Sunday 18th June - Rain!

We slept through the thunderstorm last night, and woke to the school hymn (it's a Christina Rossetti poem)

Morning has broken,

Like the first morning

Blackbird has spoken

Like the first word. 

The paths were already dry, but the leaves and grass glistened with drops of water. And the smell - is it called 'petrichor'? The smell after rain on dry land? Just lovely.

The sun soon broke through and by mid morning it felt as hot and dry as ever... until Kate in the afternoon when it rained steadily, purposefully, drenchingly.

I am embarking on the trickiest bit of the stitching now for the cross-stitch project, having finished the right hand motif during the livestream of the church service. I'm saving the easier bottom section until last. 

I've half dozed most of the afternoon. I'm in good company:

Sunday 4th December - Pause in Advent 2; Love

The different Sundays in Advent each have their own theme, depending on which scheme you are following. One sequence, but probably not in this order, is Peace, Love, Joy, Hope.

My mother took us two children to Slough in the car - we must have been about 6 (me) and 4 (my brother) years old.

Slough was a great shopping centre, not too far away, and I vaguely remember a department store called 'Suter's; Oh my word - my memory has not played tricks on me! 

http://www.philipsuter.co.uk/Suters_Ltd.htm

This was about the time when Slough was rapidly turning into a dormitory town, full of 'ticky-tacky' boxes, and John Betjeman was writing poems with lines like

'Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough,

it isn't fit for humans now' 

We always used to say the name of the town to rhyme with 'enough' rather than rhyming with 'bough'

(Bear with me, I'll get to the point soon)

So, we were being taken to go shopping in 'Sluff'.

I'm told that I piped up from the back of the car and announced that I knew a song about Slough, taught to me by the nuns at the convent school I went to, and sang in all seriousness;

'Come ye, come ye, all ye little children,

God is Slough, God is Slough'

It's funny little incidents like these, early in childhood, that remain imprinted in your memory when all the details have disappeared.  

Therefore, thanks to the nuns at the convent, and this almost forgotten shopping trip, I have written right through me like letters in a stick of rock, that 'God is Love, God is Love'.

scroll down for the words, a poem by Christina Rossetti

Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love divine; Love was born at Christmas, Star and angels gave the sign. Worship we the Godhead, Love incarnate, Love divine; Worship we our Jesus: But wherewith for sacred sign? Love shall be our token, Love be yours and love be mine; Love to God and all men, Love for plea, and gift, and sign.

Tuesday 8th November - swimming along to the dentist

Just as we set off this afternoon, there was a real cloudburst - sudden, and luckily quite short as we hadn't gone more than a couple of hundred yards when I uttered the fateful words 'the back door IS locked, isn't it? By the time we had turned right at the end of the road, and right again at the first junction, and right again and returned to our house, (taking all of thee minutes) the rain had stopped. And yes, we had locked the back door...

That was just a lucky break in the rain for us - it pelted down down the first part of the journey so we drove through standing water and gushing gutters and, at one point, through a flood covering all of our side of the road, so that the on-coming traffic had to squeeze over to let our line of vehicles drive slowly and sloshily through.

Then the rain stopped, and the sun came out, and as we drove up the steep hill to the top of the North Downs the trees were glowing in all the autumnal greens, yellows, oranges and brown. Just wonderful.

The dentist who has taken over the practice was as careful and as gentle and as kind possible. The little thingy that puffs air to test for sensitivity uses warmed air! Oh frabjous day! 

I'm just going to have to endure the hygienist net week - but the dentist assures me that the water-pick also uses warm water - calloo callay! 

My BB is going to have to have a couple of sessions fixing a few problems over the coming weeks as well as the hygienist, so we shall be choosing the meals carefully....    

Coming home in the dusk, I watched the huge new moon just above the trees; smiling benevolently, or so it seemed.

Silver

 

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws and a silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.

