Tag: Life

Noise outside

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My heart is thudding in my chest. I just heard something outside and now I don’t want to go to bed!

I put our empty milk bottles outside near the bins. They in turn are pushed up near the gate at the side of our house. The bottles are glass and they are out of the way so you can’t see them at night. About 10 minutes ago I heard one get knocked over. Then the shadow of a figure walked past the glass in the front door. I’d got the living room light switched off as I was preparing to go to bed.

We had my husbands motorbike taken a year ago although we got it back. We also had a bicycle stolen a couple of months ago. This has bought all those memories flooding back.

After a couple of minutes I turned on the living room light and looked out the door up the hill. I saw the figure of someone in a white hoody wandering slowly up the hill. What bothered me was he turned round and looked back. He was too far away to see features – about 100 yards so I doubt he could see much of me. But I’m in a dilemma. I’m tired out because I’m ill. On the other hand I want to stay awake a while longer in case he comes back. Logic tells me this is unlikely because he knocked over the bottle and secondly because I now have the light on and I looked out at him…. .

I hope he feels as spooked as I do! I have turned the radio off so I can hear any other sounds. We are having a ground anchor fitted for the motorbike and getting a heavy duty shed to store the bikes so hopefully that will deter people in future. A lot of these things are not planned but are done by opportunists . But I’m not going to bed yet!

Update: decided to ring the police. They will get someone to keep an eye out for him if they are in the area.

Looking out

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When a cat wants to look out of the window they don’t care what’s in the way. A few days ago I found one of my cats with their back half on the box of bird food and their front paws on the window ledge. The bird activity at the moment is quite busy because of the warm weather we have been having. It was 18 degrees Celsius yesterday in this area and has been 19 degrees in the Midlands today. The highest temperature in the country today was 20 degrees the hottest since records began for a February day. The normal temperature is about 5 to 8 degrees at this time of year. Last year when the beast from the east was here we were getting lows of minus 5 degrees.

Part of the reason for all this is the fact that Britain is in a temperate area. We have winds that arrive from all directions, and depending on the direction we get lots of varied weather. At the moment we have had a high pressure area situated over us so we are in a quite stable situation. There is a big dip in the jet stream so warm air is being pulled up from the south. We are actually in warmer air than in Greece at the moment. The pressure is due to reduce and we are expecting cooler air and some rain later in the week.

Anyway I was talking about birds but got distracted.  My husband bought a woven birds nest yesterday that wrens can nest in. We are expecting blue tits to nest in the garden this year and we also get blackbirds that nest in the hedge and the ivy on the house. The only problem is this warmth is bringing insects out but their food plants are not flowering yet. We need it to be cooler for at least another month .

The cats enjoy watching the birds, chattering at pigeons and sparrows. I’m glad we don’t let them out in the garden. But we have many cats that visit so we try and keep the vegitation cut enough but leave some cover for birds to hide in.

Anyway I’m feeling pretty bad at the moment with tonsillitis so I think I will just leave this ramble here.

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Two suns

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IMG_20190225_002113imagine a world with two sun’s. Both about the same size as ours. You are on a planet orbiting both of them, luckily half way between the two so it never gets too close to either of them and far enough out so that it doesn’t get too overheated by twice our suns power.

Instead of winter the North and South poles of the planet get almost continuous sunlight. At the equator two shadows are cast at almost right angles to each other. There is no ice at the poles. In fact there seems to be almost permanent summer there. If the world has water perhaps plants continue to grow all year, like our tropics. The weather would be affected by heating from the suns and any magnetic fields may interact so I imagine a liquid iron core like ours would be an advantage.

I used to read old science fiction stories which imagined all sorts of life forms, crazy plants, strange animals based on different gravities. But I guess because of TV Sci fi we now think that all intelligent life will be bi-pedal with oddly shaped foreheads or ears….

There is an infinite universe out there but we are too parochial.

One of my favourite films is Galaxy Quest. It is a spoof sci-fi film based on the old TV cult classics. I wonder if we will ever move on from those ideas?

In the grey

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It started with a fog that lingered, it did not burn off in the sunlight, in fact it got denser. The winds had dropped so there was nothing to blow it away. Looking out the window you could see drops of water clinging to the trees and bushes.

The weather forecasters tried to explain the phenomenon. More water in the atmosphere, a storm must come soon to clear the air, but that was months ago. Plants were not doing well for lack of sunlight and because there had been no rain to help the buds burst. Slimy mould was starting to cover some plants and others had a black fungus growing on them.

