Four years ago

Posted on January 17, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Bacon, brown sauce, Cheese, delicious, Food, Memories, Oatcake, Ode to the Oatcake, TastyLeave a comment

According to Facebook memories four years ago I was feeling rough so my dear hubby went out and got me a cheese and bacon oatcake. It doest look appetising but with cooked bacon and mature cheddar with a hint of brown sauce, the Oatcake was folded in half, hot and tasty.

We used to have the occasional oatcake over the months, it’s a local delicacy. As the artist, author and poet Arthur Berry wrote :

Ode to the Oatcake: 1980

Let us pay homage to the Oatcake.
Or Otcake or woodcake as the old men called them.
The Oatcake is not a cake at all really.
Not like the fairy cake or the Eccles cake.
Not a cake in that way.
More of a Potteries Popadum [sic]
A sort of Tunstall Tortilla.
A Clay Suzzette.

Hubbys tricycle

Posted on January 14, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Antique, Bike, Conversion, For sale, Fun, Memories, new wheels, restored, Tricycle, TrikeLeave a comment

I need to move on. I’m not going to ride this and I’m not sure if anyone will buy it. It’s a trike conversion. The back wheels and stays are bolted onto a bike frame so it can be adjusted to different sizes. We refurbished it, adding new wheels in 2022. A friend has stored it for me for over a year but it’s not fair to expect him to keep it.

So with regret I will try and sell it. If anyone here is interested I’m in the North Midlands of the UK. I’m willing to sell for a fair price.

Nursery rhymes remembered

Posted on January 13, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Childhood, Manchester, Memories, Nursery rhymes, nutmeg, Opie, Pear, Poem, Poetry, Salford, seesaw, Songs, TimeLeave a comment

I had a little nut tree

Nothing would it bear

But a silver nutmeg

And a golden pear

The king of Spains daughter

Came to visit me

And all for the sake

Of my little nut tree.

Funny how your mind looks for something interesting when it’s got nothing to do. I used to know a lot of nursery rhymes when I was a little child. This one I would say is well known? But who knows this one that I used to sing when I was on a seesaw.

Seesaw, Marjorie Daw

Jenny shall have a new master,

She shall have but a penny a day

Because she can’t work any faster!

I want to try and remember more. A couple in Manchester or Salford? Collected a lot of rhymes and children’s songs in the early 1900s. I think their surname was Opie. I’m sure there’s more information about it on line. They found that a rhyme sung in the south of England could travel to the North of Scotland in about two weeks by word of mouth (pre telephone).

Tree across the road

Posted on January 11, 2025 Posted in Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Colour, Drawing, Green, Life, Memories, Over the road, Sketching, TreeLeave a comment

The tree across the road a few years ago. Covered in ivy. This was drawn for an old #bandofsketchers prompt. The prompt was ivy.

I haven’t been doing these challenges for a few months. I think I ought to try again. It seems a shame that I stopped but life has been getting me down. Art is a great cure for sadness I think. I’ll try again soon.

Political views

Posted on December 28, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged allegencies, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2166, Family, Life, Memories, Politics, Priorities, ThinkingLeave a comment

How have your political views changed over time?

When I was young I voted one way, the same as the rest of my family. I was very young and influenced by their long term beliefs.

When I left home I moved into shared accommodation, I realised I had been living in a bubble at home, I hadn’t had the responsibility of paying bills before, or other things to deal with, like not having hot water and having to shower at the college. I met different people and they had different political views. Over the years I changed my priorities and my political allegencies.

All I would say is that it’s good to think for yourself, look at how life is and make a decision that is good for you, and the people around you.

Lightshade

Posted on December 28, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Fine Art, Gallery, Lampshade, Life, Memories, Painting, ThinkingLeave a comment

Yes it’s a lampshade. Made up mainly fake bivalve shells. Yet another odd old thing my house is decorated with. I often wonder what will happen to my stuff when I’m gone? Do I specify that all my art (lots of paintings) will be shared out to family, donated to a local museum, my old school? Maybe someone will like it enough to buy it if it were sold in an auction? Is it persuasive enough for people to like? I won’t be there to find out.

