Colour v black and white

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When I think about my vision I am so happy that I can see with the full spectrum of visible light (colour) . I know different animals can only see certain colours, sometimes just black and white and but others like snakes and insects can even see into the infra red and ultra violet.

Then there is colour blindness, where some cells in a person’s eye are not properly developed or can be missing. Then they have colours missing from their vision. For instance red green colour blindness. Apparently males suffer from this more than females. As I say I feel lucky to have good colour vision. X

college work

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So much to do. My own fault really. I’m doing a college course but its been a while and I am acting like I did when I did my previous course. In other words prevaricating and not doing stuff in a timely way. But I know it so I’m trying to catch up. I still have a couple of weeks to put everything together, But you know when you are nervous. Its easier to come and type here than get on with things. Trouble is I am paying for this, so I’m letting myself down if I don’t get on with it. There you are- I’ve admitted it….

I tried making lists, sticking up post it notes, setting free time to do the work (I have plenty of that) my mind rebels! I look at the book of face, ring people, go for walks, garden….sound familiar? Do I really want to do this? Yes! I must get on with it..

Bye for now!

Stop talking!

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He never stops

Talking..

TV film?

Talking

Interesting news?

Talking

Mystery programme?

Talking…

So what?

I never hear that important news

I never find out if the butler did it?

I never listen to the last notes of the symphony.

Why?

Because he’s talking.

Important stuff?

What car is in the TV programme.

Whether that’s a Highland cow.

Something in the paper I’d already seen on the news.

What he was doing in 1974!

Is this hell or just purgatory?!

 

Have you seen this?

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I’ve had this on a door for years, it’s getting sunburned and bleached, but it’s still there. A friend did the illustration and hand lettering for it. I’ve always thought it was an interesting piece of writing. I think I heard that it was not well thought of. That it was too middle class. But I like it. It makes me feel that people do care about each other.

X

Glass

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Just found this on my Facebook page of glass cabochons I made in a workshop that my friend did a wireweave around. They each have chains and they were for sale in my craft stall last year. I sold a couple but they are sitting safe in a bag waiting for when I can do it again.

The pleasure of art is that it helps me mentally. Doing workshops where I learn new things also helps. This lockdown has been difficult. I don’t want to go out much. I can’t go to workshops and apart from the risks of going shopping, I’m socially isolating myself. Yes I might miss a few things, but I feel safer that way. I think our government has lifted lockdown too early. I think it will lead to another spike. Am I being too pessimistic? Possibly.

X

Masks

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From Monday people will have to wear masks in shops here in England. That doesn’t bother me, me and my hubby have both been wearing face coverings of one thing or another since lockdown began.

What does bother me is the outcry against them. A Tory MP tore up his membership card because of it.

Now our Prime Minister is saying it could all be OK by Christmas!

This is after over 45000 deaths that have been attributed to Covid 19 since it arrived here.

I’ve had a couple of family members that have had it. One is still affected a couple of months later. They told me it’s nothing like a touch of flu. That it’s really bad, and they didn’t get it badly.

Now I’ve got one friend telling me it’s all fake, not real, all a conspiracy! Another said she wouldn’t have a vaccination or allow her daughter to have it. Why? Why would you put your granny, or uncle, or child at risk because you don’t believe in a virus? Why would you not wear a mask to protect others?

And why would you not take a vaccine if it was safe? When Edward Jenner came up with a vaccine for Smallpox maybe the people in his day were against it. But why now? How many people are alive today because they were vaccinated. In this age of Fake news we need to use our brains. Not believe the first thing that someone says on the Internet. We need to fact check maybe.

But most of all we need to be safe and wear a mask and wash our hands.

X

Green

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Such a calming colour. Green in plants is caused by chlorophyll in their leaves as sunlight converts water and air into sugars and starches.

Green, the colour of the Amazon and other forests and jungles. The colour of growing crops and leaves on flowering plants. Cool and tranquil, shady and soft. Then cactuses spiky, full of fluid, green against the rocks of deserts and hot dry lands.

Green means life, it means various other things too. Green for go, green for someone new to a job, green when you feel ill or queasy. Green seaweed, green on trains, the green walking man light on pedestrian crossings. So many things. Green was a livery for different train services. British rail trains used to be green. Even science fiction has green blooded Vulcans and a character called Green Lantern. Green for different alcoholic and fruit drinks. It’s interesting where you can find it.

What would we do without it.

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Water

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I’ve just been reading a Facebook post discussing whether spring water is better than tap water, on the premise that tap water had more minerals in it.

I know that in Britain the water quality is regulated and that government checks that quality regularly.

Water from springs perculates through rocks with minerals in them. Over thousands or millions of years they pick up the minerals as they are dissolved by the water (rainwater will also contain dust particles from the air, and organic matter from the ground before it gets into the rocks). Then it depends on the geology. That’s why we have hard water and soft water. In some springs the water can be hot. Some were used by the Victorians  as purgatives as they contained high levels of things like sulphur. They were used as cures and remedies, the idea being that they cleansed the body.

Modern tap water contains a few additives like fluorine. But in measured amounts. My dad used to call it ‘corporation pop’. Not dangerous.

Things I draw

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A few years ago I did this digital drawing of the whirlpool galaxy. This was done at a website called sketchfu. I’ve written about it before.

When you think of how many billions and trillions of stars there are in a galaxy, and how many millions or billions, or many more, galaxies there are in the universe. It is awe inspiring. Looking out across space is looking back in time. The visible stars light, and the light from distant galaxies, has been travelling towards us for great lengths of time. Even the light from the Sun takes eight minutes to travel to the Earth. Is it that we are ahead in time compared to the rest of the universe? Or maybe not? Maybe we are behind? Because if something happened on another world or star, we would not find out till their light reached us, by which time that occurance would be possibly billions of years in their past.

Time, intriguing, confusing, we can only travel with it. Gravity can distort it, lengthen it. So much to know… So much to find out.

Deleting old photos.

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Every so often I delete old photos off my phone. Then all the photos that are left get mixed up and I discover old photos like this one that I really like! Basically I do this because the photos are taking up most of the phones memory. I have thousands of pictures. Today I got rid of a couple of hundred old pictures of grey skies and trees. And I also got rid of duplicate images because when I post to Instagram it saves an extra picture.

Another issue is that my phone camera takes Megabyte, not kilobyte sized pictures. It means that when I save them to WordPress the media files take up a lot if space. I’m on about 78% on my plan, and I expanded that earlier in the year. So, how do i reduce my file sizes without losing image quality? The answer is I let my anti virus software review the pictures and replace them with smaller versions. It doesn’t stop my phone taking large files though and I would like to find out how to do this. Must be in settings somewhere….

Sorry if this is boring…