the museum of natural colours & swimming in the river

On our last day, we visited this small and lovely museum of natural colours (showing how colour pigments are made from plants) and then spent the afternoon swimming at a watering hole in a nearby river with na and her mr m. It's been years since I swam in a river, the water was cold but refreshing, and made my skin feel amazingly soft afterwards. Mr M found a frisbee in the trees so they had fun tossing that around and when it landed in the water, Mr M was sent into the water to fetch it. Then a long haired drummer came down and while swimming, lost his keys. Paul's goggles helped him find them!

After, we went to Isabella's agritourist run farm at Pieve del Colle for a gorgeous meal of barley salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and fresh basil, courgette roasted with wild fennel, green lentils, green beans with mint, and some toasted home made bread with garlic and olive oil. We saw the sun set over the hills and the full moon on our way home.

Next year, we've been instructed to come earlier or later, to avoid the courgettes! But I don't mind courgettes that much. Plus, I love seeing those fields of blooming sunflowers.

On holiday in Italy...see you in a week or so!

(wild)flowers for one deep breath

I remember when
you said my name as if I
was a flower, a flame

~

you wear motherhood

with reluctance, a dress of

thick thorny flowers

~

under shifting skies

green seas get away from me

poppies wave goodbye

~

your face full of hope

your arms full of sunflowers

my answer silenced

~

last minute bouquet
keeping up the white charade
petals wilt to grey

~

I didn't mean for everything to come out sad! Oh well! For more flower inspired haiku, go here.

the meme of three

I'm not sure how memes get started, but I guess someone has to start them, so here's one I made up as an extension / adaptation of an email a friend sent me that got me thinking...feel free to take it and make it your own!

Three jobs I’ve had:
1. Office manager
2. Volunteer Counsellor for a drop-in centre in Birmingham
3. Extra in a Greek chocolate commercial

Three places I’ve lived:
1. Jerusalem, Israel
2. Damascus, Syria
3. Long Island, New York

Three places I’d like to visit which I’ve never been:
1. Bolivia
2. Iceland
3. China

Three most unforgettable places I’ve been on holiday:
1. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
2. Oaxaca, Mexico
3. The Khaokob Caves, Southern Thailand near Krabi (because the claustrophobic boat ride through the caves was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done)

Three things that bring me comfort:
1. A cat on my lap
2. A truly good book
3. A great big hug

Three of the most memorable books I read last year:
1. On The Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin
2. Maps for Lost Lovers - Nadeem Aslam
3. Under The Skin – Michel Faber

Three books that I started because I felt I ought to, but didn’t finish:
1. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. Swann’s way – Proust
3. Sexus – Henry Miller

Three songs that give me goosebumps:
1. Coles Corner – Richard Hawley (that whole album does)
2. Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen (sung by Kathryn Williams)
3. It’s raining today – Scott Walker

Three loved films from my childhood:
1. The Jungle Book (the 1960’s version with all the singing)
2. Grease
3. ET

The last three films I saw are:
1. Tell No One (just out in the cinema yesterday)
2. The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder film, on DVD)
3. El Topo (Jodorowsky film, on DVD)

Three things I didn’t do as a child that I wish I had:
1. Learn to ride a bicycle
2. Learn to play the piano
3. Learn to play the guitar

Three things I’d like to do that I haven’t done yet:
1. Have a child, be a mother
2. Take said child or children (when it is/they are old enough) and its/their father and go on a proper road trip together one summer in a camper van, exploring a place we’ve never been before
3. Write a book I’m happy with

The three people I’m going to tag with this meme:

1. Shadowsandclouds
2. Changapeluda
3. Nina

Feel free to do it yourself if you wish. If you do, let me know, I’ll come over and read it.

Lottie and her hiding places

This is our Lottie. She has a penchant for hiding. The first day she was with us, she spent the first few hours hiding behind our sofa. Now, every time she gets frightened, she hides there. She was there the whole week we had builders in painting the windows. And she was there this morning during the thunderstorm.

I don't much care for plain old rain, but I do love a thunderstorm. Lottie, however, does not. This is how I found her (behind the sofa). She let me stroke her head but she didn't come out till it was over.
















Other times, she likes to explore dark spots for potential hidey holes. Here she is poking round my shelves...













