Watercolour painting of the top half of Cheddleton Station near Leek in Staffordshire. I have travelled on the steam train from there several times with my hubby. Something I will really miss. He was a bit of a steam train fanatic and always had masses of information in his mind. He recognised the make and types of trains (and tractors and cars) he could tell the make of tractors by the colours they were painted. Old Fergus on tractors were grey ‘old grey Fergie’ he would say.
I once counted our books. When I got to 1000 I gave up. Some are precious and I devour them regularly. Others I dust off occasionally, but a few I have never read. Mainly because they were my hubbys and generally are about wars, trains or tractors. I like some of them, but they are generally big and heavy, full of pictures and technical details. I think some of them will go to a charity shop.
I guess they could act as insulation! Some of them are high up on tall shelves. I would have to climb up ladders to get up to them. I’m not sure if anyone will ever read them!
View over rickety old workshops in Etruria last week. The roof is heavily covered in moss. It’s also covered in leaf litter from silver birch trees growing on the Etruria Flint mill land. It must have blown across in the heavy winds we had over the last couple of months. Today I’m having a rest after loudly wassailing last night.
Short days, the candle is nearly out. Darkness floats by my eyes as I look into the garden. Cold wind and rain is making it chilly and damp. Memory tugs at my mind, pulling my mouth down at the corners. But I caught myself laughing a couple of times today.
Where will I be at the end of next year? Will I find the safety and solace I seek. Will I manage on my own. Decades of being a couple makes it difficult to predict. I’m trying to explain how I feel about things. I feel like I did when I left school after that being my whole life. The cliff edge is close, my hubby could climb down cliffs while I cowered at the top. I don’t like them. I want to be settled and secure. Oh well, we will see….
I woke at 5.30am, unable to sleep, I was enveloped in waves of heat and cold from the covid virus. I couldn’t decide whether to snuggle under the duvet or throw it off. I lay listening to the news on the radio.
Just after 8am I came downstairs. I took my medication and prepared to light a candle for my hubby. Today was the day he would be cremated but circumstances meant I could not go to a funeral. Life isn’t always fair. Many friends and family had promised to light candles for him too and I spent an hour in calm and quiet peace thinking about my loss and contacting people who had left messages and thoughts on social media. What a strange way of doing things these days.
After breakfast I wondered if I should take another covid test, but decided I will wait till tomorrow to see. What would be the point of just confirming I was still ill. I continued to get messages and contacted friends and family.
I’ve cried and cried today. Little things like stories of people going through similar circumstances touched my heart. A film which was one of my hubbys favourites was on the TV. ‘The railway children’ is a sweet film and when it reached the end I started crying all over again.
Sleeping has helped this afternoon. I decided to ignore the fuel bills and have the heating on today. I was so tired at one point that my sandwich I’d made for tea slid off the plate and spilt all over the floor. I was not happy with myself.
I know these posts are not nice. I guess I’m just trying to document how I feel. If I explain perhaps it could help someone else? I don’t know.
Glass ball with bubbles of air in it. I’m a bit of a collector of glass paperweights. I started collecting about thirty years ago when I got two with gold and silver leaf embedded in them. My latest one was a few weeks ago when I bought a apple shaped one with glass spirals. Given my current situation I don’t think I will be buying any more.
I haven’t been to Manchester for years. I like it because it is a cultural centre. Galleries and Theatres and museums. But traffic is difficult. All the routes I used to know have changed. There are more bus lanes and priorities have changed. I got stuck in the city centre about five years ago. We had to turn round in a one way street and follow a bus lane to get out! Luckily I wasn’t fined.
Other problems include the train service, our last train from Manchester is always too early. You can’t stay for a drink after a theatre visit, there is no way to travel unless you take the car, and with carbon taxes it’s not possible to drive into the city centre in a pre millennium car.
Over several months a friend has been collecting some of my smaller paintings. She sent me this photo of them yesterday and it struck me how varied they are!
The galleon painting has gold paint on it to give a feeling of the sunlight reflecting back up onto the reverse of the sails.
The small painting of the woman in the woods was taken from a photo from a friend, I loved the atmospheric feeling of it and tried to evoke the colours of autumn.
The dragon is based on an image that I had created for my college piece on the mythology of dragons. I had drawn and designed a children’s book and this was one of the ideas I used for it.
I’m so pleased my art is being appreciated, I love being creative and it keeps me going. X
Mallaband-Brown 