That’s it for another year!

Posted on February 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Comedy, Drama, Fun, Life, Panto, Pantomime, Penkhull, Penkhull Village Hall, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Theatre, Tidying upLeave a comment

Everything’s cleared up and tidied away….. Chairs stacked and put away, empty glasses and plastic beakers cleaned and disposed of. All the sweet wrappers and crisp packets that had been left on the floor were cleared up last night. The changing rooms (four garden gazebos) were taken down today, clothes will be washed and the ones that were rented will go back to their owners. At ten thirty last night the people we had hired the mikes off came to collect them, only to be told they would have to wait a quarter of an hour because we were doing an encore!

Comments made include our panto was better than the professional one held in the city centre at Christmas, and that out cast were good. The only complaint we got was that the radio mikes kept dropping out. The panto has been filmed so hopefully I can get a copy.

It was worth all the months of hard work. If you want to see one of the sketches we did look up “if I were not upon the stage” on YouTube. It’s not our version but gives you an idea of what we did.

Panto went well!

Posted on February 21, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Aladdin, Comedy, Dancing, Fun, Funny, Life, Panto, Pantomime, Penkhull, Penkhull Village Hall, Scenery, Singing, Song and dance, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

Oh yes it did! All my hard work seems to have been appreciated with the scenery. The panto is a hoot, with compliments about how good it is. The songs were OK. I almost remembered them! I only forgot one line, but non of us were 100%, but that doesn’t matter as the audience haven’t read the script! We even seemed to dance well. All the cast were enjoying themselves and the audience were appreciative, even with a delayed start due to a parking issue. They laughed all the way through and there was some brilliant clowning about.

Well, only three more performances. I’m shattered, but too tired to sleep.

I want to post some panto photos.. But I can’t!

Posted on February 19, 2020February 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Break a leg, Comedy, Dance humour, Environment, Fun, Life, Music, Panto, Pantomime, Penkhull, Penkhull panto, song, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

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Sneak peek of the washing machine front I’ve painted. Today was the dress rehearsal, one person had a problem as her trouser elastic snapped and they fell off as she was trying to make her entrance. I was practicing part of a song, and forgot to go on stage to sing that song. We got a lot of feedback on the mike’s. One of the helpers or cast got a parking ticket even though they were arked correctly… I still can’t remember all my lines, and in one scene the person before me completely forgot his so I didn’t know where I was! And breathe….

But on the whole we are getting it. There are lots of songs, dance, sketches, a nice story, an evil villan and lots of fun.

Got to start painting again

Posted on February 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Design, Fun, Green woman, Humour, Imagination, Life, Painting, Portrait, self portrait, Work in progressLeave a comment

_20200219_130113 this is a self portrait I started last year, but haven’t finished. So where best to start when you have been a bit blocked, than to work on something like this.

I want to do a series of ‘green’ portraits. The idea being that I can make a different image that is striking and interesting. Although there is a basic structure done on this I may make a lot of changes. Its definitely a work in progress.

Pink dawn

Posted on February 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Clouds, Dawn, Environment, Life, Pink, Rain, Red, Sunlight, Sunshine, WeatherLeave a comment

Sky to the East of us about 7. 10 am. Barometer showing fair but the old saw that red sky in the morning is a shepherd’s warning seems appropriate after all the bad weather we’ve been having. Apparently if the sky is red its because the dawn is reflecting off the underside of clouds (yes I can see that), and that means the bad weather is more likely to be overhead now or later. Red sky at night shepherd’s delight? The weather will have passed over and be moving away. I guess the point is also that it depends what direction the wind is blowing in?!

Waiting for the next storm…. It will probably start with the letter E…. How many more?

Tiny paintings

Posted on February 16, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Colour, Life, Memory, Painting, Poem, Poetry, Thinking, Thought, TimeLeave a comment

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This is a couple of years old and about two inches by one inch. I’m thinking of doing a few more of these for a craft fair, and to cheer myself up! I have a small commission to do and I can’t drag myself out of my current low mood. In any case I’m OK really, just need to get myself sorted out. Painting helps me feel better, calmer, or excited and happy.

Paint ain’t a bad thing

gets your mind working.

Paint is a pleasure

and a little bit frightening.

Creating your ideas,

putting them down

on paper and canvas.

Drawing out my mind

with colour and texture.

Life can suck,

but paint can pull you back,

giving a solution and reason to be.

Where have you been?

