Creative things...

The beauty of imperfection...old and battered floorboards given a bit of tlc:

Candles recycled and a kiln-firing completed:

(Clay was recycled too!)

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Today I screwed up the tattered remnants of my courage and met up with some of my lovely tribe in my lovely friend's woods.

We sat around a fire and shared some of our experiences of the last six months.

Tears were shed...

Saint Kitty

It was the last day of waxing the floor today and the dog gate was at the bottom of the stairs from early this morning. Kitty and I went to the beach, we went up to the hills, we spent time in the garden gym...but STILL she wouldn't settle.

Eventually I gave up at 2.30ish, while finishing the gym (inside) and allowed the whingy-whippet up to her 'daybed' - our bed, suitably covered, from which she is allowed to watch the world go by all day. 

A few minutes later, heading up for my post-gym shower, I realised I had never made, and carefully covered, our bed...grrr! I REALLY didn't want to have to change the sheets today...

In the bedroom Kitty was sitting on the mat on the floor at the foot of the bed, nonchalantly polishing her halo...

On re-reading books...Bilgewater

I am a huge fan of re-reading books...not just once either - my favourite books have been read and re-read countless times over the years...

This is partly, I admit, due to having a terrible memory...

But notwithstanding that, and my general flakiness, something new speaks to me from a really good book EVERY time I pick it off the shelves, dust it down and settle back with a sigh of relief to lose myself in its world...

Take Bilgewater for example...I have been extolling the magnificence of this little novel and the wondrousness of its heroine, Marigold Green (Bill's daughter, aka Bilgewater) for probably twenty years.

This week I re-read it. Again. Loved it. Again.

And this popped up:

'It was just a series of things that were important and beautiful and namelessly good, an experience proof against nostalgia, proof against the distortion of time. An experience one is the better for having had even when the brain grows soft and slow and can't remember whether it has just locked the door or was just about to do so. Or if not why not, or if so why...'

Sorely in need of more of those moments atm...

Post-Francis

Ah, the downside of life right by the sea!

This morning Kitty and I take one look at the wrecked garden and decide to go for a walk...

She is in an exceptionally good mood this week, very chatty and amiable.

We head up to 'Kitty's Field' and I explain that I am a bit short of time...for today is the occasion of my first visit (strictly socially-distanced) for five months, to my old friend in the Care Home. And his 98th birthday!

"Get on with it then!" replies Kitty, "chuck that tennis ball so I can have a good run! I promise I'll bring it back EVERY time, in return for a treat..."

(Kitty's UTI has been dealt with with anti-biotics, hence the good humour and good appetite).

I chuck the tennis ball several times and several times Kitty drops it at my feet in return for a treat. Absent-mindedly I toss the ball without delving into my bag for a biscuit...Kitty just stands there, poised and beautiful on her slender feet, with the seascape behind her - a moment of perfection. She raises an eyebrow - suitably chastened I fish out a treat for her, and then collect the ball myself...

Frabjous Days, still to come

Here is a poem by Fleur Adcock, sent to me by my best mate...

She and I have shared poems, laughter, many good times and some bad for years now - we once sat up most of a candle-lit night, until we remembered all the words of Jabberwocky.

With love from the Borogroves, 

Mimsy

'and once a blue horse' ...

Women writers and Feminist books through the ages

Our local library is sort of open, in a click-and-collect sort of way...

Mind you, when I went to pick up Ali Smith's Autumn, which I had ordered online (and return the books - Elena Ferrante - I had taken out the day before Lock-Down), the chap said I could keep it till the end of September if I liked...

But I have finished it and must order Winter now...

There were dvds for free-borrowing behind him, so I took the new Little Women (which I had only seen twice in January and February). And have now watched again.

Beth died.

Yellow boat

Over the last few weeks the remains of a cadmium yellow fishing vessel have washed up on the beach.

So I have made a little boat...what shall I call it?

"2020 staying afloat" ?