And when she's happy, she likes to sit on top of my work table and look out the window. Here she is with my apples....












I've had cats for nearly three years now, and I can't imagine how I ever got by without them!

peace

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." - Mother Teresa

old prayers (haiku for one deep breath)

Once I asked to be
filled with Love. Didn’t count on
forgetting its name.

~

the blue backed magpie

crosses my path and flinches

into my pale dreams

~

opening up

Ok, I admit it, I do read my horoscope every now and then. A lot of them are rubbish. But a few months ago, a friend forwarded me a link to horoscopes with a difference, written by a fella called Rob Breszny. Even if you don't take any notice of the advice given, the horoscopes themselves are so poetic and wacky, I just enjoy reading them. Last week's Leo horoscope was so beautiful I copied it and saved it.

"The geography of your heart is evolving. In places, coastlines are disappearing. Elsewhere, new islands have risen out of the sea. Boundaries are shifting, as some nations dissolve and others are born. Even the climate is changing, with warm winds blowing where once there was year-round chill, and monsoon-like conditions invading desert ecosystems. Roads that formerly led to the center of the action no longer do, and highways that used to be peripheral are now main routes. I suggest you take note of all this by redrawing your map, Leo. Get up to date with your heart's new landscapes."

This week's Aquarius horoscope (mine) is equally beautiful. So I'm sharing it.

"Are we being sentimentally unscientific when we refer to the heart as the seat of the soul? Or does that idea contain a truth that surpasses reductive rationalism? In *A Dictionary of Symbols,* J.E. Cirlot reports that in the Jewish tradition, meditation involves "speaking to one's heart." According to Christian tradition, the Kingdom of God resides in the heart. Hindus say the supreme god Brahma lives there, and in Islam, the heart is referred to as the throne of God. If you can get your modern prejudices out of the way, Aquarius, your next assignment is to have a sustained, intimate, heart-to-heart communion with your heart. Learn more about its secret thoughts. Converse with it as if it were the literal source of your emotional intelligence. Proceed on the hypothesis, as French philosopher Pascal did, that "great thoughts come from the heart."

So far I've limited myself to just posting drawings and some photos on my blogs. I've been wary of being too personal, mainly because of the thought of someone I vaguely but don't really know somehow stumbling upon them and reading them. Not the people who are my friends, but people I don't know well enough to normally share my thoughts with. But then again, maybe I'm being too presumptuous that my life would be that interesting to anyone. And if I don't want to reveal myself then why have a blog at all? And what am I afraid of? Being known? Being judged? If I'm going to be judged, I'm going to be judged anyway. And what does one person's judgement matter over another's, especially the imagined judgement from someone I don't even know? I guess I don't want to be misjudged. But I can't control what other people think of me. All I can do is be me, whatever that means. So there. This means I might be getting more personal. Or not. We'll see. It depends on my level of paranoia when I next sit down to blog.

accidental

art on the london skyline

There's an Antony Gormley exhibition going on at the Hayward Gallery in London until August. As part of the exhibition, a series of bronze sculptures of the artist's body have been placed on top of various buildings in London, (event horizon), mainly around the South Bank. Here's one I spied out my window at work.

crouch end shrubbery

the joy of cats

Lottie likes feet. Stand still for a second and she's there.
Lottie the foot hugger.

She also likes to nap on my lap when I'm trying to type.


Jakey, the sleep artist.

He likes cushions

Shameless puss.

soft focus kitties (shot through a blue sweet wrapping filter)

Lottie doing her Marlene Dietrich...














Jakey, the morning after the bender..."Some days just disappear in a haze of whiskey and smoke man...now where's my breakfast?"

oooh! oooh! a blossom!

Fallen off heads continue to grow and blossom if placed in a bowl of water. There you go...there is hope!

flowers in a bowl

Yesterday I bought some chrysanthemums and sweet williams. It was a miserable grey day and I needed cheering up. When I got them home and unwrapped them, I found that loads of the chrysanthemum flower heads had snapped off or were on the verge of snapping off the stems. At first I despaired that I'd end up with a bunch of headless stems for our vases, but then I gathered them all up and put them in a bowl of water. Sometimes heads falling off can be pretty after all.

some pictures from my work room, with cat

abandoned church, Llandudno, North Wales

The West Beach, Llandudno, North Wales