Flowers are coming
So is the green
Hoping I’m grinning
When they are seen
Multicoloured blooms
Loom out of the gloom!
Daisies and daffodils
And snowdrops too
Reflecting a sky
Of brilliant blue!
Springs coming
Tag: Life
A whole mug of coffee!
Argh
Literally just knocked a whole mug of coffee over on the carpet. It’s a good job it’s dark charcoal coloured! I grabbed the first thing to hand, a bath towel. I’m going to our some cold water over it in a minute. Wish me luck!
Discount?
I go to a (nameless) supermarket that used to give discounts if you purchased shopping from them and used their discount card. I would build up a bit of money over the year and use it towards my Christmas shopping.
Recently they changed the system. Now if you use your card you should get a discount off some products and ‘everyday essentials’ (like milk and broccoli???). I’ve asked a few times how I find these products, apparently they have an extra blue sticker on them. So now I have to spend time looking round the shop for stickers? It also means that I have to choose what the shop wants me to buy to save money. Today I saved a whole 20pence on a tuna sandwich. That’s 20 pence off £26.40. When I asked the manager she said customers nationwide had asked for it? I wasn’t consulted.
Other information is that as theirs is a small shop they have less discounted products. If I go to a bigger store I will find more! Guess what, they are further away and consequently cost more to get to! Wow, wonderful (not).
Another portrait
Oh I am forgetful! is this Cate Blanchett? I think she played the lady Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings films. I drew this about the time the films came out and it’s another sketchfu digital drawing. It’s not perfect but I am quite pleased with it and have good memories of the site.
My old sandals
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
Not flip flos
Not beach sandals
Proper walking sandals
Have taken me up and down
Hills and paths
Through fords
Into the sea
On hot days and pebble beaches
Foreshore, piers
Along garden paths
Looking for minnows
In shallows
Sandals that supported me
Sandals that transported me
Sandals I tore off
When my feet got stuck in mud
Sandals that wore out
Heels worn down
Sandals full of grit and memory
That guided my feet..
To you
Spooky lights
I saw this at tonight’s performance and it made me chuckle. The way the lights are set up looks like eyes and a mouth. The shadow above like a set of long wolf like ears! The pinkness is really dramatic.
I have always seen faces and patterns in everyday shapes. Like paintings of flowers that look like lions to me, or the spindly abstract pattern of tree branches turning into a galloping horse. It’s a phenomenon called Pareidolia.
This could also be a riotous robot, a frankenstein style monster, or a dancing ghost, see what I mean?
An audience with Toby Jones.
I just got back from a Claybody Theatre production, an Audience with Toby Jones. He’s the actor who recently appeared as Mr Bates (in Mr Bates versus the Post Office) the sub postmaster who was accused with hundreds of others of stealing money from the post office when it was actually the horizon computer system that had caused the problems. The ITV drama he was in really bought the scandalous treatment of sub postmasters out into the open.
He’s also been in the Detectorists, played Truman Capote, played Neil Baldwin in Marvellous and has been in many more plays, films and TV series. He also played Dobbie the House Elf in Harry Potter.
Toby Jones talked about his university experience, his further studies with a French drama school, how he went from wanting to be a director to being an actor. As he explained he doesn’t have control of what’s coming up. Actors are lucky to get parts and they have to go with whats available. He explained he’s not bothered about fame, and came across as a genuine and funny person. He had come to Spode in Stoke upon Trent to support Claybody Theatre.
His father was the actor Freddie Jones and had lived in Longton in Stoke-on-Trent. He had taken up acting quite late in life and Toby wasn’t sure if he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.
It was a thoroughly interesting evening. I was so glad to have seen him in person.
Digital pigeon
Artrage oils drawing from several years ago. This is the free version of the app. You only have the oil pen tools but it certainly can be used to create interesting effects. I like this a lot, I used the metallic option to give it this sheen. If you tone down the metallic effect the colours become paler and you can draw over the darker parts (where I have outlined the bird) as it seems to be more opaque and covers over the darker areas.
Crying
A local author and friend, called Fred Hughes, wrote an article on Facebook and in our local paper talking about how, as he has grown older, he has found himself crying more. One example he gives is when the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, burnt down two years ago. He lives nearby and found himself bought to rears because of all his memories of what had happened in that place, meeting people, enjoying good company and hospitality. He said that apparently hormonal changes can affect men because they are bought up to be stoic and strong. It must be a real shock to the system to allow grief and sadness out.
I think crying is good for you. Women do seem to be able to cry more often? I have wailed and cried and felt deep grief recently, not least because of the Leopard fire. The last two years have affected me a lot with various events. I’m not a stoic person although I try, when you have worked with people you have to try and stay professional. But without crying I would have exploded!
Morning cat
Snoozing cat having a lie in after a night on the tiles? He snores, he dreams, paws twitching. He greets me with a little purr. I think I have got three familiars (I have two other cats). They all have different traits but they are all very loving.
I don’t name them on here because of online security. I could call them all by pseudonym, but I don’t think it matters. They are big, medium and small!
This is big (used to be ‘outside’ cat), he sometimes pushes the cat flap door loose because he has got quite fat. He has a barrel shaped belly and seems quite content. When we first met him as an abandoned cat he was already an adult, I guess he’s over 13 years old now. Middle aged and happy.
Mallaband-Brown 