Carolina

This is the pattern I worked on all last month! I was so delighted with the result that I wanted to share it with you. I hope you like it as much as I do!

@SamCannonArt You're very talented! I love how well you capture the colours and shapes in feathers and fur, something I find very hard to do. Your work is a breath of fresh air in this space.

Since I moved to Dorset in 2010 and had another go at being an artist, I've painted 900 pictures. I know that's a lot. But honestly, my brain swirls with ideas and nature bashes me over the head all day long with inspiration. I'd have done more if I had more time.

Catholics would beg to differ.

First Time He Ever Saw a Female 😂

Not every religion

Sometimes I forget that we live on a planet where sea otters wrap themselves in kelp so they don’t drift out to sea while they sleep. Where frogs follow elephants in the jungle to lay eggs in their footprints. Where whales lift their newborns to the surface for a breath of air.

When winning matters more than the rules of the game.. 😂

Every time I hear some woke screenwriter or reviewer talk about the need for “morally complex” plots or “morally grey” heroes, I think of this quote from Nietzsche. “They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.”

There are many characters who do redeem themselves in the story. You have completely missed the point of Gollum. That he is a pitiable creature who comes within a hairsbreadth of redemption only to be lost once more. For every redemption achieved, there are those that fail. Gollum is the one that failed. Gollum is meant to be a cautionary tragedy. A character you pity. Redeeming him would've ruined it.

What blew my mind most about the Lord of the Rings was how perfectly a fantasy story represented evil & temptation and how it works in each of our lives. The Ring doesn't make you evil overnight. But it whispers in your ear, it makes the wrong decision feel so incredibly reasonable, it tells you that this time will be different. How many times in our life do we have this conversation in our head? I’ve had it, many times. And the longer you hold onto it, the harder it becomes to let go. Which is just crazy. The things we know are destroying us are often the things we can’t put down. Frodo didn't fail because he was weak. He failed because no one is strong enough to carry sin alone forever. We are all Frodo, that's kind of the whole point.

The take on Gollum is actually one of the most profoundly Christian things in the entire story and mirrors the problems within The Church today. Gollum “converts.” He’s shown radical mercy by Frodo, he softens, he even starts calling him “Master” and seems to walk away from his old life. But he never truly repents. He never lets go of the Ring in his heart. He becomes the classic “Sunday Christian”: he plays the part, hangs around the “church” (the Fellowship), but his sin is still there, festering beneath the surface. Instead of real transformation, he slides right back into betrayal the moment it suits him. And worse, he begins to corrupt those around him, turning them against the very grace that was offered. He sows division and suspicion right in the middle of the quest. In the end it all backfires on him, as it always does. That’s not bad writing. That’s Tolkien showing us exactly how false conversion and unrepented sin actually work in real life. Gollum gets his hearts desires and burns in Hell. Tolkien didn’t miss redemption. He understood it better than the secular world, especially today.

Mama swan carrying her little babies..🦢😍

As another man who once worked with me declares himself saddened by my beliefs on gender and sex, I thought it might be useful to compile a list for handy reference. Which of the following do you imagine makes actors and directors who aren’t involved with the HBO reboot of Harry Potter so miserable? Is it my belief that women and girls should have their own public changing rooms and bathrooms? That women should retain female-only rape crisis centres? That men don’t belong in women’s sport? That female prisoners shouldn’t be incarcerated with violent men and male sex offenders? That women should remain a protected class in law, because they have sex-specific needs and issues? That language should reflect reality rather than ideological jargon, especially in a medical context? That women shouldn’t be harassed, persecuted or fired for refusing to pretend humans can change sex? That women should not be threatened with violence and rape when they assert their rights? That freedom of speech and belief are essential to a pluralistic democratic society? That troubled minors, especially those who are gay, autistic and trauma-experienced, should be given mental health support instead of irreversible surgeries and drug treatments on non-existent evidence of benefit? That gay people shouldn’t be pressured to include the opposite sex in their dating pools, nor should they be smeared as ‘genital fetishists’ when they don’t? That cross-dressing heterosexual male fetishists aren’t actually oppressed, but having the time of their lives piggybacking off gender identity ideology? That said ideology, and the privileged, blinkered fools pushing it because they suffer zero consequences themselves, have done more damage to the political left’s credibility than Trump and Farage could have achieved in a century? Let me have your thoughts.

🚨NEW - CANADIAN SENIOR OFFERED DEATH FOR MINOR BONE BREAK 84-year-old Miriam Lancaster was admitted to a Vancouver hospital with a broken sacrum (small back bone) Her doctor told her: "We can offer you MAID.’ she refused and recovered in a month, later climbed a volcano.

Finally captured the moment when two red-crowned cranes met and danced gracefully, truly worth my long wait in the snow!

When the government tells you: “We’re in the same boat”

“If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck, you are in a bubble & again, I am not a Christian. They are systematically k!lling Christians in Nigeria. They have k!lled over a 100,000 Christians since 2009, they have burned 18,000 churches. These are the Isl@mists, Boko Haram. This is so much more of a Gen0cide attempt than what’s going on in Gaza. They are literally trying to wipe out the Christian population in Nigeria. Where are the kids protesting this?” ~ Bill Maher

In a world where you can be anything, be a number 50

This may seem like a small deal to some, but these reminders of our history bind us all together. Turner, Turing, Churchill, Austen. In the past it's been Elgar, Darwin, Newton, Adam Smith. We are losing those small moments in our day to remember what makes this country great.

How better to destroy a nation than to erase its heroes