Saturday 26th March - The Harrowing of Hell

"He descended into Hell"

I don't always look properly at pictures; Dame Catherine, in her blog post here

http://www.ibenedictines.org/2014/04/19/the-harrowing-of-hell-holy-saturday-2014/

comments on how tenderly Jesus takes the poor souls by the hand and leads them out of the mouth of Hell, while keeping the Devil at bay in this picture. So I paused to look properly.

Note on the illustration

Harrowing of Hell, illumination about 1190, York; written about 1490, Tempera colours and gold leaf on parchment
Leaf: 11.9 x 17 cm (4 11/16 x 6 11/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 101, fol. 82v

Elsewhere, here is Christ pulling a sinner from Hell carved on the baptismal font in St. Mary Magdalene Church, Eardisley, Herefordshire, England.

http://greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/eardisley.html

This Saturday is often a day of  bleakness, remembering the horrific events of the first Good Friday (the weather today certainly fits that mood) and for the followers of Christ it must have been grim indeed. But it seems as though Jesus has already left the tomb, and that he is already alive, hard at work releasing the captives from Hell.

It is worth following the link to the website that I snitched this picture from

http://greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/eardisley.html

for more pictures of the font. There is also some interesting information about the carving, the tradition of the Harrowing of Hell, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Bleak House, and the Hound of the Baskervilles all get a mention....  I think I want to visit Herefordshire again sometime.

I never really understood the pleasures of "church-crawling" in the past, but now it HURTS when we drive past an interesting looking church.  

Someday in April - The Company Plan/Statistics/Elections

I hate the months before elections. It seems to be just a long slanging match with people becoming increasingly shrill and extreme, and every newspaper and television interview and tweet becoming more full of

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

(a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point.
The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli's works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death. Several other people have been listed as originators of the quote, and it is often erroneously attributed to Twain himself.
copied and pasted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics)

I remember this one doing the rounds when I worked at **** many, many moons ago. A friend sent me a copy recently.

The Company Plan

In the beginning was THE PLAN

And then came The Assumptions

And The Plan was without substance

And the Assumptions were without form

And the darkness was upon the face of the Workers

 

And they spoke amongst themselves saying

"It is a crock of shit and it stinks."

And the Workers went unto their

Supervisors and said,

"It is a pail of dung,

and none may abide the odour thereof."

 

And the Supervisors went unto their

First Engineers saying, "It is a container of

excrement, and it is very strong

such that none may abide by it."

 

And the First Engineers went unto their

Managers, saying "It is a vessel of

fertiliser, and none may abide its strength."

 

And the Managers spoke amongst themselves

saying one to another, "It contains that

which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."

 

And the Managers went to the

Directors saying onto them, "It promotes

growth, and it is very powerful."

 

And the Directors went unto the

Chairman, saying unto him, "This new plan

will actively promote the growth and

vigour of the company, with powerful effects." 

And the Chairman looked upon the Plan,

and saw that it was good.

 

And The Plan became Policy.

 

I remember reading this book as a teenager, and being simultaneously enlightened and outraged:

 

 

The cartoon appears to be in tune with the times.

Saturday 11th April - Why things take time and effort

If you are not prepared to put in the effort, you won't get the results.


http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_may2011/HowToDrawAnOwl.htm



There are so many home-truths in this picture.

It is worth using as a meditation on life, the world, and everything.

Saturday 11th April - Memo to self; Book that I WANT!

http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2015/mar/28/what-to-draw-and-how-to-draw-it-by-eg-lutz

I'm blogging this here and now because I don't want to lose the reference.



The book is now available as a reprint (originally published in 1913) and is just a series of pages like this

 

and this



and this



I have downloaded a public domain pdf to be going on with.

Saturday 8th November - Housework

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Housewives-Art-Sally-Swain/dp/0586205306

If you haven't seen this book, add it to your Christmas List. Well, I enjoyed it!

I don't think I have done much housework since, maybe, the beginning of October.

That isn't to say it isn't getting done.

It's just that now my husband has retired, he has taken on the day-to-day running of the home; the laundry, grocery shopping, bins, hoovering, cooking, and most of the clearing up.

I feel like a stereo-typical fifties husband - I come home from work, the house is tidy, the kitchen cleared, supper all organised, laundry done...

By the time I have finished teaching and catching up on paperwork, everything is all organised.

He is even baking - we have had several weeks of flake-meal shortbread while he tweaks his recipe - and the perfect home-made ginger nut biscuit isn't far away now.

