New paintings and regular art updates.
Tests……..a short poem….
Tested to destruction
But you keep going
Ploughing on into the future
Maximum effort to pass
Even by one point.
Tested for healthiness
Bounced and bumped and pushed
Given medicine that may transform
Be a “cure”
Test positive, or negative?
The result depends
On interpretations
May you all pass.
What’s your favorite word?
Tranklements is an old fashioned word meaning bits and bobs, a collection of odds and ends, shiny things like a magpie would collect.
I think it is an old historical word from the Midlands of England. Certainly I’ve only really heard it used in The West Midlands around the Birmingham area. I think its a dialect word.
In context you could say I’m just getting my tranklements together if you wanted to gather your lace making kit or a bag full of knitting stuff. Or bits of costume jewellery, a bag full of paints or makeup.
I like it because it sort of explains what it means just in the sound. It should be used more often!
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?
I wish I didn’t need to use the word poverty, in this country and about the rest of the world.
Poverty can be relative, a millionaire can feel poor in relation to a billionaire. But that’s not real. Or someone who lives in a first world nation can struggle to survive on a very low income, having to chose between heating and eating.
But I think true poverty is in countries wracked by famine, war, sickness or all three. When starvation is rife, and children are stunted by lack of food and clean water.
And yet there are eighty men in the world that own the same amount of money as half the world’s population. That’s 80 : 4,000,000,000. Each one has an average amount of money equal to 50,000,000 individuals.
If only our world was not so unequal. I’m not talking about complete equality, people would fight to the death over that, but perhaps a bit more generous support for the poor and more taxes for the rich. Perhaps charitable foundations to spread food and medicine, to reduce wars, to care for one another. I know that trickle down economics does not work. The trickle is stemmed by the slightly less wealthy. But somehow we must change things, stop poverty, be fair, and tackle the climate change to which is having the most detrimental effect on the poorest in society.
So instead of poverty my new word would be fairness.
What time do you go to bed and wake up currently?
Early to bed, early to rise, just isn’t me!
I think my circadian rhythm is out, because over the last few months I’ve gone to bed later and later. Then I eventually sleep for a few hours, before waking up around dawn. Then sadly I look at my phone! Spend an hour or so catching up with videos and messages, before falling asleep again and waking up in the late morning.
I don’t want to be this way, I sometimes need to be up and out earlier, but insomnia and an overactive brain can see me struggling to sleep. It doesn’t help that I have to wear a mask at night to help me breathe. I also do have painful joints and my arm is still very shaky and sore (I sound like a wreck!).
One thing to do is to think the word “the” over and over to yourself. This was recommended by my friend and it works when I remember to do it. “the” is a word with no connotations, it interrupts your train of thought and gives your brain time to disengage (at least that’s what I think!).
Anyway hope you all have a good night’s sleep. Best wishes!
I was looking at a friend’s Facebook page and she talked about how some nights she sleeps well but on others she struggles to sleep at all with lots of thoughts flying around inside her mind.
It reminded me of something I now do. I’m not pretending this is a cure for the problem, but it might help? I wrote a comment about sleeping problems: “I get them a lot, but someone told me to think the word ‘the’ over and over again. It takes your mind off other things, while it is innocuous enough not to prompt other thoughts. It doesn’t always work but it certainly helps.”
It’s interesting that I’ve got so old without anyone sharing advice until this suggestion, except the old idea of counting sheep!
It was an Oorie day, the sky was full of dark grey, shifting clouds. A cold wind blew from the North East. Hail started to fall, bouncing off roofs and into gutters. The roads and pavements were slippery with the icy white mass of hail. It crunched underfoot. But it was melting quickly and rivulets of ice and water ran down the road into the grids by the pavement.
It’s hard to describe an ‘oorie’ day, even though I’ve just walked home in one. I saw the word on a friends page where she was writing a piece using the word as a prompt. That’s why I looked it up, I’ve never come across it before and doubt I will use it again.
My hubby used this word, so I asked him what it meant. He said something vague then said ‘look it up, I’m not sure’ so I did!
I’m not sure I’d ever dare use a word like that! 
I decided to type my work in PowerPoint because I struggled with word documents jumping around and the text ending up half way on one page and half on another.
PowerPoint relies on slides, so you have to fit your text into a space which is of limited size.
I’d created a new one and went to start typing, and bam! A page of text just disappeared. What? Where? For some reason I couldn’t see the back icon, I couldn’t restore the page! Panic!
Then I remembered that I had copied the text into a word document because I couldn’t find a word count on PowerPoint!
Phew. Restored slide. Lesson learnt. Now all I need to do is stop the cat jumping on the keyboard!
Have you ever seen this Welsh village name?
The pronunciation is written out, but Clan and clant are more like cthlan and cthlant…
Photo and pronunciation by my friend on Facebook.
From wiki journey ‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Llanfair PG for short) is a small, quiet town on the island of Anglesey off the northwest coast of North Wales, famous for having the longest place name in Europe. Apart from its name it is similar to other nearby villages.‘
Literally translated, the name means: [The] church of [St.] Mary (Llanfair) [of the] pool (pwll) of the white hazels (gwyn gyll) near [lit. “over against”] (go ger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrn drobwll) [and] the church of [St.] Tysilio (Llantysilio) of the red cave (-ogo[f] goch).
Mallaband-Brown