Sub-titters

I’ve been watching TV with subtitled recently because my hubby is increasingly hard of hearing. But when the subtitles are being done in real time there can be some very strange results.

When nature programmes like Winter watch is on for instance, a ‘Willow Grove’ becomes a ‘Willow Grope’ , or on the news ‘set a new trend’ becomes ‘said a newt rend’! The subtitler sometimes retypes the words to clarify, but sometimes they are real howlers. I wish I could remember the best, but they flit by so quickly. Still it’s fun to watch out for them..

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Single line drawing

One of our exercises this week. Drawing with one continuous line without looking at the page, just the computer screen! A slim model changes shape! How is it possible to get a likeness? But it’s not about that, it’s trying to get your hand and eye to coordinate without your brain getting involved. Weird, but I like it!

7 days to go…

This is my 358th continuous day of posting on WordPress. I almost did it before a couple of times, but for whatever reason I crashed back to zero… I hope I can do it this time! Is there a reward for posting every day that we have travelled round the sun? Almost the length of time there has been covid19 in the world? Is it a milestone or a curse being on line every day. I guess it means I haven’t been away on holiday where there was no WiFi… I’m tempting fate!

They could be twins!

They both moved in with us as strays, but they are seperated by quite a few years. Both have a splodgy nose although one has golden eyes and the other yellow.

Both were and are characters (outdoor cat, top and and incomer, bottom). I don’t share my cats names online. But the incomer died when he was young. I was devastated. Cats can be long lived and our oldest was twenty one when she passed away.

I have lots of photos of them but I don’t want to bore you!

Sunset getting later

At the start of January it was getting dark around 4.40pm and we were having about eight hours of light. Now it’s staying light till after five. I feel like a weight is lifting slightly. Like the edges of a blanket being pulled up and light seeping in around the edges.

The clouds have obscured the sunset for the last few days. We’ve had almost a months rain in a day in some places in the UK with storm Christoph causing flooding in Wales and Northern England. We have avoided the worst here, but twenty miles or so away the town of Northwich in Cheshire is flooded in places and the river Severn is close to flooding over.

I can’t sleep

It’s raining heavily in the UK, but that didn’t wake me up. No it was my hubby getting up and making a pot of tea at four am. Then the cat wanted to go out at four thirty. I came downstairs to make a cup of coffee at five. Then as I was deciding whether to snack on a few olives left over in the fridge one of my paintings fell off the wall on the stairs, it came crashing down and shook me up a bit. I checked it over and its OK. But the string had worn through. I think hubby must brush past it on the stairs so I’ve restrung it with some wire this time.

Now I’ve had my coffee (decaff). I’m wondering whether to call the outside cat back inside. There is a forecast for rain turning to snow and ice later in the week…… I’m listening to the news on the radio. Train lines are blocked and flooded….. Do I go on… And they are talking about the end of the Trump era….. Life goes on.

#MendNotTrend day three

The challenge today was to created a printed, sculptural image. That was hard, I only have a round gold stamp and a black roller printer with letters. I also used a gold pen. This is called Cogs. Tried to get some movement in it!

I’m not really convinced by it, but we are meant to be creating abstracts, so perhaps I was being too literal?

Not that bad…

Lockdown, I can only go out for exercise and do essential shopping.

But when you think about it, it’s not that bad. I’m not stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere with no one to talk to. I am warm, I have food, I cn talk to people on the phone or online. I might be getting a bit bored. But it’s not like in the past, when I was a child. On Sundays everywhere was closed. No one that worked in simple, low paid jobs, could afford a car. Very few eople had tv’s and there was only one channel and a few radio stations. Computers didn’t exist except in universities or in the armed forces. The air was dirty and polluted, coal fires were the norm to heat houses. It was a different world.

Now we are linked? Possibly too much. But if we stay away from each other as much as we can? Things might just get better…

Crocosmia Lucifer

I’m watching Gardeners World on BBC TV. They arr showing a compilation programme of the best bits from 2020. One section was about the crocosmia plants that you grow in the garden and the fact that their anticedants came from South Africa.

My garden has crocosmia Lucifer growing in it in the late summer, but its several years old now and I think it’s time to get new bulbs so I’ve painted this to remind myself to get some more..

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