The steps

Posted on April 15, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Cliffhanger, Creative writing, Fun, Memories, Need sleep, Short story, Should be asleep, Very short storyLeave a comment

IMG_20180831_122811

The steps were old concrete and brick. Like the ones they had at school all those years ago. When she was a child they would play tinker, taylor, soldier on them. You had to jump up or down from one step to another depending on what your friends shouted. She couldn’t remember exactly how it worked but it was fun . That must have been 50 years ago.

She had walked past these steps every day for months. The tangle of vegetation was getting worse. Today though, she had decided to climb them. There was an old grey wooden door at the top of them. She would knock on and see if anyone answered??

It was quiet on the steps, the traffic noise from the road seemed to have died down. A haze like a mirage floated in the air. She stood for a moment taking this in. Realising how steep the steps were. How flimsy the handrail. She knocked……

Ancient stares

Posted on March 20, 2019March 20, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Ancient, Creative writing, Environment, Life, Memories, Short story, Spirits, Very short storyLeave a comment

FB_IMG_1553040956949

The ancients, they look on through time. They see the world now and remember what it was like then. They are in the gargoyles, in statues, in faces in stone. They are hidden where they could find space. They may be thousands of years old but they do not last forever. As age wears them the ancient spirit wears away too. Look at that old stone head on the corner of the wall. It’s spirit is washing away with every bit of grit the rain wears away. See that old stone face on the plinth? Hands rub its bald head and gradually it dwindles.

Ancient memories dwindle too. Now there are moments of sunshine seen six hundred years ago which will not last much longer. There a remembrance of a lost husband or wife that was once strong but now veiled. Ancients seeing the world now are amazed at the destruction and damage. Trees that they have lived with cur down in an instant. Buildings they became part of ripped apart and turned to rubble.

Now the ancients share with younger spirits. To be a homeless ancient is to gradually disperse into the air and blow away on the wind. Long forgotten, never to be seen again.

The Beatles

Posted on March 16, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Documentary, Help, Life, Memories, Music, The beatles, TV6 Comments

_20190316_223035

I was bought up in the 1960s so although I was there I don’t remember a lot about the Beatles – I was too young.

But even now after over 50 years if a Beatles song comes on the radio or TV I can pretty much sing along with the lyrics.

I remember hearing them, some of my favourites are:

Love me do

Help

Can’t buy me love

Hey Jude

Eight days a week

There are others but I’m useless at remembering names of songs!

I loved their harmony, I loved their funny ways, I loved their experimental music as they evolved.

I’m just watching the Ron Howard documentary about them and it’s bringing a few memories back but as I say because I was a child I missed anything about them on late night TV so I’m learning a lot from the documentary.

A lesson

Posted on March 7, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Creative writing, Learning, Life, Memories, School, Sci fi, Short story, Teaching, Very short storyLeave a comment

DSC_0569_optimized

The old school walls were damp and the paint was peeling off them. There were holes where ceiling tiles had fallen down and sunshine had broken through the roof.

She walked between discarded chairs, the tables were stacked against the walls. At the front of the classroom stood one of those rotating chalkboards. Grey with layers of chalk.

She reached out and pulled on the join between the boards but the thing was jammed up, no movement.

She remembered the first day she had taught here. Registration followed by the history of the celts. Teaching about Boudicca and the ancient Britons.

Nowadays children didn’t come to school. They were all home schooled, isolated, plugged in. Teaching was easy. Link to the local computer by an imput in the cranium. Download all the information, sit in a chair and learn the curriculum.

She remembered the sweet feeling of imparting knowledge The look of wonder when a pupil understood a new concept. Ideas flying from lips to ears to brains.

No more, no enthusiasm, just imput, data, no fun.

She sighed, closed the door to the classroom. She walked home.

Then I forgot

Posted on March 2, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Dreaming, Forgetting, Life, Memories, Memory, Park, Short story, Very short storyLeave a comment

sketch-1551559065377

I don’t remember anything after Saturday afternoon?

Who are you?

Where am I?

So many questions, I remember going to the park for a walk, I can see in my minds eye the youth on a motorbike, then I forget…. Its gone.

Who are you? A nurse? Who are they? My parents…..?

What did I do to get here?

Hello, yes I feel OK, just taking my pulse? My blood pressure….

Yes so you are my doctor?

There was a boy on a motorbike, I can see him in my minds eye. Where was that?

I need to sleep. Dreaming, remembering, she sees the park, the ducks running for the bread she was feeding them. The motorbike comes through the park gate, along the path, speeding, roaring. Breaks and skids to avoid the ducks and hits her hard….

