Making stuff today...

Of puff-balls and 'near-enemies'

On the rainy golf-course yesterday morning, I picked this. From a little way off, it and its fellow-fungi looked for all the world like golf-balls that have been chewed up and spat out by those drive-on lawn mowers they use up there...

But no, it is fungi...and I am convinced it is a delicious puff-ball.

Almost...

Puff-balls, it appears, like so many edible fungi, have a near-enemy - a poisonous fungi, masquerading as the real deal, and out to make you very sick...

One of the many lists in the Buddhist world I am exploring consists of:

Loving-kindness (metta)

Compassion (karuna)

'Joy with others' (mudita) and

Equanimity (upekkha)

Each of these lovely things, called the Four Brahma-Viharas, have their opposite of course - their 'far-enemy'.

But fascinatingly they each also have a 'near-enemy' - masquerading as the real deal...

The one which particularly interests me today is Karuna (compassion), whose far enemy is of course cruelty, and whose near-enemy is sentimental pity or horrified anxiety.

So when we see scenes of starving children in the Yemen on our tv screens this week, we can react by turning off the news (do we not have enough problems?!)

Or we can react with horrified anxiety, wringing our hands in useless and helpless sentimental pity.

Or we can respond with compassion, explore what we can do or give, and do so...

Loud things...

The three baby seagulls...Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail... who are keeping us entertained in the gully between the two roofs opposite. Squawking for their breakfast...elevenses...lunch...

The wind in the trees at the top of the golf-course this morning - we were early and there was NO-ONE about, so Kitty got to have a really good rampage...

The smoke, heat and CO alarms around the house that it my Sunday afternoon job to test...someone has turned the volume RIGHT UP...!

In other news...

... I visited an audiologist yesterday for lipo-suction (or some such) on my ears. SUCH a kind and helpful bloke, quite restored my faith in humanity.

And he removed OCEANS of wax too...we won't need to buy a new can in order to rewax the floors!

Only joking - we have already rewaxed the floors! But seriously - OCEANS of wax!

The high-pitched, shrieky whine of the tiny vacuum cleaner (like the rug-fringes getting caught in the 'hoover') was disconcerting tbh - but I've had plenty worse experiences...

Today was wet and windy, and I had a quiet day as A. was off windsurfing.

I played with paint a bit...

People you meet...

In the last couple of weeks Kitty and I have several times met a quite striking man, while out walking - elderly and spry, with a flowing white beard and a white turban. And shining, spotless white shalwar kameez. We have said 'good morning' and 'fine day again', and Kitty has refrained from covering him with mud...

But today he was wearing similar but different coloured  'robes' and I plucked up the courage to ask if there was any significance in the change (thinking, I guess, of the Anglican seasonal changes, or the Buddhist shrines, different colours for the different Buddha manifestations as well as seasons).

He was ... twinkly is the best word I can think of, and explained the turban, beard and robes were to venerate and emulate Mohammed.

And the colour? No, he just wore them for a couple of days and then put them in the wash and wore clean ones...as you do. 

We both kept a straight face....

iplayer...

... can be a fun thing, when you're Home-Alone for the evening and STILL don't feel like sorting through the box of dvds (one of the Lock-Down jobs that has never made it to the top of the list)

A day or two ago I binge-watched the whole five episodes of 'In My Skin' - with horror and fascination, and a few tears.

Set in a deprived secondary school in Cardiff, I described it afterwards to A. as 'Gregory's Girl''s dark twin.

Interestingly it was billed, I read later, as 'a comedy drama'...whatever makes you chuckle, I guess.

SUPERB though it was, and I highly recommend it, there was nothing remotely funny about it as far as I could see.

Though I freely admit to having no sense of humour.

Little amusements...

Alistair, mending his windsurfing sail with tooth-floss, having finally run out of the thread he bought twenty odd years ago:

'And it comes with built-in cutter, so you don't even need scissors!'

Today, unaware that the paintcan he is carrying has a hole in the bottom:

'I may run out of paint...'

(He did...)

Paul Simon...American Dream

'don't know a soul who's not been battered

don't have a friend who feels at ease

don't know a dream that's not been shattered

or driven to its knees

But it's all right, it's all right

We've lived so well so long

Still, when I think of the road

we're traveling on

I wonder what went wrong'

You're welcome

This is what happens...

...when you put your hand down on the edge of the plant pot tray, instead of the windowsill

Perspectives...

I've had a lazy afternoon...and mistimed the only thing I had to do, which was cook a risotto. I reflect, as Alistair comes in from windsurfing and heads for the shower, that I will be cutting said risotto into slices.

