Tag: Life

Its raining!

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I just did the strangest thing, I saw it was raining hard outside, and then checked my tablet to see what the weather forecast was saying (light rain). Is this an indication of how addicted to my tablet I am.

Thinking about it, is that why they are called tablet computers? I know that’s not true but it makes you think.

Anyway the rain has just poured out of the sky, all those black and grey piled up clouds finally released their water. If I were living a hundred years ago I would have just watched it, but today I took photos and filmed it! Not such a great event in the scheme of things, hardly worth noting. So why write about it in a blog? If I had a diary and was writing 100 years ago I think it would have been about daily events, or even the war (not known as the 1st world war till later) I certainly would not have taken photos of rain, even if I had a box brownie. I once made a pin hole camera and developed my own pictures. You put a piece of photographic paper inside a biscuit tin in the dark. You make a tiny hole in the tin and cover  it. Then you go into a lit room or outside and uncover the pinhole for a second. Cover the hole again then develop the picture in a darkroom. I got some good results.

Anyway, I changed the subject…..yes, rain, good stuff, unless it causes flooding, damage, mud slides……

Bye x

Skies

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One thing about living in a temperate climate in the Midlands of England is the variations in the sky. We might have just had one of the hottest summer’s on record, but like most people here I am waiting for the rain to come back. The country usually gets enough, but at the moment satellite imagery shows the grass burnt to brown instead of the greens of summers. Trees seem to be fairing better because they have deep roots. But hopefully when the rain comes down from the sky the land will recover.

Skies….

Clouds fly on the breezes and winds,

Blue skies soon turn grey,

Magic sunsets illuminate the sky,

Stars shine out on high.

Shooting stars obscured by clouds,

Planet’s seem so bright.

Moon and Sun in turn appear,

Sometimes Moon hides Sun.

Look up, look up, into the air, not just to the ground,

Above your head the sky astounds,

The world below is gone.

 

Well I do like skies. There is something called the cloud appreciation society which has interesting information about clouds. They suggest blue skies are boring, and watching the different sorts of clouds is the thing to do, from cirrus, cumulo nimbus, asperatus, mammatus, stratus, so many names. New cloud formations identified. ..

Skies are such a barometer (no pun intended) of our atmosphere. I would hate to live in a country where the weather stayed the same for months.

X

Patterns are my friend

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People who read my blog know I love colour and pattern. Digital apps allow you to manipulate images and colours, or create your own patterns.

I have a love of spirals and curves, and repeating patterns. If I’m left alone I will sit and play, changing colours, creating new iterations, rearranging shapes, until I’m satisfied with the result. As I go along I save the doodles. Then I can go back to a previous drawing and go off on another tangent. If I like something I have created in a drawing app I might start something new in the same app, or try and recreate it in another app.

I find using different applications with different properties helps. So  might want to do something that seems to have been painted in oils or drawn in charcoal. But, importantly, I don’t want to spend lots of money, so they are all free apps from galaxy play store. Certain things won’t work on this tablet, even when I maximise my storage space.

One thing I want to do is get some of them printed. I’m trying to get a cable so I can transfer images to a usb stick.., that’s a plan for the near future.

What inspires you?

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Shapes, colours, cats,

Plants, horses, hats,

Fish, glass, clay,

Books, art, day,

Night, stars, planets,

Water, sea, trumpets.

And breathe….

 

Heart, Head, sky,

Dance, song, joy,

Reading, writing, play,

Sewing, knitting, yay!

Green, red, blue,

Yellow, Orange too…

Purple, green and mauve,

Silver, copper and gold.

And breathe, just breathe….

 

So much is inspiring,

Medicine, painting, lightening

So much to rejoice in,

Happiness is enticing.

 

What else can I say?

Just “may you enjoy your day”!

 

Noises

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I live in an old house, which creaks and groans like old houses do. Normal, everyday squeaks….

But when we had new windows fitted we got a couple of added moaning noises. For some reason if the wind is in the south the kitchen window moans quite loudly, and if it is in the north the front window whistles. Still this is better than the road traffic noise we used to suffer from.

I am aware of other sounds, like birds thudding heavily as they land on the kitchen roof. The patter of their feet while you are in the bathroom. Water collects on the roof, so they often come down for a drink.

The loudest noise comes from the fridge. When the pump kicks in you can hear it groaning and whimpering into life, like a sad puppy…..it gradually settles down, but in the middle of the night when I’m making myself a coffee it can be quite disconcerting.

Other noises include the mad scrambling clatter of cats paws as they chase each other up and down stairs. One cat has a bell on his collar and it rattles as he moves. Little purring noises as they gather speed.

But the loudest noise of all…. when someone keeps talking when I’m trying to write!

Mow Cop

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Mow Cop…..

If you ever drive on the A34 between Stoke-on-Trent and Congleton, look to your left as you are driving North, just past little Moreton Hall. You might catch a glimpse of Mow Cop on top of the hill…

Mow Cop is a folly, built to look like a castle, and it stands above the village of Mow Cop, giving views of the Cheshire plain and Shropshire and the Welsh hills.

We decided to visit today as a group I am in- Stoke USK, (urban sketchers group) is due to visit on Saturday but I can’t make it.

