Apollo missions

I have been reading a lot about the Apollo space missions recently on Facebook, but so many people laugh and post that the photos are faked. I really hate this attitude and posted this comment to respond to the ridicule :

On all these posts there are idiots laughing at the achievement of the Apollo missions and Astronauts. They were ground breaking and reliant on the brilliance of thousands of people across the globe. By calling this fake you are denigrating their bravery, knowledge and hard work.
By laughing you are telling people that you don’t believe in science and intelligence. By laughing you are pushing the narrative that stupidity and dumbing down are good for humans, when the opposite is true. People need education to keep solving insurmountable problems. Give credit is where it is due instead of disrespect.

Painting a model.

A snowy cottage (with led lights) and a flowerbed for cut flowers. Made by a craft group I’m  in. The wooden  model was  mostly painted with white acrylic to replicate snow. I added dark outlines to indicate bricks, stone and tiles.

This is not a good photo, but it gives you an idea of it’s size. At least it feels like I did something artistic last week.

Rain

It rained very heavily a few days ago.

I wrote this poem in response :

Rain flowed down the hill
Flooded the gutters
A wall of water
In the midst of it
A man on a mobility scooter
Drove it through two feet of water
Flash flood wheel chair hero!

The man on the scooter was videoed, it made the local TV news! Legend! I think it’s on tiktok in Stoke on Trent.

Autumn dawn

Reddish sky in the morning

Shepherds take warning….

And they should! A few days ago we had a red dawn, this photo was taken as it faded.

The sky soon clouded over and later we had a deluge! Water flowed down the hill so fast and deep that it overwhelmed the drains and poured out of gutters onto the pavements. At the back of my house it came down the window in a sheet of rain and the water snuck into the wall and plaster around the window frame. I’ve never seen anything like it.

There was a flash flood in the centre of town with rain water up to people’s car headlights. Shops that were safe at the front had brown water knee high in their store rooms….

It might have been a microburst but it was very stormy. The winds were blowing trees about. It was more than the usual thunderstorm. Thankfully it blew over after about twenty minutes.

Climate change is here. I don’t know how places like Jamaica and Cuba and Haiti coped with last week’s hurricane. I feel so worried for them.

An extra bank holiday

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

I’d invent “autumn bank holiday” for Britain.

We have lots of bank holidays in the UK but there is a big gap between the bank holiday Monday in August and then Christmas. I know America has a thanksgiving holiday and maybe we could have something  in late October?

Not halloween! Not everyone celebrates that so I’d literally call it autumn day. To enjoy the change of the season. The mists and mellow fruitfulness. The changing leaves, autumnal flowers, the ripening of fruit, fungi fruiting, the start of animals gathering food for winter.

An outside day to explore and enjoy the season and a day of rest for the day, keeping a warm evening to enjoy seasonal foods.

Prompts

My friend in our #bandofsketchers group asked me to come up with some drawing prompts. This is my reply. The list could be a poem!

“Sorry I’ve not been doing much again. I’ll try again soon! New prompts:

Ideas and dreams
Sugar
Black and white
Green and red
Purple and yellow
Orange and blue
Blurred
Stitches
Games
Holding on
Silly
Ripples
Fish
Floating
Suspended
Itch
Hobby
Strap
Festival
Flop
Book or booking
African
South American
Asian
North American
Australian
Shower
Sunny
Slope
Feed
Fright
Parrot
Hold
Amphibian
Resting
Testing
Opera
Bulge
Seaside
Steps
Happy
Miffed
Splatter
Gold
Metal
Chomp
Sold
Smell

I think these can be quite open? Hope this helps.”

Who are you?

I’m looking  at my stats and I’m confused. Over 1000 people have been looking at my posts today. Usually it’s more like 67, what’s going on. This week it seems to be mainly American and last week it was China.

I wonder if this is real or bots? I can’t imagine my ramblings are sufficiently interesting to attract this level of scrutiny. Has anyone else had this experience? Will this continue or gradually ebb away?

So many questions, so much puzzlement? If anyone can answer or have I bored everyone enough yet?