Skip to main content

Wirral Webcam and Writers

Emily is peering over the edge of the extensive boardwalk, which runs along part of West Kirby beach towards Red Rocks at Hoylake, (by the houses you can see on the horizon. The beach continues behind these buildings). On one side is the golf course, on the other lie tall sand dunes, reed beds and ponds. Natterjack toads breed here, along with newts and tiny lizards which look like jewels. There are masses of wetland and shoreline birds, too, of course; the Dee Estuary is one of Britain's premier sites for migrating birds.

The weather is rather grey and choppy today. You'll be able to see this for yourself if you take a peek through the Wirral webcam. I've just added this to my links list on my page. If you're patient, you might be able to watch the seals.

http://www.camserv.co.uk/wirralcam/home.shtml

Last night saw another gathering of Riverside Writers. This month's writing project had been set on the theme of The Missing Chair inspired, apparently, by my absence from the last meeting! (I'd gone to the Russian ballet.) It's always fun to hear how everyone has approached the project. Everyone produces a piece of work which is very different from everyone else. Peter Caton even wrote his very first poem, inspired by The Missing Chair theme, and he'd done an excellent job of it too. We all encouraged him to try writing more poetry.

Actually, I received something of a compliment from Peter, when he said that I set the relaxed, informal tone of the meetings. Even though I direct the meetings as Chair, it's all done very subtly.

As I see it, people come along to a meeting like ours primarily for fun. If they wish to be tortured, go to college!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Cure for Aging?

"All that we profess to do is but this, - to find out the secrets of the human frame; to know why the parts ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply continual preventatives to the effort of time.  This is not magic; it is the art of medicine rightly understood.  In our order we hold most noble -, first, that knowledge which elevates the intellect; secondly, that which preserves the body.  But the mere art (extracted from the juices and simples) which recruits the animal vigour and arrests the progress of decay, or that more noble secret which I will only hint to thee at present, by which heat or calorific, as ye call it, being, as Heraclitus wisely taught, the primordial principle of life, can be made its perpectual renovator...." Zanoni, book IV, chapter II, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, first published in 1842. Oroboros keyring - Spooky Cute Designs The idea of being able to achieve an immortal life is probably as old as human life itself.  Folklore and myt...

Remembering Richie Tattoo Artist's Studio

Richard in the street entrance to his tattoo studio in Liverpool. The vertical sign next to Richard is now in the Liverpool Tattoo Museum. Yesterday, my sister Evelyn, Richard and myself stood outside Richard's old tattoo studio and looked up at the few remaining signs, whose paint has now mostly flacked away to reveal bare wood. On the studio's window are stick-on letters which read, "Art", where once it boldly announced his presence as the city's only "Tattoo Artist".  I can remember him buying that simple plastic lettering from an old-fashioned printer's shop. This was in 1993, not long after he'd opened the studio and before he could afford better signs. After he'd patiently stuck them onto the glass we realised that from the outside the sign read "Artist Tattoo", so we had to carefully peel the letters off the window and have another go, laughing over having made such an obvious error yet worried in case we spoiled the letteri...

Falling Trees and Blue Portraits

Birkenhead Park Visitor Centre, 7th April 2019, by Adele Cosgrove-Bray. My ongoing series of sketches in the park continues unabated, as is evident. On a few recent sketches I've added some simple washes of watercolour to bring another dimension to the scenes. I've long grown accustomed to sketching in public, and the few people who've passed any comment have always been encouraging. I've even unintentionally captured a tiny bit of park history:- I drew this lovely arching tree in February this year, and since then its own weight has pulled its roots out from the ground. Probably due to safety concerns, it has been brutally cut back so it's now little more than a stump, and the horizontal section, with all its vertical branches, has been removed. Hopefully the tree will survive this harsh treatment. "How can walkies please, when every step's a wheeze?" by Adele Cosgrove-Bray. Portrait by Adele Cosgrove-Bray; chalk and charcoal...