Sleepless again..

Posted on January 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged blogging when I should be sleeping, Early morning, Humour, Insomnia, Late night, Life, Not able to sleep, Sleepy, TiredLeave a comment

Can’t sleep and I have an ear worm going round in my head ‘all I need is you, all I need is you, and all I ever knew only you’ all because I’m singing at a choir festival on Saturday and I had to learn the backing tune to our rendition of ‘only you’ by Yazoo.

I’m also panicking because I’m in another choir, also singing, but I can’t even remember the song, let alone the words, for that one. All I can remember is that it’s a song by Robert (Rabie) Burns, because it is Burns night on Saturday, when the wee Haggis is praised….

So, trying to sleep in an armchair, but I can’t get off. They recommend you don’t use screens at night, but I’m bored, listening to a little bit of Radio. Got to be out early. No doubt I will be tired out….

I will go back to bed moaning about how tired I am, to listen to snores from someone who doesn’t have that problem….

Yorkshire Poster

Posted on January 22, 2020January 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Blue lias, Fossils, Interesting, Life, Moors, North Yorkshire moors railway, Pickering, Poster, Steam trains, Trains, Trees, Whitby, YorkshireLeave a comment

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My hubby came home today with this print of North Eastern Railways ‘the Yorkshire Moors’…. Tranquil solitude. What is interesting is its a railway poster, with no railway visible!

Yorkshire is the largest county in England. It is home of the National Railway museum in York and is crossed by the North Yorkshire moors railway which runs through wooded hills and moors from Whitby on the coast to Pickering in the heart of the moors.

All of the East coast of the county is interesting. There are towns like Scarborough there. A lot of the coast is not very stable. There are cliffs where landslides occur and parts made of mud, called blue lias which is crumbling and full of fossils. You can find Whitby jet in it which is fossilised monkey puzzle trees which is jet black.

Whitby Abbey was a setting for the Dracula story and every year they have goth and steam punk festivals there.

Remembering Georges

Posted on January 21, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Devon, Dolphin, Fun, Life, Memory, SwimmingLeave a comment

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I met a wild dolphin when I was on holiday in Devon once. It swam into the bay and lots of people were watching it in the shallows and about fifty yards out ( they were wearing wetsuits) I got in fully clothed except for my shoes and glasses and swam about midway between the two groups. I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. Soon the dolphin was swimming around me. I noticed he was male (later found out he was called Georges, an adolescent male). Goodness knows what he thought I was! The next day there was a notice put up saying not to swim near him as you can catch diseases when they breathe out droplets of water, luckily I was fine. I remember he was badly scored along his sides. Apparently he was too interested in motor boats. I still think of him and hope he was OK. I did a painting of him but can’t find it.

Let’s be Optimistic!

Posted on January 21, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Climate change, Extinction, Life, Optimistic?, Poem, Poetry, Sad, WorldLeave a comment

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Oh let’s be Optimistic,

Let’s have a laugh

Let’s not see the real world

Let’s have a blast!

Who cares if the world burns,

If the Elephants are gone

Let’s all have a party,

I’ll bring my gun!

Now the world is hotter

I can leave my home.

Holiday so far away

Maybe go and roam.

The Antarctic is melting

Trees burnt down to the ground,

If we see a single leaf

Optimism and relief?

Think of the environment

Keep it safe, in peace.

When you’re hurt…

Posted on January 21, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged depressed, Grey, Hurt, Injured, Life, Pain, Poem, Poetry, Sad, Time, TiredLeave a comment

Everything feels grey.

Pain enfold you,

sucks you in

imobilises you..

The world is small

your house is a cocoon,

hiding your body from the world.

Turning your face from the sun,

learning not to want

not to care,

not to bother,

feeling sore

feeling fed up,

being annoyed by everything.

Not knowing how to escape,

mind tied down

like Gulliver

but unable to travel,

finding no way out

in a hole

deep

lost.

More mad weather?

Posted on January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Australia, Climate crisis, Continent, Dust storm, Hail, Life, Lightening, Northern hemisphere, Rain, Thunderstorm, Weather, WildfireLeave a comment

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I watched several pieces on TV about the weather in Australia recently. I have a few friends over there and I want to know they are safe.

