The Rain, some Arty Stuffs, Volvo woe, a fuzzy brain and strawberries.
The hot weather has gone away. Now we have Rain and Fog. A couple of days ago I foolishly risked going out for a longer walk with Rosie Roo, but without her coat: we all got caught in a major downpour so wet that you could see Rosie's under-fur spots showing through her soaked fur, AND there was thunder. Fortunately, one of the few things that dogs are usually afraid of that Rosie isn't is Thunder, and since Rosie ignored it, so did Theo.
And THEN, driving home, I stopped at the roadside veg stand to buy YET MORE strawberries, and when I got back in the car, it wouldn't start. With the rain pouring down, and I had left my phone at home... So, then I had to go bang on the door of the house that belonged to the veg stand, in the middle of a pandemic, and ask to borrow their phone. Fortunately for me, they were in, and kind enough to lend it to me. Then I had to talk to Green Flag rescue through the sound of a torrent pouring on top of my umbrella, which was not easy.
At least they turned up quickly and the problem was just the battery was flat. So, now I need a new battery, as well as a new car door. The new door is because the window mechanism and the door hinge got into a terrible fight inside the door, which neither survived. The garage tried to fix it several times, unsuccessfully, and finally declared that a new door and innards was the only option. And so since March I have had a window propped into place using a Strategic Pencil and a door that stays in place partly because the garage put some screws into it to hold a strap made of a bit of old seat-belt.
The new door is grey. My car is green, but the garage has had no luck sourcing a green door. Hey ho. If the window works, that will do.
Colin the Art decided to try running some portrait classes via Facebook. This was excellent: I've wanted to work on faces for a long while. I did some little tessellating Feanorians to warm up:
I didn't like my first effort, but then Colin decided to do some darker skin tones. I didn't want to copy his paintings, so I asked for suggestions, and got some good ones!
Jessye Norman as Varda.
Loretta Devine as Mrs. Maggot.
And this a painting of Carnil, an OC follower of Maglor from Tirion. Here she is during her years as one of Maglor’s riders on the plains of Lothlann. She’s inspired by a photo I saw of an archer from Kazakhstan, at the World Nomad Games.
I'm pleased with that last one particularly.
People have left me a number of comments on various stories, to which I have failed to reply. I'm sorry about this: I don't know why I have failed to answer them yet. I want to, and will get to them.
I have written about 2000 words of my TRSB story #1 but seem to have got stuck. My writing abilities really do seem to have deserted me, which is a bit sad. I liked writing!
What else has happened? Oh, the vacuum cleaner got hiccups and has gone off to be repaired at a Distance. Theo is still proving a bit of a test in terms of his pulling on lead, but is slooooooowly improving.
I intended to just take down the blinds in the bathroom and replace them, but it turned out that there was mould under them, and also the new blinds were not exactly the same width, and long story short, I'm going to have to paint the bathroom now. Must go buy paint tomorrow. Wall-paint, not art-paint. Though in fact I have also painted the ceiling in our bedroom, and doing that revealed various shortcomings in the dark blue wall-paint, which I didn't have any more of. So I painted some strategic trees on the walls to hide the cracks. :-D
And THEN, driving home, I stopped at the roadside veg stand to buy YET MORE strawberries, and when I got back in the car, it wouldn't start. With the rain pouring down, and I had left my phone at home... So, then I had to go bang on the door of the house that belonged to the veg stand, in the middle of a pandemic, and ask to borrow their phone. Fortunately for me, they were in, and kind enough to lend it to me. Then I had to talk to Green Flag rescue through the sound of a torrent pouring on top of my umbrella, which was not easy.
At least they turned up quickly and the problem was just the battery was flat. So, now I need a new battery, as well as a new car door. The new door is because the window mechanism and the door hinge got into a terrible fight inside the door, which neither survived. The garage tried to fix it several times, unsuccessfully, and finally declared that a new door and innards was the only option. And so since March I have had a window propped into place using a Strategic Pencil and a door that stays in place partly because the garage put some screws into it to hold a strap made of a bit of old seat-belt.
The new door is grey. My car is green, but the garage has had no luck sourcing a green door. Hey ho. If the window works, that will do.
Colin the Art decided to try running some portrait classes via Facebook. This was excellent: I've wanted to work on faces for a long while. I did some little tessellating Feanorians to warm up:
I didn't like my first effort, but then Colin decided to do some darker skin tones. I didn't want to copy his paintings, so I asked for suggestions, and got some good ones!
Jessye Norman as Varda.
Loretta Devine as Mrs. Maggot.
And this a painting of Carnil, an OC follower of Maglor from Tirion. Here she is during her years as one of Maglor’s riders on the plains of Lothlann. She’s inspired by a photo I saw of an archer from Kazakhstan, at the World Nomad Games.
I'm pleased with that last one particularly.
People have left me a number of comments on various stories, to which I have failed to reply. I'm sorry about this: I don't know why I have failed to answer them yet. I want to, and will get to them.
I have written about 2000 words of my TRSB story #1 but seem to have got stuck. My writing abilities really do seem to have deserted me, which is a bit sad. I liked writing!
What else has happened? Oh, the vacuum cleaner got hiccups and has gone off to be repaired at a Distance. Theo is still proving a bit of a test in terms of his pulling on lead, but is slooooooowly improving.
I intended to just take down the blinds in the bathroom and replace them, but it turned out that there was mould under them, and also the new blinds were not exactly the same width, and long story short, I'm going to have to paint the bathroom now. Must go buy paint tomorrow. Wall-paint, not art-paint. Though in fact I have also painted the ceiling in our bedroom, and doing that revealed various shortcomings in the dark blue wall-paint, which I didn't have any more of. So I painted some strategic trees on the walls to hide the cracks. :-D