Middleport pottery

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

A working pottery at Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent, England. It also includes a museum, with lots of industrial archeology. They sell various tableware in the pottery shop, there is a large selection of patterns for sale. There is a good cafe that overlooks the Trent and Mersey canal. There are small studios for artists and potteries, and a row of shops opposite the entrance to the pottery with small galleries and crafts for sale.

There is also a handsome bottle oven facing the canal that was covered in bright red ceramic poppies to commemorate Rememberence day a few years ago. You only have to pay to go round the museum section. Tucked towards the far end of the site is a working steam engine which runs at various times. I’m not sure exactly when? Worth taking the time to visit if you can find it (it’s tucked down some narrow side streets.

It also hold pottery classes and was also used for the great pottery throw down a few years ago to before it moved to the Gladstone pottery in Longton.

Kaleidiscope

I bought a kaleidiscope as a Christmas gift today, it will be part of a few gifts for a young relative. I had one as a child and I used toove the patterns it made so I aways looking for a similar type.

I’ve duplicated one photo I took through the viewing end because it was hard to line up the pattern with the lens of my camera, it gives a reasonable example of how it looks.

War Horse

I’ve just watched the film Warhorse, directed by Steven Speilberg. It’s the story of a part thoroughbred  foal that is bought by a farmer who’s rivalry with his landlord causes him to buy the young horse for more than he can afford.

The farmers son trains the horse to pull a plough and work around the farm. But his father sells it to help save the farm.

The horse, Joey, is transported to France where it becomes part of the British Army and fights in the first world war. In the meantime the farmers son Albie joins up and goes to France to search for his friend. The story has a series of incidents where awful things happen to the boy and Joey. Will they find each other? I won’t say!

The story was originally on in the theatre, the horse and other animals were puppets, the main horse was supported and moved by two men and was made of a lattice work of plastic? strips that gave the impression of a horse.

It’s an excellent story and both theatre production and film brought tears to my eyes.

Art

What was your favorite subject in school?

I’ve loved art since I was a child. In fact, at school I would finish paintings ahead of everyone else in my class. One day I painted the wooden bit of my pencils to match the coloured part of them. I actually got in trouble for doing that. But I was bored. I got sent to see the headmaster (I was about 7),but ran into the cloakroom and hid. I was fetched back to class in tears and very upset. So much so my class thought I’d been smacked for painting the pencils! I was too upset to tell them what had really happened. I still loved art though!

Looking out for him.

An old digital drawing from about 7 years ago.

I used to like singing “blow the wind southerly” and actually got to sing it in a pantomime a few years ago. We were pretending to be in a singing competition and I tried to sound like Catherine Ferrier?

It’s about a woman waiting for her lover to come back to her from across the sea. It’s very old fashioned but lovely and it’s a contralto piece that suits my rather deep voice. Anyway I did this digital drawing after being inspired by the song. X

Time to sort things out

Do you need time?

Yes I need time

Health, life, memory, stuff.

I need to have time to learn about aspects of my health. I’m gradually finding things out that I never knew. I need to listen to experts and scientific fact and find out how I can support myself.

My life needs organising, the last year has been horrendous. Lots of stressors and worries. Trying to sort out paperwork and filling in so many forms. I keep finding things I should have done.

Memories are fading of my soul mate. I long to hear his voice. To hear a recording of him would be good. But seeing photos can cut too deep. Maybe I need more time to come to terms with what’s happened.

Stuff? That’s the pile of stuff that’s in front of me, things that need organising, removing or storing. All that takes time, which is what I need!

World climate day

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

There may already be one?

A day to celebrate the Earth, a day to spend thinking about how to improve and support the world. Trying to clean the rivers and seas, reducing pollution, supporting poorer countries so the world uses greener and safer technologies. Actually caring about the land under our feet. Working out how to capture carbon and start to reduce gobal temperature surges. Hoping that the richest people get involved too.

Why? Because it’s needed, it could be the most important holiday that we ever create.

Doodles on my easle

I do have a propensity to draw or paint on anything. So this happened a while ago. I also painted a large ammonite on the dining table that was losing it’s varnish. I painted it and then revarnished it. The ammonite was one we found on a beach near Whitby. The actual fossil is up on top of a bookcase, out of my reach.

Why the eye and the face with the streaming hair? Just a couple of things I’ve doodled over the years.

Kitchen cupboard

Just saw this on Facebook, from the 60s or 70s.

We had a pale green cupboard, I think the same sort?  I remember the crinkly glass in the windows. We also had a cool pantry room, I don’t remember a fridge. I’m sure I remember my Mum stuck marble patterned plastic on the cupboard to make it look better. I’m not sure it did? I think it was sticky back plastic vinyl that she used? I may be wrong. We also had a boiler and mangle and a free standing top loading spin dryer, the water collected in a bowl below it’s nozzle. It dried better than my washing machine now.

We didn’t have fitted kitchens then.

The Moon landing

What historical event fascinates you the most?

It’s fantastic that in my childhood men landed on the moon, not once but several times. Using computers that barely had the memory of a pocket calculator.

The race for space started after the second world war, when Wernher Von Braun went from Germany to America to continue research into rocketry. In the meantime Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and his Russian team were working on the problem in the USSR.

The teams gradually designed rockets that could travel into space. There are many books about the space race that are worth reading, telling the tale of the triumphs and tragedies that happened as the race continued. First one country took the lead then the other.

It all culminated one July day in 1969, I remember being bought downstairs to watch the landing. I hope to see people go back there.