Support small business

Pandemic=lockdowns=not going out=buying online.

But if you wear a mask and social distance, you could go into local shops. You could spend money at places that are hitting brick walls when it comes to trading and selling. Local shops bring trade into towns and cities. Money spent there is shared round the local community and can be reinvested. You can spend online but that money just goes to massive industries and into the back pockets of billionaires.

Think first, buy local if you can or buy from independent makers. X

What’s on the easle?

They ask

‘what’s on the easle?’.

I say

‘a lot of stuff’

Tissues and a coffee cup

And other sorts of muck

A drawing of a dragon

A pallette and a brush

A green painted canvas

If you really want to look….

I ought to be painting

But there’s been a delay

My minds gone off the boil now

It’s not coming out to play…

One day I’ll get my mojo back

I’ll start to paint again

But till that day my easle

Is a place to rest my brain!

Upside down Moon

Stand on the North of the Earth and look at the full moon. It seems to be one way up. Stand in the Southern Hemisphere and it will be the other way up. Basically one view is 🙃 upside down compared with the other. In fact if you are near the equator the view will be at right angles to the normal view. I think some people see the moon as a boat crossing the sky when it is waining. ie a young or old moon. When you only live in one Hemisphere you dont realise that other people can have a different perspective. Trying to put yourself in there position can change the way you look at life. I’d love to go south of the equator and see the Southern Cross and the greater and lesser Magellanic clouds (small galaxies near our milky way galaxy) which are not visible in the North.

Face

Self portrait, abstract face, imagined radio telescope, contrast, thinking, list, try to write tags as a blog, imagination staccato, broken, poem lacking poetry, no rhyme, anxious, calm? Satellite, image, lost memory, solarize, a brief history of what? Experience and experiment, conscious, concentrate. Observe words, expected explanation. Nonsense. Uttered. Rambling, waffle…

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…

The Moon’s out

A glint, a glimmer through the clouds. Blue sky darkening. Sunlight catches the side of the moon, there is a hint of where the Sun is, down and to the right of the moon. About thirteen times a year the moon is in this stage of its phases. I’m not sure, but because most months are thirty one days (four are thirty days, one is twenty eight or twenty nine and seven are thirty one) this adds up to twenty nine or thirty extra days over the year. If we had thirteen actual months, not lunar months in a year, what would we call the thirteenth? Lunary? Lol

Oorie?

It was an Oorie day, the sky was full of dark grey, shifting clouds. A cold wind blew from the North East. Hail started to fall, bouncing off roofs and into gutters. The roads and pavements were slippery with the icy white mass of hail. It crunched underfoot. But it was melting quickly and rivulets of ice and water ran down the road into the grids by the pavement.

It’s hard to describe an ‘oorie’ day, even though I’ve just walked home in one. I saw the word on a friends page where she was writing a piece using the word as a prompt. That’s why I looked it up, I’ve never come across it before and doubt I will use it again.

Dragon hide

What does a dragon need to stay safe? If you read The Hobbit, Smaug the dragon was killed by an arrow that pierced a soft area in his skin under his arm. Dragons have to have a strong skin..

So what would it look like? I’ve been experimenting with how big the scales would be. I guess they would have to be like an alligator or crocodile skin, rather than a lizard or snake whose scales seem smaller or softer. The dragon would need fire retardant scales to prevent charring or burning either around its mouth when it is fire breathing or on the rest of its body. Maybe male dragons duel in short fights, if they were to attack each others wings they would need to be strong. Dragons wings always look vulnerable. The skin is stretched between bony fingers. Surely that could easily be holed if it were not well maintained. Lots to consider.

Feeling cold…

Our government has told us to open our windows to ventilate the rooms and reduce covid virus. But instead of opening a window in our living room my hubby just told me he’d had our bedroom window open all afternoon! I’ve been sitting here in two jumpers and my coat and thinking the central heating wasn’t working properly! I tried to explain that as we have the radiator on in there and it’s under the window it means we are just heating the outside atmosphere! I feel like turning the heating off and opening all the windows and doors! There’s following instructions and then there’s wasting energy! God knows what our gas bill will be like!

What shall I say?

Who shall I speak to? Will they listen to me? So many questions to ask.

She stood in front of the microphone and wished she had written the thoughts down. She had known she would have to speak at the funeral, but had shied away from her obligation. The death of her friend had been a shock. He was only 60 when he passed away. She remembered an old boss of hers telling her off. They don’t pass away or pass on, they die said the woman.

No, she would say pass on. She would say sadly missed. She would say that his passing had left a hole in many lives. She had not seen much of him recently. Things had been bleak, people were not going out as much as they had. A cough could be enough to panic friends into staying away.

The funeral was only sparsely attended. The few people that were there were well separated. Women wore veils over dark coloured masks, the men wore cravats and masks. Good old fashion design getting involved in the workings of life and death. Things had to be chic.

So many questions to ask and then try and answer. She would struggle for words. But she would manage it.