Posted on February 16, 2020February 16, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Exploring, Ghost story, Horror, Life, Mystery, Pottery, Short story, Spode, Time, Very short story, WarehouseLeave a comment

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Through the door into the dark shadows, light shining through dusty windows, shafts of sunlight with dust motes dancing through the beams. We were exploring, looking at the racks of plaster molds, stacked high on racks, above head height. Hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes. For slip casting pottery.

In the back of the store room something stirred. A figure unfolding, grey with dust. Semi transparent, like a ghost? We saw it as it lurched to its feet and grasped at the racks of saggars. It spoke. ‘you don’t belong here’ it shouted ‘get out’, and we did! We turned tail and ran, through the door, through the yard and away. We won’t be going back there again!

It must be spring soon?

Posted on February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Crocuses, Environment, Flooding, Heat, Life, Rode hall, Snow drop walk, Snowdrops, Spring, Staffordshire, Summer, Time, Warmth, Water, WeatherLeave a comment

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Buds are bursting on the bushes, leaves are slowly unfurling. Each tiny leaflet a herald of coming spring. A few crocuses and snowdrops are out. Rode Halls snowdrop walk, which is an annual event round here, is advertised on Facebook. Life moves on. The water from the storms is soaking the ground, and where there are trees and gardens the water is sucked up to swell the buds. Where there is concrete and bricks it washes down and floods out from the rivers.

The weather is on a knife edge, will it get to hot again this summer? Will we have floods or drought? Will warmth spread through the land gently or will we have fires on heaths and moors and in woods and forests. Our climate is in balance no more. It is up to us to do something to help it fall back into that balance of nature that is gentlest for the world. If we try hard I hope we can.?

Storm “Dennis”

Posted on February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Britain, Environment, Finding space, Life, Rain, Storm Ciara, Storm Dennis, UK, Weather, Wind, WinterLeave a comment

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Storm Dennis has been tipped as possibly more damaging than storm Ciara last weekend. We have had some strong gusts of wind, bending the Eucalyptus sapling we have growing in the garden, it’s leaves acting like sails, catching the wind, and bending it almost in half. The Leylandii in the neighbours garden has been whipping about and it’s branches seperating as the winds buffet it. Sometimes great gusts of air force themselves between the tree and the privet hedge at the bottom of our garden.

We are waiting for the heavy rain that is forecast, an Amber and Yellow warning has been set for the whole country. Even planes have been cancelled fir the passengers safety.

Britain is not a large island (or islands) but its shocking to think that storms can encompass the whole of it. Whether the heating of the atmosphere could be causing it? I don’t know, but you do have to wonder?…

Be my Valentine?

Posted on February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blogging, Digital drawing, Life, Love, Memory, Mystery, Relationships, Remembered, Rose, Time, unrequited, Valentines, Years gone by2 Comments

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I was talking to a friend earlier about her valentine experiences and remembered an incident from about thirty years ago…

It was a cold, clear Valentines day morning. I’d got up to go to work, and as I stepped outside I found a red rose on my doorstep. It wasn’t wrapped in cellophane or paper. It was a long stemmed rose. Deep scarlet. Beautiful, slightly starting to wilt. I looked up and down the street, no one around. We were in a terraced house, so the door opened down a step straight onto the pavement. Anyone could have left it there.

I went inside and asked my then boyfriend, later to be hubby, if he had put it on the step. But he said no. I quizzed him, but no it was not him. To be honest it wasn’t his style, he rarely knows when it’s valentines day and usually only gets me a card if I get him one. He was as surprised as I was but said I should take it as a compliment!

So I had this beautiful rose. I cut the stem at an angle and it in a pint glass while I went out to do my shift at work.

But I couldn’t concentrate. All morning I thought about who could have left it? It might have been a neighbour. It might have been a friend, but I had no idea that anyone had romantic thoughts about me. My inner Miss Marple told me that it couldn’t have been there long and that it must have been bought from the nearby florists as no roses were in flower at that time of year. There are roses growing on the factory opposite our house, but they were bare stems.

Who? That was my thought. Whoever it was must have known I was in a long term relationship? Why? Did they think I was looking for someone new? The answer to that was no….

Eventually I decided that the rose must have been for someone else. Perhaps the anonymous person had mistaken my doorstep for someone else’s?

I will never know. It never happened again. The next year I felt disappointed. Since then I have rarely remembered it. Only today’s chat reawakened the memory for me.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Life