There are a few jobs that will probably stay forever mine - like dusting, and ironing. Meanwhile I am thoroughly enjoying it while it lasts.

Thursday 7th August - making things - illustrations

I've kept the challenge going for 7 days now;

There is another quilted mat, and a square for the knitted blanket project for days 5 and 6.

So, here's the list
day 1 and 2 piano kit, crochet circle
3 free motion quilt sample
4 quilted mat
5 knitted square
6 another mat

Today's effort is a paper cut of a bird. I took the design from a book, and used my small, cheap embroidery scissors as I don't have a suitable scalpel.

One of the reasons for the challenge is to try out different techniques and ideas. I love paper cut designs, but have never done one before. I suspect that using a scalpel would be much easier - quite a few of the thin paper bridges between the cut areas are more fragile that I would like due to the clumsiness of even these tiny scissors.

I think it is the uncompromising contrast between the paper and the background that appeals to me. It is similar to the way I've always liked Arthur Ransome's illustrations for his "Swallows and Amazons" books,

and Tolkien's drawings for "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings".



The main reason I bought Gombrich's "A Little History of the World" was for the woodcut illustrations.

Woodcuts have that same cleverness in the way simple black and white space is manipulated to create a complex image. Is suppose the musical equivalents would be Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and maybe the pentatonic scale.

Monday 23rd December - Tuesday 24th December - What a night!

Last night the Upstairs Cat spent the whole evening peering out through the cat flap in the kitchen. There was nothing to see, just an impenetrable blackness and the sound of rain thundering against the door. I opened the door a crack for her to have a proper look-see, (she likes to check things out before venturing into the jungle). She rushed round, and halted in shock. There was a terrible deep roaring coming from the wind through the large oaks at the bottom of the garden, as though the black jungle was full of hungry wild beasts.

"Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak

Upstairs Cat hunkered down and slunk away into her bed.

During the night we were kept awake by the howling wind and thrashing rain. We'd just gone back to sleep when there was a power cut, causing my oxygen machine to make frantic beeping alarms. The power came back after a couple of minutes, and this time we managed to sleep for at least another hour. Bleah.

This morning, we woke to a wet world. The little trickling brook that slowly oozes along a deep gully beyond the bottom of the garden is now a couple of hundred yards across, hurtling towards the River Arun at the rate of 6 miles per hour. I took some pictures from the upstairs window - it is not called the "Red River" for nothing.

 

Don't panic - it has to flood considerably more before we are in any danger; the level of the water is about 4 feet below the level of our "lawn". As I was taking photographs, there was this distant, desperate mewling. For a few moments I thought that maybe there was a cat stranded in one of the trees, surrounded by water, and was beginning to formulate rescue plans. I opened the window, and could see the Downstairs Cat wandering around by the back door, announcing to the world the terrible, terrible, End-of-days apocalypse that has come to pass.

It has started to rain again.

Sunday 18th August - Time, and The Phantom Tolbooth

"you see," [said the watchdog] "once there was no time at all, and people found it very inconvenient. They never knew whether they were eating lunch or dinner, and they were always missing trains. So time was invented to help them keep track of the day and get to places when they should. When they began to count all the time that was available, what with 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, it seemed as if there was much more than could ever be used. 'If there's so much of it, it couldn't be very valuable,' was the general opinion, and it soon fell into disrepute.. People wasted it and even gave it away. Then we were given the job of seeing that no one wasted time again," he said, sitting up proudly. "It's work but a noble calling. For you see" - and now he was sitting up, shouting with his arms outstretched - "it is out most valuable possession, more precious than diamonds. It marches on, it and tide wait for no man, and - "

The Annotated version - now that's one for the wish list!
Milo meets the watchdog and tells him he's "just killing time".
He's lucky that the watchdog didn't chase him down the road!

I've known about "The Phantom Tolbooth" by Norton Juster "forever", but I never read it until recently, because I didn't like the cover picture, or the illustrations. Then, last year, I sent a postcard to my Aunt with the cover illustration on it (at random - it was the next one in the box of Puffin Book postcards that I had at the time) and she replied saying that it had been a favourite of my grandmother's. Which I hadn't known.

I downloaded it to my Kindle and started reading. That was last Summer, and I got most of the way through until for some reason I got distracted and so didn't finish it. So, today, I've started from the beginning again. Risky, though, because it is SO full of dazzling wordplay that I'm now going to be quoting from it forever.

