One Sketch 196) #inktober2018 Prompt 7 - Exhausted

I am not sleeping,
Not exhausted.
And though I may look slumped
Inert
Listless
I am ready for the chase.
I am merely rehearsing
Death is inevitable
And it is in my gift
To you.

Latest Inktober prompt, and that's probably about all I can say about it.

One Sketch #164) Ewenny Pottery

I do love cats
I have to say
-even if they're made
of clay.

E is for . . .Ewenny Pottery. Ewenny is a village just outside the sizeable town of Bridgend in South Wales. It is home to Ewenny Pottery, the oldest working pottery in Wales, dating back to 1610. For the last 200 years it has been run by the Jenkins family, who still run it today. Ewenny Pottery are known for some highly distinctive pieces, such as their trademark cats, and the many handled jug in the sketch.

One Sketch #77) Landseer Lion in Trafalgar Square #30x30directwatercolorchallenge2018

I guard the Admiral's Column
By day, and then by night
Not bad when you consider
I have neither bark nor bite.

This is my 16th direct watercolour for the 2018 30x30 challenge, and I have to say that of all the paintings I've made so far, it's probably my favourite. This was all sketched with the brush as I painted it, and I don't think it would have been any better if I'd sketched any of it out in pencil beforehand. The only trouble with it is that my scanner is funny about certain colours - mostly blues, and so while this photo shows that the lion itself is a combination of blues and greens, in the sacan it's mostly greys.

One Sketch #4: The World's Worst Phone

So today I had my last day in work until after the Easter Holidays. Yay! Nobody was hoe when I got back, so I settled down , made a cappuccino, and picked up a book. Then the phone rang. Now, that's a problem.

You see, our phone is awful. Oh, don't get me wrong, it looks great : -

It's a modern phone styled after an old American payphone from, I guess the 40s/50s. And when we first had it, it was fine. Over the years, though, it has become terrible. It is impossible to get through a call without having to apologise to the caller for having to continually ask them to repeat themselves because what they have said has been completely obscured by a crackle, a squeal, or any one of a bewildering variety of noises.

What made it worse today was that when I could finally make out what the caller was saying, he turned out to be a cold caller. A few years ago I took to telling them that I was the cat whenever a cold caller chanced his/her arm.
For example: -
Caller: Hello. I vant do speeek do Missis . . . .
Me: Missis . . . . not here. Did Mrs. . . . 's cat. My neem is Hero. I like feesh. Do you have feesh? I like meelk. Do you have meelk? : -
- and then every time they spoke I would mention another thing I liked and ask them for it. If you got as far as chicken, they were never going to hang up. Funnily enough, after the first time I did it we didn't have another nuisance call for weeks.

Well, anyway, here's today's verse
Compared to its crackles
Squeaks and squealing
Silence is rather
More appealing.

One Sketch - Day Three - Hero the Cat

So, I come in from work on the penultimate day before the Easter break, and both of my cats are in the front room, sitting in the sunshine. Now, one cat loves me and will do almost anything to ingratiate himself with me. For the other, though, I am nothing more than a purveyor of food. I sit down for five minutes, and he looks down his white nose at me, staring at me with a look that says - so you're going to sit there all afternoon, are you? - Never mind that I have been on the go for 9 hours with at most a ten minute break in between, and that my poor feet are absolutely aching, and that I'm also starving hungry myself. Hero stares at me, begrudging me every second of repose. So I get my revenge by sketching him here: -

and writing this verse, which I am sure is what is going through his head: -

I laze around the live long day
And with your cares I'll take no truck.
Monarch, I, of all you survey
- So go and get my tea, you schmuck.