Bench?

Posted on March 17, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bench, bench appreciation group, chaise, Filter, Funny, Life, Memory, Photo, Trees, Trentham GardensLeave a comment

There is a bench appreciation group that I’ve recently joined. Showing some of the most interesting benches in the UK and around the world. I only joined because my friend invited me and has been posting some beautiful photos. When I looked back on my phone history I only found three pictures out of thousands! This one (which I’ve filtered to hide my hubby) always makes me laugh. There is a shiny wooden bench like a chaise longue? Not sure of spelling. At Trentham Gardens.. It’s hidden inside an arch of several trees. Hubby decided to try it out for size…

A sprinkling of snow

Posted on March 10, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Black and white, Cold, Dusting, Freezing, Landscape, Snow, Spring, sprinkling, then layer, Trees, View, WhiteLeave a comment

View out of the upstairs window. I woke up to a sprinkling of snow. Its only a thin dusting, but the clouds are grey. Hubby’s talking about going for a walk in it. I’ve come back to bed to snuggle rather than putting the heaters on. Had a nice hot cup of decaff coffee. The weather forecast is for it to blow over. Heading east. Other places have had it far worse. But last night we had freezing rain so I think it’s going to be slippy underfoot and I’ve seen posts on Facebook about it being hazardous to drive in. The trouble with the UK is we have all sorts of weather all the time, tomorrow might be warmer and dry, or thundery, or we might get saharan dust! We don’t get used to driving in snow, it’s like iceskating once a year. You can’t be an expert in such a short time.

Buds required

Posted on March 6, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Air, Buds, Bushes, dry, February, Garden, Gardening, Life, Nature, Snow, snowfall, Spring, Trees, Water1 Comment

Come on rain, its been the driest February for years. The trees and bushes need a good sprinkling of rain. I can see tiny buds on our willow tree but they aren’t opening. The branches and twigs are bare. We may get some snow this week. But I didn’t know that ten centimetres of snow is equivalent to one centimetre of rain? That’s because fallen snow is mainly made up of air (think of how snow flakes are crystals that branch and leave gaps and air pockets). Let it rain, for a while, water the trees, please!

Playing with silhouettes

Posted on March 2, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Apps, Art, Fine Art, Imagination, Jetpack, like a woodcut?, Photodirector, Plants, Sketch app, Trees, WordPressLeave a comment

A previous digital drawing of a fence against a colourful background. My Sketch app on my phone has silhouettes of trees and plants that I rarely use. I also added extra texture and overlays in Photodirector. These are a couple of the art apps I have on my phone that I use frequently and don’t want to remove if I have to get the Jetpack app. Am I irritated? Yes. Must stop going on about it. Creativity isn’t important after all is it (sulks)…. Sorry!

Another stroll

Posted on February 23, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blue, Grey, lovely day, Party, silhouettes, Sky, Stroll, Sunny day, Trees, Walking, WhiteLeave a comment

What a sky today, low sun through clouds and silhouettes of trees. This is the park we sometimes walk up to. We sit on a bench to rest, then walk down and up the slopes in the park and finally out of the gates again. Today we were tired so we walked back down the hill and over to our local supermarket. It was out of fresh tomatoes again, apparently the weather has damaged crops and British farmers who would normally grow them in poly tunnels can’t afford the heating so they have delayed growing them. Anyway that was today’s stroll. And six thousand steps!

Tree abstract

Posted on February 22, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Abstract, abstract trees, Art, Design, Doodles, Drawing, Felt pens, Sketching, Trees, trianglesLeave a comment

Felt pen doodle, started in portrait position but as I drew it I realised it looked better as a landscape piece. I drew right up to the ring binding at the edge of the page so I cropped that out. I also played around with filters and I have posted that to my Mallaband-Brown Instagram page. Greens, greys, turquoise, silver and blacks are the basis of the drawing. On cartridge paper.

Tree views

Posted on February 12, 2023February 12, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged bund, Day out, lakes, Life, Photo, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Trees, Visit, Walk, Westport lake, wildlife centreLeave a comment

Trees on our walk today. (somehow I seem to have posted the same thing twice so I’m editing this into a new post). Anyway this was at the far end of the big Westport Lake where a large plot of land has had tons of hardcore rubble placed on it I don’t know if its an industrial site or housing, but they have builf a huge bund (piled up slope) hopefully to hide it from the lake. Previously it was a muddy rocky mess adjacent to the nature reserve and the main train line that runs to one side of the reserve. I’m glad these trees have been left to screen off the area.

Today’s uphill walk

Posted on February 10, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Exercise, heart points, overlooking, Park, stepping out, Steps, Together, Trees, View, Walking4 Comments

The last three days we have done mainly flat walks, but today my hubby and I decided to climb up our hill. We need to get more heart points on my phone and the best way to do that was trying to walk up the hilly side streets in the area. It also got us away from the traffic on the main road. There are some streets that go up, and some across, so by walking up, then along, I managed to keep the pressure off my calf muscle that sometimes gets really tight after I pulled it a year or so ago. Also hubby is not as young as he was so it gave us both a breather. Finally we reached a little park and sat for a few minutes looking over the view and enjoying the trees in the park. Then up again, to reach the main road at the top of the hill and along it’s crest, before taking another horizontal route to get to our road and a few more hundred steps steeply downhill. Four days in a row we have walked. My arm shakes and so we hold hands or he holds my arm. It’s good to be out and about.

Blowing a Hooley?

Posted on January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Bushes, Cat flap, Cats, Hooley, Night, Noise, Soughing, Sound, Storm, Trees, WindLeave a comment

I think Hooley is a phrase meaning a gale or stormy. It’s a more picturesque word, probably quite old.

Despite our double glazing I can hear the wind soughing around the house, the vuuumming noise through the gap around the kitchen window. The cat flap opening and closing as if a fat, invisible cat was coming in and going out of the door. The overgrown bushes by the side of the house sometimes scrape along the wall. I’m used to it now but it used to be quite creepy when I first heard it. And of course it’s dark outside, dead leaves scatter and blow about on the wind, and litter scurries along the gutter on the road, picked up by the wind and dumped damply in heaps.

In amongst all these noises the cats use the cat flap, coming in and purring at me, purr-miaow? Where’s my tea? It’s not the wind this time, it’s me

Cold, will it snow?

Posted on November 20, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cold, Cop27, Frost, Gardening, global warming, Heat, Heating, Life, Snow, Trees, Weather, Weather forecastLeave a comment

The skies have cleared and the rain has stopped, the temperature has fallen without the clouds holding the warmth in. In some places its due to be foggy and frosty. November had been unseasonably warm. My hanging baskets have literally hung on, with flowers and leaves surviving and the odd bee bumbling around. Now though I’ve actually put the heating on, I also had the oven on to cook yes (might as well heat the house and cook food at the same time.

A national newspaper has reported we should be having six inches of snow, but the real weather forecast is for the temperature to rise again slightly.

In amidst all of this the Ecological Cop27 meeting has just gone back on some of its resolutions to reduce global warming. Major oil and gas producers have pushed for natural gas not to be treated as a greenhouse gas! I’m not sure of the whole story as I only heard a bit on the news, but I think it’s despicable that vested interests can be allowed to harm humanities future because they want their profits.

In the meantime I will continue to plant trees and try and do my bit to reduce my carbon footprint.