New paintings and regular art updates.
These were growing in our garden six years ago. The garden is more overgrown now and we didn’t put in as many tulips this year. I will have to put in more next year. Part of the problem is also the squirrels digging them up. I think they eat them in the winter.
Tulips were precious plants in centuries gone by. Some were more expensive than gold. I can remember the details, but they are beautiful plants. I’m afraid this post is a little lacking in detail. I shall try and add more to it.
X
The kittens were starting to grow, getting ready to pack their bags and move in with their new parents.
I came across this photo today. They were so mischevious. The one with the black mask is still called Bandit, the new owners changed the other ones name.
I sometimes see photos of the two girl kittens, but I’ve lost track of how the boys are doing. Their mum and uncle are still here safe with us.
X
Forty years ago, here are two of my friends who I shared a student house with. Unlike the accommodation today things were different then. It’s like something out of ‘the young ones’ TV series. There was no hot water, just a broken water heater. I hate to say this but there was no bathroom and we used the showers at the college. The washing machine was an old twin tub. Our cooker was gas, but there was no gas fire. Instead we just had a coal fire to warm the whole house. And the toilet was down the yard in an outhouse.
We moved on into a slightly less tumble down house, finished college, and ended up in our own house. But I actually enjoyed life in that house. X
Funny what pops up on Facebook memories. I don’t exactly remember when I did this, or how. I know how I duplicated it.. But I don’t remember the process of getting to there. I think this is a few years old. It was a quirky idea. Drawing Spock. It must have been when one of the new series of Star Trek films came out?
Xg
I wrote a long piece about this, then I fell asleep, my finger hit the screen and I’ve lost it! I will try and remember what I was saying.
I was bought up in the 60’s and 70’s, when shops closed on a Sunday, people bought enough food to last and put it in the pantry (a small room lined with shelves which was stacked with tins and dry goods).
It was quiet, no one had cars so we would play in the back garden or go to the local park which was a few hundred yards away over the main road. But the road was easy to cross because it wasn’t that busy.
Back to today. I sat in the garden and was surprised to hear birds singing. I think I could recognise about three different songs. They were up a tree at the other end of the garden, normally they would have been drowned out by the road.
Even the rush hour failed to happen. Normally the cars queue on the street waiting to turn into the traffic. Today, one car every few minutes.
The only thing I saw which was wrong was three young men, full of energy, walking together laughing, making fun, striding out. We have been told not to be in groups of more than two. I just worry…
Still, it’s quiet, like an old fashioned Sunday.
I was thinking of rhymes I learnt as a child, when into my inbox popped an email. It was a pingback saying that someone had shared the poem “the North Wind shall blow”. It had a copyright sign, but it’s not by me! I don’t know it’s origins, but it’s a lovely poem, well crafted, poignant.
Anyway I’ve let them know. In this Internet age, with so much information it is not surprising that things get lost or forgotten. I learned this when I was a child, which is over fifty years ago!
The other ones I remembered today were:
Georgie Porgy pudding and pie,
kissed the girls and made them cry,
when the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgy ran away.
And :
See saw, Margery Daw
Jenny shall have a new master,
she shall earn but a penny a day,
because she can’t work any faster!
I guess although these will have been written decades, or perhaps centuries ago, they are still relevant today….
Four years ago. Tree spirit painting.
This is an idea I have painted a few times. I’m convinced that we need to do more to encourage tree planting. I guess I’m a bit of a tree hugger on the quiet!
I’ve painted trees with faces in them from spring, to autumn and winter. I’ve not done a summer one so far.
This went to a friend who really loves it. There are three faces in the painting as you can see. I did have a picture of it from the front but can’t find it. This came up on my Facebook page ( a useful way of recording my art). I was really pleased with the bright colours in this. I wanted it to look like a glowing sunset. The faces are mysterious and stare out at each other. I think it’s slightly surreal. I admire the movement but it probably needs more of a twist to it to actually be classed as surreal art.
Oops!
I use my email a lot and with WordPress I get a lot of emails about people I’m following..
I forgot that I needed to empty my trash bin (how do you forget that?). I wondered why my phone memory was getting full. When I went into trash there were 6753 emails in there! I only thought of taking a screenshot after I’d started deleting.
It took about ten minutes to delete them all. Now I need to look at my other folders, I’ve kept some emails from years ago. As reminders of old friends, and so I can try and contact them again. Life is interesting but I must edit them!
One if the worst things about the Internet is when people disappear and you don’t know where they have gone.
I have ‘lost’ a few people here recently. Perhaps it’s a new year and they have cancelled their membership, or decided blogging isn’t for them. Some of them had become friends, or I’d invested some time in reading their blogs. Some explained that this wasn’t working and they were going, others just disappeared. I can’t help saying I miss them. One person passed away. I knew she had been ill and I was sad to find out she was gone. At least there was a message put on her page to say she had died. I could grieve. But sometimes there is nothing, they become ghosts in my memory, sitting there, with no explanation. Then there are people who’s pages on Facebook are still open despite having died two or three years ago. Each time I see their faces on my friends list I feel sorrow, and yet it would feel wrong to ‘unfollow’ them. What to do. The etiquette of the Internet.. We need to learn.
I thought I would post an old picture of one of my necklaces from my Facebook memories. I made the glass cabochon at a glass workshop with someone called Angela Ashton. She has moved away and I would like to find somewhere else to do this. The wire weaving is by my friend, I need to chase her to try and get some pieces back off her, but I’ve been preoccupied and keep forgetting to contact her. I don’t think it’s anything to do with my age, but when you are busy with other responsibilities it’s hard to keep on track.
Sometimes I just wish for freedom to be myself, and sometimes I feel I’m using it as an excuse not to do things.
Maybe I can pull things back together soon. I need to escape my cocoon and be a butterfly.
X
Mallaband-Brown