New paintings and regular art updates.
My paintbrush flittered quickly
Across the canvas
A blob of red and brown
A touch of white on a rotund belly
Fluffed up to keep out the cold.
An hour of painting
Green sprigs above
Snow below
Footprints trail
Sparse grass protrudes
Hop on the way
To Christmas.
It rained very heavily a few days ago.
I wrote this poem in response :
Rain flowed down the hill
Flooded the gutters
A wall of water
In the midst of it
A man on a mobility scooter
Drove it through two feet of water
Flash flood wheel chair hero!
The man on the scooter was videoed, it made the local TV news! Legend! I think it’s on tiktok in Stoke on Trent.
Reddish sky in the morning
Shepherds take warning….
And they should! A few days ago we had a red dawn, this photo was taken as it faded.
The sky soon clouded over and later we had a deluge! Water flowed down the hill so fast and deep that it overwhelmed the drains and poured out of gutters onto the pavements. At the back of my house it came down the window in a sheet of rain and the water snuck into the wall and plaster around the window frame. I’ve never seen anything like it.
There was a flash flood in the centre of town with rain water up to people’s car headlights. Shops that were safe at the front had brown water knee high in their store rooms….
It might have been a microburst but it was very stormy. The winds were blowing trees about. It was more than the usual thunderstorm. Thankfully it blew over after about twenty minutes.
Climate change is here. I don’t know how places like Jamaica and Cuba and Haiti coped with last week’s hurricane. I feel so worried for them.
Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.
I’d invent “autumn bank holiday” for Britain.
We have lots of bank holidays in the UK but there is a big gap between the bank holiday Monday in August and then Christmas. I know America has a thanksgiving holiday and maybe we could have something in late October?
Not halloween! Not everyone celebrates that so I’d literally call it autumn day. To enjoy the change of the season. The mists and mellow fruitfulness. The changing leaves, autumnal flowers, the ripening of fruit, fungi fruiting, the start of animals gathering food for winter.
An outside day to explore and enjoy the season and a day of rest for the day, keeping a warm evening to enjoy seasonal foods.
My friend in our #bandofsketchers group asked me to come up with some drawing prompts. This is my reply. The list could be a poem!
“Sorry I’ve not been doing much again. I’ll try again soon! New prompts:
Ideas and dreams
Sugar
Black and white
Green and red
Purple and yellow
Orange and blue
Blurred
Stitches
Games
Holding on
Silly
Ripples
Fish
Floating
Suspended
Itch
Hobby
Strap
Festival
Flop
Book or booking
African
South American
Asian
North American
Australian
Shower
Sunny
Slope
Feed
Fright
Parrot
Hold
Amphibian
Resting
Testing
Opera
Bulge
Seaside
Steps
Happy
Miffed
Splatter
Gold
Metal
Chomp
Sold
Smell
I think these can be quite open? Hope this helps.”
I’m looking at my stats and I’m confused. Over 1000 people have been looking at my posts today. Usually it’s more like 67, what’s going on. This week it seems to be mainly American and last week it was China.
I wonder if this is real or bots? I can’t imagine my ramblings are sufficiently interesting to attract this level of scrutiny. Has anyone else had this experience? Will this continue or gradually ebb away?
So many questions, so much puzzlement? If anyone can answer or have I bored everyone enough yet?
Boi he’s big
My big cat,
He’s also fat
Paws stretch
From here to
Eternity
Claws my ankles
While I sleep.
Pulls the bed sheets
Over him.
So my feet freeze
Cat
Sweet
Cheeky
Don’t sneeze!
Spider alert
Big legs and glowing eyes!
I went to a writers group performance on Sunday and this wee beastie was sitting comfortably on the bench seat.
Spider, spider
Sitting quiet
On the bench
Below a light
Don’t squash me
It seems to say
I’ll catch flies
By light of day…..
I just went shopping and they have changed the trolleys. They used to be shallow so that you didn’t reach down too far into them. The new ones are small, but deeper. If you want to get shopping out of it you have to reach down into it. Because I have Parkinsons I feel like I’m tipping forward and in danger of falling into the trolley.
If I use a basket I have to use a walking stick and it’s hard to put things into the basket without finding somewhere to put the stick down. Sometimes I hang it off shelves. Also the weight of the basket seems more everytime I shop.
I know this is a first world dilemma and I should be grateful to have supermarkets. I just feel frustrated that even when disabled people are catered for the company can change it’s mind and make things worse. I just want people to recognise the problems we can face.
Youdraw drawing. I’m trying to catch up with things but the youdraw interview put me in a spin. So many old memories. Old friends, thinking about what I was doing and what I was capable of twenty or so years ago. And the frustration of no longer having those abilities.
I want to think about how I can get some of it back. I’m going to see if I can get better medication for Parkinsons. Does life have to be this hard? Mentally and physically I’m feeling my age.
Mallaband-Brown