New paintings and regular art updates.
It’s a struggle to dry my washing in the back yard at the moment. The washing line snapped and I’ve tied it back up but it’s a bit saggy. It is also surrounded with hanging baskets which are a riot of colour and lovely scents which I hope will infuse into the drying clothes (although it’s already rained this morning!). I can’t fit a dryer in the kitchen even if I could afford one, or afford to run it. Just hoping the day stays dry now.
I’ve been trying to make space in this jumbled, untidy house. I hope to get some plastering done in a damp corner, but stuff is in the way. I bought vaccum laundry bags ages ago and they got added to the pile, but now? I’ve rediscovered them. I used four yesterday and just got four more. They are ideal for storing bulky bedspreads and jumpers. I have two crocheted square throws that I have had for years, one made by my mother in law and one by me. I’m bothered that clothes moths might get at them so I bagged them up then squirted a bit of fly spray in. Finally I sealed the bag and applied the vaccum cleaner to the valve. The shrinkage is amazing! So satisfying, it still weighs a lot, but it takes up a lot less space!
What’s your definition of romantic?
We’ve been together for decades, so the romance? It’s a bit depleted now. We could have date nights, but we stay in a lot of the time, particularly now the cost of living crisis has got so bad.
Hubby sometimes brings me breakfast in bed. A slice of toast with a dot of butter and a half boiled egg. At least he tries. I sometimes take him a cup of coffee upstairs but I shake to much to carry much.
So what makes me feel romantic? A good, old fashioned romantic comedy. Not anything modern, but something silly like Bringing up baby, with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, or something slightly more modern, like Sleepless in Seattle. Maybe an old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers musical? Or something like Singing in the rain?
They all appeal to me, a film where you get slightly weepy, watching boy mets girl, hates girl, falls for girl, girl then hates boy, threatens to leave, he rescues her from a storm/ alien attack/ obnoxious family situation….
Basically anything like that, cheerful, kind, obvious, gentle. Romantic…
Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt was forest. Catching up with Sundays prompt. We recently visited Trentham Monkey Forest and in the entrance compound there are some sculptures including a mother and baby macaque carved from a tree stump. I’ve done a sketch of it for the prompt.
Seven years ago I had a small exhibition at Etruria Industrial museum. This blurry photo just came up on my Facebook memories.
The blurry image of my painting was taken from a photo of my friend with a white elephant she had made of paper and willow withies. She was sewing a rich red and yellow fringe around it as way of hiding the legs of the person who was to carry it. The back had a hollow ‘houda’ I think its called? Like a basket to sit in. This was so a person could carry the elephant but look like they were riding it. I loved this representation of the elephant and decided to paint this image. My friend had the painting. The elephant? I think it was destroyed in a fire in the shed where it was stored…
Lots of photos, thousands! Because I use my phone to edit and experiment with images, I keep ending up with too many photos. I’ve worked out (finally) how to optimise them on this new phone, but it means that images I have been adding here are taking up too much space on WordPress /Jetpack.
Editing the photos as I go along does take time when I am busy with other things. Duplications get missed, or sneak into other folders, I haven’t created the folders, the phone does it on its own! Then Jetpack gets upset with me, my picture content is always hovering around 100% so I have to delete old photos (I have over 1800 images in my folder here!).
I’ve started using free images here, but often they don’t really represent what I want to depict, so the majority of images I add are my own.
Wednesday at noon. Prime Ministers question time is on again. When the House of Commons is sitting this is the time to question the political situation in Britain.
It is a spectacular event. An argumentative debate. Noise and heckling, shouting, barracking, hundreds of members of Parliament shouting at each other. Conservatives, Labour, Scottish Nationalists, Democratic Unionists and Liberal Democrats put forward their questions about what the government is doing.
Varied questions came up today: private renting costs, the Northern Irish parliament, melanoma, cost of living crisis, accommodating migrants, student debt, steel manufacture amongst other questions.
The Conservatives, who are in power ask mainly soft subject questions, pleased with themselves and smugly denegrating the opposition. The opposition parties try and ask searching questions, but are often sarcastically fobbed off with flippant answers.
This method of questioning is not always enlightening or clarifying. The world might be a better place if the whole procedure was rethought. A lot of it is Members of Parliament trying to get seen by their constituents by asking questions. Some of it does clarify policies. I’ll continue to keep watching this spectacle.
I’m unearthing old tops and leggings because I’m having a late spring clean. I bought some of those vaccum bags that you fill with clothes and then suck all the air out. It’s surprising how satisfying it is to do. I’ve bagged up all my winter jumpers. All I need to do is unzip the bag when I need them again. It also means they can’t be attacked by clothes moths. I will also bag up a winter bedcover and a few sheets and a crocheted blanket. I’m glad I bought the bags. In the meantime I’m enjoying wearing a top I last wore twenty years ago… My cupboards need sorting out more frequently!
What are you most worried about for the future?
The heat is on..
The world is melting
Tides are rising
It’s happened in my lifetime
Sea water is hotter
Glaciers are drying up
No water to drink
Once it’s gone.
Drought hits crops
Why not be concerned?
Just because I might be gone
I still need to worry
For the ones that come after.
Do my best to restore things
To how they were?
Not much effect maybe?
But one fingernail holds me
Stuck on a cliff
Of hope to change things
We cannot turn back time
But we may make a difference
If we all try?
We had choir practice tonight. We started to learn a song ‘it’s getting better everyday’ we had learnt it a few years ago when we had sung in a play at the local theatre. I was thinking about the enjoyment of singing and I remembered that Elton John was extolling the virtues of being in a choir at Glastonbury this year.
We are not a big group but we harmonise well. We did a few sea shanties and started learning another one about going on holiday.
It was such a positive evening, I would recommend joining a choir or singing group if you want to get calm and improve your breathing too. We learn a capella and we are mainly unaccompanied, it’s really fun!
Mallaband-Brown