 

Walter de la Mare

https://www.poemtree.com/poems/Silver.htm

Friday 23rd September - Life on Steroids

Hooray - I'm back! The last two months have been aptly summed up by this poem

It turns out that my total lack of 'oomph' was entirely due to the reduction in the dose of steroids I take, and now that I am back at the original dose everything has changed. I'm walking faster and further, have more energy and am 'sitting up and taking an interest' as my Northern Irish relatives would say.

The one thing to take away from the whole experience is that I can be sure I am on the optimal dose for me!

So, what has been happening to me in the past fortnight?

The Queen - ah yes, the Queen. We watched the funeral on television, so moving, so beautifully done. My heart went out to the Royal Family - it has been such a strain on them. It would have been for anyone - but most of us do our grieving with friends and family, not with the whole world watching and commenting and analyzing our every move, gesture, item of clothing, angle of hat or veil... I hope they have managed to find some time and space to kick their shoes off and have some peace and quiet.

One of the families I teach went to London; they arrived at The Mall early in the morning to find that the closest they could get was already six rows back. Everyone was very pleasant, and someone let the three children go to the front. However it took them several hours afterwards to walk back to Victoria Station; the crowds were so huge that there were police and security shepherding them all, holding lines of people back to let other columns cross and so on.

 Sewing

I have at last finished the August (!) embroidery postcard. I'm not posting a picture here as I will wait until Ang has received the parcel first. It took longer than I thought (as usual) and this coupled with energy depletion made it take a lot longer than usual.

I have to admit to being unfaithful to the embroidery for a few hours;

I bought a very cheap version of a speedy weave loom

It is for mending holes in textiles - cloth or knitwear - and apparently had their heyday in the 1940s

No textiles are safe in our house at the moment - luckily we have a lot of tattered tea towels for me to practice on. 

My loom and accessories was only about £10 - and I can see why. The loom itself is tin plate, roughly finished where it was cut from the sheet of tin. But it is good enough to do the job. 

Visible mending is enjoying a resurgence at the moment. The loom method is a bit fiddly to get started, but very soothing once you've got it going.

Family

The actual day of the Queen's death, as I said in the last post, were overshadowed by our own family drama when my father had an accident and cut his head. I am glad to report that he has had the stitches out and it seems to be healing well. He is having it checked over in the next few days.

We (best beloved and I) met up with the offsprings last weekend at out favourite Farm Shop Cafe. The weather was great - bright and sunny - if a bit cold. Getting together is very weather-dependent now that we are properly into Autumn

My cousin is due over from France next weekend. She will be able to stay in the guest accommodation at my father's flats, and plans have been made for us to have supper outside on a couple of evenings. BUT, these plans were made back in August! I have a feeling that supper in the garden is NOT going to be such a good idea at the beginning of October! We shall have to think again.

Drawings

I'm keeping up with the 'sketch-a-day' book. The current photograph is a bit fuzzy, so I will post the drawings anther time.
    

Saturday 11th June - A week? A whole week gone by?

 I did put 'update my blog' on my to-do list a couple of times, but.... time passes...

Luckily I can use my daily scribbles to work out what has been going on;

Ah, yes, Friday 3rd June - had morning coffee in their garden with nearby friends. That was lovely and peaceful, apart from when a tray of cups and cafetiere slowly slid off the little table. But we were outside - so no need to worry about carpets, and nothing broke. Although my husband, who tried to save the situation with his foot had to withdraw when his sock filled up with hot coffee.  

Saturday was a 'ziffit' day - they had a special offer for the jubilee weekend, I discovered. If we could find £10 worth of books they would add a whole £5. Of such small treats are many little happinesses born. We scoured the house and managed the minimum £10 to secure the bonus, and 5kg to have a courier collect the parcels. The ziffit rejects have all gone to the British Heart Foundation. That's 2 boxes and five bags of books OUT OF THE HOUSE!

Pentecost; someone posted this William Blake Poem on Twitter;

Unless the eye catch fire,
The God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire,
The God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire,
The God will not be named.
Unless the heart catch fire,
The God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire,
The God will not be known.

Monday; The herbs in my planter are looking decidedly tatty, so I added some herbs in pot to the grocery order and transferred them into these 'lead' (haha - some kind of ceramic/resin, I think) containers.