I did some brief sketches of the castle and the view, clouds were quite low over the plain and rain was threatening. I irritated myself because I started the castle drawing too far over the page so had to start again.

While we were there we saw a carved stone with lettering on it. I could just make out the words. “To the Glory of God
A camp meeting near this spot on May 31st 1807 began the Religious Revival led by Hugh Bourne and William Clowes known as Primitive Methodism (unveiled?) By the president of the Methodist Conference 13th May 1948”

I knew that the Methodists had started in the area; Bethesda chapel in Hanley , the city centre of Stoke on Trent, is currently being restored. I imagined people gathering at Mow Cop, listening to the Victorian preachers, in rain, wind and hail. A romantic view I know. But the place is very atmospheric.

We finally tried to walk up to the castle, but the steep steps defeated me so I only got half way up. Richard managed a bit further.

Want to visit?  The castle is a bit difficult to find. Once you are on the hill you can’t see it as well. However there is a good sized car park when you get there. You will see a National Trust notice board and it gives the opening times. Roads approach from the A34 and a road from Tunstall in Stoke-on-Trent.

Hanging baskets

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This was my garden…….in 2017….20170831_153616

This was my back yard last year. Everything was lush and green with lots of colour. This year things are not as good, some plants are wilting in the heat, others have only just survived. I haven’t taken photos of them because its all a bit messy. Still I will persevere. We might be getting some rain on Sunday if we are lucky.

There may be some thunderstorms east of us but nothing due here. It’s so strange, we are a wet country usually. We are normally known for complaining about cold wet summers, and grey dismal winters.

Climate change? I don’t know. But something is going on.

Multiply up all the gardens in the country where the plants are struggling. Then think of all the farms that are having trouble, having to feed hay and winter food stocks to there animals because there is not enough grass for them. It’s not normal. While over in Europe temperatures have risen above 40°C.

But we are lucky in comparison with other parts of the world. Terrible floods, droughts. The world’s temperature has risen since the turn of the millennium.

We are worried by plastic in the oceans, maybe we should really worry about the climate before its too late. Climate scientists have reported that the weather could actually become so hot that we end up in a “hot house Earth” scenario.

If not for our generation, but for future ones we need to stop listening to business people whose interest is short term gain and move to a more balanced, less greedy world. If that means that rich western countries should share technology with the whole world then that’s what we should do. Rant for the day over. ..

Keyboard fixed!

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The bug is fixed thankfully.

It’s useful having a computer shop just down the road…

Apparently it was an “unusual glitch” whatever that means. My normal keyboard shrank last week to a smaller version. I just thought it was an upgrade but apparently it was the computer downloading another version because the first one had stopped working, it was only when my computer kept flashing up “unfortunately, Samsung keyboard is not working” that I realised that something was wrong.

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So every couple of seconds the message flashed up, technology is like that, it tells you there is a problem but not how to resolve it. How do you sort it out when you cannot type in a question to Google, for instance, to ask what to do?

So, switch it on and off, switch it on and off and flick the SD card out and back in, then try to remove duplicated photos, clear cache’s, uninstall apps you don’t use. Clear the cache’s again. Run the anti virus, remove old unwanted emails and messages……

Nothing worked, though I had freed up memory on my external memory SD card…..So it had to go to the shop, they could not type anything in to even get on the internet to download a new keyboard. So they kept it in to fix. You don’t realise how attached you are until you have to leave your computer behind. Talk about separation anxiety! But it has come home fixed.

Thank you one stop computers in stoke. Very helpful and they only charged me half of what they estimated.

Cheers and thanks x

Talk time

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I miss talking to people sometimes. I have a tenancy to isolate myself as I have said in the past. But today was a good day, I saw an old artist friend who has an idea for a travelling exhibition, and my work fits with it. It’s great to get some positive vibes. Also, a painting that I did a couple of years ago was bought at my exhibition. Someone really admired it and decided to buy it. I feel like a parent seeing a child move into the world. It’s amazing how attached you can get to things, and to see something you love go to a good home gives me a glad feeling inside.

In fact what started out as a quiet weekend has turned out very well. People were interested in my exhibition and some of the new things I have went down really well. I have to thank a friend for creating necklaces for me from some fused glass I made in a workshop earlier in the year. Also a photographer who turned some of my paintings into cards. Again they sold well.

I have not made a fortune, but it has boosted my confidence. Even the chap that came in and said my art was not his cup of tea was not rude, just honest.

The only bad thing is that I seem to have caught a cold! Maybe talking to all those people meant I picked up a bug. We will see….

Finished painting?

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I’m calling this finished…for the moment, its a question of how much detail I can add….

I enjoyed painting him, but there is such a lot of fur, of different shades, tones and colours, that its hard to get it right. I hope his owner will like him.

I met a lady yesterday who happened to come in to the warehouse at Etruria where we are holding an exhibition and hands on workshops at the weekend at Etruria Industrial Museum – (see my previous blog). She showed me photos of her son’s work, it was stunning! He does paintings of horses, and the attention to detail reminded me of the work of George Stubbs, whose equine paintings are remarkable. We both agreed that Stubbs painting of the horse Whistlejacket is one of our favourite paintings.

So this little fellow will be off to his home soon. I enjoy painting pet portraits, its a challenge to get an accurate image the owner will approve of. There is something about portraits of people and animals that appeals to me.