James Chip @jameschip@merveilles.town

Flip your flat bread by hand, it tastes better. #theGalley

People who say that anything is possible have never tried putting gloves on an excited toddler before going out in the snow.

The thing I always tell myself when learning is “I’m not good, but I’m getting better!”

This balances the positive negative emotions for me. Yeah I’m not a good artist because there’s loads left to learn. I am learning and growing though, which is the most important part.

And a very quick experiment in using blue and grey to do a quick sketch of the church poking through the trees.

My first ever attempt at colour wheel in watercolour. Just mixing the colours on the paper not a pallet.

Just washed my brush in my cup of tea. The life of an artist.

I did two arts today.

The first I a sketch of a coworker I did without looking at the page while I waited for the computer to start up. Don’t worry he was aware, we were talking about portraits and he said he had wanted one of him.

The second is some beach huts at Southwold.

Which is the best breakfast tea?

Like Dahlias, the plant looks a bit scruffy so you remove all of the flowers. A couple of days later the whole thing is in flower again.

Amazing really.

This was casually explained to me by my mum years ago when I asked what she was doing.

It’s just an interesting thing.

I still find deadheading flowers an interesting thing. You pick the spent flower heads off a plant and it promotes more flowers to grow.

This works because when the flower is pollenated it withers and sends a chemical signal back to the plant to say “job done, all energy into seed making now please”

Picking the flower head off stops this signal and the plant produces more flowers to try and create seeds.

I have not written code for a while, nor do I feel the need at this moment.

I want to paint instead.

It has come to my attention that it is not common knowledge that the UK has rainforests too.

Temperate rainforests are a thing.

It is an injustice that academic books are so expensive. Bryophyte Ecology in print - £120.

Why?

Or are we really just saying that only the privileged are allowed to know things.

Looking at books on bryophytes. A rabbit hole appears.

Dawsonia is the tallest moss on the planet and reaches up to 50cm tall! #MOSSTODON.

I miss sitting by a lake with my wife and doing voices for the Moorhens and Ducks as they go about their day.

Maybe I should start a moss farm.

Still thinking about moss.

“I always thought you were going to be a naturalist but then grandad insisted on buying you that bloody computer and that was that” - My dad when I told him I wanted out of tech. Ahead of the game as usual.