Then the reports of food shortages started  Crops had failed. Fruit was not swelling and growing but remained stunted.

People started to call it “the grey”, cars were banned as they were turning the fog to a thick smog. Satellite images showed the only parts of the world that had been left clear of the fog and mist were the larger seas and oceans. The grey clung to the edges of the land. Continents were visible only as cloudscapes.

Then the riots started…….

After the panto

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This is me in panto costume and makeup. I have not published photos of other cast members as I don’t have their permission. What a brilliant time! Two full shows today. That’s 8 hours in the hall. Trying to look serious , happy, perplexed, confused. Changing from being a villager to a Scottish villager, supporting Robin Hood in a wrestling match, capturing Robin Hood in Scotland. Visiting the court of Prince John and the Sheriff of Penkhull and being in the presence of King Richard. Squabbling with other villagers and getting into fights. All while watching the action as Robin tries to rescue Maid Marian when she is actually quite capable of rescuing herself. Add a mad sketch which shall not be revealed at the start of the second act, and large and small Loch Ness monsters chasing the cast round the hall.

So much more goes into putting on a show than the people acting. There is the stage crew who make and place props as they are required, including a mocked up wrestling ring. There is sound and lighting. There are the amazing people creating the costumes. The make up artists trying to paint the faces of almost 40 members of the cast. The people selling tea and drinks  Mostly though it’s down to a local woman who wrote and directed our version of Robin Hood. How she kept all the adult and junior cast going and persuaded us to put it on is beyond me.

So after  4 performances including 2 yesterday, that finished about 4 hours ago … Well all I can say is I’m glad I was in it and congratulations everyone. We’ve had really great feedback from audience members. I want to do it all again!

Photo walk

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About 5 years ago we went on a photo walk around the north of the city of Stoke on Trent in a town called Tunstall. The idea was to do a circular walk encompassing greenways around the town that used to have a rail line and that runs between terraced houses on a raised path. There are bridges over paths and tunnels driven through the ground.

I used my old phone so the images are not brilliant. The day started overcast then it started to snow as we walked along the path. We came out onto the side of a newly built section of road then followed the path round up a hill before coming out at an old pub (can’t remember it’s name) where we stopped off for lunch and sat next to a real coal fire to warm up. Then off through local streets to finish near where we started outside the local health centre.

Photos include trees, train signals, walking along the path. A terraced house. The corrugated side of one of the tunnels. One of the metal greenaway signs, a dandelion growing on the side wall of part of the path, and bracket fungus growing on an old wooden post.

I’m hoping to go on another photo walk, may be when the weather is a bit better. The idea of looking at industrial and post industrial landscapes fascinates me.

Bones

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Funny what you can find in a pub. This skeleton is plastic and sits in the corner of a local pub, next to the fire. I called the drawing the regular, he has been there for a few years. There is also a pretend skeleton of a dog behind him. Also you can see the top of a guitar next to him. That’s because I drew this on music night. The sketch pad is about 4 inches square and I have a drawing from 1995 in it of a place called Winnats pass in Derbyshire. _20190222_235651

I’m tired because I’ve been at the panto all evening so this is a  very short blog post and also a short poem

Skeleton

Skull

Pirate

Gull,

Treasure

Gold

Dubloon

Silver

Moon

Ship

Sea

Ocean

Free.

 

 

How much?

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Watching daytime TV you see all sorts of advertisements. There are life insurance plans, double glazing, furniture, Bath seats for the elderly.

The latest one is model building kits. Buy now, first issue is £1.99, then £8.99 per issue ….. But the models of famous ships or complex robots or classic cars are made up of sometimes 120 parts. So that’s 120 issues of the magazine that comes with it. If you do the maths that’s around 4 years of magazines and parts and over £1071 in costs!

I can imagine someone who loves model boats or trains might start doing one of these. But will they continue making it? Can they afford it? I do think it’s a bit of a rip off…..

Winter trees

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Branches and limbs thinning and curving

Straggling twigs like fly away hair.

Skeletal, swooping and sweeping

Black trunk against white clouds.

Old birds nest up high

A roost for a crow?

Like an old venous or arterial system

Your juices are not flowing now

Sclerotic and tired

Can you be rejuvenated

Will your sap rise again?

Are buds hidden,

Waiting to burst-

Stay a while and see

Wait out the winter

Then explode like a firework blooming in light.