Recent drawings on greetings cards for various life events. Mixed media, Bic Cristal biro (black and green) with watercolour crayons. The cat sitting on a hill is near some wild garlic, which has been given darker green foliage since the photo was taken. I wondered why Ramsbottom is called that, or which other names were considered at that meeting. A bit of etymological reading suggested ransoms and the bottom of a hill. Wild garlic valley, obviously.
The old people used to say they grew sweet peas because you don’t have to bend far to smell the blooms. This is the first time I’ve grown some for a few years. The last attempts ended with little stems surrounded by slug trails.
Today’s drawing of the sweet peas might inspire the usual questions: “but what will you do with it when it’s finished?” etc. Well, since you ask, parts of it might be used for a family tree project. The little spirals are interesting, and could be a useful link between the names and dates of the more complex ancestors.
Knitted stripes, or ridges of two rows each. Using dark and light yarns and knit or purl stitches, an illusion of a circle in a square. This is the easiest pattern in an article about illusory knitting, but I like it anyway.
Cameras never lie, mine won’t show the red and yellow stripes in the way they’re visible to me.
Knitting a spiral in the round seemed a good idea when it first appeared. I forget that it’s possible to knit in both directions while knitting a tube, so it might work. Using yarn from both ends of the grey, with the rainbow stuff in the middle. Nice reminder of how the ink looked on a zinc lithography plate before printing.
Llandrindod Wells, 1994.
Doctor: “You MUST give up smoking!”
Pregnant patient: “But I don’t smoke!!!”
Doctor: “No buts! Smoking is harmful to your baby!”
P: “But I can’t give up a habit I don’t have…”
D: “That’s a feeble attitude!!!”
This conversation repeated for months. She didn’t listen to anything anyone else said. It was recommended that I should attend a course for people who find giving up smoking very difficult. No appointment arrived so I didn’t think about that, as it wasn’t relevant anyway. The doctor criticised me for not going. I pointed out that she would look ridiculous for sending a non-smoker along.
“I’d only smoke if I was on fire…”
“Well that’s why you must stop!!!”
I mentioned to the midwife that this constant nagging increased my blood pressure.
“Do I really need to come here every week?”
“No…”
I was able to stop visiting the Dr, as I wasn’t ill. The appointments didn’t fit the bus timetable so that was a useful detail. Being visited by the midwife instead was far better for everyone.
In today’s news I heard that pregnant smokers are being given £400 as an incentive to stop. Obviously I would have accepted this offer before miraculously giving up my non-existent puffing…
Took photos because I always have to ponder where the needle picks up the yarn for an increase.
The winter of 1985-86 was spent discussing methods of suicide. Could he wait for ten years or so, to see if circumstances changed? No. The two years of recovery after the last episode had seemed endless to him. When I pointed out that previous overdoses had inspired vomiting, so maybe the physical body had a strong life force, I was apparently ‘sick’.
The aftermath of an overdose isn’t as calm and peaceful as it appears in novels and films.
I thought I could go out for twenty minutes at a time, and would be back with suitable first aid skills. The kitchen knives were hidden. The washing line had been discreetly removed. There wasn’t any strong alcohol around, and he hadn’t been able to get a doctor’s appointment or any useful medication. He hadn’t been outside for weeks.
Who would find the deceased? When the plans seemed to be inevitable I suggested he should be close to a hospital at the end. Other people, who wanted to live, could benefit from healthy discarded organs, couldn’t they? This thought wasn’t well received.
Mostly you are the main character in the story. Sometimes you are helping someone else’s tale to unfold. There again, you might unwittingly be in the background of a much bigger drama. Your actions might affect the audience for many years hence.
I sketched a few pairs of hands, thinking maybe one of the sketches would summarise the warped conditions of various workers.
Shortest day of the water tiger year. Apparently it’s best to gather energy during the winter, to be ready for spring.
“What starts in school?” you may ask. There was a lot of nonsense about ‘fitting in’. This was illustrated by the difficulty of buying suitable black shoes for the offspring. Three children, two with wider feet and one with narrow feet. It’s possible to buy school shoes in the right sizes if you travel to a city with more choices. Otherwise, there were telephone calls about detention because of the ‘wrong’ shoes. The ‘correct’ shoes (after the local shoe shop had ordered the right size especially) were often in a bag, to be changed into after walking to school in a more appropriate pair with sturdier soles. There were threats that “this will be added to the pupil’s records!”.
“Oh no!” I tried to humour them. “Not the record!”.
I was summoned to a meeting: “Mrs X wants to see you on Friday morning!”.
“Does she?”. Regretfully I declined, having a prior appointment that day. The receptionist was unhappy, nervous about what to tell Mrs X. I advised that the meeting should be with shop owners who weren’t stocking the correct sizes of uniform stuff, not me.
“One size fits all” does not apply to shoes. Nor should it apply to education. Now that the young people have completed their studies (despite various obstacles), I’m seeing advertisements about school attendance. We often received an A4 sheet describing the perils of missing a day (or more!) of school. Nobody misses being bullied by a teacher. Nobody learns much by using obsolete methods. Hopefully the lessons learned in Pembrokeshire have helped our family to never collude with madness.
I’m bemused to notice that the auto type suggests the next word after ‘school’ should be ‘shooting’. No, it really shouldn’t.
berry daines 