Tag: Life

Ten?

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What are your top ten favorite movies?

How to choose ten movies?

I can’t imagine putting these in any order,  and they won’t be profound or too subtle. I’m a sucker for weepy films, but I like interesting ones too.

1, Always, a fire fighter crashes his plane and dies, then haunts his girlfriend as she finds a new love.

2. Close encounters of the third kind. Friendly aliens arrive on Earth and one man gets to go off with them.

3. The theory of everything. The story of the life of Sir Stephen Hawking.

4.Its a beautiful life. The tale of how a man’s life was changed for the better, and how Clarence earned his wings!

5. Harvey. Where is that giant white rabbit?

6. How to train your dragon. The original animated film of the book by Cresdida Cowell.

7. The sound of music, a nunnery, a governess, love and escape from the Nazis.

8. Ring of bright water. A story of otters, watched as a child.

9. Hidden figures, the story of how 3 African American women were working for NASA. They were deeply involved in the Moon landings and beyond.

10. Lawrence of Arabia. I saw it years ago and fell in love with Peter O’Toole.

That was quite painless. Tomorrow I might choose differently.

Need to write

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I’m in a writing group and I hand write stories and poems. But our latest challenge has me worried. It calls for us to write a piece 2000 words long! I suddenly feel like I’m back at school or college writing essays.

You need to understand that my computer is bust and I type all my blogs on my phone. My Parkinsons makes my hands and arms shake and my hands cramp up, so my jottings are usually brief, maybe too brief. But I like to be concise.

I find hand writing suits me more because I can place a note book on the arm of my chair and write things down as I think of them. But 2000 words? I can’t do a word count unless I add up say every 20 or 50 or so of them. Then total up the numbers at the end.

The other thing is reading out. I stutter now. My speaking voice is affected by Parkinsons, it’s frustrating when I want to get a good delivery of my words.

Oh well, I must keep going. X

Old Spode

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Old light and fitting at Spode factory site, taken 4? years ago when I still had my studio there. I like the fact that the photo looks black and white apart from the pale grey/browns on the globe shaped light shade.

I wish I could time travel, go back to when I could do things, climb stairs, move things around. I struggle just to get through my front door. I guess the thing to do is to get on with things the best I can. I’m stubborn, which means I don’t give in easily.

Pottery closure

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There was a pottery in Burslem where they let you paint your own designs.

Unfortunately like many other ceramic factories it has closed. The cost of gas and electricity means that a once thriving local industry is dwindling. Stafford pottery was one of the latest victims.

There are still excellent potteries that create designs and pieces of art for the 21st Century. Portmeirion, Emma Bridgewater, Wedgwood are a few that continues to produce beautiful work. It’s hard to say whether they will still be producing ceramics in a few years time. We also have a company called Lucideon which undertakes research and development of ceramics for such things as electrical insulators, non slip tiles and other diverse uses.

Hopefully this city of potters will continue to survive well into the future.

Spode

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Our writing group visited Spode Rose garden this afternoon. The sun was beating down so we took to the shade of the huge old willow tree near the “China” and “1770” end of the China halls. This is on the Kingsway car park side of Spode Site in Stoke-upon – Trent, one of the six towns in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

The flowers were past their best because they usually flower earlier in the season. White, Lavender and Blue are the theme colours of the garden because the factory produced the famous Spode “Willow pattern” that mimic Chinese ceramics that were imported into Britain a few centuries ago. Local potteries soon started copying Spode designs but the pots from Spode are some of the best known.

The willow tree had many coins pushed inro it’s bark over the years, but sadly these have been removed by person or persons unknown. The garden has had a bit of damage through vandalism but there is a strong group of volunteers to care for, and recently extend it. More planting can be found around the side of the building and fresh vegetables are being grown in raised beds.

Heat

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I’m sitting hoping the night will cool down. The backdoor is open and a couple of moths have come in. I’m watching an appropriate film “in the heat of the night”, set in the deep south of the USA. It’s about a black detective and a racist white policeman trying to solve a murder against the racial tensions of the 1960s. Somehow they manage to work together despite their differences. It’s very tense and thought provoking. I think people ought to watch it in these troubled times. I’ve seen it several times. We are so inhumane to people who just look different. It’s crazy.

Bad day

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My day has been spent shut inside the house. Not wanting to go out, shaky and achy. My feet are cramping, my hands tremble and twist tightly. I started doomscrolling which was a mistake. I also wanted to keep out of the heat and humidity.

This is the reality of a bad day of Parkinsons. Quiet, just mooching, worrying, thinking about the future. Things I can’t do. Fears of what I need to be careful about.

I need to put washing on the line, I really need shopping. But I had trouble washing my hair. I’m not supposed to get water in my eye because of the surgery, but leaning backwards in the shower feels very unsteady.

Reading about other people’s problems makes me realise how much people have to put up with. Life isn’t always easy.

BUT my Cat just jumped on my lap. She’s happy and purring… Not so bad then..

Books

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If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

Because then I could get rid of a few! I have over 1000 but some are a bit obscure, and some were my hubby’s… Huge books about planes, submarines, ships, bicycles, cars. Also books about the second world war. Then there are my collections of old science fiction books, I don’t necessarily want to keep them all. I don’t want to get rid of them all, so my book shop would actually be a stall that I can easily pack up and take away (except they weigh a ton).