#bandofsketchers prompt today is Integrity. To me that is also part of my identity. I had fun trying to recreate fingerprints (not mine) after watching the royal institution Christmas lectures about crime scene investigation. Having Integrity is also somehow about honesty.
There’s something called the Drake equation that hypothesises whether there is other intelligent life out in the universe. I don’t know it and can’t quote it, but I looked it up (see above). The fact that the scientists have even found amino acids in space (the building blocks of life) means that there are possibilities of finding other beings.
The equation looks at how many possible inhabitable planets are out there, whether life could evolve, and whether intelligent life might come about. Then you have to think about time. If an intelligent life form was to exist somewhere else they might send out signals, but it could take millions or billions of years to travel across space before we detected it, and by then they could be long gone. So it would only be possible to communicate if they were closer, tens of years away? But then a conversation with someone even twenty light years away (the distance of a possible habitable planet) would be very boring. One question every forty years, one reply eafter another forty years. And space travel would only be possible at a small percentage of the speed of light, according to the laws of physics. So we might be able to talk but not visit.
It might be great to get a signal, but even if there are other civilisations it doesn’t mean we will ever find out.
#bandofsketchers prompt for Christmas day was Joy. I decided to sketch a sort of nativity scene. I wasn’t totally happy with it so added texture using the photodirector app on my phone. Merry Christmas x
So yet again I didn’t know what to draw. I tried to remember the shape of the North American continent (including Canada) and to draw it from imagination. Then I remembered when our teacher would use a roller to print out the shape of the United Kingdom onto our school books for geography class. Maybe American children had something similar to use for history or geography? So that’s what this drawing is meant to be…#bandofsketchers prompt for Thursday.
About twelve inches of paperwork removed from this cupboard, my paintbrushes stored in vases, a star mobile lit at the back of the cupboard (it’s on a cable and won’t work anymore when it’s hanging up). Two glasses of coffee liquor over ice. It actually feels quite grown up. I can also get at my orchid plants in the window, one of which I seem to have killed. I have got to finish off by tidying the cupboard next to this. I’d like to have it done by Christmas if I feel OK. Housework? I hate it. But sometimes you have to do it….
Spending time worrying about whether I have covid means I have not really thought about all the other bugs out there. They can be transmitted differently, for instance by touching surfaces. I think covid is spread more by breathing in droplets.
Anyway, bam! I have got a bad cold or virus, and as many of these haven’t been around as much because people were not interacting or being in close contact with one another. We are all more susceptible to the risks of other diseases now. You might have immunity to one illness, but if you are not in contact with it frequently then it can be worse when you get it again. What fun! Sniffles…..
Our new phone turned up, not as good as the original one, its lighter and looks “generic”, the screen isn’t coloured and has no logo. Clearly a cheaper value, but it works. We had to move a cupboard to get at the electric socket to plug it in. That meant moving several years worth of books, old letters, ornaments, trinkets and tranklements. I found a few things I thought I had lost….. I also unearthed the paper shredder… Might be useful!
Then… Deep breath, inputting numbers. Each one by hand. The old phone would not release the numbers I had on it. So I had to look them up on my mobile and transpose them onto the land-line. The trouble was that I wasn’t sure what had been on the land-line so I may have added a few more from my mobile than I needed to. But the problem is the new phone has automatic call barring, so I might have blocked some friends if I hadn’t copied them. First World problem? Yes. But hubby ended up like a caver underneath the cupboard trying to work out where the plug socket was. The cats enjoyed exploring the space too…
Pink and red flowers popping open like fireworks, following the curve of the leaves as they sprout. Some of them have flowered, some are open now and some are in bud… How do they know to flower? Day length. Apparently if you move a Christmas cactus about too much it may drop its flowers. I’m not sure if that’s true or a gardening myth. I do know you can break a few leaves off and put it in water and it will send out water roots, you can plant them up. Some of these (cactuses cactii?) were propogated from my grandmother’s plants forty years ago. X Nrxt- Easter Cactuses.