New paintings and regular art updates.
What TV shows did you watch as a kid?
I loved star trek
My favourite?
Spock
So stoical and bright
Please don’t mock!
Kirk, I liked him to
A bit overdramatic
An excitable character
Swashbuckling and hectic
McCoy was the doctor
You’d like to see
He made me laugh
Humour was his key.
Scotty, engineer, brave
Could fix any problem
Given enough time
And not caused by a Romulan!
I saw this yesterday. A tandem stye bike. It might be two bikes converted by removing the back wheel of the first bike and the front wheel of the second. I don’t know if it would be stable enough to ride?
It’s been painted gold and might be part of a sculpture trail? I couldn’t get close enough to get a better look, this is zoomed in.
Today I went to sing with loud mouth women at Congleton in Cheshire. It’s the furthest I’ve traveled in a year and I had to get a lift from another choir member as I’m not allowed to drive yet and I won’t drive that far anyway.
The photo doesn’t really show it but it’s quite a steep slope at Congleton Physic garden. The performance area was down a grassy slope and over uneven crazy paving type stones. That made me pretty nervous and I had to hang onto an arm to get down there even with my walking stick.
I’d borrowed a collapsible stool so I could sit down when I needed. But I managed to stand up during our performance. We sang a mixture of Croatian, French and medieval songs together with a few more modern songs. There were not many of us so we moved around, some people sang high and then low parts, I sang low and middle. This was strangely our first performance of the year so it was a little anxiety making. But we managed with just a couple of mistakes.
I’m home now and only just feeling a bit less tired. Sitting in a strange car, out of my control made me very tense, but I’m glad I went and I’m glad I sang.
I have this model! Damn!
Faffed about getting details of how to replace the fryer. Must dispose of it and cut the wire off. I rang argos helpline who told me who to contact. Had to turn the fryer over to take a photo of the serial number. Then fill in an online form. They will send a replacement (within 60 days)! No oven so will have to microwave or use the hob till I get the new one, Parkinsons didn’t help, had to do the form twice over,
Where did your name come from?
When I was little I thought Mal-la-band meant the bad band in French. I convinced myself that it meant the bad band. Although that perhaps would have read “La band mal?”
I imagined myself as a part of a band of pirates, sailing the seven seas, looking for buried treasure and adventure.
Mal and Mer mixed up in my mind, I was quite young and I also thought it meant a bad sea or stormy sea.
As I learnt to spell my name I became aware that other children were taking the micky out of me. There was a type of margarine called “Blueband” and guess what exciting word kids in my school would call me? Yeah, you got it.
But when I got married I kept my original surname along with my hubbys. I didn’t want to lose it. I’m attached.
And it’s meaning? I don’t want to know. I just like my ideas.
What motivates you?
When I was little I used to get very bored on a Sunday. We would go to Sunday school in the morning but afternoons were interminable, nothing much on the TV, with only one channel to start off with, or the old radio on in the background. My parents didn’t like pop music so it was either religious programming or comedy or documentaries.
The boredom pushed me to do art, I was experimenting with oil paint on cardboard when I was about 12. Or playing in the garden, climbing up to the top bar of the swings and hanging upside down… My parents had finally been able to afford a bike so I would cycle up and down the street and practice tricks on it. Getting as close to trees as possible without hitting them. We had water fights with other kids in the street. Throwing plastic bags full of water at each other and getting soaked. I also made hurdles using my dad’s saw benches and running as fast as I could over them. I remember climbing an old gnarled Laburnum tree as high as I could get, and climb up the outside of the big slide using it’s steel frame to get up and over the top instead of the steps..
Those games and playing made me adventurous. I wanted to learn everything. It motivated me in other ways too. Because I got bored easily I would get lots of books out of the library. Not just adventure stories, but ones about atoms, and galaxies, and art, and volcanoes. I loved finding out about things. So I stopped being bored because I was motivated to keep myself occupied. And I’ve stayed motivated to do things all my life. I try not to get bored anymore.
What are your top ten favorite movies?
How to choose ten movies?
I can’t imagine putting these in any order, and they won’t be profound or too subtle. I’m a sucker for weepy films, but I like interesting ones too.
1, Always, a fire fighter crashes his plane and dies, then haunts his girlfriend as she finds a new love.
2. Close encounters of the third kind. Friendly aliens arrive on Earth and one man gets to go off with them.
3. The theory of everything. The story of the life of Sir Stephen Hawking.
4.Its a beautiful life. The tale of how a man’s life was changed for the better, and how Clarence earned his wings!
5. Harvey. Where is that giant white rabbit?
6. How to train your dragon. The original animated film of the book by Cresdida Cowell.
7. The sound of music, a nunnery, a governess, love and escape from the Nazis.
8. Ring of bright water. A story of otters, watched as a child.
9. Hidden figures, the story of how 3 African American women were working for NASA. They were deeply involved in the Moon landings and beyond.
10. Lawrence of Arabia. I saw it years ago and fell in love with Peter O’Toole.
That was quite painless. Tomorrow I might choose differently.
Send us mares tails that precede rain.
Send clouds full of water
England’s Green is fading
Brown fields abound
River levels dropping
Paddle your canoes no more
Canal boats stuck in place
High and dry on mud!
Give us a cup or two of rain
To water our parched countryside
Let the land drink
Again.
I’m in a writing group and I hand write stories and poems. But our latest challenge has me worried. It calls for us to write a piece 2000 words long! I suddenly feel like I’m back at school or college writing essays.
You need to understand that my computer is bust and I type all my blogs on my phone. My Parkinsons makes my hands and arms shake and my hands cramp up, so my jottings are usually brief, maybe too brief. But I like to be concise.
I find hand writing suits me more because I can place a note book on the arm of my chair and write things down as I think of them. But 2000 words? I can’t do a word count unless I add up say every 20 or 50 or so of them. Then total up the numbers at the end.
The other thing is reading out. I stutter now. My speaking voice is affected by Parkinsons, it’s frustrating when I want to get a good delivery of my words.
Oh well, I must keep going. X
My world.
I fight
The paint peels
I hold it tight
I won’t give up
Nor give in
My mind
My sight.
Stubborn is
My friend
Stoic is
My motto
I’m still me
I hope you understand.
I’m strong.
Mallaband-Brown