In memoriam

Posted on January 17, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged antibiotics, Death, History, Illness, In memory, Life, modern medicine, Ninteenth century, TB, ThinkingLeave a comment

Remember the family, remember their lives

Young people, taken before their time, in their twenties.

Ninteenth century losers in the lottery of life.

How did they die? Illness? Industrial accident? Food poisoning? TB? Who knows, but three people from the same family were lost.

Before antibiotics, before modern medicine. Life is precious. You never know when the grim reaper will strike?

And now? Death rates you would imagine during the black death. Loss of life and illness greater than World Wars. We can only hope that life will continue. But maybe changed? More peaceful, less stressful? We can only wait and see.

Penkhull church

Posted on January 17, 2021January 17, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Church, Drawing, Landscape, Life, religious building, Sketching, St Thomas2 Comments

I did a quick sketch from a photo I took today. Wish it was drawn from real life but I was walking so I didn’t get the chance to sit and draw….St Thomas’s Church, Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent. The Wassail starts out from the village hall which I’d just across the road to the right of the church. At the top of Trent Valley Road. #bandofsketchers today’s prompt was religious building..

Penkhull’s Apple Tree

Posted on January 17, 2021January 17, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 2021, Apple tree, Garden, Life, Memories, Penkhull, Sing, Walk, WassailLeave a comment

A song for the Apple Tree. To an ancient tune….thanks to my friend Bruce for the words!

Old Apple Tree, We are Come to Wassail Thee
Wassail Song
Old Apple tree, we are come to wassail thee,
All for to bloom, and to bear thy flowers and fruit so free.
Wassail! wassail! all round our town;
Our cups are white and our ale is brown.
Our bowl is made of a good ashen tree,
And here’s kind fellows as will drink to thee.
Hats full, caps full, five-bushel bags full,
Barns full, floors full, stables full, tallats full,
And the little hole under the stairs, three times three!
Hip, hip, hurrah! shout we.

Wassail the apple tree

Posted on January 17, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 2021, ancient festival, Apple, Bowl, Fruit, Garden, libation, Life, Penkhull, Walk, WassailLeave a comment

We found an apple as green as grass on our apple tree this December just after Christmas! It was in a sheltered part of the garden and had clung on round the back of the tree. Now it’s sitting in a bowl on its own. Pride of place. We may have to pour libations onto our trees. Wassail!

Butterfly

Posted on January 16, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Butterfly, crevice, Imagined, Life, Moth, Night, Scales, snowflakes, Thinking, WingsLeave a comment

Through the dark night a butterfly flits, grey and green, not a moth. Looking for night-time flowers, like night scented stock.

The ghostly wings drop tiny scales, dusting the flowers with small droplets of white and grey.

Wings like snowflakes, flying through the cold dark, settling in a crevice at dawn. Sleeping till sunset arrives again….

Doodles

Posted on January 16, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Contours, Doodle, Experiment, Life, Lines, Painting, PictureLeave a comment

I think I was trying to do abstract faces with lines here. Somehow the doodles at the bottom of the picture seem to fit with the contours above. I don’t remember the canvas so I probably painted over it. Sometimes what you paint is not what you want and you have to scrap it. Sometimes you fool yourself into thinking somethings OK when it really isn’t. I like some things and they just won’t work…. I may try and alter this in a digital app? Don’t know. I think this image is about three or four years old….

Not that bad…

Posted on January 16, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Computers, decades ago, Life, Memories, not bad, Pandemic, Thinking, Time, VirusLeave a comment

Lockdown, I can only go out for exercise and do essential shopping.

But when you think about it, it’s not that bad. I’m not stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere with no one to talk to. I am warm, I have food, I cn talk to people on the phone or online. I might be getting a bit bored. But it’s not like in the past, when I was a child. On Sundays everywhere was closed. No one that worked in simple, low paid jobs, could afford a car. Very few eople had tv’s and there was only one channel and a few radio stations. Computers didn’t exist except in universities or in the armed forces. The air was dirty and polluted, coal fires were the norm to heat houses. It was a different world.

Now we are linked? Possibly too much. But if we stay away from each other as much as we can? Things might just get better…

Eye look out

Posted on January 16, 2021January 16, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Digital drawing, Digital sketch, Eye, Life, Photocopy, Profile, Sketch app, trying to add textureLeave a comment

Experiment with Sketch app and photodirector. Trying to make this look like an old print, weathered and scratched. Faded and bitten out like an etching that has been worn out. Trying to look like a photocopy…

Pencils

Posted on January 16, 2021January 16, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged B to H, carbon, drawing tool, Graphite, hb, Lead, Life, Pencil, Poem, PoetryLeave a comment

B and H

Soft and hard

Graphite not lead

Silver sheen

Draw and write

Encased in wood

Carbon core

6B or more.

My favourite

Soft and neat.

He’s in again

Posted on January 15, 2021 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Bed, Black and white cat, Home, Indoor cats, Life, moved in, Outdoor cat, Sleep, Sleeping cat, Tuxedo cat4 Comments

In bed, if I lie on my back the outdoor cat now walks onto my chest and lies down. Paws on my hand, he will lie his chin down on my hand too as he goes to sleep. The only trouble is I can’t stay in that position all night, so eventually he lies at the bottom of the bed. He often wants to go back outside after two or three hours, but gradually the time inside is extending and outside getting shorter. And he’s put on weight and my two indoor cats have accepted him.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Life