A strange little window at Spode Works. It’s the only one I’ve seen on the site. I love the way the bricks are built in a circle. A little porthole in the side of an old factory in Stoke on Trent. I love quirky things.
This is an acrylic on canvas. Our Orme Art Group is having a small exhibition in front window of the Brampton museum and art gallery in Newcastle under Lyme in Staffordshire. This is one of two paintings I’m exhibiting. It’s on from next week I think. I might not be able to get along to it as I’m having another cataract operation in a few weeks.
I didn’t think I would be, but I guess it’s the old serotonin rush. I came off X because it was getting nasty. There were too many trolls making it a sad place to be.
Then I decided to try threads. I have to say it’s far more pleasant. But I do worry that I’m on the platform too much. I doom scroll for hours. Then I go off on a mahjong marathon. Sometimes it’s more interesting than the television. What I do want is to be given the OK to drive again..
I saw this yesterday. A tandem stye bike. It might be two bikes converted by removing the back wheel of the first bike and the front wheel of the second. I don’t know if it would be stable enough to ride?
It’s been painted gold and might be part of a sculpture trail? I couldn’t get close enough to get a better look, this is zoomed in.
Today I went to sing with loud mouth women at Congleton in Cheshire. It’s the furthest I’ve traveled in a year and I had to get a lift from another choir member as I’m not allowed to drive yet and I won’t drive that far anyway.
The photo doesn’t really show it but it’s quite a steep slope at Congleton Physic garden. The performance area was down a grassy slope and over uneven crazy paving type stones. That made me pretty nervous and I had to hang onto an arm to get down there even with my walking stick.
I’d borrowed a collapsible stool so I could sit down when I needed. But I managed to stand up during our performance. We sang a mixture of Croatian, French and medieval songs together with a few more modern songs. There were not many of us so we moved around, some people sang high and then low parts, I sang low and middle. This was strangely our first performance of the year so it was a little anxiety making. But we managed with just a couple of mistakes.
I’m home now and only just feeling a bit less tired. Sitting in a strange car, out of my control made me very tense, but I’m glad I went and I’m glad I sang.
Faffed about getting details of how to replace the fryer. Must dispose of it and cut the wire off. I rang argos helpline who told me who to contact. Had to turn the fryer over to take a photo of the serial number. Then fill in an online form. They will send a replacement (within 60 days)! No oven so will have to microwave or use the hob till I get the new one, Parkinsons didn’t help, had to do the form twice over,
When I was little I thought Mal-la-band meant the bad band in French. I convinced myself that it meant the bad band. Although that perhaps would have read “La band mal?”
I imagined myself as a part of a band of pirates, sailing the seven seas, looking for buried treasure and adventure.
Mal and Mer mixed up in my mind, I was quite young and I also thought it meant a bad sea or stormy sea.
As I learnt to spell my name I became aware that other children were taking the micky out of me. There was a type of margarine called “Blueband” and guess what exciting word kids in my school would call me? Yeah, you got it.
But when I got married I kept my original surname along with my hubbys. I didn’t want to lose it. I’m attached.
And it’s meaning? I don’t want to know. I just like my ideas.
When I was little I used to get very bored on a Sunday. We would go to Sunday school in the morning but afternoons were interminable, nothing much on the TV, with only one channel to start off with, or the old radio on in the background. My parents didn’t like pop music so it was either religious programming or comedy or documentaries.
The boredom pushed me to do art, I was experimenting with oil paint on cardboard when I was about 12. Or playing in the garden, climbing up to the top bar of the swings and hanging upside down… My parents had finally been able to afford a bike so I would cycle up and down the street and practice tricks on it. Getting as close to trees as possible without hitting them. We had water fights with other kids in the street. Throwing plastic bags full of water at each other and getting soaked. I also made hurdles using my dad’s saw benches and running as fast as I could over them. I remember climbing an old gnarled Laburnum tree as high as I could get, and climb up the outside of the big slide using it’s steel frame to get up and over the top instead of the steps..
Those games and playing made me adventurous. I wanted to learn everything. It motivated me in other ways too. Because I got bored easily I would get lots of books out of the library. Not just adventure stories, but ones about atoms, and galaxies, and art, and volcanoes. I loved finding out about things. So I stopped being bored because I was motivated to keep myself occupied. And I’ve stayed motivated to do things all my life. I try not to get bored anymore.
Mallaband-Brown 