Waking, the memory fades, she sees time reverse, only now she’s further down the path. The ducks are still on the lake. The sun is shining on her face. Heat. Her face is hot…..

Who am I?

Why am I here? I remembered, but then I forgot.

I keep forgetting my phone.

Posted on February 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Camera, Life, Memories, Mobile, Phone, Poem, PoetryLeave a comment

IMG_20190105_180618_043

I did it again today,

Forgot my phone.

I didn’t have it with me

I’d put it down..

Somewhere…

My mind was elsewhere

Just not here.

So I put it down

And forgot….

That phone has a camera

A way of seeing

And recording my life…

To add to an album

Of happiness or horror.

But without my phone

I am no one

Only memories to remember…….

Card illustrations

Posted on February 3, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic, acrylic and pen on card, Art, Cards, Craft, Fun, Life, making, Memories, Painting2 Comments

I did these cards about a year ago. I had taken photos in a friends house because she wanted some home made cards.

If you would like to do something similar all you need I’d a thin black ink pen and acrylic paints thinned down to watercolour consistency. They work as well as watercolours and it saves having to find them out from whatever cupboard I’ve got them in!

I basically drew outlines then filled them in with the paints.

I’ve only done a few more of these. Maybe I will paint more in future.

Baintree and Bocking station.

Posted on January 29, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Childhood memories, Design, Jinty, Life, Memories, Miniature railway, Railway, Toy trains, Track plan10 Comments

2019-01-29 18.08.31

This is a drawing of a railway line plan my husband drew in 1969 when he was about 16. He has always loved railways and was on the last steam train to leave Manchester Victoria station to Rochdale in 1968. He tells me this was a Stanier black 5 steam engine 460 (which means 4 leading wheels, 6 driving wheels and no trailing wheels).

He actually made the minature railway layout , including bushes and trees, a signal box and a station building and railway tracks on Triang 00 guage.

He had a Jinty 060 number 47606 3F class, an 040 diesel and a GWR single, Lord of the Isles. I guess any railway enthusiasts out there will understand this, but others won’t.

A Jinty was a nickname for a particular type of engine that did shunting, banking, pilot duties and local freight. This was a small type of engine which had a short wheelbase and could get round curves easily. It was designed by Sir John Fowler.

47606 is just its running number which identifies it. 3F means its power classification (3 freight).

040 diesel is a small dock shunter used by the sea or rivers to carry freight from ships.

A GWR single has a 422 wheel configuration. It’s classed as XP, (express) and could travel at 80 Miles an hour. It could pull up to 400 tons of passanger coaches ( 6 coaches including the guard’s van).

He has so much knowledge but its locked up in his mind. when I asked him it all came out, how do people learn all this stuff!?

Digital patterns

Posted on January 27, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blog, Blogging, Design, Digital art, Drawing, Humour, Life, Memories, Reflections, WorkLeave a comment

fb_img_1548377660736

I’m a sucker for patterns. If I can’t think of any other art to do I will draw a pattern on my phone or tablet then play with it.

I do wonder where my ideas come from. I must be very visual. I never feel comfortable unless I’ve got something to look at. Minimalism is not for me.

I once had to live in a student residence while I was on placement somewhere. I had a room with a bed and a desk and chair. Blank walls. That dingey pale grey /blue /green that public buildings are painted. One kitchen between about 16 rooms and a toilet and shower block.

No home comforts and it was the start of November and I was based there for a months placement. I could only come home at weekends.

I went out and bought a couple of sheets of wrapping paper. A newspaper, a party bag made out of holographic shiny metallic paper. Also a few postcards and a sketch book.

By the end of the day I had 42 (honestly) pictures, photos, patterned paper, the beautiful wrapping paper all stuck up on the walls .. Then I felt much better… Its my visual brain you see…..

Clouds in Wales

Posted on January 15, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Ancestors, Family, Life, Memories, Mine, Poem, Poetry, Steel, WalesLeave a comment

fb_img_1547595767731 fb_img_1547595741311

Bars of clouds ascend on high.

Coloured lights paint the sky

How I wish I could return,

to that land of woods and fern.

Mountains high

and valleys deep,

Singers from the Mines and Steel.

Workers with their hands and feet

Love their land through wake and sleep.

I can only look from far

Wishing always to be there.

Welsh by ancestors alone,

Looking cross the border land

Perhaps one day I will lie

Between the earth and cloud barred sky.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Memories