Apocalypse

I will die of cold

But bequeath before I do, to you -

The fire and the gold

of equal partnerships and such musings...

A couple of days ago at the gym, we were 'deadlifting' on opposite sides of the room, when a young-ish man, doing something else painful, suddenly said to Alistair :

"Is she (me, that is) your wife? You wouldn't want to cross her when told to wash up" (or similar wording).

Having a voice of my own, and being quicker off the mark than Alistair, I replied that yes I am his wife and that I don't tell him to do anything - we have an equal partnership...

So I have been mulling over what makes an equal partnership?  I know it's easy for me to pontificate ( we are retired, active and 'run a loose ship'), but, for what it's worth, here are a few musings...

An equal partnership for us certainly doesn't mean rigidly dividing the must-do jobs down the middle and alternating them throughout the week (that there are seven days in the week has always seemed to me to militate against that!) 

There are certain jobs that one or other of us does better, and tend to continue to do...though we are working on initiating each other into the joys so we 'could manage alone' , one day. Some of these skills are inate, some are habitual...as I say we are working on them...

But we have been together for many, MANY years and my musings have led me to think that flexibility and, more than anything, kindness is the key...

He has hurt his heel, for example, so I am doing the majority of the dog-walking.

My back is dodgy, so he is wielding the vacuum cleaner.

I sit down in the late-afternoon, he has a burst of energy and goes cycling or swimming.

"Oh so easy for you," I hear you say! "What about those of us with two careers, three children and two dogs!?"

Been there, I promise you and, though I admit I wasn't in 'gainful employment' when our kids were young, anyone who knows us knows how hard our life was at that time.

And, again, kindness is honestly the key, kindness and consideration for each other's strengths and weaknesses, quirks and foibles...

In our very early days together, when we were young and starry-eyed, Alistair pointed out to me that the word "consideration" begins with "consider"...

My Mitra Day...

The day started clear and bright...only it didn't, it was glum and grey as I walked Kitty (Evie was feeling sicky, I was nervous myself...).

My lovely Sis, who had gallantly promised to support me, was coming over by train for a day and a night...she only has to put a foot across the border for us to experience thunderstorms, floods, snow...

At 11, as I returned, she sent me a message to say the train was just leaving Shrewsbury, and, yep, down came the rain...

But it was only rain and didn't spoil a momentous day on which, in the company of three of my sangha-buddies, and in the presence of the Sangha and assorted friends, I made my offerings of a flower (there are a few calendula left in the garden), a candle (one of my tiny recycled ones) and an incense stick...do love a bit of ritual!

Lovely things were said by friends 'rejoicing in merit', which sounded like the qualities I loved and valued in my Mum and Dad (and made me a little teary), petals were strewn and bubbles were bubbled. There were unexpected gifts and cards. And cake.

In the evening we relaxed with his edited films of 1970s family holidays in Scotland, ate late and drank a bottle of good wine.

And then lit a fire and fell asleep over my favourite film...The Station Agent, since you asked...

All my hot water bottles are red...

and it has always been so. Yesterday, replacing a worn one (I am an 11 1/2 months of the year hot water bottle girl!), I dithered over the blue or the red before, as always, buying the red...Why?

More than half a century ago there was a very important general election and, a confused child, just beginning to take an interest in the outside world, I asked my Dad how he and Mum would vote. He explained carefully that democracy meant a secret ballot and what that meant. And then he winked and added that I only had to look at their new hot water bottles to know...his was blue - in those innocent pre-Thatcher days Dad was a tory voter. Mum's new bottle was red...

It took that poor confused child months to work out that there was no connection between party politics and the colour of your hot water bottle. But I have always bought red ones.

Recovery 2

And always the fire, 

deep in the winter's heartlands

Lighting the way home

Recovering Addict 1

It was suggested yesterday that I might blog my experience of recovering from my addiction to Facebook...so here it is, in haiku, the diary...

A fresh start and yet -

Anxious around the edges...

Bit like the weather...

