MOTIVATION AND GOOD VIBRATIONS

 Well, I did not need much to motivate me to get rid of a pile of ironing. It is wet, really wet outside. What makes it bearable is, the Meteorological map showed that most of us in the U.K have got the same, though not as cold :

Excess Of Rainfall

but .......yesterday we had an unexpected break in weather scene, it was dry with bright skies. We thought we were in for a full week of rain in its various forms. I made the most of the sunshine and afternoon warmth. So much so, I forgot an appointment with our very good local podiatrist.  Two hours later, abjectly apologetic, I paid the amount required for the missed appointment. She made me feel better by thanking me for being so prompt.  A little bit of me feels guilty, but, if I am honest, enjoying the sunshine and warmth was worth it.

Yesterday's Garden Visitor

Sun and warmth are irregular events where I live, they have therefore, become  precious commodities. In my other life, I would never have viewed either as any kind of commodity because sun and warmth went together like a horse and carriage. There were stable seasons. I could turn off the heating for about four months.

 Blue Cockerel Trafalgar Square - London

There was warm spring weather; hot summers and pleasant autumns, also, Indian summers. I really liked that seasonal close. The air was balmy with pleasant temperatures, there was a slowing down of nature. Most people had a last gasp for the year wearing their bright lightweight clothes.  In all those months of the year, there was always the assurance of some enjoyable weather when  you had time off, to either potter in a garden, potter on a balcony, or, with pots on windowsills.  You could walk in open spaces, like parks. It was possible to flop into deckchairs, buy an ice-cream, be decadent with a candy floss. People stood or sat outside cafes and bars.  It is and was another world.

In my present life, the seasons merge; there is a long winter, which merges with a kind of spring. You dress warmly for it. Then maybe a summer/autumn arrives. It is difficult to know when to wear many layers, or, just a couple. Wind chill can catch you out.  Do I wear a cardigan or a lightweight jacket, or, a warm coat? Like the farmers, I study the weather forecasts and check them daily, sometimes, several times a day. 

It is late May now and the weather has not  significantly warmed up, (8 degrees Celsius if we're lucky today). Earlier this month I bought some pert and pretty coloured pansies and planted them in garden pots, just to introduce a bit of colour. I'm not sure they'll thrive, they have signs of wind burn.

Kelpie

With the unexpected warm weather day yesterday, I unpacked my new pink gardening hand tools, ( a gift). I did not want to waste time looking for rakes and spades. I got on with some gardening. It might be my only suitable gardening day for some time. I attacked the clumps of grass growing where they were not meant to be, pulled up all sorts of weeds while trying to avoid self-seeded seedlings;  that was a bit of a fiddle. I discovered some new plants growing, my Primulas are increasing in number. I think the groups of pointed, purple tinged leaves might be the Alliums that did not show last year.  Bluebells will flower soon, the Euphorbia planted last year has doubled its branches at the end of which, are fabulous fiery flowers.  My Lupins have prolifically reproduced and the Crocosomia leaves look strong. Yay!
  

Primula Candelabra Developing

GETTING UP A HEAD OF STEAM - AND BEING WISTFUL

When you really want something you know you have stored somewhere, that’s when you can never find it. So it was today, I hunted high and low for a canvas bag I wanted to use. Anyone within earshot of me would have heard me muttering all sorts of unrepeatable phrases. There probably was also a steady head of steam around me instead of my usual equable aura. I peered in places I knew the bag was unlikely to be, I pulled out stuff that had been shoved, er, fitted, into tight spaces. Could I fit them back; NO. They were forced back and the door was quickly shut. 

Time for a break; just then hubby returned home. He made helpful suggestions of places I had already looked and one or two I had avoided. A few packages fell out on top of me as they do when you’re ploughing through a pile of ??? years' collection.

One more look in the cupboards, I decided, then, I was going to give up. Yeah okay, you’re already there. I found the bag. It was lying neatly under a h a t. (I’m not even going to go there. The bag was found and there’s an end to it).


One of the local charity shops is going to benefit from some of the howking out of long forgotten bits and pieces that I thought might come in useful one day. The haul includes a couple of carrier bags of wadding, created from reducing over-stuffed pillows, good for quilting and other craft work. Another stored bag contained weird shapes of fine wool fabric in two colours, together with flattened pieces of brown paper. Many memories flooded into my mind when I remembered what it was all ‘attached’ to. It made me a little wistful. Someone might get some use out of a dressmaker’s brown paper pattern and the left-over material of the garment that was made, which has long gone.

