I
THINK THAT we have had a White Easter before but it was over 20 years ago,
when we'd first moved in down here. This was the scene last weekend on the
morning of Easter Sunday, 23rd March but on the Saturday afternoon I had taken
a similar
picture
where hail, rather than snow, covered the ground. However, it wasn't the Easter
weather that blanked us out last week; Barbara
and I had colds which put us both out of action for well over a week.
I
think after all the work on the house and all the effort of getting my book
to the printers it wasn't surprising that we should both go down with the latest
virus that has been doing the rounds.
This view from the Café Casbah, Batley, (right) was drawn with my 0.8 mm Pilot Drawing Pen and coloured with my Winsor & Newton pocket box of colours and Pentel Aquash waterbrush as we enjoyed lattés and toasted ciabattas with strawberry jam this morning. Thanks to the effects of the cold, it's the first drawing that I've started in the last couple of weeks. In fact our trip to the Redbrick Mill this morning was probably the first time for months that we've been out just for fun, rather than on an errand connected with home improvements. Must do more of that.
I
got these out to collapse the box that the new dishwasher came
in. The cardboard was so substantial that I did consider that I should do something
useful with it, like build a bookcase. Our previous dishwasher,
which was 14 years old, was another of the items in the house that has recently
decided that it's come to the end of its useful life. It started tripping the
circuit breaker on the final phase of its wash cycle and Barbara, who was in
the kitchen at the time, reports seeing sparks from the plug, which was overheating,
just before the lights went out.
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Wave your arms about and look convincing
My mum though is practiced at getting by in such situations; she tells me that you communicate more by waving your arms about than through talking and, if you don't catch someone's name, just assume you know them and chat to them anyway. My strategy is to stick to sketching and to smile and nod in the appropriate places. And cough uncontrollably when anyone makes me laugh; I'm still not completely over this darn cold! |
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We're
at my niece's 18th birthday celebration at Ossett Town Football club this
evening and I'm impressed how well my mum, who is 90 and who wears digital
hearing aids,
is getting
on chatting
to everyone,
despite the 'boom-boom-boom' of the industrial strength amplification equipment.
We're sitting as far as we can from the 
speakers
but I can't hear what the person sitting next to me at the table is saying.