Tag: Life

Size matters

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I was just wondering how big the UK is relative to the USA. Turns out according to Google it’s 40 times smaller than the USA! (also 32 times smaller than Australia).

We can drive across the country in a day. I could drive for maybe two or three days North to South John O’groats to Lands end, although it has been done much faster. The direct distance is 603 miles, but the road distance is 837 miles. So driving over the limit at 83.7 mph you could drive it in ten hours. But if you drove at just 40mph you could do it in less than 24 hours!

Goodness knows how long it would take to drive across America and I guess it also depends where on the coasts you drive from. America is wider in the north than in the south?

Gardening

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In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled?

Gardening makes me feel fulfilled, it’s not always easy for me to do work on the garden at the moment. But when I’m a little better I shall try and get out and do some pruning. The buddlea need cutting back once the flowers have finished. The other shrubs that are shutting out all the light need to be trimmed. If necessary to cut some of the lower branches of trees so that we can let lots more light in.

It’s heavy work, especially the lopping of branches, they are tangled and twisted in and out of the garden, overgrowing the fences. Our neighbours are a bit annoyed with us, but we can’t afford a full renovation and anyway the garden is natural, with frogs and squirrels and possibly hedgehogs.

I’m pleased we have such growth, it’s fun to think we have grown such a lot over the years.

Ugh!

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Yesterday I walked into town, which isn’t far, got some shopping and walked home on my own. Then I contacted a firm to sort something out, then we went to the doctors to get out flu vaccine and finally I joined a choir practice for a Christmas concert. Two hours of Loud singing!

That was more in one day than I’d done in six weeks. But I was feeling stubborn and I’m fed up of being off my feet.

But all I’ve done today is fetch the milk in. I’m shattered. My poorly leg and feet are aching, my arm is shaking and sore, and I just want to sleep.

Could it be the result of the flu jab? I don’t think so, I usually don’t have a reaction. No, I think its because I tried to overdo things yesterday. I shall continue to rest today, then attempt more tomorrow.

Pelargoniums and Surfinia

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Oh I do like a good hanging basket. This is one from a couple of years ago, I think it was one I planted myself. The red flowers are pelargoniums although generally they are called geraniums. The purple ones are Petunias which are also called Surfinias. It’s interesting how names can be changed for fashion or trademark reasons.

Clematis and Canal roses

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Clematis and canal roses with bottle oven

Every so often I paint one of the iconic bottle ovens from Stoke-on-Trent. These were where pottery was originally fired with coal fires. The city would be covered by a pall of thick smoke, morning noon and night.

They sometimes had metal bands wrapped round them to strengthen them, and the old bricks can shine like gold when there is a lovely sunrise or set. Arthur Berry, famous artist of Stoke-on-Trent used to speak about the beauty of the potteries towns. He painted and drew abstracted views of the six towns. He’s known as the potteries Lowry.

This painting is of a derelict oven, I’ve painted clematis growing up it, rewinding the ancient landscape. The blue area represents the local canals, it’s shape mirrors the bottle oven. The flowers in it represent the abstract canal roses that are found adorning canal barges throughout Britain.

I don’t!

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What brands do you associate with?

Brands? You can keep them. Expensive, exclusive, snobbish, wasteful, fashion victims.

I have never really bought brands, especially clothes. I don’t feel they mean anything to me. I can see how expensive brands exclude the majority. Or people spend money they can’t afford to go one better than their neighbours.

In some ways I can see the manufacturer Ford’s argument that you could have any colour of car so long as it was black! Now people want exclusive sports cars, or utility vehicles. But to me as long as a car gets me from A to B safely and at no great cost? I’m happy. It can be shabby, growing moss on the bodywork. As long as I can use it for transport that’s fine.

Imagine the savings? You don’t have to spend too much to get something decent. If I can I will try and choose reliability and boring mundanity over glitzy, showy brands. And with those characteristics you can have something that is less likely to get stolen. It makes life easier not to bother with brands.

Play using photodirector

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I started drawing circles, then decided to run it through several iterations of photodirector using it’s AI style button and adding a background of butterflies, then sending it through the AI texturiser again. I think it makes a quite gentle image, I like the colours, enhanced in the Clarendon Instagram filter. I do enjoy experimenting.