Small lives

Wrens, a pair today

Sun-lighting their busy lives

Unconcerned with mine

Home alone, here we go again #11 & 12

#11 & 12

They say our dreams are the mind's filing-system...beavering away at night to sort our psyche into neat files and stow everything safely...

Well, if that is so, there has been some rogue secretary in my mind's office the last couple of nights...running amuk among the filing-cabinets, tossing files with complete abandon into the air and generally laying waste my attempts to sleep soundly.
I have rarely, if ever, had such weird and disturbing dreams...

The vacuum cleaner is misbehaving this morning, and, convinced there is a vital piece missing, I go rummaging in the compost heap...there among the tealeaves and slimy pink worms I find at least part of the missing plastic 'thing'. Far from convinced that I have it all together (!), I vacuum anyway...it doesn't seem super-efficient, but tbh they never do function like those tv adverts, do they?

Caught my dungaree clip and broke it...so now I am finishing with a dud vacuum, looking like an elderly, dodgy, slightly androgenous au pair! Or like the dude with designer off-the-shoulder dungies we chuckled at on the prom in the summer...

Oh, I found my ear-cuff too. Not in the compost-heap, you'll be glad to hear - in the dog's blanket!

And you may well ask why there is a doggie 'dentastick' in the peg-bucket...ask away - I have no idea!

#10

Home alone, here we go again #10

Another beautiful day! I woke early (had gone to sleep early) and it was a bright, hard and cold morning.
Walking the dogs was such a pleasure...and as we came back around the 'promontery walk' we disturbed a squawking flock of magpies. Thinking of the old rhyme, I realise that there are too many, more than "seven for a secret, never to be told...". Probably just as well...

I spent some time in Mach later, but the blues were lapping the edges of my mind, and I needed the silence of my aloneness again, so I dragged my boring shopping home...

Met a really interesting woman on the way, sitting knitting outside her house "the oldest in Aber", waiting to waylay a promised delivery. Bow windows...very rare I think.

By the time I got home, both my phone and I had flat batteries...plugged in.

#9

This morning I left a loaf doing its thing in the breadmaker after walking the dogs - made with cold porridge from breakfast I didn't fancy and cheap cider from an unopened can I found on the beach. (last of the big spenders me!)

Reasons to be thankful...

*Having the time, health and energy to walk over the cliff in THE most beautiful september sunshine to visit the Oldie.
*Blackberries

Though he probably won't know I've been...but I will.

Actually he was in the middle of his tuesday morning art group (apparently it is tuesday)...
but that was ok, I could admire his work and that of the other four participants - all quite different.
And then walk back over the cliffs...
*More blackberries

The loaf wasn't ready when I got in, so I made soup with the last of everything, and the rest of the cider.
Yum.

Very late last night I watched a quite erotic french film.
Scanning tonight's film choices, I can't wait till 6.25pm to find out if it really is being re-shown (in which case I didn't need go stay up SO late) - or whether 'Talking Pictures TV' is right in advertising a Katherine Hepburn black and white romance from 1955 with the same title!
Hahahahaha...

#8

Home alone, here we go again #8

We have agreed that making porridge and making toast both count as 'cooking for yourself'

So it is official...

Home Alone-Here we go again #7

A lovely mixed day for me today. After scaring myself witless (not a difficult thing), being within a whisker of a fall from a kitchen chair (possibilities flashed before my eyes, including breaking every conceivable bone and lying in a pool of blood on the stone floor...) I righted myself with superhuman effort. And this was all before 8am!

The dogs got a happy walk this morning and then I headed for the gym before I lost momentum... Only fragile scruffy woman among big muscley sweaty young men (kept my superwoman costume hidden in my baggysweats...)

Lovely time on the beach with a friend this afternoon, followed by actually COOKING for myself tonight. And Mrs Dalloway and her party...oh I love Vanessa Redgrave. And Michael Kitchen...

Home Alone H.W.G.A #5 & 6

Home alone...again # 5

Oh, today was busy...full of people morning till night, as if to make up for the last two solitary days...

