By the sea
Sand soft beneath my feet,
Tide rising, toes tickled by waves.
Starfish paddle with their little feet
Whelks and cockles burrow
Warm splash of water
Buckets and spades
Time to build a sandcastle for me and you.
I wish I was
Tag: Memory
Scenery
So tired,
A day full of painting ad singing, I was helping with the Molly Leigh project at BArts. I offered to paint a picture for a wall in the witches cottage, I ended up painting a fireplace too. I only did the morning as I wanted to join the choir and to be honest I was so stiff and tired after I’d been painting I almost fell asleep in my chair!
Progress
This is hard work, I don’t shake as much when I’m concentrating but the tremors of Parkinsons make small details difficult. I try and hold my breath and clamp my arm against my body. In fact I’m having to redo sections because I’m not happy with the results, but I will persevere, memory of Molly, work in progress. Acrylic on canvas. Copy of a mural I did at the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. Difficult to reproduce the same feeling.
In memory
I saw a prompt on Esther Chilton’s page “dreams” and decided to write a poem about loss to respond to it. Here it is.
In my dreams you are still here
I grasp your hand to pull you near
To say “goodnight” to you my sweet,
As my heart trips and skips a beat,
To have you here, to hear you speak,
That is the dream I really seek.
I know that you have gone away,
Will never see another day.
I’m in a dream now, holding on
To memories of you though you’ve gone.
Stall 2019?
A photo of me taken by a friend when I was trying to sell small paintings at craft fairs. I’m afraid covid really knocked the head on this, I’ve only done a few small craft fairs since this and basically just one or two in 2023. The cost of hiring a stall usually cancelled out any sales money and also the cost of buying art supplies made the idea non viable. But I tried and I made some nice friends.
Steam punk portrait
Going through my art trying to find images with sunlight in them. I came across the this semi abstract portrait of a Steam Punk. It’s from a photo I took at The Etruria Canal Festival either last year or the year before?
I like experimenting, especially since my arm shakes, so I can integrate that into the paintings, or try something even more different if I want?
My friends photo
I was out with my friend and wanted to take some photos of the birds in an aviary, but my phone camera was playing up. My friend sent me a few of her pictures. I like this photo she took of a pheasant? Mostly I like the composition, it reminds me of a Mondrian painting and although the bird is not square or oblong shaped the red black and white add a pop of interest in response to the more muted colours in the background.
Taken when we were having tea and scones at the Brampton museum and art gallery in Newcastle under Lyme a couple of weeks ago.
Sunlight over bluebells, a year ago
An innocent day, a year ago. We were out at a Rode Hall, walking through the bluebell woods. No sign of the troubles ahead.
I wish I could hold the hand I held for 43 years, so firm and strong, walking into sunlight with you. Taking each step carefully along the path. You leading the way, supporting me.
I heard the birds singing and felt a gentle breeze that shook the bluebell heads. Nodding in the dappled shade. All ready for some fairy parade when we were gone.
I drew this later from a photo, I wish I could go back in time.
Gobbledegook
Confused, muddled, incoherent. Gobbledegook.
Like double-dutch it’s a word that tries to describe the kind of word salad some people talk rather than a measured and clear explanation.
If you have ever seen “Sir Humphrey”, the political private secretary in “Yes, Minister”, and “Yes, Prime Minister”, the BBC series from the 1980s and 90s, you will know he would used gobbledegook or flimflam (another lovely word) to blag his way through telling the Minister important information without telling him clearly. It’s in this case a method of obfuscation, using a long tangle of incomprehensible words that is sneaky and makes the story he is trying to tell virtually impossible to understand.
It’s an informal noun and according to Google it is defined as :
language that is meaningless or is made unintelligible by excessive use of technical terms.
“reams of financial gobbledygook”
I hope you enjoyed this word!
Yes!
Do you vote in political elections?
I’ve voted in every election I could. The first time I voted following my families choice, I was young and I hadn’t really thought through my voting intentions, we had always voted one way so I followed suit.
Then I left home, my situation changed. Many conversations followed and I realised I no longer agreed with my family. Much to their surprise I changed allegance. Why? The reality of life was not as I’d imagined it as a child.
I think the important thing to do when voting is to really consider what’s on offer, not just to you, but to your neighbours and friends. Bad policies should not be selected. That means any party that is not bothered about the needs of the population should be discarded. Perhaps we could have more accurate measurement of whether parties have kept their promises?
As a woman I’m proud to vote. I remember all the women 100 years ago who fought for women’s suffrage. If you can find the song on the Internet have a listen to the song “Nana was a Sufferagette”. I think it gives a good idea of how I feel.
Mallaband-Brown 