Memory of devon

I once swam with a wild dolphin, we’d been driving round Devon and came back to the seaside to find a crowd of people on the beach and a group in wetsuits about fifty yards out. They were all excited and we saw a pod of dolphins swimming away. But one stayed in the bay. I decided I would swim out a bit and got in the sea fully clothed minus my shoes and glasses. My hubby stayed on the beach. The dolphin swam backwards and forwards between the two groups of people. Because I was in the middle he ket swimming close to me. It was fascinating. He kept coming past me and I noticed large wounds on his sides. It was after half an hour of being near him that I saw he was male! I can only say that it was quite alarming and not at all spiritual!. The next day there was a sign up about him at the camp site. He was called Georges and he was an adolescent male. His scars were because he would get too close to boat propelers. It also said not to breathe near them as they can transmit airborne diseases from their blowholes.

When I got home I did an imagined portrait of him but unfortunately the painting is at my sisters otherwise I would share a photo of him leaping through the waves. X

Wordless cartoon

I can’t remember the story behind this or whether there was a prompt. I drew it last year. I had to draw something with four panels for my college course. It starts with someone by a campfire. The fire goes out so they go to get more wood, But instead of it all being sticks, a snake, which had been asleep wakes up. I like the simple style I drew it in and the minimal images in it. But now I look back at it I worry that the snake would have been burned or might have woken up before being put on the embers. Even with a simple story you have to be aware of consequences!

How lucky

How lucky to have glasses, to be able to see. I didn’t always wear glasses. My poor eyesight was only picked up in eye screening at school. I don’t remember things being blurred or hard to see. Did I sit at the front of the class? I don’t know. I remember my first glasses. They had beautiful blue frames. I learnt to be patient as the optician looked into the back of my eyes. Shining a light so I could see the blood vessels reflected somehow onto my retinas.

Rugby ball shaped eyes were the diagnosis. Short sighted. Suddenly I could see the world clearly. I felt freed from a struggle I did not know I had been going through. I only realised how bad my eyesight was when I learnt to swim. I couldn’t wear my glasses in the swimming pool and I could not recognise my friends unless they came close.

Now I understand why I got lost on a beach a few years before! I could not see my family when I wandered off. And why I got lost on a caravan site. I could not see the numbers on the vans…. Yes I am lucky. I wish others could be too…

Two hours to go

Not really clock watching, but the neighbours just let off a lot of very loud fireworks and it’s nowhere near midnight yet! Two of the cats were out. One ran in, tail all fluffed up, but the other (big) one is still out! I shouted a few times but he didn’t come in. Hubby went looking, no sign. I just hope he wsdnt too scared. Did I say they were loud? About twenty rockets, one after another. I wish people would consider pets. And if they are going to let them off choose quiet ones. I still remember being at my mom’s house one new years eve. Some fireworks went off and we looked out of the front door… Suddenly a Robin flew in and upstairs! It would not go out until the fireworks stopped!

Painting from college

This is a painting I did when I was about twenty. I was at college doing my fine art degree and I had recently met my then boyfriend (now hubby). This was in my small studio at college. The painting has been on the wall for several years. I painted him sitting on a chair with his feet up. He hasn’t changed too much.

Outside there was snow lying on the hills above the city. You could just see the roofs of the college across the road. The rooms we worked in were reasonably light. I remember the studios upstairs had parquet flooring. It was a different world from what I came from. I’m glad I went.

Deleting photos again.

This was the neighbours leylandii trees a couple of years ago. I think I wrote a post about the shock of seeing them being chopped down. They were very big, taller than the neighbours house and right next to it, but I don’t think trees should go.

But then, my media files were over 98% full tonight. The tree photo and several more have had to go. And yet I’m preserving this here… But just to make the point. The blog post is still there. Its too much of a challenge to remove them.

So if you see posts without photos (almost all of them do have my own artwork), I apologise but I want to keep this going…

Midnight hour

As the last few minutes to midnight tick down I wish I was at a midnight service for Christmas. There isn’t one this year, and it makes me sad not to be able to go. It’s the carols that really get to me. I think Hark the Herald Angels sing is my favourite. I remember being in the school choir. I wasn’t very good, I think they used me for volume!

Stay safe this festive week, and kee well. No doubt I will add to this blog tomorrow… I don’t think it will be very exciting though!

Nostalgia

A Clarice Cliff pottery pattern that I painted as a mural in the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke on Trent. The design is called umbrellas. It’s one I would love to own.

Nostalgia is that warm feeling you get when you see or remember old or ancient images or things. I haven’t looked up the actual definition. But things like this, or even old TV shows like The original series of Star Trek, give me a warm fuzzy feeling. I know somehow I’m safe, like I have gone back in time, as a memory or a thing I learned about in the past.

I get the same thing with the James Stewart film It’s a wonderful life. I think nostalgia and being nostalgic must be good and calming for the mind. The equivalent of a mental sigh.

Picnic sketch

Oh to be able to go out in warm sunshine. To be able to sit on the ground (I can’t get up if I try and get down). This is a sketch I must have done a few years ago. The picnic blanket colours are probably made up to show up against the grass? The hands are a bit odd, but it is quite a speedy coloured pencil sketch so I guess that’s the cause. I think I was drawing on oil paint paper? It’s got quite a strong texture. You can see how the pencil has got gaps in it where there are dimples in the surface.

Nice memory, can I go back in time please?

A year ago

I wrote this poem on Facebook a year ago. The Wassail which would have been in January, had been cancelled so I wrote this poem. It might be cancelled again in January 2022.

Drink mulled cider

Dance and turn

beat the apple bough

Sing and burn

Fires to fight

And defeat the dark

Bring good fortune

To the bark.

Wassail the folk

Who sing in praise

A happy new year

And prosperity raise.

Remembered wassail

But not this time

Socially distanced

Won’t be the same.