Slightly irritated (!) I go to perform my only other Sunday afternoon function...testing all the smoke, heat and CO alarms around the house. I always do this with my Dad's old walking stick...I take it from its place in the corner, and my heart is immediately soothed by its worn wood and it's memories:

A childhood mental picture of Dad using it to hook down blackberry brambles on a rare family walk;

Dad reluctantly (or secretly relieved?) beginning to use it after the fall which broke his knee in his late 80s;

Dad stomping into the hospital, waving it furiously at the medical staff, a couple of days before he died;

I shall need it one day...

Rainy day pursuits #2 & #3

My poor 65-year-old Singer sewing machine and I were both having a nervous breakdown after TWO hours of patching my beloved dungies!

Ooh I REALLY ought to measure the red colourant more carefully (at all!) when recycling candles! Strawberry ice-cream anyone?!

Rainy day pursuits #1

Alistair, after being my third and fourth hand for ten uncomplaining minutes, conversationally:

"Had you thought it would have been easier if you had laid it on its side..."

Weather

Today, across the bay, there is no sea or sky, and only the land-horizon beyond the town disappearing into the mist...

Kitty and I decide to tog up and skirt the edge of the golf-course for our morning walk, reasoning that there won't be anyone foolish enough to be playing golf at 9 o'r gloch on a wet mid-week morning.

Of course there are two guys on ride-on mowers driving around in circles - and Kitty decides to do her stuff in full view of both!

One of them stops for a chat - he is clad from head to toe (apart from his feet which are, bizarrely in canvas trainers) in heavy duty Army and Navy Stores specials. We spend a few minutes  (oh I am SO thankful for my restored hearing!) discussing the weather and waterproofs - his, which are, and mine, which are pink, modern and misnamed and getting less waterproof by the moment.

Walk dutifully completed we return home for a 'domestic' day...Kitty will sleep, unless woken for dinner, I will play with clay and read my book.

Almost midsummer...

... and there are dog roses out in the lane:

And everywhere the warm sweet scents of after-rain. And buddleia...

Yes, I know, in June:

Today I am wearing my flamingo skirt:

Flamingos aren't dark blue, I hear you say...

Ah, but flying flamingos are...

On the beach

...the messers have started leaving their messes, sadly - three dead BBQs in just our stretch of beach 'Beyond the Bar' and a few bottles and cans...

But it is ages since I did a clean up and it is nice to see the beach in use again...

And I lifted heavy weights alone, just keeping ahead of the storm, and then finished my book, over a toasty sourdough lunch. Penelope Lively's 'Family Album', which was a bit ho-hum - left me feeling flat and depressed.

And tonight I watched Almodovar's 'Julieta', which was just plain sad - but somehow uplifting too.

And then drank cider on the sunset wall...

So, yesterday

...was an unproductive day!

And in the middle of the night I remembered I had forgotten to post the quote I had earlier put by. No chance, in this technological age, of fudging the date...

So here it is anyway:

"He who binds to himself a joy 

Does the winged life destroy; 

But he who kisses joy as it flies 

Lives in eternity's sunrise."

                     ... ....William Blake

You're welcome.

A productive day...

Ooh, today was a busy one (for me, anyway!)

For today we finally juggled our compost bins and sieved and bagged loadsa compost (this should have been done last autumn, but I was feeling weedy.)

So I was at last able to have a big potting-on session...

First the sunflowers our friends always grow from seed, and give us a 'tuthree'

And the tomatoes they have grown this year

And the mighty oaks I have been growing from Taraloka acorns

And finally the rampant sage and (not so robust) rosemary I have been growing from a neighbour's prunings, earlier in lockdown

Busy, busy...now for some fettling of pots. And cider...

Poetic Form

My code word today taught me a bit

about this form, called a 'nonet'

- new to me, I must admit -

Syllables 9-8-7

and so forth you see.

getting shorter

by the line

until

the...

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-- by Charles Bukowski

Eccentric!

My Dad was one of the world's great, but lesser-known eccentrics.

He just was.

Stories of his eccentricities are many. A favourite of mine was some gentle advice he gave me over breakfast in my home, a few years before he died. This was a Sunday morning...bear in mind that I had, in the previous week, accompanied him to Italy to see my bro' and family. Navigated the airports for him, stayed in the only hotel he would consider, adjusted my time-clock to his (breakfast, morning cocktails in the square...etc), negotiated taxis and seatbelts, opened his sugar-sachets...

Returned him safely to Stansted, picked up by A. who had managed the household in my absence ...

