Inspiration

This is yesterday's post but a day late. 

  

I am going to get there on time!

Waiting to be seated.

The view from the top of the steps as we practised lining up.  (Just like a school Christmas play really)

Sing to the light in the curtains!

 

And then it was four o'clock and we were on:

 

 And then it was six and it was over.  It was a very long day but so worth it.  I've not felt that crowd feeling since I used to go on demos and this was better cos it is all about joy rather than anger/ righteous indignation.

Getting ready for Christmas goes a-pace but I never seem to get any closer to finishing anything, so no pics there yet.



The meek did inherit the earth

and they gave it away to the pushy.
I was only thinking when I did the blog labels last Sunday that it was an age since I'd felt the need to rant.
All it needed was town on Monday morning.
I didn't know that you never go into a small branch on a Monday morning because that is when small businesses put in their takings -
I am going to retrain as a mugger.  There was this woman pulling enough cash out of her handbag to be paying in for the whole of the half hour I was queueing (we were lined up out into the street) and still be there when I left.
Then I had a row at the bus stop.
Two elderly women bound for the White Rose Shopping Centre togged out in M&S  jogging through the queue to get to the front.
Me:"'scuse me - this is the queue.'
The one in front kept jogging the one at the back slowed.
Me: 'We're all queueing for this bus.'
Blank stare of the mud beneath my feet variety.
Me: 'Being old isn't an excuse for queue jumping.'
Then she spoilt it, 'You're pathetic.'
'I'm pathetic and you're behind us.'
'Why should I be?'
'Because we were here first!'
I didn't let her on.  She couldn't see she was in the wrong but she didn't have the bulk to push past me.  I couldn't see I was in the wrong but I obviously wasn't very convincing. (Being an elderly woman myself, I thought I would be.)
The lad politely waiting his turn in front of me agreed with me, for the rest I don't know.
So I got on and felt like a bad christian if not a bad person but then
Rant part Two
One of our travelling vicars sees it as his role to reinterpret the Bible and he was saying the other week how it is all about power and how Jesus has all the power in his conversation with Pontius Pilate and how when he calls himself the son of man he is referring to a bit in the old testament where the son of man inherits the earth.
Now, up till then I'd thought he was refusing to call himself the son of God, so plus points for humility right?  But this vicar's viewpoint put a whole new slant on it.

So, back to the meek - they had it all as far as I can see because they were the ones who grew the food and made stuff and then they went and gave it away to the pushy.  They invented the feudal system and we've never got over it.
So... Bugger meekness, I'm with Bob Marley, 'Stand up for your rights.'
Rant Part Three
I always thought that I would get to an age when people would stop commenting (adversely) on my appearance.
'Why have you got ribbon instead of a belt?' is easy enough to answer.
'What's wrong with your leg?' is not so easy and does she really want to know?
Sunday
That was in the week.
This is today:

What to do now November is over?

I did it  - 50,033 words.  Now I have to leave them alone for a month.
It's been a week of sitting typing  - the last 5,000 took the most dredging out.

I did a little Etsy shopping for some more pics.  I'm going to have to give some as Christmas pressies I think, cos I'm running out of wall.

Here's an advent pic from Holbeck Gala.  Slade is on the system:













Today was great, clear and cold again and we went to Saltaire; walked up the canal, down the river and back up the canal.  The canal survace is greasy looking because it is frozen.
I don't know where the dark edges come from - probably my hands.

50 SHADES OF SOMETHING BETTER: Better by 4

What to do with books you never want to read again:
50 SHADES OF SOMETHING BETTER: Better by 4

A quiet Sunday

After a quiet week.
I was up to count on Friday NaNoWriMo wise 38,352 words. 
My frames arrived so my pics are now a bit more dust resistant than they were.
I ought to sing the praises of Winnie the robot vacuum cleaner here, but I don't want to risk her breaking down.  She is the only one doing any housework at the moment.
This is the moon I didn't put on blipfoto:

I've been meaning to try and find out how to get the features for ages and finally did.  I don't know if the white marks are part of the moonscape or bits on the window.
















Went to Jonathan's autumn show on Saturday and got (well I haven't got it yet but it's on its way) a print and ordered a couple of little ones which are wood engravings. They are so fine and detailed they make me squeak.

I've been cutting lino for Christmas cards and taking a bit more out of David and Willow, fingers crossed on that one!  This is Abigail (or girl woman reading while playing with hair).
I tried doing it as a woodcut last year but slipped when I was cutting her nose which was quite annoying.













And that's it.
Taking the dog now.