I reckon I need some practice at drawing people, so that's what I did. I also did a few more while I was waiting in the queue for a blood test. I try not to stare too hard. Faces are so much easier to draw when half is covered by a mask.

 Wednesday we did nothing. It rained on and off most of the day, the water coming down like stair rods (remember those), bouncing off the pavement and pooling in puddles everywhere in the garden.

Friday was the kind of day when everything you touch or decide to do, or any plans that have been made, change and shift as you go along. Not just for me, but for various friends as well. Very trying.

Ah well - it's the weekend, and a new day, we can all start again.

Good Friday - 15th April 2022

 I came across this poem in an anthology complied by David Winter called 'The Master Haunter; poems about Jesus'

He is the Lonely Greatness

He is the lonely greatness of the world - 

    (His eyes are dim),

His power it is holds up the Cross

    That holds up Him.

He takes the sorrow of the three-fold hour - 

    (His eyelids close).

Round Him and round, the wind - His Spirit - where

    It listeth blows.

And so the wounded greatness of the world

    In silence lies-

And death is shattered by the light from out

    Those darkened eyes.

Madeline Caron Rock

It has been set to music by Arthur Benjamin, for unaccompanied choir.

Thursday 17th March - can it be....?

 Can it be (sh, softly now) spring?

After yesterday's washout I didn't hold out much hope for today's weather, but today started well and turned out even better.

I managed some time in the garden heaving out weeds and cutting away at some shrubs; apparently one follows the rules of the three 'D's when at work with secateurs, removing anything

'dead'

'diseased'

'discoloured'

and also 'duplicated' if embarking upon larger trees and shrubs.

I have prepared two very large flowerpots ready for radish and lettuce seeds, and I have plastic cloches which will exactly fit over them so that should help them along. That's tomorrow's work. I'm also coming to conclusions about where to site the potato growbags, currently somewhere in the shed, so that the potatoes can go in. According to Huw Richards 'Veg In One Bed' that's the main target for March.

Today's Noah's Ark; an allegory on the banks of the Nile. Alright I know, it's a crocodile. Actually, looking up the scripture verse, it's a monster!

'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “'I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, you great monster lying among your streams.'

We had to study Sheridan's play 'The Rivals' at school, and Mrs Malaprop, a character in the play, describes someone as being 'as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile'. So that's what popped into my head when I saw the picture.

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

I used to teach a rather good jazzy setting of this poem when I was working as a primary school class music teacher. Not this one; which is also very good. I don't think I can find the version I taught.

The crocodile poem comes from 'Alice in Wonderland', when Alice discovered that she could no longer remember the poems that she had learned. Here is the original, by Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day

Some good account at last. 

 

Sunday 19th December - Pause in Advent 4

 

Is this a prayer?

Vespers

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless Mummy. I know that's right.
Wasn't it fun in the bath to-night?
The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy - I quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing-gown on the door.
It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.
Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,
And pull the hood right over my head,
And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?
Oh! Now I remember it. God bless Me.

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational 

A A Milne https://allpoetry.com/poem/8518995-Vespers-by-A.A.-Milne

It is certainly how my prayers tend to go. I'll start with good intentions, I'll try and follow a plan such as 

'T S P' - thanks, sorry, please 

'ACTS' - adoration, confession, thanks, supplication (a bit more grown up, maybe)

but quite soon I'm watching the birds gather on the TV aerial outside my window and wonder how they all know to meet up here today, instead of further down the road, and laugh at the way they jostle for the best position - clearly there is some kind of hierarchy, even for starlings. 

I'll pull myself up and try and get back on track... but that first cup of coffee was so good, I still have the taste in my mouth, shall I have a second, maybe later... oh no, I'm off again... 

Here is the poem set to music on youtube; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk_YWl68in0

not the tune I was expecting, but somehow haunting and true... a lullaby...

