Oh dear, this bench is falling apart
Sat on for years
Worn away
Crumbling and split,
No resort
But to buy new slats.
Cast iron still strong.
Hold together
And you will be new….
To be our support again.
Old bench
Tag: Random
Bike store
We have wanted a bike shelter for a while. There is not enough room in the shed for bikes and they have been scattered around the garden for months. They are covered up but as the weather deteriorates they will need a bit more cover so we have had this structure built. I’m hoping it will do the trick for the storage of the bikes. If not we might have to go bigger!
Tonight’s walk
Up the hill,
Legs stretched
Lungs, stretched
Looking back,
Catching my breath.
More to do,
Further to walk,
Down, then up.
Further each time.
Stopping less than before
Keeping going,
Surprised I can do it!
Exercised.
But why?
Two of the pages in a letter I just got had this printed on them: ‘this page has been left blank intentionally’.
Why? that’s two sides, a whole page left blank, but it isn’t blank is it? It has ink on it! And why not start a new section on the back of the page where this is written? I wonder how many thousands of pages are wasted. How many trees it would save? Make text 1 font size smaller. See how much that would save. And if the page is meant to be blank, leave it blank, to save ink!
Aunty socials piano keys?
Auntysocial.wordpress.com is asking for a design for her old piano keys, 88 of them, because she’s dismantled her old upright piano. The keys are black and white (over 100 year old ivory). There are photos on her page of what other people have done. I’ve tried to draw something after failing abysmally on a drawing app that let’s you draw circles but not spirals. Anyway this is wonky but I thought some wall art, a square shaped white panel, and with a spiral or two of keys on it, plus some musical notes painted on it. A bit random…. I don’t know.
Mini gingerbread man
Yes, it’s a mini gingerbread man. A treat with a cup of tea. Nice and spicy with a good snap. Dunked in to his knees first, then waist, and body, finally his head. Sorry gingerbread man, but you were very tasty. I might find room for another!
I know that far more elaborate ginger biscuits used to be made, for some reason I remember them being mediaeval? Maybe made in the Netherlands? Someone please let me know. I do know they are made in Market Drayton, in Shropshire. I can’t tell you more….
Distances
I like knowing things, so I thought I would look u some measurements.
The shortest distance on earth I could find was the thinnest section of the crust of the Earth which is only under the deep oceans and is mainly made up of iron bearing rock. That is about 5km.
But the thickness of the Earth’s crust varies between 5km and 70km, so the average would be about 35 kilometers. To give you an idea of how far that is, it’s approximately the same as Dover to Calais, which is 33.3km.
The distance from the Earth’s surface to space is 100 kilometers. Or three times the distance from Dover to Calais.
Going up in size, the distance from the Earth’s surface to the centre of the Earth is 6,371km. Which is 63 times the distance to space.
Now we go a bit further. The escape velocity from Earth is 11.19 kilometers per second. That is the slowest speed something would have to move to fly up into space and leave Earth’s gravity for good. The more massive the object, the more effort it would take to leave the gravity well of an object. So a gas giant planet is huge compared with the Earth but is less dense on average. I don’t know the figures. I didn’t look them up, but I read that if we were as big as Saturn it could gloat on our sea?
Going further out, the Moon, which is the furthest human beings have travelled to after reaching escape velocity is 384,400km away.
If you want to travel to the Sun the distance is 150,800,000 kilometers….
But man-made objects have gone further. We have sent probes into the vastness of space. Voyager Two has left the Solar system and is currently about 18,603,199,501 kilometers away. In distance at the speed of light that’s 17 hrs 14 minutes and 13.5 seconds (approximately) as of yesterday.
Of ccourse that’s nothing compared with the nearest star to our Sun. Which is about 4 light years away from the Solar system. And then… Space is infinite…
Fern fronds
Ferns are ancient plants. They predate flowering plants. You can find fossils of them in the carboniferous era. They propagate, not by seed, but by spores which are held on the underside of the leaves. In sporediea. They are discharged into the air and are blown away by the wind. From there they create tiny ferns, I can’t remember the exact details because its over forty years since I learnt about them. All I can say is I must look it up. I do know they have silica in their cells and can be toxic to cattle and sheep.
Ferns are beautiful, they have lovely spiral fronds which then unfurl. There are different colours shapes and sizes. I know that some people have gardens full of ferns. I obviously need to find out more.
Another walk
Today I was walking up hill and through a local nature reserve. There were also steep steps down which must have been 18 inches deep. I had to grab hold of the handrail and lower myself down each step.
I’ve decided to walk up our steep hill each time we go out for a walk so me and my friend both get a good stretch of our legs and I hope to get the hill over and done with at the start…. Then she decided to drag me up some extra steep bits..
Ooo my ankles hurt! Tomorrow I might be walking to a local park to do some sketching.
Painting scenery
I just chose a random photo from my gallery. It’s a scenery flat for the mystery plays a few years ago. When you are painting on a board eight foot by four foot you don’t need a lot of detail. But I love these iconic bottle ovens, so of course I decided to paint every brick. Plus it means I can give a bit of perspective rather than leaving it flat looking. I also hate when I see scenery and the perspective is wrong. I have seen some that are really weird. It’s distracting (for me anyway). I can spend more time on looking at scenery than at a performance.
A lot of scenery I’ve done for the Mystery plays was painted very quickly. When we have prepared and rehearsed for them the time we can have to use the hall we work in is limited so that we don’t have to spend too much money.
I don’t know what will happen next year? Will there be another one? I don’t know. For me by next summer it could be a real boost to have it on again.
Mallaband-Brown 