And now I was doing his breakfast - 13 grapes, half a glass of apple juice, AllBran + wholemilk and sugar, then half a slice of toast + butter and honey, then half a cup of strong tea. All the while preparing something to leave for dinner that Ben (a struggling teen-ager) could/would eat, as I was about to drive Dad home to Devizes. Etc...

"If you don't mind me saying" Dad ventured "I do think you pander to Ben's little eccentricities somewhat..."

Dad, generally a conventional, though scruffy dresser of his generation, sported huge, brightly-coloured spotty hankies. 

When we cleared out the house after he died, there was an unused packet, which I have had ever since.

I knew they would come in handy, one day...

Treasure

Look what I brought home from our walk today! It's about 7" in diameter and 3" tall and weighs...a ton.

Any idea what it is? No, me neither...

The Return of Summer

Our new parasol...

When I Met My Muse...William Stafford

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off—they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. “I am your own
way of looking at things,” she said. “When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.

Rainy June Saturday

Walking in the rain with Kitty this morning (let's go on the golf-course! Why not, no-one else will be there), and the wet scent of elderflowers...

I always think of the summer I made fizzy elderflower...we left it a couple of weeks while we went on holiday. And then, one hot afternoon, the girls and I drank quite a lot of it. 

We were very relaxed and not a little giggly when Alistair got home from work...

Things to do on wet, windy June afternoons...make a batch of recycled candles - random, messy (oh SO messy!) And ultimately satisfying if only because something useful and vaguely beautiful appears from a bagful of candle-stubs and tea-light scraps from Taraloka...

Morning...Frank O'Hara

I've got to tell you

how I love you always

I think of it on grey

mornings with death

in my mouth the tea

is never hot enough

then and the cigarette

dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you

and look out the window

at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock

the buses glow like

clouds and I am lonely

thinking of flutes

I miss you always

when I go to the beach

the sand is wet with

tears that seem mine

although I never weep

and hold you in my

heart with a very real

humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is

crowded and I stand

rattling my keys the car

is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now

where did you eat your

lunch and were there

lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think

of you without me in

the sentence you depress

me when you are alone

Last night the stars

were numerous and today

snow is their calling

card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that

distracts me music is

only a crossword puzzle

do you know how it is

when you are the only

passenger if there is a

place further from me

I beg you do not go

Return to winter...

Well, not really, though it is MUCH colder...

I was listening to an excellent talk this morning, while fettling my pots.

The speaker, Sahajatara, read quite a long extract from Mary Webb's 'Precious Bane'...

Ooh, I thought, that's a book which survived the recent cull - based on the 'never read/never gonna read' method.

So I extracted my copy from the lowest bookshelf, blew off the dust and opened it to read a random page or two...

But a postcard fell out (I often use postcards as bookmarks, sometimes relevant ones). A postcard of Monet's The Water Garden, written by my Mum and sent by my parents from Paris in 1988..

Quite a memory for me...in July 1988, we were about to adopt our two girls, and we're having a sun-filled week in Corfu. My mother's writing was still quite legible...she was suffering from Parkinson's Disease, which was beginning to take its toll...

So I went to find the postcard from the following year's trip, which lives on the dresser... by early October 1989 Mum's handwriting had deteriorated a bit. Dad had addressed the card, from the Lake District, and added an annotation: 'my thoughts drift ever your way'

For I was in hospital, about to give birth to Ben...our July holiday that year  had been in Cornwall, with two 'challenging' girls and a seven-month bump!

SO many memories to be gleaned from old postcards...

On a forward-looking note, I created a stonkingly good sourdough too!

Wet Wednesday...

Scenes from my road on a wet June morning:

My walk is undisturbed, Kitty laps silently from a puddle, overhead seagulls wheel and squawk silently.

My footsteps echo through my bones...am I hearing them or feeling them?

And a couple of amusing things, to lighten the mood:

This was stuck to the outside of a cardboard box, which arrived containing our new parasol. Struck me as bizarre and funny.

As does Kitty:

Morning meanderings

The colours this morning were startlingly clear and sharp, as we came over the cliff from our walk.

Straying a bit close to the edge, Kitty and I looked directly down to the mid-tide rocks...partially covered by the bluest sea, they were iridescent silver-greys and browns. 

I thought about glazes, and how I would like the glazing-process better if one could produce these shimmering  shades.

And I thought about how you would have liked to be here, but you aren't, and only Kitty and I saw them.

And that's ok too...

summer hours

I don't really understand the concept of 'selfie'...but, given a mirror and some 'new' trousers, I am quite a contortionist