I don’t know

Posted on December 23, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2161, Decades, Life, lost ideas, Memories, Nostalgia, Poem, Poetry, simple thingsLeave a comment

Share what you know about the year you were born.

I was born on a beautiful planet

A long time ago.

We hadn’t visited the moon

And Superman hadn’t flown.

The world was overpopulated

With a few billion less people

No such thing as a Tesla existed

But we were not bothered.

Shops mainly closed on Sundays

And had half days in the week.

Butchers shops had sawdust

My head was a lot closer to the ground!

No mobile phones, lucky to have a phone box

Wimpy meals instead of McDonald’s burgers

Coffee was in a bottle, liquid, with chicory?

Sweets had not shrunk.

No sweeteners, no noodles, except in Vesta meals

We hadn’t been decimalised!

We were not in Europe (common market).

And Dr Who hadn’t time travelled yet.

Enough information?

Sometimes

Posted on December 22, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Character, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2160, Hubby, Judgement, Life, Memories, Thinking, TimeLeave a comment

Are you a good judge of character?

What’s on the inside isn’t the same as the outside. You might think one thing about a person based on their physical appearance only to find they are completely different to what you expect.

I’d say mostly that I’m a good judge of character. I’ve met many people over my career and my home life, and mostly it’s been OK. But not always, on a couple of occasions I had to give up on friends who tried to split me and my hubby up, I found out one was saying things about me to needle my hubby into leaving me. I realised that the language he was using was in her way of speaking. It was her attitudes that he was spouting. When we talked it through he thankfully understood that. The second situation was a woman that tried to have an affair with him. She was always calling round when I was out. He told me what she was up to, and we ended the friendship.

Other people have fooled me at work, but you cotton on eventually. It can cause heartache when you mistakenly trust people. But you have to live and learn.

Isolated

Posted on December 22, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Anxiety, coach trip, Coast, Covid, Group, Hubby, Isolation, Life, Memories, Thinking, WalesLeave a comment

When Covid happened I got used to living in my bubble with my hubby and my cats. I never really came out of that isolation. We were both travelling less and as we both started to suffer with various ailments we often didn’t feel like visiting people or travelling far. I saw friends, but not very often.

Then when I lost my hubby last December, and I had various health issues I virtually stopped going anywhere except to the shops, appointments or the choirs I am in. My one day away this year was a coach trip with a group I am in to the Welsh coast to visit a relative. I was there for 5 or 6 hours then caught the coach home. I’ve found I cannot drive there on my own. I was too used to having my hubby with me as a passenger and I didn’t realise how much I relied on him as a support (and I was supporting him). Nerves and anxiety and illness seem to stop me.

Now I don’t like to bother people, so I try not to ask for help. I stay inside as much as I can, curtains closed, door locked, just occasionally going to the shops when I have run out of most things. I find big supermarkets overwhelming and go round them in the evenings when they are quiet. I know I need to break out, I’m to comfortable with the isolation, but I’m sure it’s not good for me. Plus I miss appointments because of anxiety. I need to pull myself together.. But my curtains remain closed!

Canada geese mural

Posted on December 15, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged Art, Canada geese, Design, Five years ago, Lake, Life, Memories, mural painting, Reeds, Water, Water fowlLeave a comment

From about 5 years ago, a mural I painted in a friends downstairs cloakroom. I remember it took me several days and I was driving home quite a distance each evening. I wish I could still do this sort of thing. I’d previously done murals for my friends in their old house. They included the words life, love, laugh in their living room, Mr incredible, batman, superman and spiderman in their sons bedroom and a Laura Ashley floral pattern blown up and painted in pale green on their bathroom wall. I’m glad the geese turned up on my Facebook memories, it reminded me of all the lovely things I painted for my friends.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Memories