New paintings and regular art updates.
#bandofsketchers prompt for Thursday was Wind. With the wind that’s been blowing lately if there are any dandelion heads they will all be bald by now! I tried to give the effect of wind by making the blue felt pen streaky across the background.
Weather forecast.. Yellow warnings for severe weather. Gale force winds and heavy rain. Apparently we have a fast moving jet stream above us which is bringing rain and strong winds over the next couple of days. Hang on to your brolly! We went out in it and got soaked, but the blossom is starting to open on the pear and cherry trees, so spring is making itself known round here. The wind has blown a couple of slates off the roof. I don’t know if I can claim on the insurance? I will have to find out, I don’t hold out much hope.
The cats keep coming in like wet otters and curling up in warm places. I don’t know why they want to go out at all. I can tell the direction of the wind because the rain is lashing the back of the house and the gutter is overflowing and dripping down onto the back windowledge, you can hear the drips. It’s also due to get colder for a few days and there may be some small snow showers, heating will have to go on again….
Twigs and branches
Boughs and trunks
In the winter shaken loose
March winds
Bend and break
Damaging weather
Lost limbs
Moss grows
Lichen too
Fungi found in boles
Hoots in holes.
Tree life.
Oak or Ash
April brings
Soak or splash.
I wonder how long it will take for the leaves to come on these trees in the park. Then the view of the horizon will be covered for another six months. The hills in the distance will be gone. My hubby, sitting on the bench before me will be in shade during the morning and in light in the afternoon.
The clouds will drop their rain and the leaves of the trees unfold. Every day they will take in sunlight, until the temperature drops and the light levels fall. Then the wind will blow and the leaves, that have now rurned to brown and orange, will fly from the trees and uncover the view again…
The wind is howling and making the window in the kitchen buzz… But I heard a different buzzing this morning, and not from the window. I looked and in amongst the foliage and there was a large bumblebee trying to get out. I grabbed a cup and some paper.. But I just could not reach and the bee kept falling down. Then. I remembered, I’ve had this bug catcher for years. It still took a few goes, you have to place the catcher over the creature with the sliding door below it then swivel it so the door is above. You give the trap a little shake and the door should slide down. In this case the door stopped part way so I had to get a knife and tap the top of the door so it closed. Then I released the bee outside (you turn the trap round so the door opens up again), so happy to let it go safely. Glad I remembered the bug trap, now back under the sink.
There is a saying ‘in like a lamb, out like a lion’ (and vice versa) when it comes to March weather. We also talk about March winds.
After a very dry February, March has turned wild. It started quietly, but as the month has progressed the rain and wind has blown in over the Atlantic, causing low pressure systems to scud over us with record levels of rain falling.
Last night the wind was howling, one of the cats ran in, his coat glistening with rain. He looked like an otter that was just out of a river! He slept under the cover of my chair, like it was a little cave to keep warm in. He knows when to stay warm despite seemingly loving the awful weather.
Growing out and up… A long limb of a tree scrambles to escape the shade of its companions. Thinks, I’m not going to be hidden by all your leaves. Give me light and I will grow into a tree in my own right. I don’t need holding up, I will sway in the wind with the best of them! What’s a bit of tension and torsion to a limb like me? I’m only slightly cracked, that split in my bark will soon heal over, I’m not weeping sap. Oi! Don’t you bring that chainsaw near me! I will survive!
It’s getting colder here and the forecast or Scotland, parts of Wales and the North West is for snow over the next few days. That made me want to draw snowflakes, and that led me to using the sketch app again.
At the moment I’m trying to keep warm and get over the bug I’ve had for a few weeks. The thought of colder weather does not fill me with joy. Just dread!
Still I like my colours that I’ve used on the drawing, a little bit like Wedgwood China.
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
Please stop raining? It’s wet and windy, again. Gone are days of snow, I know we still have them, but instead whirling clouds come across the Atlantic and dump rain on mostly the north west of Britain. In fact in the last twenty four days it’s apparently rained on twenty two of them.
And amidst all of this stormy weather something unusual and historical is happening in the South West. At the moment (22.45pm on 9.1.23) a Boeing 747 owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin company is flying into the bad weather off the coast of Cornwall. It has a rocket tucked underneath one wing which is due to be launched from it. The rocket contains some satellites and these will hopefully reach space in the next few hours.
It’s amazing that Britain will have launch capability for the investigation and use of space. And in such a different way, not a huge rocket from the land but a more interesting method. I hope it works.
Mallaband-Brown