Sunday 12th December - Pause in Advent 3

 

Last week I prepared my 'Pause in Advent' early - I had chosen the Mary Oliver poem several days before hand. This week... until this morning I had no ideas for the post.

My theme is 'Prayer' - trying to explore what prayer might be, how it does what it does, what does it do?

Today's Advent theme, or one of them, is Joy.

I first came across this poem about twenty years ago - it struck me as overflowing with joy then, and I find that its strength and power has not diminished over the years. Christina Rossetti was deeply spiritual. I originally assumed that 'my love' referred to her lover, but of course, it could equally well be an outpouring of adoration of God.

For years, too, this song sung by Maddy Prior and Steeleye Span, has been one of my favourite 'hymns' (although I change the words for the third section!). I haven't discovered how to embed you tube videos so you've only got the link.

To know know know him
Is to love love love him
Just to see that smile
Makes my life worthwhile
To know know know him
Is to love love love him
And I do, and I do, and I do

Oh, I'll be good to him
I'll bring joy to him
Everyone says there'll come a day
When I'll walk alongside of him
To know know know him
Is to love love love him
And I do, I really do, and I do

Why can't he see
How blind can he be
Someday he'll see
That he was meant for me

To know know know him
Is to love love love him
Just to see that smile
Makes my life worthwhile
To know know know him
Is to love love love him
And I do, I really do, and I do

Sunday 5th December 2021 - Pause in Advent 2

 

Still on the subject of prayer, here's a Mary Oliver Poem, the second one in this book 

which was a birthday present from my daughter.

I Happened To Be Standing

I don't know where prayers go,

    or what they do.

Do cats pray, while they sleep

    half-asleep in the sun?

Does the opossum pray as it

    crosses the street?

The sunflowers? The old black oak

    growing older every year?

I know I can walk through the world,

    along the shore or under the trees,

with my mind filled with things

    of little importance, in full

self-attendance. A condition I can't really 

    call being alive.

Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,

    or does it matter?

The sunflowers blaze, maybe that's their way.

Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing

just outside my door, with my notebook open,

which is the way I begin every morning.

Then a wren in the privet began to sing.

He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,

I don't know why. And yet, why not.

I wouldn't persuade you from whatever you believe

or whatever you don't. That's your business.

But I thought, of the wren's singing, what could this be

    if it isn't a prayer?

So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Action - stand outside in the mornings for a few minutes, and listen.

I discovered these tiles in the loft; they were a Christmas present from my Uncle and Aunt back in 1977! 
 

Thursday 2nd December - Music of Eternity Day 5

 Chapter Heading; 'Father, hallowed be Your Name'

If Advent is about awakening to God's Eternal Action - around us and within us - our natural response after encountering God will be to worship. Christ taught us the Lord's Prayer to recognise our privileged relationship with the God who is our Father. So our prayers open not with petition but with praise and adoration as we seek to enter into the deepest meaning of much-loved and familiar words. Evelyn [Underhill - check the subtitle of the book!] reminds us that self-interest dries up adoration and we need to guard against the poison of 'spiritual egoism'

Tricky, this - I can start off with praise and adoration, but it always seems to me that I praise God, and thanking Him and adoring Him not because 'He Is', but because of what He has done, and is doing, for us - everyone, me, my friends and my family - oops, I seem to have arrived upon the scene already, before the first sentence of this paragraph has ended, and before I reach the finish I will have started asking Him to intervene on behalf of everyone, my family and friends, and, of course, not forgetting, Me!

OK, back to the start - God the Creator of all things, who inspires, loves us (careful...) who makes all these colours I see around me, loves us, no, here I are again....

If you have only as little as half an hour to give each morning to your private prayer...spend half that time in such adoration... its neglect is responsible for much lack of spiritual depth... we must become, and keep, spiritually fit.

Half an hour! But if I don't get a move on I won't have time for a bath and I need to be ready by such and such a time because....

Perhaps, if I can only manage to do the 'praise and adoration' bit for a minute or two at a time, would it be ok if I split this into about ten really short 'Hi Intensity 'spiritual workouts' a day? That's actually doable - there is so much to see, taste, hear, pause over, before moving on to the next thing.

