New paintings and regular art updates.
We went to the British Ceramic Biennial today, at the Spode Site in Stoke, to glaze a piece of pottery I made last week. The weather was very bad and we got soaked on the way into the exhibition. When we came out the rain had cleared up and the sun was out. I took some photos of the wet surfaces. It’s always good to notice changes caused by weather conditions and variations in lighting.
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I’m not sure why these are inside a building and not outside by the side of the canal to be used? Perhaps they are old and not the correct standard anymore. Maybe they have been stored in case they are needed? Maybe they are for use by the boat club that meets in the warehouse sometimes. Yes that is damp at the bottom of the wall. The building is between the trent and Mersey canal and the Cauldon canal. It is actually lower down than the water on one side, and next to a deep lock on the other side. So water might be slowly seeping in and the building is over a hundred years old.
Back to the life belts, I guess you could grab them and use them if someone falls in the lock….. I might find out about them…
Drop a pebble in a pond, or watch drips of water fall into a bowl. You get ripples moving outwards, they reach a side or an edge, then bounce back.
Sometimes the edge is soft. Grass or sedges perhaps. Then the ripple is absorbed, dampened down. Or ripples turn into waves, waves into swelling storms. It depends on the weather.
My central heating boiler went on the blink, which is a problem because we had no hot water. Luckily we have a contract with a company so I was able to call them out. I thought it was the timer because the heating was not kicking in when the timer moved round to ‘on’. But no, the nice man from the company could hear the pump kicking in but the flame was not lighting. So he had a look and removed this, it’s a solenoid. Basically the circuit has to close to light the boiler so that the heating comes on its apparently worked by electromagnetism. I’m really pleased he fixed it. My boiler is twenty five and still works well. I’m worried that it is going to become obsolete. Hopefully they will be able to get parts for a few more years yet…..
The rain comes down harder and faster these days. When I was a child I remember gentle rain, now it seems to soak in seconds. Water has a way of getting into everything when it falls. Like a cold shower it wakes you up, startling you as it splashes in your face. It was once said that there is no bad weather, just being inappropriately dressed for it. Nowadays I’m not so sure.
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There is a frog in our pond. We had frogs several years ago, but they disappeared. Now they have come back. They are sharing the pond with some goldfish which seem to be OK. I wasn’t sure if they could co-exist? Do frogs eat fish? It’s funny seeing them breathe the water making tiny ripples with their movements. It’s a real wildlife garden and pond.
Rudyard lake, Staffordshire, on a bank holiday Monday afternoon. There is a miniature railway on one side of the lake that takes you up from a little station at Rudyard, which is just next to the railway bridge I’m the way out of the village. It then runs for about a mile and a half. It follows the track bed of the Great Central railway which was removed several decades ago. It heads off to the top end of Rudyard Lake where it ends at a halt and the footpath carries on to another village a few miles away called Rushton Spencer I think?
They had a miniature steam engine and a miniature diesel train pulling the carriages today. We got off at the first stop called the Dam for a lunch at the cafe, then we got back on the train and travelled to the end of the and back to the station.
The only bother was the parking. But someone was leaving so we snuck in a space. Definitely worth a visit and not too expensive.
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This was a painting I did a few years ago. I think it’s from Bovisand Bay looking out over Plymouth sound across to Cornwall. I wish I could go back. I live the place. It’s just the cost and the length of the drive. I want to just have one whole week somewhere nice. We’ll we will see. Perhaps I will sell some paintings, enough to go there. X
I’m not able to drink caffeine or sugar so it’s a pain having to try and find decaff coffee and tea or soft drinks other than water and soda. If I ask for a diet drink in a cafe or restaurant I get offered diet Coca-Cola, ( which contains caffeine) or tonic water that isn’t sugar free.
Look at a bottle of soft drink and it usually has the sugar in grams on it, say its 7.1g. But that’s per 100ml. But often the amount of liquid in the bottle is 250 or 500ml, so you have to multiply up. So 7.1g is 17.8 in a 250ml bottle and a whopping 35.6g in a 500ml bottle. Some have more! That’s lots of spoons of sugar. Why don’t they do more drinks with sweeteners? Then you get energy drinks with glucose. Is it any wonder there is an epidemic of people with diabetes. And guess what? If you drink too many carbonated drinks they can affect your stomach.
I guess I shall have to stick to water.
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Sky keeps going dark grey, a sudden squall of rain then bright again, sunshine and showers. I’m watching the trees bend in the wind, the weather station anammometer twirling in the wind. In some places round here the power is out.
As I watch the blitzortung app on my phone I can see thunderstorms trundling across the country. Their trails changing from white, yellow, orange and red. White most recent, red in the past. You can track their movement. I’m not sure if they will get here or bypass us.
The weather is unseasonably autumnal. Festivals due to be happening thus weekend have been cancelled because of the strong winds. I’m sitting here in the dark. The radio is on. My hubby is making coffee and I’m waiting for the first flash.
Mallaband-Brown