Monday catch up

Here is my new picture - I ordered it when we went to the Harrogate Photographic Society show.  I reckon it's a male thing - these four or five men decided that they wanted to take photos sometime in the beginning of the twentieth century, but they didn't just take photos, noooooo, they started a society, with a constitution and membership. Anyhow it is still going strong so the urge to belong must be as strong as the urge to take photos.
This one is my photograph now, (except that being digital I suspect that it is only my copy) and is by Patricia Noakes:

It isn't as good here as on paper but although the contrast is off I think you can just about still see the light and all the textures.
And, in case you are still following my NaNoWriMo progress, I've written30,621 and I'm slipping behind.  I was getting bored with it, but still plodding on, now I think I've wandered off the point but at least I am still writing and maybe even catching up some ground today.

Sleeping Beauty

We went to see the Mathew Bourne's version in Salford Quays - huge space:

- and a great fresh look at 'Sleeping Beauty'.  The Guardian did an interview with the Lez Brotherston, the set and costume designer and that's how I got to know that the ballet was on.

 

I can't find any pics of the costumes, so here's this instead.

I love beech trees. 

We went a long walk the other way round Middleton woods on Friday.

Going the other way gave us new routes and fresh looks.
Like being on eye-level with this beech tree.


I love the way they grow













I love the crunch and colour of the carpet of leaves under them

 

I don't know if there is a proper collective noun for them but I think of a group of beeches as a stand and a stand of beeches make a room, they keep the ground under them so clear.
Down foxen woods in Eckington there was a stand of beeches the other side of the dam that always seemed magical to me, they were so still and church like.  I think that standing there must have been the first time I ever thought about architecture.

Collective nouns - I can remember having to learn them at school.  Wherever the presenter on Radio 4 on Thursday afternoon went to school, she was happily - hopefully unscripted, calling a number of sheep 'a herd'.  I was shouting at the radio - 'it's a flock, missus, it's a flock!'.
And now back to trees.  My non-fiction reading at the moment is The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane.  He has just been in a wood and incidentally mentions that Elms have not been wiped out.  I didn't realise that.  Apparently, if they stay below 12 feet tall, the virus doesn't get them.
I'm going to have to do a second blip this week because I left it too late to photograph my new picture in daylight.  I gave up on buying a carpet for now because I needed new frames for my pictures.
Angel is out in the garden barking at Shadow - no not shadows, its too dark for them - one of next door's cats.  She's set all the other dogs off so I'm going to have to go and get her.


 

18,000 and some words done!

I'm about 1500 words behind my target this week so I'm not going to waste my verbosity on blogging when I could be counting it.

But I couldn't not blog because TaDa:














I got my picture from Etsy.And if you look at order is optional you'll see that some of her work is on display in Jam records. I love the wood pigeon.  I'm waiting patiently and with no nagging at all for the next Etsy upload.

I'd forgotten how much I love writing.

Two days into NaNoWriMo and 6,000 odd words down.  Writing makes the time go nearly as quickly as playing patience.
I'm not saying it's good but it is fun.

And then Betty got fingertipz going on Etsy and the landscape I wanted should be on its way to me by next week.  And she commented on my frock and I can't remember if I covered it in the blog or not. And I like using and.

I did, I mentioned it and here's a photo of it looking all golden .


And now a paragraph without the word 'and'.


Gary the choir director said for once we were going to dress up in evening dress.  I'd just about got my head round having to get something black, with a flash of red. But, no, there he was, talking about 'red carpet glamour' to a chirrupy storm of approval from the sopranos.  I have never owned an evening dress. I  have very little idea of what constitutes glamour.  But I thought gold ought to do it.
Now he wants bells!  I've sent out the call for the brass bells that used to sit on Mum's mantle piece.  if they don't turn up, there's always the wind chime thing that Angel rings to let me know she wants to get out of the back door.

Talking of Angel, here she is out of focus but blissfully eyesclosed over a windfall apple she managed to get into the house while I wasn't looking.
I'm not starving her, honest.  She is still on a diet but that's because she isn't losing any weight.

Here she is, in focus, featuring her recent hair-cut.
Now (it is chucking it down with rain and dark as doom at 4 on Friday 2nd November) I am going to start weighing out the fruit to soak for the Christmas cake and pudding.







This is my 101st post by the way so I thought I'd do a bit of jigging the blog about.
Sunday now. 
The first Christmas pudding is steaming.  The dog is curled asleep beside me.  We had a proper frost this morning. And I think my room needs a rug for the winter. I fancy this one:

 

So I'm off internet shopping now.

