Hydrangea

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New plant for the garden, although its really too cold to go directly into the garden at the moment. Hydrangeas change colour depending on the acidity of your soil. I don’t remember which way it is, but they either turn blue or red depending if the soil is acid or alkaline. You can do a pH test if you want to. The flowers appear as florets, lots of little flower heads spread across the bloom. There are different sorts, some with small flowers which looks like lace, others are chunkier, some are flat headed, others have rounded bunches of flowers. Leaves are large and usually mid to dark green with serrated edges to the leaves.

I remember the pink hydrangea in my Grans garden, it was pink with huge heads of flowers. I did a painting of her in front of the plant. I will have to try and find a photo of it.

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Fruit

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Just found out I have been offered an exhibition at the Waiting room gallery in April. The theme will be gardening, green men and women and spring, but I also want to do colourful work. I’ve been going around looking for subjects in the house as the garden isn’t growing yet, just a few buds.

The light was streaming in through the kitchen window and illuminating all the fruit my hubby bought yesterday. So I took a photo of it.

I will try and get some more interesting shots later. At the moment a neighbour is cutting down a tree, so I’m staying out the way. The sound of chainsawing doesn’t fill me with confidence!

Broccoli

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It’s a particular type, but I can’t remember what it is called. Something like romancero…? Not sure. Anyway I think its spirals are based on fibonacci numbers. You see the same pattern in flower petals or the seeds on a sunflower head. These remind me of fractal patterns and apparently there is computer code you can use to draw patterns like the Mandelbrot set. A attern out of chaotic numbers. Nature is amazing!

Toothache

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You don’t need to see my teeth, just know I grind them at night and something has caused me to have toothache. Argh! It’s worse now because of this cold, my throat is sore and it’s hard to put up with the extra pain from my tooth. I  will try and get in the dentists tomorrow. Sucking madly on  anaesthetic sore throat lozenges and have taken pain killers. I’m also using toothpaste for sensitive teeth BUT ARGH, I shall try and sleep…..

 

Watch the birdie…

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These images are about four years old. Drawn in sketcher free, then altered in another app that I don’t have anymore after changing phones. I wanted to get a feeling of printing, maybe a monoprint or an etching. I like doing things in one app then playing about with it in another. That way you get more effects than using just one digital application. I want to do more with other filters. I’m thinking of downloading other art apps.

Leap Year

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It’s a leap yer this yer, 2020. That means February gets an extra day. As it says in the rhyme “30 days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except February alone which has 28, but 29 each leap year…”.

So why the extra day? Because the year is actually about 365.25 days. So if you didn’t add the extra day on every four years the year would drift and that would throw the calendar out. So in a few years new years day, for instance would be earlier and earlier.

It’s for the same reasons that we have lea seconds added every few years, that makes our time more accurate. The fact that our year isn’t exact effects things like GPS, so it has to be adjusted. When we had old fashioned clocks it wasn’t so important, but even a few centuries ago it was recognised that the year had drifted and the calendar was changed. People actually complained about it. I don’t remember exactly, but I think they had lost a few days of their lives.

I feel sorry for people born on the 29th of February, they only get to celebrate their birthday every four years.

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Waiting for snow while towns flood

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We are living through a bad patch of weather. A couple of named storms, then more rain. Now the forecast is for snow and ice or hail. Watching the news tonight there are towns on the river Severn which are flooded. The flood defences that were put in to protect properties next to the river in one in a hundred years storms have been used many times in the last few years. At the moment the county of Shropshire is affected. Shrewsbury is badly flooded in places. Bewdley and now Ironbridge (heart of the industrial revolution) are in danger. In two places Red, danger of death, warnings have been issued. The defences are being overtopped. That means people who have refused to move out are in danger.

Our society makes things worse by building on flood plains, laying concrete and brick ‘features’ and parking spaces in our gardens, not maintaining the countryside and removing trees and hedges. Even in the light of all the floods we still want HS2 (a train line whichmeans people will be able to get from Manchester or Leeds to London about 20 minutes more quickly. In the plans for the train line ancient forests will be dug up and villages demolished or cut off. All for the massive cost of over £100 billion! Maybe we should spend that on greening the environment instead.

Now I’m waiting to see if it snows. Whatever happens I hope for respite for the flooded areas.

Quick drawing

Quick sketch

I’m trying sketching in an app called sketcher free, it’s interesting drawing with textured pens, but it’s not easy to control. This is drawn on a tablet, so the format of wordpress is different in it, not wordpress classic. I’m not sure this is going to work. Anyway you only learn by having a go at things, if you don’t try you never know if you can do it. I’ve found the categories tab but I can’t find the sharing tab . So at least I’m doing something , still not feeling well.