Dogs and I had a walk in the lovely cool morning sunshine and met a few people out and about enjoying the air...then Aerial Yoga, which was ...conversational.

My afternoon was our lovely discussion group in the attic... loving what we are creating there!

And in the evening a visitor arrived, quite late, and we talked till later. And then went to bed even later...

We both slept well fortunately...

#6

...because, this morning, when she had to be in Borth at 9am, her hire-car had a flat battery!
That took a while to sort out and I gave the dogs a long blackberry walk and mused on cars, insurance and technology in general.

I went into town later...wow, that was busy!

Dogs I have met today:
*A beautiful hairy lurcher on the prom...Kitty-sized, but only 7months, with huge feet (there's a Friends joke there, about 'long paws/pause)
*two enormous deerhounds, Kitty-coloured and gentle - Kitty could have walked underneath each, without ruffling any feathers...
*and a little muppet terrier, fiesty and Evie sized.
Called 'Wolf'...

A quiet late afternoon and evening...sitting by the fire, waiting for the full moon to rise over the cliff.

Days 3 & 4

Here I am, back from off-line, off-piste and generally off-the-wall!

Home Alone, here we go again, day #3...

My day started with a timely reminder of the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and downright contrariness of all things - the wind had blown up a hoolie in the night and when I went up to the attic to salute the shrine, meditate and generally 'dedicate' the day, the shrine/windowsill was awash!

A walk with the dogs in the early-day drizzle yielded its usual treasures of earth and air. A quiet day doing practical things and then meditating and reading - SHOCKED by how 'plugged-in' to the outside world I generally am!

Did you know that if you light a fire in an old watering-can the spout falls off?! Me neither...

Listening to music on cd in the evening, by candlelight..I am always  drawn back into the world I inhabited 'then'...firstly Emily Maguire 'Falling on my Feet' and I am dancing again with Felipa, who had a hand in me being here.
And then Vangelis 'Chariots of Fire', which, astonishingly is almost forty years old! Ponder 'Jerusalem'...
And I am sorely tempted to haul out the dvd...grab a good book instead
Ho hum...'The Hours', another all-time favourite film to hunger for. Two actually, cos of course I will watch Mrs Dalloway once again too..

day #4

Woke too early, rattled and ill at ease this morning. Wrote down the '5 hindrances' from memory - yep, all present and correct!
Lots of weak tea and meditation prescribed, followed by a walk in the rain-cool wood.

Pottering sort of day, with windowsills, meditating, reading and clay all playing a part. And eating. And sleeping a bit.

Watched the moon rise over the cliff, very late, and turned on my phone to reconnect with the men in my life

Home alone, here we go again #2

Home Alone, here we go again #2

Looong day, punctuated by B. who, I swear, thinks that we just sit around resting in between gym sessions!
So today, by the time I received his encouraging message ('work REALLY hard today!') and was heading for the gym on the bike, I had already hung three washloads and walked the dogs...

The gym went ok (I gave it lots of welly) and then I cycled on in to town for some things. It was beautiful along the avenue in the park, a bit like a september day in Cambridge...

I cycled right up to our garage too! Wot huge muscle-power!

When I had recovered and eaten lots I painted windowsills and then ate some more. And drank cider and lit the fire...

And now I am planning to spend the next two days on solitary retreat...I'll be offline at home now until Friday (or at least midnight thursday!).
Lots of reading and music and a bit of creativity...just like forty years ago...
When Mountbatten was killed, for example, we heard the news by chance, while camping in scotland...

See you on the other side! <3

Home Alone...here we go again #1

Went to the Arts Centre tonight to see Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave locked into a co-dependent mother/son relationship in 'Mrs Lowry and Son'.
Devastating...and all sorts of thoughts float to the surface of my 'mind'...
Like: to what extent can we 'blame' our genes, upbringing or experience for how we are? How much are we responsible for what we have made of our past and who we have become?

Home, feed the dogs, pour a small glass of wine and light a fire to keep out the chill...