I do love the sky

I’m a member of the cloud appreciation society and I love the sky. When it is misty and the sky turns salmon pink, when there are dark storm clouds in the background and bright sunlight shines on the landscape in front of them. We see amazing lightening storms, cumulo nimbus, stratus, cirrus, mammatus, so many sorts of clouds.

I love looking up at the sky, looking at the stars and meteor showers or seeing a satellite tracking overhead. I’ve seen Jupiter and Saturn and Mars and Venus in the telescope.

The sky can keep you occupied for hours x

Life and everything

Sunset comes to us all. Life is a temporary blip between aeons of nothingness. Celebrate it while you can. When dawn rose life was difficult, you have to learn, to grow. I feel that real life doesn’t start until you reach adulthood or at least when you have to take on adult responsibilities. Then the middle of your life is taken up with nine to five, working for someone, or for yourself. Trying to survive. Finally, if you are lucky you get to retire, or retrain. At least have the hope of doing something you want to do. Keep at it if you can, find a way through to some amount of happiness. Then, rest.

Great light at Westport lake today

There was ice on Westport lakes and ducks were standing round on it while the geese and swans swam in the open water. The light was glancing across the surface as it headed down towards sunset. There was scattered cloud that gave the scene light and shade. All in all very picturesque for a short cold walk round the lakes.

We took grain and fed a lot of the birds, we were mobbed by them all clamouring for something to eat. A lot of other people had the same idea. Hubby and I were wearing masks, but we saw very few others wearing them, and there were groups of up to about ten people!

I enjoyed the walk, not really very far, but slippy underfoot. Pleased with my camera phone photos too.

Grand conjunction

My impression of Jupiter and Saturn

Every so often Jupiter and Saturn appear close to each other in the sky. That’s because Jupiter, which is the closer of the two to the Sun, goes round the Sun about twice as fast as Saturn. This month they will be in grand conjunction on the 14th of December 2020. They will be within about 1° of arc of each other. Jupiters four galilean moons (the four that Galileo discovered through his teliscope) will be visible too. The Moon will not be visible. So if you look South West on the night of the 14th you might just see the conjunction if the sky is clear. This is one of the best since 1262? Enjoy. For details have a look at websites like Spaceweather.com

Side window

On a cold sunny morning I like looking through the side windows of the house. This one is surrounded by orchids. Three plants live there, all different sizes. One recently stopped flowering after sending out a second flower spike. One keeps growing but hasn’t flowered again and the last was one we got in the summer and the flowers on it are fading. I think they all need repotting. They sit in clear pots as the roots like to get light to them, I have some orchid medium but last time I potted them on I think I used too much of it and crammed the roots of one of them in too tightly….

Theres a glass frog and another glass piece hanging from the curtain rail. Then the window glass is dusty and covered in cobwebs outside. It’s hard to clean as there is a large shrub in the way outside. Also there is a nesting box which families of Blue Tits use over the spring and summer. So it gets left, and the dappled light from the trees outside give it an atmospheric, olde worlde look. Which is why I like to take photos of it.

X

Spelling.

Rooves or Roofs?

Apparently both of them are acceptable. One is more modern than the other but I guess it’s what is most comfortable for you.

This is the view from the side window now that the leaves are going. Reminding me that despite having lots of trees in the garden we still do live in a city of old buildings, built of bricks, with a small amount of new buildings going up. Those will have flat rooves (there I’ve made my choice!)

Not a swimming pool

Through the door of the warehouse looking out over lock forty of the Trent and Mersey canal. Steps lead up from the depths of the deep lock, picked out in white paint amidst the concrete sides of the canal. Behind me on the other side of the warehouse the Cauldon canal flows. It is higher up than the Trent and Mersey canal until lock forty raises it to the same level. The warehouse is slightly damp inside which may be to do with its position between the two arms of the canal. I like ‘views through’ things, like views into windows and through foliage.

Fog, what Fog?

It was meant to be foggy this morning. I was looking forward to going out to take photos in the mist… But it didn’t arrive! Instead I took an ‘atmospheric’ photo of the cat on the windowledge. There’s a teatowel on the wooden chest that I use when I’m painting.

I’ve seen lots of misty photos over the last few days, so I hope I’ll be able to get some interesting images… We shall see.

Tree

This is where we walked today, up the hill, across the valley of the Trent. Part of the city laid out across the view. We are a long but thin city. Countryside all around us. A lot of green spaces despite the terraces. Not huge and grey like Manchester and Birmingham. Yes we get traffic jams and pollution, our infrastructure is poor, with many bottlenecks for cars and lorries, particularly when the nearby motorway gets blocked and all its traffic hits the cities dual carriage ways. Then again we can be completely blocked up by snowfalls. Ah well, that’s life…. The tree looks out over all of that and just ignores it and carries on growing…