New paintings and regular art updates.
Ooh its cold in here?
Have you opened the window?
Again?
Well I wanted fresh air!
So go outside!
You are heating up the atmosphere…
It’s minus 5 out there..
That’s why you’re wearing your coat in the house?
And the heating is on full…
And the extra heaters are on…
Are you mad?
Is it any wonder I get annoyed?
Before dawn someone in will die. The wolves are howling, it is not safe to go out…
So said the old man as he sat in the shack in the woods. He was with his best friend, a man twenty years younger, who had decided to visit for the weekend. I have my gun loaded, said the old man, I will protect us.
But no one has been killed by wolves in a hundred years, said his companion. Why do you think it will happen? Because of the blood moon came the stern answer.
As they settled down for the night clouds drifted over the moon, soon the storm hit. Snow fell deep, piling onto the shacks roof. One foot, two, four, finally eight. The snow was suffocating them, the fire had been allowed to burn low and suddenly snow fell down the chimney. The roof started to collapse, snow sifted in like sugar, through the cracks…..
The younger man woke with snow covering his face, cold, wet and smothering. It was pitch black, then the feeble rays of the blood moon penetrated the dark. With its help he struggled free. He had to locate his friend, the man was breathing, but unconscious. He dug him out with his hands and the help of the rifle.
Outside his truck was covered, it would take him ages to dig it out. Until then there was no chance of shelter. The shack was a jumbled mess.
All he could do was keep digging, hoping to get to a door, though whether his key would open the lock he doubted. It might be frozen shut.
A howl drifted through the night. The sound startled the digger who fought harder to shift the snow. The howl was closer, creeping towards them. He checked his friend, still breathing, but deathly pale and cold. If the wolves didn’t get them the freezing wind and snow would.
But slowly he was tiring, he had barely moved a few feet of snow. The sweat he was generating was freezing on his body. He started to shiver and his teeth chattered.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the glowing eyes. First two, then four, then more. He closed his eyes, waited for the bite….. It didn’t come. Instead he felt the warmth of one of the wolves leaning against him, then another on the other side. Wolves are large creatures and the weight of them pulled him down to the ground. The warmth after the cold was making him drowsy.
In the morning the search party found both of them, fast asleep. There were indentations in the snow showing where the wolves had lain down. A rough count showed that twenty or so wolves had slept around the two men, helping warm them.
Later the old man admitted he didn’t believe it, but it must be true. The gun would never be used again…
( don’t try this at home folks, it’s just a story,).
Thinking about how much life has changed since I cooked toast on our gas fire.
In the 1970’s we had electric central heating installed downstairs in our house. This was installed by our council. But my mom would not have it on because of the cost. We used to sleep with our outdoor coats on top of our sheets, blankets and eiderdowns to keep warm. In the winter there was always frost on the inside of the bedroom window. Sometimes really thick ice.
Now my home has double glazing (single at my mom’s house till the 1980’s). Central heating. The water is usually hot, where we were only allowed to put the heater on for an hour at night at my old home.
Also computers were just coming in and calculators were introduced when I was a teenager. Now they are everywhere. “go online” is the mantra.
Electric cars? Maybe imagined in the 1960’s to be everywhere by the turn of the century, and people really thought there woukd be flying cars.
Bad stuff now… Too much plastic… Too much pollution. But there were shop wrecks like the Torrie canyon and the Exxon Valdiz that poured millions of gallons of oil into the sea and destroyed sea bird colonies.
What else? Our phone, when we got it was a big green one, with a hand held ear and mouthpiece attached to the phone body by a curly wire. The phone itself had a dial with holes lined up with numbers on it. To dial a number you put your finger in a hole then pulled it round the dial until you got to a stop then the dial turned the other way and you dialled the next number… Now, well we have mobile phones, hand held computers like in star trek.
Other things, better medication, more cures for cancer, more treatments, more, older people.
The thing is, the more we have, the more we want…. Catch 22….
I wrote this for the 64 million artists January challenge on Facebook. (I think that’s what it’s called). Each day a different artistic challenge. I’ve only done a few of them, but it’s interesting to dip into.
” Just keeping warm now, It is hard to do for you……….. Little bird in snow.”
🐦
I’m not sure if I’ve got the syllabul count right. Is hard one or two syllabuls?
X
Variegated Holly, a view of winter plants. When desiduous leaves have fallen, Ivy and Holly add green to the garden. We have three Holly bushes. This one, a tall spikey one with fully green leaves and one with pale green edges instead if yellow. The fully green one is the most robust. It is growing in a shady part of the garden and making even denser shade. The other two are in more open areas. We cut off lower branches to let more light into the lower layers of the garden so summer flowering plants are not completely shaded out. I can’t wait for the spring bulbs to come up, although the local squirrel population seems to like digging them up. There will be narcissi and crocus around the Holly in spring.
Being honest with myself, what’s been happening in the UK has really upset and depressed me. The government has just become strongly right wing Conservative after a general election. People seemed to use it as another Brexit referendum (a vote for the UK to leave the European Union). The world keeps turning, but my country seems to be turning inward on itself. Promises were made but are already apparently being broken, where promises to support workers rights have been withdrawn.
So my depression is not internal but has external causes. If I wasn’t to bothered about what happens to people perhaps I could be blasé about it and just feel happy to celebrate the season. But I can’t help worrying about what’s going to happen in the future. I hope this mood lifts soon.
X
Walking through the snow she came across some peculiar shaped trees, each one in flower with cherry blossom. In mid winter?! Was that a face? How could this be, what spirit of nature could have created this?
The trees seemed to breathe mist into the cold, crisp air. The frost turning it to tiny ice crystals. Sound reverberated from the mist. A whisper but so loud it shook her body.
“I AM SPRING”….
Life is here, waiting in the ground, waiting for water.. Now you are here this will be your place. You will not leave, you will nurture us with your body.
She realised she could not move, she could feel her feet lengthening, pushing into the soil, her arms were rising in supplication. Twisting and growing longer. Her eyes became knots in the wood, her body a trunk. No she would never leave here….. And she silently screamed as she transformed.
