Tuesday 15th September - What's been happening?

 The answer to that question depends on context.

Leaving climate emergencies, politics, pandemics and world events out, it has been a quiet week here in suburbia.

The schools are in full cry now which means the scenes outside the sweet shop are like this;

 I mean the top right corner of the picture. He went to post a letter yesterday at about half past three and came back saying 'Never Again'; it was almost impossible to negotiate a sensibly distanced path to the post box in among the hordes of children desperate to buy ice creams on the way home. 

The main subject of today's picture is a bar of chocolate that has been calling to me from the top shelf of the baking cupboard for a couple of days now. I think it was left over from my godmother's store cupboard last December. I had some, and He's had some, and very soon it will cease to bother us. 

What else? We've had scones and tea in a friend's garden - this weather is making things so much easier and more pleasant than they might be - and another friend dropped in after church on Sunday for morning coffee and scones. There's no cake at the moment as we forgot to put eggs (and lettuce and strawberry jam, come to think of it) on the shopping order, so we will have to make do with scones and honey and salad leaves - all full of holes - why? - from the garden. Such deprivation. 

It really is hot at the moment. Like Summer. We will have to start watering the garden from this evening or there will be No salad leaves, with or without holes.

The djembe drumming group met for the first time since March. There are just 6 in the group at the moment so we can still meet, (The Rule of Six... sounds like the title of a Young Adult fantasy book) all masked up, sitting in a widely-spaced circle. It takes a lot of thinking about, to prepare the area and then mop up with disinfectant afterwards. It's thinks like remembering to put the chairs back and THEN disinfect rather than the other way round. I did my usual trick of suddenly doubting that I had locked the church before replacing the key in the key safe, in spite of Knowing that I had watched myself put the key in the lock and turn it. I remember that this was a constant problem when I worked entirely on my own in an IT department (yes, no-one else on the premises) and was so stressed out and over-tired that I would go back and check if I had really and truly locked up about three times before I got home. On this occasion I managed to force myself to accept my memory of locking up - whoo-hoo - that's progress!

Piano teaching has started up again. Four lessons yesterday (looks like Mondays are going to be a bit of a heavy day). The other days have just two or three lessons - I'm in no hurry to fill all the spaces in the timetable. 

Paintings? (Just scroll down to the end if you are bored)

Wednesday 9th - I'd been having a go at doing skies, so here's a sunset

Thursday 10th - watching the man doing the roof on the bungalow conversion opposite

Friday 11th

The new owner (also a builder) chatting to his neighbours, while the other men carry on with the roof

Sunday 13th September, copied from a photograph. 

I didn't paint on Saturday, so used those pages to try out some techniques 

Monday 14th September

Well, that's roughly what has been happening, mostly within a few hundred kilometres of when I'm standing at the moment. 

Time for a cup of tea...

    

Sunday 22nd September - That was the week that was.

This morning (Sunday) I discovered that my glasses Really don't work for playing the church organ. I had to lean back to bring those pesky little dots and dashes into focus, which had implications for reaching the keyboard... On the plus side, that sticking note that blurts out unexpectedly in the middle of the quiet bits was on holiday today.

Yesterday (Saturday) I accomplished a mere 1250 steps, mostly walking from various destinations to the car and back. Today is not looking much better; 1388 steps so far (5.45 pm). I tried to help increase the count by taking shorter steps. Seems to have worked to some extent.

Friday was - hooray - flu-jab-day - which probably explains why I am feeling the way I do today. And every time He puts an arm around me to console me I let out a yelp and am not consoled at all.

However I did write another episode of The Novel. And I've thought through another episode which I haven't written down yet as I am procrastinating by blogging instead. Plus I want to paint this door into my diary for this week. It was at the cafe/farm shop where He and I and Daughter met up with Son for lunch today, transferred Daughter to Son's car so that they could go back towards their homes, and we could return to ours.

I have a feeling it might become a Portal in another book-in-progress that has got stuck. Maybe this door will open a way back in.

Thursday was so long ago I can't remember what happened. Teaching, I expect. Yes. Oh, and I have a memory of trying to carry my djembe along the road to the 'pick-up point' where my lovely and loving roadie was waiting to drive me home. I keep meaning to weigh it on the scales. It will be a substantial number of pounds, I bet you.

Oho, look at this... from googling 'how much does a djembe weigh?'

My ever-loving man has gone to weigh my medium-sized djembe - 16 pounds in its case. That explains rather a lot.

Right. Time to write.

Saturday 7th October - So this is what it is all about

I've gone off the weather theme for a couple of days - there's really not much to say, weather-wise, as we have been enjoying a couple of sunny, warm(ish) days recently.

Saturday was our Harvest Supper at church. It was a fund-raiser for the youth of the parish who are going out to South Africa in the Summer for a couple of weeks to work in a township, and "see how the other half lives".

Djembe from Mali
(wikipedia)

As well as the meal (my word, that was a good meal) - a variety of African dishes - there was "entertainment". This comprised face-painting, making huge tissue paper flowers to form the harvest decoration in the church, and African drumming, which is where I came in, using about a dozen djembes which someone had brought from their school.

After supper, some people gravitated to the church and we started. I was slightly at a loss: I TEACH djembe, and this was NOT a lesson! I showed people the way to play the drums, and demonstrated a couple of rhythms, and wondered where this was all going to go.

The drummers were a mixture of children, people who were used to playing instruments, and people who were NOT used to playing instruments. To my delight, the drumming settled into a real "groove" - everyone playing along, maybe using the rhythms that I had taught, maybe experimenting with their own ideas, maybe switching from one thing to another.

It was such a lovely, companiable, group, family, community, togetherness feeling. Like a ceildh, but less hectic. We were all watching each other, smiling, encouraging each other.

What's that word - "chillax"? Nah, that word is too hectic for what we were experiencing together. Just cool, man. Really cool. I could have kept going all night - just like they do in Africa.

Here's a "youtube" that I found of a djembe group in London:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bh0Uk26BMQ

and here is a beautiful video of what it is all about; whoah, they work hard in Africa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVPLIuBy9CY&feature=related