R S Thomas has a suggestion along these lines;

A Day in Autumn

It will not always be like this,

The air windless, a few last

Leaves adding their decoration

To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs

Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening

 

In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up

From the day’s chores, pause a minute,

Let the mind take its photograph

Of the bright scene, something to wear

Against the heart in the long cold

Monday 11th January - I, me, myself

 That's the letter for today - I

Me, myself, and what is in my mind's eye?

I'm sure we used to have a copy of this book; 

and now suddenly this poem has floated to the top of my brain

The Tyger

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Ah, but it uses the word 'symmetry', not 'geometry'. As you were then.

I managed a 'quick' walk before lunch - I haven't been out while the weather was so cold. 

My Other Half was cooking lunch, so I had just 20 minutes. Being on my own I didn't have any oxygen support, and I can tell you I surely noticed the difference. Even so I managed 300 metres in my first 6 minute walk test, and then spent several minutes standing still until my breathing steadied. Once I was ready, I walked on a little further, stopped again to catch my breath, and turned for home. I made this a second walk test and covered 340 m. The further distance is because the return journey is slightly downhill. One again I paused, and then covered the final distance, just ten houses from home. Overall, 800 metres in the 20 minutes.

If I had been using oxygen, even at the lowest setting, I reckon I would have all this and more without needing to stop. 

My reward for all this effort was a glass of wine with my beef pie... well-deserved, I thought, although it made me quite sleepy all afternoon. 

I had a go at the next lesson of touch-typing. It is as I thought; adding two more letters has more than doubled the difficulty (although some of that might have been the wine??)

It does mean the little stories are getting more involved;

i sigh like jill; jed has a high hall; see jaffa as he jigs

a sad seal did fall; dad filled a field; a sill leaks alas;

i like a fig; half a heel has  held; jill has a gash; i hike

This is Such Hard Work now!

I'm spending more time going over each word, and then each line, until I manage to get it right. Then, of course, I ruin it by rattling in this post using my 'eyes on the keys, using three fingers' method.  Tomorrow, if I dare, I get to learn o, n and the shift keys. To be honest, a Bach four-part fugue is easier.

   

Friday 1st January 2021 - 8th Day of Christmas

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As I said previously, last year has taught me not to MAKE plans, just yet anyway. I do have travel hopes for a possible future date; they are relatively modest in scope, if not financially. I'm talking about a river cruise, or two, or three; like Amsterdam, Bordeaux, or the Rhine?

Other daily routines and resolutions are more problematic. I don't know why I am so attracted to 'daily lists' and routines, which I know I will never manage keep.

• lose weight - exercise every day
• write every day
• draw and paint every day
• practise the piano every day
• go for a walk every day
• do some housework every day

Maybe a good resolution is to not mind if I don't do these every day? Just a couple of times a week? Keep these things ticking over? 

Here are my official resolutions for this year which I think I will manage to keep (I have a policy of not setting myself up for failure); 

• write up the day in my new diary, as I have been doing now for seven years.   
• eat chocolate several times a week
• enjoy the pleasure of life singly (this was suggested by a friend and is a really good idea - the number of times I have absent-mindedly eaten biscuits or drunk coffee with hardly any memory of the taste - what a waste.)

Finally;

I found this poem on twitter - so far no sign of the author (but if you know, please comment and I'll acknowledge)

I won’t arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

I’ll sanitise the doorknob and make a cup of tea.

I won’t go down to the sea again; I won’t go out at all,

I’ll wander lonely as a cloud from the kitchen to the hall.

There’s a green-eyed yellow monster to the North of Kathmandu

But I shan’t be seeing him just yet, and nor, I think will you.

While the dawn comes up like thunder on the road to Mandalay

I’ll make my bit of supper and eat it off a tray.

I shall not speed my bonnie boat across the sea to Skye,

Or take the rolling English road from Birmingham to Rye.

About the woodland, just right now, I am not free to go

To see the Keep Out posters or the cherry hung with snow.

