F. R. O. G. Plane

FROG stands for ‘flies right of the ground’ this plane was just on the TV. The body was aluminium and the wings and tail were made of paper.

This was made in the 1930’s? You put the body of the plane in the box with the propellar attached. There is a handle on the front of the box and a mechanism that holds the propellar. You turn the handle and it winds up a rubber band. Then you peg the wings and tail on and let it loose to fly up off the ground.

Our forebears may not have had the Internet but they knew how to have fun!

Another month

Another month, the Earth has travelled another twelfth of its orbit round the Sun. Nights have started to get a little bit longer here in the Northern Hemisphere, shorter in the Southern one, and staying about the same on the Equator.

Sunlight heats the world and now more of its heat is trapped in our atmosphere because of the Greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide and Methane emitted into the atmosphere are transparent to visible light waves but not in the infra red spectrum and they prevent heat being reflected out back into space.

I remember wonderful summers in the 1960’s, summer dresses, ice lollies. There was no hole in the ozone layer. We lived on a goldilocks planet where things were mostly comfortable. Now when you look at the graphs these years of the twentieth century have all been getting hotter, at a faster and faster rate. Stop and Think, try and help. Don’t let politicians bamboozle you with their hot air! Recycle, reuse, turn the heating down. Its up to all of us.

Prevaricating

At the moment I’m stuck with my college work. I have ideas, I seem to know what I want to do. But I have a fear of failing. The heat doesn’t help. I’m ending up doing things at 3am, but it’s not enough. Words circle in my mind, like vultures, ready to sink down on the ruin of my ideas. Prevarication prevents failure. I don’t feel I can do a good enough job.

I must start. By writing this down I’m trying to give me a kick start to things. I need to order a couple of books, but I’ve even held back from doing that. I know I can do the course, but I’m disappointed that I didn’t get higher marks. I have passed each semester though. Why would this one be different? Easier to think than write…

Ariel

Received from space? Old photo mirrored. The original photo was about a stormy sky but the effect of mirroring this has bought the attention to the (seemingly) floating TV Ariel.

What is it for? Is it an alien Ariel? A communication from beyond the stratosphere? An energy collector or scrambler of radio waves? Something from a Sci-fi movie. Could it tune in to the high pitched sounds of bats? Imagination can take you anywhere!

Idyllic?

Hot day, blue sky, barely a cloud in the sky, cattle in a field, reflections in the canal. Memories are made of this, blues and greens, shade and light.

I have memories of days like this, maybe not as hot, but they were calm and happy. I remember a time when things were not scary. Oh there were diseases around, and awful things were happening. But I was a child. I didn’t know about them.

Then I remembered the disaster at Aberfan. There was a land slip of old mining waste. It slid down a hill and landed on a school. Children and adults died. That was the first TV report I remember seeing.

Now rivers rise and places flood all the time, “hundred year events” happen every ten or twenty years. Storms dump three months water on a country while other places suffer heat domes and wild fires.

Will the wonderful days of summer be once in 100 days instead? Maybe we need to sort it out NOW!

I wrote this a few days ago but for some reason it did not publish? Now on a grey, dismal day I look back after another walk and Im sad it wasnt like this, but glad it was a lot cooler!

My style?

A torch shines. It’s light illuminates a running figure. A trail of blood shows its steps.

This was a transformation we had to do in our illustration workshop this afternoon.

How to show up the image? I used post-it notes to show the shape of the surface as the figure is running across the floor. If I hadn’t had just 20 minutes I would have added a chequerboard pattern. As it was it was fun to do.

Water troubles

Two years after we had a possible leak in our garden which we were advised was a ‘spring’ we had the water company round again. They had renewed the water stop taps and could hear water rushing through the pipe, much more than we would use in the three houses it supplies.

So after contacting our insurers two years ago and being told by the workmen they sent that it wasn’t a leak, it now is! Now I’m waiting for a letter so I can inform the insurance it’s real. Hopefully we are still insured and we can get it sorted out. Fingers crossed. I will be pleased if we stop having pools of water down at the bottom of the garden.

Memory of mystery

Me a couple of years ago painting banners for our mystery play we did. These are pictures of the willow pattern from Spode that I was copying for the performance. We hold it on a Saturday towards the start of July. Unfortunately we could not hold it last year and only had an online event this year. I hope it’s reinstated when things get better.

I’m so busy with college work it would have been difficult to make the time but I love doing this. It makes me feel part of a community. I also miss all the friends I have through being part of it. X

When I clear photos

The remaining ones mix up. January’s in July’s, March’s in May’s. I find it hard to find pictures I want to use for college or for my blog. Hence this odd little photo, it came from a while ago and yet it is in recent images? I don’t know how to get them back in order. I think the old ones are filling in the spaces of the photos I have deleted.

So I have to put up with it. It does mean that I occasionally rediscover an image that I really like, and as I intend to keep on sharing images as I blog you will see what I find!