How do I feel?

How to describe how I feel at the moment? Cold, boggy, marshy. With a dollop of cat trying to cheer me up. Trying to keep my thirst topped up as a drizzle of germs escape my pores.

The cold is in my house, November is wet and drear now, the snow melting into puddles, possibly around my feet. A muddy, gritty, sloppy mess. My central heating works downstairs, but I can’t sleep in heat so the radiators remain off upstairs. The cats are clothed in fur so are OK. My clothes are warm enough with a brown dressingown to top it off. I need scrooge’s nightcap and a candle to make it perfect.

Hands increasingly wrinkled, my ribs a  sheet of ice that crackles under the skin. Stretch too much and it pulls on the margin of the cartilage. I’m feeling my age, and slowly seeing it emerge from my mess of greying hair.

I don’t normally like to be too descriptive, but today I’ve just tried to give it a go.

Middleport pottery

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

A working pottery at Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent, England. It also includes a museum, with lots of industrial archeology. They sell various tableware in the pottery shop, there is a large selection of patterns for sale. There is a good cafe that overlooks the Trent and Mersey canal. There are small studios for artists and potteries, and a row of shops opposite the entrance to the pottery with small galleries and crafts for sale.

There is also a handsome bottle oven facing the canal that was covered in bright red ceramic poppies to commemorate Rememberence day a few years ago. You only have to pay to go round the museum section. Tucked towards the far end of the site is a working steam engine which runs at various times. I’m not sure exactly when? Worth taking the time to visit if you can find it (it’s tucked down some narrow side streets.

It also hold pottery classes and was also used for the great pottery throw down a few years ago to before it moved to the Gladstone pottery in Longton.

Telling the weather by cat

Wet cat

Some cats avoid rain, take shelter

One of mine must have otter DNA

Who needs a barometer when you have him.

Wet fur = rain

Cold fur = frost

Cold white fur = snow

Warm fur = sunny

Dusty fur = Saharan sand!

Yes he’s a weather forecaster

Though he doesn’t know it,

He’s just come in

Damp.

Pattern

Life’s a pattern

Like branches and twigs

Trailing through life

First growing bigger

Like the main trunk and boughs

Then petering to smaller stems.

Life follows this pattern, growing

Then diminishing.

Patterns give me hope

I see connections

An intuition of order

Despite a possible chaos.

Patterns in music

Crystals too,

All sorts of things

Some of them new.

I don’t bother with plain

It’s such a pain

Give me gaudy and complex

And intricate not tame!

Flying saucer?

No, the top of a roof, one version rotated and twisted. If it was really a spacecraft it might be fast in the atmosphere, but it isn’t necessarily needed in space. Why? Because there is no air so no wind resistance. You will move in a straight line unless you use a small reaction control thrusters. That’s what they had to use to direct Apollo 13 when it was drifting off course during it’s disastrous mission . Otherwise the space capsule might not have been able to get back to Earth. Also remember there’s no sound in space so no whooshing noises!

War Horse

I’ve just watched the film Warhorse, directed by Steven Speilberg. It’s the story of a part thoroughbred  foal that is bought by a farmer who’s rivalry with his landlord causes him to buy the young horse for more than he can afford.

The farmers son trains the horse to pull a plough and work around the farm. But his father sells it to help save the farm.

The horse, Joey, is transported to France where it becomes part of the British Army and fights in the first world war. In the meantime the farmers son Albie joins up and goes to France to search for his friend. The story has a series of incidents where awful things happen to the boy and Joey. Will they find each other? I won’t say!

The story was originally on in the theatre, the horse and other animals were puppets, the main horse was supported and moved by two men and was made of a lattice work of plastic? strips that gave the impression of a horse.

It’s an excellent story and both theatre production and film brought tears to my eyes.

X deleted

After 14 years and about 200 followers I’ve left X/Twitter. It was feeling pointless and I rarely used it.

I decided to try out Threads and it just felt friendlier, and then as I tried to post to both apps, X seemed more and more boring. Endless silly questions about where you went to school, were you around during the moon landings? Do you know one word that explains making bread? Trivial stuff. I’m not saying my new choice will be any better, but I’m giving it a go.

Anyway it’s nice not to be supporting Musk. X(kiss)

Art

What was your favorite subject in school?

I’ve loved art since I was a child. In fact, at school I would finish paintings ahead of everyone else in my class. One day I painted the wooden bit of my pencils to match the coloured part of them. I actually got in trouble for doing that. But I was bored. I got sent to see the headmaster (I was about 7),but ran into the cloakroom and hid. I was fetched back to class in tears and very upset. So much so my class thought I’d been smacked for painting the pencils! I was too upset to tell them what had really happened. I still loved art though!

Time to sort things out

Do you need time?

Yes I need time

Health, life, memory, stuff.

I need to have time to learn about aspects of my health. I’m gradually finding things out that I never knew. I need to listen to experts and scientific fact and find out how I can support myself.

My life needs organising, the last year has been horrendous. Lots of stressors and worries. Trying to sort out paperwork and filling in so many forms. I keep finding things I should have done.

Memories are fading of my soul mate. I long to hear his voice. To hear a recording of him would be good. But seeing photos can cut too deep. Maybe I need more time to come to terms with what’s happened.

Stuff? That’s the pile of stuff that’s in front of me, things that need organising, removing or storing. All that takes time, which is what I need!

World climate day

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

There may already be one?

A day to celebrate the Earth, a day to spend thinking about how to improve and support the world. Trying to clean the rivers and seas, reducing pollution, supporting poorer countries so the world uses greener and safer technologies. Actually caring about the land under our feet. Working out how to capture carbon and start to reduce gobal temperature surges. Hoping that the richest people get involved too.

Why? Because it’s needed, it could be the most important holiday that we ever create.