SUPERMARIO AND THE KNOTTED BALLOONS.

If an astrologer had described January as being a time of personal bombshells, I would not have entertained the suggestion.  Well....it was.  It took the whole of  February for me to stabilize. Like all eventful times though, the repercussions go bubbling on.  They, (the repercussions) certainly kept me occupied and busy, the distractions were useful.  

Sculpt of a boy [having a power struggle] with a serpent and a lion- in the forecourt of The Canongate Church on The Royal Mile Edinburgh

All that said, I am still humbled by those who have been forced from their homes by wars  and the aftermath of storms and floods. I care about the people who are forced to the margins of our society by the uncontrolled actions of those we were meant to trust and those whom we are expected to trust.  There is much unrest in today's Global politics; these are dangerous times.

Smokey

I was alerted to some photos sitting in a biodegradable bag by my desk, because it was biodegrading.  The pictures have been sitting there a long, long time.  I originally found them just when, with a whoop of glee and self-satisfaction, I thought I had completed the long careful task of copying old originals and restoring them.  Glumly, I saw I had not. That is why, that batch of pictures sat and sat and..... well, you get the picture, they were waiting for a new burst of enthusiasm for working on, which never came. 

However, while tidying up my digital picture folders on  my computer - the first 'efficiency' stage - I allowed myself to be drawn in to recent memories. In Edinburgh during Hogmanay, what could Super Mario and his compadre have been up to with these policemen? Not selling them their knotted balloons, Surely?

Miscreants, do not end up here, at Edinburgh Castle, these days.  Tourists do and quite right too.

Here's a clock dressed up for the Christmas season in one of the Edinburgh stores. Another hour to go before closing time.

 Lambs have been appearing. One of the three Suffolk Ewes produced triplets.  A North Country Cheviot  ewe  was introduced to one of the lambs to help with the milk feeds. It was amusing to see the lamb scampering between its siblings and its two mums. Here's a very recent picture of one of the Suffolk ewes with her twins.

SPORTING SECRET WEAPONS -YAY! OUR SIDE WON

I have just come from watching the Olympic sports on my television.  I gave it one hundred percent of my attention.  Why,  I decided,  should I give half an ear to what might be being described on a radio while I am washing up, cooking or ironing in the kitchen, where there is no T.V.  (I wouldn't dare take the risk of doing something daft amongst all those tools and equipment, while my focus and attention was other than where it was sensible to be).  I was glued to my armchair seat, getting as excited as anyone for those wonderful Olympians.  For all their efforts, the least I could do was give them my undivided attention.  

While watching the sporting spectacle,  I began to revolve through a lifetime of memories; memories of the school games and sports; the training for our county sports, the competing in individual races and in teams.  I was quite sprightly in the hurdles races too.  My long jump co-ordination developed in my mid teens.  I remembered how satisfying it was to expand what I was able to do in the athletics and sports arena.  Though why it all stopped is a mystery, I cannot remember. Maybe all those sporty interests were not easily followed through once I left school.  

Seeing my genuine  interest in their lunchtime matches of table tennis, some work mates took me under their respective wings, and with great patience taught me to play a very useful game of table-tennis.  They were fast competition players and it must have been tedious to play a game at my bat-and-ball level.  But, you have to start somewhere. There was just the lunch break to play, not a lot of time.  I learned to serve at different lengths to and from the net; I lobbed; I caused the ball to spin; played  back spins and top spins; I learned to neutralise those ball techniques  with opponents who played them to me.  As my skills increased so did the speed of the games.  As my game became more skilled, I occasionally stayed after hours to support extra practice for my work pals with informal foursomes and pairs matches.  I found table tennis was a game I could pick up again fairly easily over the years, even in small recreation rooms that had full size tables dominating most of the space.

Once, I was the secret weapon in a friendly match between offices.  There was barely space to move back from the table, or, around it.  The visitors' champion had taken our team to the line and then I was wheeled on to play a deciding match.  Did I dream it, or did I see a mini sneer play around the guy's mouth: what's this, a woman!  I remember smiling at him.  The game started.  He was visibly startled at the pace at which I could hold the game, he could not play that fast for long.  He used every technique in the rule book that he knew and every spin, as did I.  At each cut and stroke I used to neutralise his armoury, he shook his head.  I won that match.  Our side won the little competition.