How about this from a couple of pages earlier: Milo wasn't paying attention and thinking about where he was going, and took a wrong turning. The road began winding up hill, and everything became greyer and greyer, and his little car went slower and slower until it just stopped.

"I wonder where I am," said Milo in a very worried tone.
"You're...in...the...Dol...drums," wailed a voice that sounded far away.

The voice turns out to belong to a Lethergarian, who recites their daily schedule of procrastination, lingering, loitering, napping, dilly-dallying. Milo is saved from joining them by the sudden arrival of the watchdog.

"What are you doing here?" growled the watchdog.
"Just killing time," replied Milo apologetically.

This reply infuriates the watchdog. It turns out that the only way to escape the Doldrums is to start thinking.

Milo began to think as hard as he could. He thought of birds that swim and fish that fly. He thought of yesterday's lunch and tomorrow's dinner... and as he thought, the wheels of his car began to turn.

I'm going to have to stop typing out this book sooner rather than later! I reading this book is a bit like reading poetry; it throws up lots of avenues to explore along the way and I have to keep stopping and finding time and space to think about what I have just read and pursue the ideas to the end.

I've several books on the go at the moment which are like this: "Cultural Amnesia" by Clive James,
"Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places" by Eugene Petersen and now this one. Somehow, they don't fit the category of "reading as a leisure activity"! It's all such brain-bending stuff.

Friday 26th July - A Slow Day

Yesterday was another "cyclophosphamide day" (fourth of six doses), and so today is a very, very slow day.

The cyclo days really aren't too bad. It's not as though it hurts, or involves any deeply unpleasant "procedures". You just have to be patient and sit around a lot. Blood tests, wait several hours for the results, and I/V for an hour, and then wait an hour to make sure you are OK. I'm fine travelling back on bus and train, but grateful for the company of a friend as I tend to feel a little light-headed, as though I'm walking on the deck of a ship. By the time I get home I am relieved to have someone else deal with cooking and dishing up the evening meal while I just sit about and give in to lethargy. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown-throated_three-toed_sloth



Today is just a matter to letting time pass. It's not that I feel unwell, exactly, I just feel like half a person. The stuff can make you feel queasy or worse, but up till now I haven't needed to take the anti-sick pill. Today I decided to take it. On previous "slow days" I may have felt a bit dodgy, but we've been out and about in a gentle fashion (mostly sitting in the car going somewhere). This time I'm on my own, and I know how a small malaise can become magnified if there's nothing to distract you.

So far (lunchtime today) I have managed to

sort out the "My Clippings" file on my Kindle which was ENORMOUS, and causing my Kindle to crash and hesitate and generally hiccough   

unload and reload the dishwasher

mess about on Twitter

drink about 2 pints of liquid (you have to drink a lot which means you also have to wee a lot! - another reason for staying at home and doing nothing!)

Post an entry here for today

I have NOT managed to

read a book (too much concentration)

listen to music (ditto)

sew the braid onto my plain white T-shirt to make it more interesting (ditto)

have a snooze - my original plan was to sleep the day away. That's not working, because although I may be feeling tired, I'm not feeling sleepy. How's that for annoying!

Now it's time for a little smackeral of something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh

Not sure what. Grapes? Breakfast Cereal? Soup? Honey Sandwich? Do you know, that might just hit the spot!

Sunday 30th June - Never Judge a Book by its Cover

But how else do you judge a book?





Admittedly it is hard to judge a Kindle Book by its cover, especially if yours is an early steam-driven model like mine.




Anyway, back on track, I'm adding this book to my wish-list page:

It's by Leaping Hare Press; I'm just writing that down, sorry, typing that in, so that  don't forget and the writer is Adam Ford because I've just noticed that I've clipped the edge of the front cover in the photograph.

This is the second time I've spotted this this book, and it leaped out at me (visually, I mean, not literally, obviously) from the stack because of the cover. I have a passion for wood-cut, black-and-white line style illustrations. Like the edition of The Hobbit that I read as a child.

The content matches the cover - plain, insightful, leaving room for thought and reflection. It's a bit of a biography, and then a whole series of short essays (like a blog???) on ways of finding - well, it does what it says on the cover, Seeking Silence in a Noisy World.

I didn't buy it.
Yet.
I would rather receive it as a present. (Why? I think because it is something of worth, with value.)

 I bought instead a totally unnecessary addition to the pile of "how-to-knit-crochet-sew-yet-another-useless-and-unlikely-craft-item" books. This one promises that they will only take 30 mins each to make. Then I can give the knitted/sewn/glued/stuck/crocheted thingy away, lovingly, to clutter up someone's life and home, as mine has become cluttered.

