New paintings and regular art updates.
Before covid (bc) I painted a series of pictures of places the cast of the pantomime I was in travelled through to get to Gretna green in Scotland (they had no sense of direction). This was one of the destinations.
This popped up on my Facebook memories. Imagine 8 or 10 people walking along and each painting being moved across the stage behind them. It was fun.
A small painting I did about 7 years ago. My friend bought it from me at a craft fair. I don’t remember why I painted this subject, it might have been Halloween. I don’t know where the idea came from, but it feels likely that I was thinking of spooky stories. Its one of my small canvases from when I was doing more craft fairs. Just found in my memories on Facebook.
Every so often I find a heart, and I smile and remember, I’m not alone.
Memories grip me, I remember clear days, driving through country lanes, visiting old houses, happiness, times spent together.
It doesn’t have to be a leaf, I see hearts in swirls of coffee, puddles, holes in crumpets, flower petals, it’s just some random pattern that leads me to loving feelings, caring, comforting, companionable love.
And I’m glad.
Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?
I don’t know any tropical beaches, but I love the British coast. It’s often rugged and rocky, with rock pools to explore. Sand castles and seahorses to draw in the sand. Looking at barnacles and looking for crabs and fish trapped by the tide. Sandflies on seaweed. Finding out about local tides and how the moon affects them. I particularly like the Welsh coast as its so varied and interesting.
Lighthouses and Ancient burial sites, castles on headlands guarding ports. Welsh names to try and pronounce. Islands and boats, fishermen and tiny villages. I love it.
I keep getting ads in my time line to order my 2024 past book now.
Anyone who follows me will know I don’t need reminding. I have had the worst 12 to 24 months in my life that I never want to live over again. I hope to get through December and have a better start to 2025, although I worry about geopolitics. I don’t want one! I don’t want reminding, please don’t make me!
OK that’s enough..
There were good times too, I have some good photos, but I’m not in the mood to share. I’ll hoard those to myself, keep them safe.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
Mallaband-Brown