Tuesday, 13 January 2015

The colour of my dreams

This poem was written by Peter Dixon, an old friend from the time I was involved in early years education. He's a senior lecturer in education and also taught in elementary school. His focus is on creativity, which he considers essential in any field of study. Sometimes parents tell him that their children are not going to be artists, so why waste time on all the mucky painting and modelling? He replies that without art, the brain is not functioning to its full potential and the result is often a mediocre doctor, engineer, lawyer, you name it. Not everybody is "good" at art, but it's a shame not to exercise the creative part of the brain! I hope you enjoy his poem.

THE COLOUR OF MY DREAMS






Monday, 12 January 2015

On the virtues of multi-talented pigs...

Pallottine requested a post about the uses of a pig and I'm happy to oblige. The poor man must be fed up with fashion, embroidery and other not quite unisex posts! Here we go:

A football is a ball inflated with air that is used to play one of the various sports known as football.

The first balls were made of natural materials, such as an inflated pig bladder, later put inside a leather cover, which has given rise to the United States slang-term "pigskin".


Modern footballs have never been anywhere near a pig:


The oldest football still in existence, which is thought to have been made circa 1550, was discovered in the roof of Stirling Castle, Scotland, in 1981.The ball is made of leather (possibly from a deer) and a pig's bladder. It has a diameter of between 14–16 cm (5.5–6.3 in), weighs 125 g (4.4 oz) and is currently on display at the Smith Art Gallery and Museum in Stirling.


Today there's an important game: Ohio State Buckeyes v Oregon Ducks.



May the best team win, it's all I can say on the subject...

The piggies may have a few things to say, though.



Not all pigs are earmarked for big sporting events. Some will have a different fate:



Football and fashion are not necessarily the first things that springs to mind. When I was little, I may have thought of characters like these:






These days, my approach to pigs is purely gastronomic and I wear the appropriate apparel to deal with the activity:


I think that apart from vegetarians (and pigs),  both football fans and sports avoiders would enjoy these:








I'll let a clever pig have the last word on the subject:


Sunday, 11 January 2015

Armchair gardening for the failed landscape artist

How about that, eh? Yes, TW, I'm talking to you. Tee hee...





I posted these as a joke, because I'm not sure I like them. They look a bit messy to me.

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This is a kind of PS on yesterday's post. Doesn't this look like a pixel needlepoint?






Saturday, 10 January 2015

Delicate beauty

Looking at these pretty pieces of delicate embroidery can be very soothing.






Friday, 9 January 2015

Doctor! Doctor!

GrannyJ sent us this joke and while looking for pictures to illustrate it, I found some funny cartoons, so I decided to do a doctor post with the whole lot. Thank you for the joke, GJ.

I NEARLY BECAME A DOCTOR…..

When I was young, I decided I wanted to be a doctor so I took the entrance exam to go to Medical School.

One of the questions asked us to rearrange the letters PNEIS into the name of an important human body part which is most useful when erect.

Those who answered spine are doctors today. 

The rest of us are just sending jokes via email.

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Thursday, 8 January 2015

Some very c-c-c-cold pictures

I know some of our readers are suffering with the cold, but frozen landscapes have a magic beauty...






Monday, 5 January 2015

Mushy reflections about people and blogs...

Feeling mushy today...  Some of these give us food for thought (and make me mushier?) 








I'll share my own thoughts. 

This modest blog has kept old friends together and welcomed new ones in a warm and comfortable environment, which is completely different from our previous home, where things used to get heated due to the person who was the focal point of that blog. A troll got lost the other day, ended up here and left some pointed comments, one addressed to Mrsgunka and the other to Amy. When I started fearing that she would stay put being nasty to my readers, I wrote her a comment explaining that here we discuss nice stuff, without any room for haters, and invited her to chill out and take a mental health break. She disappeared.

I see so much ugliness around other blogs and think how we behave so differently here... Most of us go back a long way and feel as if we actually know each other. Of course some people got very close and friendships flourished, a few readers met in "real life" and became firm friends. These days it is perfectly possible to be friends on the internet as if we were in the same room. We live in the age of instant communication, where email, chat rooms, Skype and social media facilitate interactions in the blink of an eye!

There are opportunities to be nasty or nice 24 hours a day. I'm proud of this little corner of the internet, where we thrive on the respect we have for each other. I post bits and bobs that capture my imagination and sometimes the discussions become very animated, with people sharing their own experiences, photos, their joys and their sorrows. Sometimes the topic I post falls flat and people chat about other stuff. It's all fine. The important thing is to keep the communication channels open. Some topics interest some of the readers while others feel indifferent to them. The same goes for the contributions that are posted in the comments, not every topic is to every single reader's taste. I suppose it's like going to a party. I make a welcoming speech (the main post), everybody says hello to each other, then smaller groups form, diverse conversations happen, people are free to move around and strike conversations in another group. If somebody finds a particular conversation boring, there's always another, more interesting one, nearby. We don't go around shouting and being rude when we don't like a topic, we just move on. If we disagree with somebody's opinion, we say so, honestly and respectfully. We also pull each other's legs and the gentle banter keeps things lively, specially when the sports season is on...

We're a group of old friends, but there's plenty of room for new ones. The more, the merrier!

The troll couldn't cope with kindness, civil interactions and mutual respect. She declined my invitation and went puff! in cloud of her own poison. We got on with our nice party, having a jolly good time.

That's why I feel mushy... I love this blog!