New paintings and regular art updates.
Waiting for the night to turn to light,
For my breath to calm,
For the rushing noise in my ear to stop.
Anything to keep me from harm.
Let me sleep through nights eternal flight,
Let me sleep and miss the noisy road.
My lids are heavy, I start to nod
Leave earth in dreamland
But then I thud
Back into reality
Wide awake
Pull into alarmed wariness
By a noise in my head.
A lovely clear night,
Moonlight and dusk
My husband shouts bat!
I look out and see..
Nothing….
Clear sky..
White moon,
Silhouetted trees.
He shouts
It’s darting and flitting.
I look again
Nothing.. No bat!
So I drew one!
Fly me to the moon was Stella’s favourite song. She’d heard it as a child and whenever she saw the moon she would either sing that, or sometimes twinkle twinkle little star.
It was 3am and the moon was a half circle, flying high, dancing in and out of broken clouds. A few moonbeams made it into the kitchen as she switched on the kettle and waited for it to boil. She was careful to pour the liquid into her coffee mug. In the dim light she didn’t want to spill it onto her toes.
There was a flash, she looked around and saw, nothing. The world looked the same.
There was another bright flash. This time she was a meteor streaking across the sky. Far brighter than a normal shooting star. And there was another. These are fireballs, she thought. They must be high up. The shadows they cast shot across the kitchen rapidly. One particular one was so bright she thought it was going to hit the house. It made the windows rattle.
Then it just stopped. She waited minutes for another one. Nothing. No sound, no wind, no huge explosion. What had they been? In the morning none of her neighbours had heard or seen anything. She went to work, came home, made a coffee.
Turning on the six o’clock news.
“seven space vehicles have landed near Washington” “no response from them” “civilians are warned to keep away”.
She wondered what would happen next?
My heart is thudding in my chest. I just heard something outside and now I don’t want to go to bed!
I put our empty milk bottles outside near the bins. They in turn are pushed up near the gate at the side of our house. The bottles are glass and they are out of the way so you can’t see them at night. About 10 minutes ago I heard one get knocked over. Then the shadow of a figure walked past the glass in the front door. I’d got the living room light switched off as I was preparing to go to bed.
We had my husbands motorbike taken a year ago although we got it back. We also had a bicycle stolen a couple of months ago. This has bought all those memories flooding back.
After a couple of minutes I turned on the living room light and looked out the door up the hill. I saw the figure of someone in a white hoody wandering slowly up the hill. What bothered me was he turned round and looked back. He was too far away to see features – about 100 yards so I doubt he could see much of me. But I’m in a dilemma. I’m tired out because I’m ill. On the other hand I want to stay awake a while longer in case he comes back. Logic tells me this is unlikely because he knocked over the bottle and secondly because I now have the light on and I looked out at him…. .
I hope he feels as spooked as I do! I have turned the radio off so I can hear any other sounds. We are having a ground anchor fitted for the motorbike and getting a heavy duty shed to store the bikes so hopefully that will deter people in future. A lot of these things are not planned but are done by opportunists . But I’m not going to bed yet!
Update: decided to ring the police. They will get someone to keep an eye out for him if they are in the area.
I had walked into my bedroom and seen the shadowy figure of my partner sitting in a chair by the window. I tried to see his face but the full moon in the window behind him cast darkness across his face.
“What’s up with the lights?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
“I took out the bulbs” he replied..
That was something I had not thought of. “Why?”
“I need the dark” was all he would say.
I felt the chill air seeping into my body, something was wrong with the heating, it had been playing up before I went out to choir practice. Now it was as cold inside as it had been out in the night.
“It’s cold” I said simply. “Do you want a coffee?”
“No”
I was getting worried and scared, Henri was usually a happy, talkative man. His manner now was just not like him.
“I’m going downstairs” I said,
“No” again..
“Well this is stupid” I started to edge towards the door.
Then he opened his eyes….they were glowing gold….
I ran. Down the stairs, tripping and falling but catching the bannister I managed to halt myself. I felt a bone crack in one of my fingers, but I found I felt no pain, I just wanted to get out. Get back in the car, get away……
(To be continued…..?)
No, this is a blurry picture of Venus, the Moon and Jupiter. Somewhere nearby was also Mars.
This was the view looking East from our house about 6am this morning.
You can’t see it but the sky was crystal clear and the planets and moon were twinkling behind the tree branches. My camera phone is good in low light levels but it has over exposed this. Add my hand shaking and it is not very clear. However it might make for an interesting painting.
There are various astronomy sites where you can find information about conjunctions if planets. I like the sky at night on the BBC. Also I have spaceweather.com on my mobile so I can see things like comets, auroras and near earth asteroids.
Our little solar system is tiny compared with the Galaxy and then the universe, but its quite an interesting place even so.
The pile of books on the bookcase in our bedroom is growing larger. Books to read before I go to sleep at night. Real books not on an ereader.
Pratchett, Herriot, Cornwell, Stewart, all books I have read and need to move so I can read something new. I recently found my thesis on pre Christian celtic art. I wanted to take it downstairs but I forgot so it’s on the pile. Plus photos from years ago, on the top of the bookcase and on the wall. Real photos printed on paper. I have lots of albums of them on top of a wardrobe, which is like a closet but is made of wood with doors.
The elephant in the room is my cpap machine. It’s an air pump that pumps air through a face mask at slightly higher pressure than normal. I wear it at night to keep my airway open. It forces air through my mouth and nose so my airway doesn’t collapse and stop me from breathing. When you are asleep you don’t have control of your muscles and they can become slack and collapse at the back of your throat. Hence the machine.
OK so I’m not that old. It’s just this paraphenalia that makes me Feel old. But I guess I’m lucky. I was diagnosed Now all I do is read a book till I’m sleepy to take my mind off the mask.
