New paintings and regular art updates.
How do you waste the most time every day?
Too much stuff to see
Glance, read, what was that?
View, like, heart,
Glance, worry, comment.
Distracting dopamine
Images, words, notes,
Got to stop, put it down
Doomscrolling
Not a good way of looking
At the world…
Marigold? I’m not sure. Taken 14 years ago, came up on Facebook memories. The brilliant orange makes me want to eat fruit! I think there’s a tiny bee or wasp sitting in it. I think it was taken on a digital camera not on my phone. Not bad memory. I can even remember my friends garden where the photo was taken.
I’m playing an Imp in the Penkhull Mystery Play, I have one line (and a few more as the narrator). It’s not obvious I’m an Imp, I just have to shout out “my name is Jakobah” , push a rock across a cave mouth. Then shout “goodbye”. There were more lines but they were cut because the play was originally one and a half hours long so it had to be edited. Maybe this is another case of measure twice, cut once! Anyway I hope to do so some more painting later x
Describe one of your favorite moments.
One of my favourite moments is collecting my hanging baskets from a local nursery. Today (yesterday now) I did that. It was my birthday treat. I ordered 6 this year instead of 8 so I bought some extra plants for the walls and ground. I was really pleased with them. Luckily my sister was over for a visit so she helped me hang them. And that was a favourite moment.
On the 5th of June 1925 City status was bestowed on Stoke-on-Trent. So today we celebrated it’s Centenary.
A few years before on 31st of March 1910 it’s six towns of Longton, Burslem, Hanley, Fenton, Tunstall and Stoke-upon-Trent joined to gather to become the County Borough of Stoke-on-Trent.
Notable for living in the city were Oliver Lodge, inventor of the spark plug. Josiah Wedgwood inventor of different types of fine pottery. HG Wells lived here for a while in 1888. And Arnold Bennett, the author of the five towns novels wrote many books about the area.
On 5th July 2025 our area of Penkhull will be putting on a Mystery Play about a reimagined story of how the six towns were named.
Happy anniversary Stoke-on-Trent.
I’m not OK this afternoon. A bit shook up. I saw someone climbing up my garden gate through my side window, so I decided to confront them. I’m afraid I swore at them very loudly (along the lines of “What the EFF do you think you’re doing?” ). Then I realised it was a couple of teenage boys from the local school. They were shocked and so was I. They explained they were trying to get some of my white lilac for their mums which is about 8 foot up off the ground. I told them they should have asked permission. I explain it shook me up because we were burgled 18 months ago and caught burglars climbing over the gate… I still feel rough (high. BP). I let them get some flowers as I was also shocked by shouting at them! They were OK about the shouting and apologised to me.
Hubby played a prophet in one of the Mystery Plays a few years ago. It was outside but his big booming voice could be heard by the audience sitting on the green. He could project his voice over the traffic noise. If he had been bought up in a more middle class environment I’m sure he would have been an actor. But mental health meant he struggled to remember all his words. We also did the local amateur panto together. He got a pretend Oscar one year for most enthusiastic entrance (or something like that). He was a marvellous, memorable man.
80 years ago, on the 8th of May 1945, Hitler was defeated in the second world war. But that was only in Europe, the war actually ended on 2nd September of the same year when Japan surrendered.
It’s significant that it is the 80th year as it is probably the last time that many veterans from the war will be able to celebrate it because if they were 21 (start of adulthood) when they joined up they would be 101 or older now.
Memories fade but this is a way to remember the joy of the ending of the conflict, although not for everyone. We should remember those that were injured or wounded, either in the military or civilian. Those that were made homeless or those that lost relatives and friends. I’m glad and sad in equal measure.
I saw my painting of you
And cried
I look at photos
And weep
43 years together
Now lost
How can I say goodbye
When our hearts are still entwined
Wrapped up together
Through sun and rain
Long memories
Still holding hands
In my mind.
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
When I eventually found out a so called friend had tried to have an affair with my hubby I was shocked. My hubby told me about it because we had had an argument about the way she spoke about him ( clearly because he had rejected her).
It took a while to sink in, and we broke off the friendship after that. But the signs had been there before. She was always round our house when I was at work, ostensibly because she had commuted back on the train and called at our house on the way home for a rest (she would walk back from the station). Often I would give her a lift from our house, and we would chat. She kept saying that she was not a good person, but I reassured her. Now I think about it she was probably trying to confess about her behaviour.
When hubby died a couple of years later she rang me up and asked if we could be friends again! I don’t know if she was aware of my hubby telling me what she had tried to do. But I could not bare to say anything and just hung the phone up on her!
Mallaband-Brown