And no, I won’t be travelling much, within the realms of gold,

Or get me to Milford Haven. All that’s been put on hold.

Give me your hands, I shan’t request, albeit we are friends

Nor come within a mile of you, until this virus ends.

There's a cheerful start to the year - but yes, it did make me laugh. 

view through arch at Field Place, Leith Hill, Surrey

One day....

n twitter

Sunday 20th December - Catching up on drawings

Feel free to skip this post as it is only about drawings (and a few comments)  

I've not been very methodical about keeping the sketchbook going - all kinds of things have been falling to the wayside, especially at the beginning of the month when we were far more concerned with my father's health (he's now back in his flat after a couple of weeks in hospital). So there re about six or seven empty pages. I just fill them up when I'm in the mood.   

Today the sky was black and threatening. I've usually got my sketchbook upstairs beside my bed in the morning, which is why so many sketches are of the early morning sky. The down side of this is that if I do a sketch, I will use fountain pen ink, and maybe Derwent Inktense pencils which you use water with to turn them  - inky.

(Saturday's page will get something added eventually!) After I'd spent a short while looking at the inky lines, I took a brush and went over the lines with water - I couldn't check the scene outside the bedroom window because the clouds had thinned and pale blue sky was showing through the gaps.

Here's another dawn from earlier in the week. I copied the sky, but added trees and a hill top rather than the tangled arrangement of houses and rooves and television aerials and telephone wires that forms my view.

I'm trying to work out how I want to use the sketch book; do I want to journal my day?

That would mean using just an ink pen to draw in bed, instead of reading a book.... I write a page-a-day diary, but there's not much space for sketching in it, and the paper is completely unsuitable for watercolour. (Watercolour paper isn't that wonderful for ink...)

I am pleased with this page;

The Advent book I am reading is reflections on poems by R S Thomas, put together by Carys Walsh. The poem for last Sunday was this one

Wrong?

Where is that place apart
you summon us to? Noisily
we seek it and have no time
to stay. Stars are distant;
is it more distant still,
out in the dark in the shadow
of thought itself? No wonder
it recedes as we calculate
its proximity in light years.

Maybe we were mistaken
at the beginning or took later
a wrong turning. In curved space
one can travel for ever and not recognise
one’s arrivals. I feel rather
you are at our shoulder, whispering
of the still pool we could sit down
by; of the tree of quietness
that is at hand; cautioning us
to prepare not for the breathless journeys
into confusion, but for the stepping
aside through the invisible
veil that is about us into a state
not place of innocence and delight.

The poem, especially the last part, made quite an impression, which is why I painted the picture and copied out part of the poem.

's 

Sunday 6th December

 So little to do, so much time to do it in

can rapidly turn into a frantic struggle to finish things in time!

I'm still dealing with endless emails regarding my father's state of health; every so often there's someone else who should have been told. You'd think I had a stock of carefully crafted phrases by now, but it isn't quite like that. It all depends on how well I know someone, or how well they know my father, and also whether the recipient is English or French or Dutch or whatever and how good I think their English is likely to be.

Anyway, the news today is - no change. Home day is still set for early this week; he said 'Tuesday' on the phone this afternoon.

We - that is me, off-springs 1 and 2, and Best Beloved telephoned from the South Coast where we met up this afternoon to hand over Christmas and Stocking presents (yes, I know they are grownups) and chocolate and mince pies (still warm, only just baked in time)

I'll swear that the sticky tape was still bonding to the paper; wrapping presents, baking mince pies and and getting ready to go out was all accomplished in 45 minutes.

The sea was slatey blue-grey, the sky was pearly blue-grey, the sun was bright... and the wind was Fresh! We didn't hang around long but it was worth the trip just to see them (Awww).

Today's Tea bag?

Mint, apple, pear, and nettle? No. One sip restored my vitality enough to take it back to the kitchen and find something else.

Poem? I've already blogged on it.

Advent ring?

Here you are - all ivory candles because hat is what I had. Some more were delivered yesterday - red, cream and ivory. Apparently there should be three purple ones, a pink one and a white one in the centre. I'll get my felt-tips out.