If I ever get round to making it.

Monday 15th April - New Term Begins Today

Hello, countryside! How I've missed watching the Spring seep over the fields and through the hedges!

Although, for all I know, the bitter cold weather over Easter may well have frozen most of that seepage. However, yesterday and today were so different, I might have been in a different country altogether.

Today was sunny and damp by turns, but always warm. The hedgerows appeared to have a delicate emerald green blossom; yes, I know it is just leaves, but the tiny green flecks on the twigs looked just like the white May-flowers.

There was a huge specimen Horse Chestnut at the entrance to a country house, with the leaves all exploded out of they sticky buds like great ornamental tassels.

The long drooping branches of the willow trees are outlined with pale yellow-green slips of new leaf.

Verges and banks are a carpet of primroses.

Oh stop! stop! It sounds like the beginning of Wind in the Willows!

 

THE RIVER BANK

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring- cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said `Bother!' and `O blow!' and also `Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, `Up we go! Up we go!' till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

'This is fine! he said to himself. 'This is better than whitewashing!' The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in for so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side."

In the middle of the book, straight after Mr Toad is sent to jail, Ratty and Mole have the most extraordinary experience.  It is late evening, and unable to sleep for worrying about a missing baby otter (Little Portly), they row upstream to search for him. They hear the most haunting music, which silences even the dawn chorus, and encounter Pan; the Piper at the Gates of Dawn. 




'Rat!' he found breath to whisper, shaking. 'Are you afraid?'
'Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. 'Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet - and yet - O Mole, I am afraid!'



I have read these kinds of encounter with - God - in several children's books - notably the Narnia series. I'm sure that it also occurs in Rudyard Kipling's "Puck of Pook's Hill" which I shall now have to read again.

John Buchan also writes in this manner in some of his thrillers.

Is it a sort of Stiff Upper Lip and maintaining a Proper British Reserve way of responding to an encounter with the Divine?

Anyway, I had all sorts of snips and snaps from the Bible resonating in my mind as I drove through Sussex this morning, revelling in the signs of Spring. I swear that even in the few hours between the outward and the return journeys the leaves were further advanced. 

Wednesday 13th April - Ash Wednesday

I'm not ging to be able to get to church today - in fact attendance has been very erratic since I don't know when - ah yes, probably since 30th October..... that fateful day when, "at a stroke" everything turned upside down for all the family.

However, I will be trying to make an effort to keep Lent as a Holy Season.

Giving up: I think it has to be Freecell and Solitaire. I sit there, mindlessly clicking away for far too long. It is a way of unwinding, of letting myself stop thinking and be mindless, but it is time I gave it a break!

Taking on: I'm going to use the online website to try and say one of the daily offices every day - morning prayer, or evening prayer, or compline.

Looking outwards: I'll take the Mignon McLaughlin quote as a motto; "Don't be yourself. Be someone a little nicer" and see how that goes.

I'll also be following a Lent course which a friend put me on to; a Fransiscan vicar who emails a reading and reflection and a call to action every day. Last year it was all drawn from the Narnia books. This year, he is using "The Screwtape Letters" as a starting point. I'm actually a little apprehensive: I read my grandmother's copy years and years ago, when I was a young teenager, and the illustration on the front cover scared me half to death. It was the way his eye is open just a slit, staring so knowingly at you.  

  

Last year, I "gave up" speeding - I had come to the realisation that I was being a little hap-hazard about observing speed restrictions as I roared around the county from school to school. That resolution has "taken" and I am now much better at observing and obeying speed limits. I think it is a good idea to use Lent as an opportunity to make a long-term change for the better.

Having Mummy home, is, as she herself commented while still in hospital, making big demands upon everyone's goodwill. We all have to be careful, patient, considerate, thoughtful, every moment of the day, to keep the house of cards standing. As time goes on things will get easier. Meanwhile, we are all trying not to be ourselves, but to be someone a little nicer!  

Monday 10th December - a hazelnut in the hand

This little hazelnut lives in the pocket of the jacket I wear most days. Normally, I never see it, never take it out, but today I had a look, and found that it has become polished to a gentle gleaming shine all over.

I keep it in my pocket because of Julian of Norwich, and her famous "showings"



St. Julian, as depicted in the church of SS Andrew and Mary, Langham, Norfolk.
from wikipedia

"Because of our good Lord's tender love to all those who shall be saved, he quickly comforts them, saying, 'The cause of all this pain is sin. But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

She says it three times, so it must be true......