:)

AN ART IN DIPLOMACY

I clearly remember watching the present Queen's Coronation on a small black and white television. Those early ones were a great lump of furniture, some with very attractive wood grain that had a small screen set in them. Many televisions were ordered and bought especially for the spectacle. This was the first time that a Coronation was going to be screened live into vast numbers of peoples' households. While I cannot honestly say I understood everything that occurred, I was very aware that something unusual and different was about to happen. And, for this day, lots of people were having a day at home. We were invited to a friend's house along with the rest of the family.

Owning a television or renting one, had not been commonplace. This Coronation was an event, not just for its uniqueness, but also, it was a major event I can say I saw through a grainy screen. I have clear memories of the canopy being set in place at the ceremonial point of anointing; Zadok The Priest, a musical flare that I stored in my memory; the crown being held aloft and placed on the head of the new Monarch; her, trailing down the aisle at Westminster with the crown balanced on her head, (it looked a bit big) her ladies-in-waiting managing the purple train, which was edged in ermine; finally, there are moments of memory of the Golden Coach journey, smartly dressed footmen, like those in fairy stories, and the horses hooves clattering their way back to the Palace.

A relative who died a few years ago, related to me memories of two coronations. For one she had received an invitation, not to attend inside Westminster Abbey, but to be seated outside in stands constructed specially for the day, on the route that the new King, (George VI) would take in his coach back to Buckingham Palace. Her dad, a tailor, had designed and made her a beautiful long skirted heavy dress coat from tapestry cloth, for the occasion. The ticket holders had to arrive several hours earlier than the scheduled time for the grand parade. Negotiating with the policemen to leave the stands to visit the toilet, she said, was an art in diplomacy.

MEMORIES OF EASTERS PAST

As kids, we used to boil and dye eggs when we were of a sensible age. We also painted eggs, it kept us pleasurably absorbed for hours. 

I have memories of sparkly sugar eggs being introduced at some point. They had windows in them with scenes of mini chicks running around. I think we had them for two or three sequential years, then that type of confection disappeared. Chocolate eggs of all sizes became ubiquitous as post war austerity lessened. Our real fun was to awake to find a few coloured hens eggs scattered around on our bed covers. Anything else was an added extra.

A MEMORY LANE OF SPECIAL MOMENTS

As I was browsing through a raft of picture files from recent years, a memory lane of moments in some days that took enough of my interest enough to want to make a visual record, I thought I would like to share some of those times.  The pictures are randomly chosen.


You see below  a frozen loch (lake) and snow covered peat lands in
Scotland, December 25th 2009.

These three hooded crow siblings, still fluffy fledglings, liked the position high on the neighbour's rooftop. They seemed to be enjoying an animated gossip.

This rock,  worn like a sea wave and was  embedded into the white sands of a secluded beach, reminded me -without the seaweed - of  Italian pastries called Svogliatelli.  The pastry would be filled with baker's cream.  I used to buy them on a Sunday morning still warm  from the oven, from a central London Italian pastry and pizza restaurant.  I also had the delightful pleasure of munching one in a little cafe close to Herculaneum, near Naples, in Southern Italy.

THE DAYS AFTER AND BEYOND

We are now in the days after.......

The ritual of the burial is over, though there will be the cards that came with the floral tributes to be collected, soon, and the inscription on the stone to arrange in due course. There were so many kindnesses. There were people who came to the service and the grounds who grieved our loss with us, it was a loss for them too. There were others there to support us, their friends, when we most needed their comfort.

Some people call these days, a period of being in a bubble. I find it more of a limbo land, a disconnection from life state; a re-settling and re-arranging of emotions in daily living. It takes time.

With distraction, I find myself doing things that do make me smile, others that frustrate me, and worst of all, I know I am not firing on all cylinders. This afternoon I slept - not forty winks - it was a sleep. I guess this was a bit of catch up and a little chance to find a peaceful slot in the day.

I have been out tonight with young friends, the children who grew up together who have also been touched by our bereavement. I believe it has been good for all of us. sharing some of their youthful lifetime memories which intermingle with our own.