New paintings and regular art updates.
Loads of ripe cherries
High in the tree
Out of reach of human hands
But not from beaks you see.
Blackbirds, pigeons and magpies
Each have their fill
Of sweet red cherries
They have the skill,
Of flying high above me
Pecking at the fruit
Eating all the ripe ones
In their aerial persuit.
Sweet red cherries
Small and round and neat.
I go without
And the birds get a treat!
Brexit. Such a difficult thing.
I’m trying to work out how to explain Brexit and why I think it’s bad. So I tried to come up with an analogy and chose ice cream… Yum.
Imagine your country had a vote to take back control. The plan is to give free ice cream to everyone. There will be no rules except for ones we set ourselves…
Free ice cream everyone, yipee…
But the farmers are worried as they will get no revenue as the government want the ice cream but don’t want to pay the farmers. People won’t be able to get milk because it is all going on ice cream. Then we realise that if we keep our promise (it was democratic after all) children and adults will start getting obese. People will start getting type two diabetes. People will have an increased risk of cancer…
But it was democratic. The people decided, ice cream for all. Now we could do that, but because of tariffs on flavouring the only flavour available for poor people is synthetic vanilla, made in a non EU country, and to get that we must sell off our farms to that country. So we have all these problems, plus we won’t get subsidies that helped our farmers, especially in the parts of the country that suffer poverty and blamed the EU for it. The ice cream is made, but its not free, the EU won’t help (why would they?) and the ice cream industry goes into recession. Why would you vote for that? A non political party of the ice cream is started, and take seats in Europe, but their plans are very right wing, like insisting on only white ice cream, no chocolate. Things get worse… But 52% voted for it so it must be OK…? Right ?
Djokovic v Federer, Wimbledon men’s final, can’t watch, so I’m typing this instead, they are in a tie break at twelve games all in the fifth set. The score is two sets all, twelve games all and 4-1 to Djokovic in the last game. Its nail-biting stuff. My hubby keeps talking bout various things in the past so I can’t concentrate……. My heart is racing… Now its 4-3 to Djokovic…. I need to sit in a darkened room….
We just went for a walk round the small lake at Westport and decided to feed the birds. Mostly pigeon and Canada geese with a mix of a few others and some swans and ducks. I fed the pigeons by putting the food on the top of a fence. Once they were confident I tried holding the food out in my hand and they pecked the food while standing on the fence, finally they all took turns standing on my hand and pecking the food out of it. I only did it because I knew I could wash my hands afterwards.
The management of the lakes are now with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and the whole place looks more managed but wild if you see what I mean. Colourful poppies and other wildflowers surround the visitors centre. Drifts of nettles feed butterflies. I saw an electric blue damsel fly skittering about them. I also saw a peacock butterfly and a cabbage white.
We were sitting up on the balcony at the visitor centre when we saw a large carp in the lake. It’s pale colour meant it was visible from above. Looking at its size compared with some terns sitting on a piece of wood in the lake it must have been about 18 inches long.
An enjoyable afternoon.
Your wheel eyes stare
Soft feathers steady your body,
Feet reach forward
Toes and talons stretched
You swoop
Then up
Pushing down strong wingbeats
A small mammal caught,
Food for yourself or your fledglings.
Soft you whisper across the darkening landscape,
Home to the old barn.
The storm blew in from the North like a runaway train. The wind threw water against the houses. Cars were lifted up by the flood and were caught on the top of the neat hedges that lined the sides of the street. Out of the maelstrom came a figure of a small man dressed in a black raincoat. Water streamed from him, it flowed out of his sleeves and trouser legs. Tears streamed in rivers from his eyes, nose, mouth and even from his ears.
He was called Beck and he was from the North. He was a water god and he had decided to show mankind his might because of the way the World was being treated. He was angry and the storm was growing into a tornado. He had seen the way forests were being cut back, cars clogging roads, ships travelling half way across the world to deliver the cheapest sweatshop goods.
Beck lifted his arms, words bubbled up from his mouth.
Learn or die! He screamed in a high voice. Learn, or, die !
I took a few photos of them this morning. The sun wasn’t shining so I think they don’t look as bright as they could. There’s lobelia, fushia, begonia, surfinia, pelargonium, nemesia and other plants in them. There are other plants in the yard and I’ve taken a photo of the cala lily as well.
When I got in from choir last night my hubby was standing in the kitchen looking perplexed. He had some bread dough in a tin because he’d decided to make a loaf. He had attempted to light the oven but it would not light. It’s a double oven with a small oven/grill at the top and a main oven. He was convinced we would have to contact the shop we got it from or get hold of a repair service. I said let me have a look…
What I saw was an egg timer symbol and another one of a casserole dish. I tried pressing the ignition. Nothing happened. I looked again at the clock display. It was several hours out? Something was clearly wrong. I asked him if he had pushed any buttons? Yes to set the timer. I looked again and realised there must be a delayed start on the main oven as it showed a casserole dish shape with a little clock face on it. I dialled that down to zero, and the egg timer down to zero. Then I tried the ignition again… It lit! I checked why the top oven was blowing out hot air… He had the grill on with the door closed and he had thought the heat had been from the main oven, so he didn’t understand why the bread hadn’t started to cook. Finally he put the dough back in the oven. The resulting loaf (which is nice and tasty) is in the photo…
On my kitchen roof
Bouncing around,
Pesky magpies and pigeons.
I like them,
Don’t get me wrong,
But just as I’m about to
Pour a coffee
THUD patter patter,
Or get the bread out of the oven…
THUD patter patter
Delicately lining up some icing
THUD! Patter…. Patter!
Do you have to?
You make me jump…
THUD!
I see your blue smile
Sad and sorry
Waiting to leave,
Waiting for a second
Before you go.
Before the smile fades
And you start to cry
Seeing nothing but tears.
At least you had a smile
Once….
Have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