The world grief -

Daily I awake,

my heart, unaccountable,

heavy in my breast

5-7-5

Light as butterflies

holding loosely all we love

on an open wing...

"Practising the dharma means living our lives always in search of ‘The Middle Way’. This middle way is not a compromise between extremes, but a transcending of them. For example, looking for a middle way between attachment and aversion doesn’t mean seeing everything as ‘so so’, but actually learning to fully enjoy life without any sense of holding on. 

Wabi-sabi, too, looks for this transcending middle. As Leonard Koren says ‘it’s the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the pleasure we get from the freedom from things.’ "

Vajradarshini

My life in pictures...

Waxing the landing at the top of the stairs in strips. 

Have you TRIED asking a lurcher to avoid the wet boards? Or stay downstairs?

Sourdough fun or 'quarts into pint-pots'

Like so many others, I have discovered THE best way to bake Sourdough loaves is in a heavy, lidded cast iron pot, sometimes called a Dutch Oven.

My fabulous oval orange Le Creuset, vintage 1978 (a wedding present) is perfect for this:

My even older (Mum's? Grandmother's?) colander makes a perfectly adequate 'proving basket'. 

It is however round, as colanders are wont to be, and sometimes my ready-to-bake proved loaves are SO huge these days that a little squishing is sadly necessary..

'I need a large round cast-iron pot'!

I look online...'How much???!!!'

£230!!!

I need a little lateral-thinking!

Aha! I buy instead an oval proving basket (actually an old Pyrex, minus it's lid)

£2 in a charity shop...whew!

'the rest sit around ...''

'Earth's crammed with heaven'

here, the day the sun returns

Blackberry harvest...

Beannacht (blessing)

On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets into you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green

and azure blue,

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.

John O'Donohue

Andrew Olendzki...

'What if the nirvana experienced by the Buddha in Bodhgaya turns out to be something considerably less magnificent than that of later mythic tradition, yet at the same time, by virtue of its being actually attainable by ordinary folk, something of unparalleled value?'

As Grandfather in Peter and the Wolf asks

"...what then, eh!?..."

Season of mists 5-7-5

Spicily-crumbled

blackberries and apples - oh

such simple pleasures!

G. M. Hopkins

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall 
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap 
May who ne'er hung there. 

5-7-5

Disparate thoughts hang

suspended delicately

in the morning mist

5-7-5

Sea-mist wakes our day

or rather no-see mist or

even no-sea mist!

5-7-5

On the horizon

grey skies and sea merge rolling

ominous thunder

The Art of Disappearing

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

by Naomi Shihab Nye

5-7-5 #8

Blackberry sunshine

silent but the buzz of bees

and our wet footsteps

5-7-5 #7

Sky and clouds and sea

blue paint swirls on wet paper

recreate my life...

5-7-5 #6

Drama Queen

The knife slips and blood

red seeps against white flesh, pain

drips onto the floor

5-7-5 #5

Alistair's 65th birthday!

He wanted to go windsurfing but, after a blowy night, the wind dropped to the 'not-quite-enough' level of annoying-ness - so we went for a long walk in the hinterland instead.

We met one family, whom he knew, and bizarrely the mother knew me from elsewhere. And one cyclist.

And we got good and wet when it rained, as forecast, bang on 1pm.

Musing on the good fortune to be strong and healthy, with bits that (mostly) function. And how our parents at 65 were ageing. And our grandparents, those who were still alive at 65, were old...

Once upon a time

he'd be drawing a pension -

'nother year to go!

5-7-5 #4

Weather-less

Hmm, it didn't rain -

it was just one of those days - 

not a sky in the cloud...

5-7-5 #3

Yellow full moon sails

in the morning-early sky -

beautiful my day

5-7-5 #2

Sun-warm scent of hay,

magpie lone-skimming the field -

one more for sorrow

5-7-5 #1

Polished ebony

glossy blackberries shining

this tired year turning