New paintings and regular art updates.
Acrylic on canvas painting, work in progress. Of trees and rocks or stones. But I don’t remember what I was doing with it. I found it in the summerhouse while I was helping clear it up. I must have started it sometime last year. Perhaps in the winter. I’ll have to make a story up? Maybe it was too cold in there and the water froze, or the weather changed and continuous rain put me off. I’m going to get my brushes out and try and finish it off….
I was sad to see winter
I want life to be renewed
Green and gold leaves
Pink blossom
Blue sky with fluffy clouds
Pour on a wash of yellow
Daffodils and tulips
Give me Spring!
Now.
A symmetrical photo created by flipping a photo upside down. The main mass of leaves is a holly bush we have grown in the garden. It’s a bit like a parasol as we have cut off a lot of the lower branches. I like how the resulting photo looks like an insect on its side. I have a brain that likes pareidolia (when you see creatures or faces in shapes). If I was to turn the photo through 90° it might look like a moth?
Snowdrops surround the dam at the end of the pond at Rode Hall on the snowdrop walk at the weekend. Some of the daffodils are already up and we saw cyclamen and Helibores too. Spring is just round the corner and unseasonably warm weather has reached us from the south. Tomorrow we are expecting colder, more normal temperatures with possible snow showers. It’s no wonder the birds and insects get confused at this time of year.
Sunday’s #bandofsketchers prompt was garden. Our garden is overgrown even though half the leaves are off the trees. We have Ivy and Holly growing up and although the hedge seems to be dying off we are trying to plant native shrubs instead of privet.
The ice and cold have killed my car battery. I tried several times to start it (with gaps in between to let it rest). I turned everything off, had it in neutral, gave it a little gas to try and get the engine to turn over. Just a splutter or two, then nothing.
I left it an hour and tried again. No joy. The battery is probably four years old and has been struggling when I’ve used the car lately. I haven’t been out much and then only short distances so the alternator hasn’t had the opportunity to charge it up. Cold and damp makes electric power seep away somehow and this last few days have definitely drained it.
In hope I rang a local garage, they have the right battery in stocks, but they can’t fit it, you just need some spanners they said. Half an hour on trickle charge from the charger just brightened the lights on the dashboard a bit. No chance of getting it going.
I then remembered I have breakdown cover! We breakdown so infrequently that I don’t remember to use it. They can’t say when they will be here, but they are at least coming out. Hooray.
I just got out of the house, only to go across the road to the supermarket, but it was definitely ‘out’. I leaned heavily on the shopping trolley to support myself, the cold air had got to my lungs and I felt short of breath again, but at least I didn’t cough. I was out yesterday, but only to walk from the car to the pharmacy and back again, so this was actually more of a test. The snow had all melted except in patches where it had been sheltered by the shadow of some bushes. In those places where the sun hadn’t penetrated there was crispy icy snow, glassy from compression by feet. I avoided those areas because I didn’t want to slip. Now I’m home and keeping warm. I’m wearing a fleece and my dressing gown over my clothes to keep warm!
Not much though, and it’s melting today. But when it was snowing it was dropping big wet flakes out of the clouds, like bits of wet tissue paper. When you look up you can see the flakes falling down, dark shadows against the whitish clouds, then white as they get caught in the light from my doorway. There was a small accumulation over night, but then as the sun caught the snow on branches it dripped off in white blobs.
Around the country it has been far worse, a double decker bus toppled over on an icy road near Hinckley Point yesterday. Some of the passengers were injured. The lake district hills are covered in snow, and Scotland and Wales have had much more than here. I guess living in a city means it doesn’t get as cold so snow melts more quickly and with global warming there are less really cold days than ever before.
Winterwatch is an offshoot of Springwatch which is a programme that started on BBC TV several years ago. The presenters have changed over time, but it gives us a view of the British Isles through the seasons.
Winterwatch is lovely, seeing badgers, falcons, water rats, deer, stoats and seabirds amongst other animals gives you an idea of how they live and survive and in some cases thrive during the winter.
The programme explores wildlife and behaviour over a couple of weeks, sampling their lives and how humans affect them. The series is a wonderful reminder of nature. Some of it is filmed live during the evening programmes and also has videos of other animal activity happening at this time of year.
If you want to know more about the natural history of the British Isles during winter you can watch it in the UK on BBC 2, or the BBC I player, or the Facebook page which is called BBC Springwatch. Or bbc.co.uk/winterwatch
Spending time worrying about whether I have covid means I have not really thought about all the other bugs out there. They can be transmitted differently, for instance by touching surfaces. I think covid is spread more by breathing in droplets.
Anyway, bam! I have got a bad cold or virus, and as many of these haven’t been around as much because people were not interacting or being in close contact with one another. We are all more susceptible to the risks of other diseases now. You might have immunity to one illness, but if you are not in contact with it frequently then it can be worse when you get it again. What fun! Sniffles…..
Mallaband-Brown