Looking at the map on thunderstorms I can see one in the North of Australia at the moment. With all the wildfires that have happened over the continent I know they have been praying for rain. And some of the fires were so hot and high that they triggered thunderstorms. Unfortunately the lightening from them set more fires alight.

Then a few days ago there was rain in the East, which turned out to be torrential, and caused flooding. Then yesterday there were reports of hailstorms where the hail was golf ball sized. No sooner did we see that than today there was a report of 180 mile long dust storm of red top soil, travelling across parts of the country on strong winds. We also saw pictures of dead fish, who’s gills had been clogged by the ash from the fires.

We in the Northern hemisphere should be watching this with trepidation. There were fires in the UK in recent years on moorland in the North of England. There were fires in Europe, there have been massive fires in California.

The view seems to be getting more biblical. The idea that climate change is fake news is increasingly unbelievable. Politicians must take responsibility, not stick their heads in the sand.

Time to think, time for change. Before its too late.

Glowing man

Posted on January 20, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Colour, Digital drawing, Fantasy, Figure, Glowing, Glowing figure, Horror, Life, Sci fi, Short storyLeave a comment

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I thought I saw him through the window. A man glowing all different colours, but I looked again and it was a pretty scarf hanging on my neighbours washing line.

Later, I went out to feed the stray cat, and saw something from the corner of my eye, but it was a reflection of the sky in the pond.

I went back inside wondering what was happening, was I hallucinating? The sun was setting and glimmers of light from the crystal in the window seemed to be coalescing… A figure shaped like a man, grew from the glimmers. He spoke no words but reached out towards me. I ran into the kitchen, slamming the door behind me, but soon his head and a hand protruded through the door.

I ran out into the garden. Dark was falling, the figure followed. Glowing brightly now, it quickly moved out across the ground. I felt dreadful fear. It reached out and touched my hand, and instantly I froze. Now it drifted around, and… into me! I felt its presence inside my mind. Then I knew it was too late… Tomorrow, I tell you, they are coming for you……

1993 painting

Posted on January 19, 2020 Posted in Cat, Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Big picture, Cat, Design, Life, Oil painting, Old home, Old House, Painting, Patterns2 Comments

I’ve got this four foot by five foot oil painting that I did in 1993 on the living room wall. It’s just behind where I sit, and sometimes I knock onto it, so I’m occasionally worried that the string it’s on will break and it will come crashing down!

Anyway, you can tell I love cats. The big one was on the front of a magazine if I remember. The small one in the corner, playing with the wool, was ours. We had her for about nineteen years. I just found the photos on my Facebook memories page. The figure is me and I’ve painted a baggy jumper I had. I love patterns and painted the wallpaper pattern. This was my studio before we moved to out current home.

Have you opened the window again?

Posted on January 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Annoyed, Cold, Heat, Heating, Humour, Life, Mad, Poem, Poetry, Squabble, Window, WinterLeave a comment

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Ooh its cold in here?

Have you opened the window?

Again?

Well I wanted fresh air!

So go outside!

You are heating up the atmosphere…

It’s minus 5 out there..

That’s why you’re wearing your coat in the house?

And the heating is on full…

And the extra heaters are on…

Are you mad?

Is it any wonder I get annoyed?

Money….

Posted on January 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Deprevation, Life, Money, Orwell, Poor, Poverty, Thinking, Thought, UnfairLeave a comment

Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail, and for this they are despised.

George Orwell.

Well, I wanted to say something about money (or the lack of it), and then I saw this quote. I also found the map of deprivation in and around the area where I live.

I don’t mind admitting this area is poor. Lots of jobs have gone over the years as local industry has closed. Families that had three generations working in the same industry together have lost such a lot. Not through their own fault, but through lack of support and outsourcing of work. Factories have closed, and been demolished, when perhaps they could have been reused. With global warming they wouldn’t necessarily have been able to keep going, but something could have happened to make people’s lives better.

What is missing? Money, investment, something more substantial than the short term, selfish, unfair world that we seem to live in. When governments fail to help and support their people, and rely instead on charity we have come to a bad point in life. The poor become the despised for not ‘getting on’. People start to identify undeserving poor, and blame them for their miseries instead of seeing that the system is broken. When people who care are called snowflake or whatever other derogatory comment that can be hurled at them, we are in a bad place.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Life