 

The mat looks strange because it is upside down to be used for marking out the shape of the new curtain rail - you can tell by the trays of bits and pieces and so on set out nearby that Work is in Progress.

Wednesday 3rd December

 Today's chocolate was eaten at lunchtime - it was that kind of morning.

When we opened the curtains it was still black night; all I could see was the streetlight outside the bedroom window, with occasional streaks of gold when raindrops fell from the lamp to the ground leaving a trail like a shooting star.

Rain is what it did, all day, and I don't think I have felt properly warm until now; this computer is right by a radiator! 

Today's tea;

Matcha green tea - okay - with cranberry and lime - less okay. I didn't notice the manganese making much contribution to my energy, metabolism or well-being, but I guess a rainy November day is a tough challenge for any cup of tea.

Still, tea is in many ways a symbol more than a drink - a glass teapot with a fancy tea and a glass mug on a tray with a tray cloth mean 'taking time for me'. So, as an experience, it was still good.

I had another routine hospital cardiology appointment over zoom today. I enjoy meeting the consultants - they are a cheerful, amusing and straight talking bunch. We came to the conclusion that I'm still alive - no, I should be serious! I'm pretty much unchanged from the beginning of this year, or indeed from last year. He was pondering what to say in the letter that gets sent to the other clinics and the GP - I suggested he just change the dates and send the same one, but he thought that might be unprofessional. 

I then phoned the hospital to see how my father is doing, and to garner news for an email out to friends and family; so far, so good. He's very cheerful, instructed me to inform everyone that he was going to go back to his flat next week for palliative care. With cancer, and at his age, it is anyone's guess how long things can carry on, but we are thinking in terms of months, not years.

The astonishing, and wonderful, and comforting about this whole state of affairs is how positive he is at the moment; while accepting the diagnosis and likely prognosis, he is managing to stay upbeat rather than sink into doom and gloom. At least when he is on the phone to me.

Today's pictures; - if I do two or three a day I should slowly catch up on the half dozen blank pages in my sketch book;

I've been prepping some pages by swooshing paint over them like this;

and then seeing what kind of pictures emerge; (the backgrounds are not the same as the ones above)

like the animal head

or a memory of the yellow flowers that shone in the border back in Jull and August 

or the ships sailing up and down the waves in a wild sunset; I member my grandmother saying, on the subject of bringing up your children, 'when you build your ships you must let them sail' 

 

Today's Advent poem; Suddenly by RS Thomas

As I had always known
he would come, unannounced,
remarkable merely for the absence
of clamour. So truth must appear
to the thinker; so, at a stage
of the experiment, the answer
must quietly emerge. I looked
at him, not with the eye
only, but with the whole
of my being, overflowing with
him as a chalice would
with the sea. Yet was he
no more there than before,
his area occupied
by the unhaloed presences.
You could put your hand
in him without consciousness
of his wounds. The gamblers
at the foot of the unnoticed
cross went on with
their dicing; yet the invisible
garment for which they played
was no longer at stake, but worn
by him in this risen existence.

Oddly enough, I have copied this from a web page which in which this poem was used as an Easter reflection. The last seven lines, of course. It is less obviously an Advent poem, but the these of this week's reflections is 'waiting'.

This is what I posted on the Reading Group facebook page;

There are times when, for apparently no reason at all, with no warning, I suddenly feel completely happy, joyful, content.

Is it because of something I've just seen, or heard, or done, or made?

No, it comes unannounced, not because of anything, but as a gift, and affirmation, and as soon as I have realised what is happening, it seems to smile and move on (to the next person?) leaving me with the smile, and feeling gently completed.

There are times when, for apparently no reason at all, with no warning, I suddenly feel completely happy, joyful, content.

Is it because of something I've just seen, or heard, or done, or made?

No, it comes unannounced, not because of anything, but as a gift, and affirmation, and as soon as I have realised what is happening, it seems to smile and move on (to the next person?) leaving me with the smile, and feeling gently completed.