Today the sun shone!

 I think these women are lovely, this one even has her flame intact.  If I hadn't been so buzzy I would have photographed the fully clothed men who also stand in the square - maybe next time I decide to go into town at 9 on a Sunday morning.

This is a blip from 'Life in Newburgh on Ythan'. Not only is it a beautiful stone but it is also full of questions and for once Talpa didn't explain. Where is it from, how was it made, how did the vertical stuff get in there and what is it?









I wanted to put one of Betty's pics in but her blog wouldn't let me so you'll have to click on order is optional on the side column.
Had a great writing week, I didn't get up to 2000 words a day yet but I did manage to stay on task for 50 mins at a time. Driven by the need to clean cupboards in between, so my kitchen is tidier too.
I also got round to looking 'high concept' up on t'internet, only to find disagreement about what it means. It seems to be a contradiction between highly conceptualised (whatever that means) and over simplified. 
Hey ho, whatever, the Guardian suggests that it should be possible to give a 'high concept summary' of every scene in a book.
I'm rereading PG Woodhouse to keep me in the mood.

Not up to it!

I'll write tomorrow but I can't take looking at the screen today!
And tomorrow is another day.
Coincidence
I mention NaNoWriMo and the Guardian publishes how to write a novel in 30 days just before it starts!
National Novel Writing Month is November and I will be writing my 2000 words a day so that I can write 50,000 words in a month.  My plan is that I build up to it over the next week till I get up to speed.

 

I know that it is probably just reflection off my lens or dust or something but don't you think it looks as if Angel can see the fairies too?  This was a Miggy Wood walk.  She insisted.  Picked up the ball and headed down the road and didn't give any opposition a chance to get started.

                                                            The fungus wasn't so colourful this week...

compared to last  week  - pizza on a tree.

                                                                                   



             

If you tilt the laptop just right these clouds look gold.  This was after the thunder, stair-rods rain and hail:

 



 

 

                      I went to a craft fair on my birthday with Linda and Sara at the formerly- known-as-Savile Hall.  It's where the Royal Armouries car park was when I was last there and it hasn't half changed; it's sort of piazza style living with not too high rise blocks and this - which is extra large so you can see the pigeon thinking how its eggs seem big!

I am going to have to start wandering about more again.  Leeds is obviously not the place it was.

 

Saturday was Otley with Diz to get a glam frock (£5 from the Heart Foundation) for the Inspiration Concert and then on to Harrogate to look at shops and photos in an exhibition there.  This is from the Pannal petrol station on the way home.

Making stuff

I've been going to make chutney all week. Well, since Wednesday, which doesn't seem so bad now I come to write it.  I've got the recipe out of the old Good Housekeeping book, got 2lb of apples picked and 2lb of ripe tomatoes, got all the other bits but still not got on with it.Perhaps it's the quantity -4lb does seem a bit of a commitment to one recipe.

Diz's noren is coming on ok, but not yet photo'd, Jim has rejected the offer of his,my winter quilt is on the bed and keeping me warm, but is still unfinished, Tracey's table mats just need quilting (just?!)and having dug out my winter woolies and found them either felted, too nice for everyday wear or boooooring, I've started a new cardigan.

Printmaking started on Wednesday and the theme Jonathan has suggested is portraiture which will give me a chance at:

 

 

Or at least one of them. And there's the garden party faces I was working on when I stopped too.

 

That's it for now - so much to do, so much to do.  But I do feel better for my holidays and all ready to settle down to the build up to Christmas but before that there's November and NaNoWriMo - more about that later.

Catch up on la vie francais

 

St Pancras: I don't think he thinks he's real.



 

Gare de Lyon: Do they look French to you?

 



Through the bus window from Toulon to Cavalaire

A bit of the view from Jim's balcony

And a bit more early Thursday morning 

Went to Fran and Phil's for dinner

 

 

 

And Baume le Mimosa - very pretty in a preserved sort of way



 

Sat with my feet in the Mediterranean looking towards the harbour

Had dinner on the balcony

These trees are all over and all a lovely shape.  This one is on the sea front and we're on the way to eat.

I set off back at 7am french time so no pics till St Pancras - I don't know how I managed to miss these two on the way out but I did.

Niggle, niggle, niggle

I don't want to rant but feel it's all I'm capable of at the moment, so less words, just a few pics:

for Diz's noren

 

 

Susan's bag

Wall / looking for chaos

We've been to Wales

and seen

some buildings

some animals

some skies

and had a lovely time.