed crowd to get to the stage, so when we had finished our set we decided to listen to a couple of songs from the next act, then get going. Unfortunately this meant walking to the far end of the site and climbing over a low fence. When we finally made it to the car all the vehicles around us were in a stationary queue. The cars were moving a foot or two every few minutes. I think we would still be there if a man controlling the traffic explained there was a back road off the site! It took us one and a quarter hours to drive 400 yards!
Despite the traffic chaos, I think we did a great job, we were well appreciated and I’m glad we did it.
We went off to a garden centre today to get some pyracantha and roses to add to our hedge, we are bulking it up because it looks like there was another attempt last night to get in. I feel like we are under seige.
Hubby nailed some fence boards back in place and we also bought a lot of chicken wire to go above the bamboo screening we have put in. Spiky Pyracantha will go next to all this. Making it more robust.
We heard Christmas music as we were searching for plants, and these animatronic reindeer made me laugh and cheered me up!
One of the things to do at the British Ceramic biennial was to have fun making clay tiles that will grow in a wildflower meadow next spring. We made unfired tiles made to look a bit like Minton floor tiles. The clays were chosen to be different acidities so that they suited wild flower seeds. The clay was mixed with hay and pushed into moulds, then we had to make holes and push the seeds into them. Finally we pressed a shape into the top of the tile and fill the resultant spaces with different coloured slips.
Mallaband-Brown 