 
It reminds me of "The Hunting of the Snark" by Lewis Carroll, which begins

``Just the place for a Snark!'' the Bellman cried,

As he landed his crew with care;

Supporting each man on the top of the tide

By a finger entwined in his hair.

       

 

``Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:

That alone should encourage the crew.

Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:

What I tell you three times is true.''

You can read the whole poem here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173165. Somewhere in the house we have "The Annotated Snark" with copious footnotes by Martin Gardner. I have taken the illustrations from the wikipedia entry which is also full of information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunting_of_the_Snark

A bit irreverent, maybe, to swap between a nonsense poem and mystical writings. Richard Dawkins would be full  of an unholy glee at this juxtaposition of sacredness and insanity.

Where does the hazelnut come into it? Here is another paragraph from Julian of Norwich:

He is oure clothing, that for love wrappeth us and windeth us, halseth us and all becloseth us, hangeth about us for tender love, that he may never leeve us. And so in this sight I saw that he is all thing that is good, as to my understanding”
And in this, shewed me a little thing the quantity of an haselnot, lying in the palme of my hand as me semide, and it was as rounde as any balle. I looked theran with the eye of my understanding, and thought: ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvayled how it might laste, for methought it might sodenly have fallen to nought for littlenes. And I was answered in my understanding: ‘It lasteth and ever shall, for God loveth it. And so hath all thing being by the love of God.’
-Julian of Norwich (1343-1416), A Revevlation of Love 5.13 

My mother has made it to the stroke rehabilitation ward. It is a scary place to be, at first; uprooted from the tender care of the nurses that she has made friends with, and thrust among strangers, nurses and patients, in a strange place with different colour scheme, different lighting levels, different routine, different visiting hours. The reality of rehabilitation starts today. I'm sure that the care will be just are tender, just as professional, but from now on they will be doing everything it takes to get her left side mobile again. It is going to hurt, mentally and physically.
It is going to take mental and physical strength and courage.

I'll say it three times, so it must be true. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.   



And, after all, the Snark was a Boojum, you see.


 

Saturday 21st July - Oh frabjous day, calloo callay

Yeah, OK. Just another Saturday.

No it isn't! It is the first day of the Summer Holidays!

I love my work. I am passionate about it. BUT; passion costs, and costs a lot. I can only teach the way I do, with energy, commitment and focus, knowing that every weekend I get a few hours of "down time", every 6 or 7 weeks I get a few days of "down time", and once a year I get several weeks of NO TEACHING.

A few piano pupils will phone up to see if they can have a lesson. Indeed, three are coming on Monday morning (such enthusiasm!).

A lot of hours will pass in planning lessons for next term, brushing up on ukulele chords (which I will be teaching to around 70 children), arranging music for the fairly random combination of recorder players, sorting out suitable songs and chants to fit in with topics and activities.

More hours will be spent in hard graft, learning the grade 7 and 8 syllabus pieces and scales so that I understand how to teach them to a couple of advanced pupils.

Many more hours will be spent in practising and playing the piano FOR MYSELF. There is almost no time for keeping my own skills sharp during the term, and I can feel my hands and fingers becoming clumsy and slow as the weeks pass. I "get by" on experience, sight-reading skills, quick wits and the remnants of technical ability.

And then there are the "to do" lists;

the "have-to-do" list :(

annual "extreme gardening" sessions to reclaim the garden from the goosegrass, brambles, rambling rose and to clear the knee-high weeds from the paved area.

annual "extreme housework" sessions to reclaim the house from dust, spiders, piles of stuff waiting to be sorted, excavating nooks and crannies and the darkest corners. 

the "want-to-do" list :)

meet up with friends

the pursuit of poetry and literature; books to read, poems to absorb, journals to fill

creative projects, exhibitions,

the "fixed points" list :]

holiday dates

appointments

Oh no! I will have to create a schedule or it will never get done! So much to do, so little time to do it in....
I wanted to find an illustration for "Frabjous Day". The original drawing is very dark,
in every sense of the word.



from wikipedia

I had forgotten the context;

the slaying of the fearsome Jabberwok.

I've always used the phrase at times of joyful delight and excitement.














Googling away, I found several images and reworkings; this was unexpected, but fun and original.

Christopher Myers’s take on the greatest nonsense verse in the English-speaking world — a basketball face-off

Read about it here; http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/Lewis-t.html

I shall keep an eye out for the book.