Xhosa woman with a pipe and baby.
I love the serenity of this image that I painted a couple of times about ten years ago. I rarely find peace with one of my paintings but wherever the two paintings are I hope their owners find serenity in this woman’s peace.
Serenity on a Sunday.
Below is my instagram reel featuring the Grandmothers Click Song
Wild camping with a five year old. Our plan was to park in a quiet corner of Mountbatten to give our 5 year old grandchild the chance to be immersed in Nature for 24 hours. What had slipped our minds was that a World Championship Sailing event was being held at our chosen destination.
Regardless we found a perfect quiet corner to camp and arrived just as the last races were being held. Tiny sailing boats competing in the early evening sun. The winners heralded with a klaxon call just beyond our bushes.
Our evening dog walk enlivened by the happy chatter of many different languages eager to party and then be on their way. Small boats packed away on trailers.
This morning we awoke to the graceful dance of maritime traffic going about its business in Plymouth Sound. After being lulled to sleep with the gentle thud of Drum and Bass at celebratory parties and International teams slipping away at midnight.
Wild camping, not as planned but wild and memorable in its own way.
What colourful nonsense is this Friday Blog? The end of a week when play has been at the heart of everything and soft play has been the giddiest of all the play events.
Soft play areas are vast creations of indoor multi-storey, multi-sensory ,padded, wipe clean climbing frames for the under tens. Our visit yesterday was to a Cornish Copper Mine themed one. Earlier in the week we were in soft-play Steam Train world.
Nothing about these places is subtle. They are loud, brash, palaces of pleasure and excitement. Adults use the crazy plastic construction in order to supervise their small people, but clambering and climbing over brightly coloured, soft shapes, with very little chance of physical harm is such a fun thing to do, it surprises me no-one has ever built one of these things to adult proportions.
Over-enthusiasm on my part has led to minor injuries in the past. Grown-up backs and knees complain mightily the next day. I kid myself that it is because everything is a little too small and awkward for me, but the truth is, I have circled the sun many more times than the under tens for which a soft-play zone is designed and I am not as pliable as I once was.
https://www.morwellham-quay.co.uk/miners-adventure-play
A well stocked cafe with good quality coffee and snackage soothed my aches and dried me off after a quite different sensory experience. Working Wi-Fi would have been advantageous, just for five minutes, for a brief phone call. Miners Play is in an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and no phone signal. Staff were very helpful in pointing out the exact spot where a signal could sometimes be found in the middle of an outdoor field. Twenty minutes in the rain found me a signal,and with calls done I returned to coffee, a bacon sandwich and somewhat ironically working Wi-Fi.
Admin done I returned damply to my family. Still adventuring wildly,there was still an hour to go in our session. Small sweaty hands pulled me to enjoy their moments of triumphant clambering. Small sweaty hands. Nothing better
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
If my blog creates one additional smile in the world then I would consider that a ponder well used as far as the world is concerned .
However much I moaned about too much rain in the first half of 2024. I am not immune to the charms of soft summer rain, especially early morning rain.
Without gentle rain traditional Cornish Dry Stone walls would not be quite so fascinating.
I absolutely love the summer rain we’ve been having lately! It’s been so lovely and never once inconvenient.
Texture and Context. Wandering around a favourite local tourist attraction, with small people, alters the context of my adult engagement with the place. On this occasion, Heligan Gardens near Mevagissy in Cornwall. Small people linger longer in places that I give less time to. But they also give me less time to gather information because their needs, interests and safety are less predictable than mine. I would love to be able to tell you which rare breed of donkey owns this beautiful fluffy ear. We visited her many times practiced the word donkey and moved on.
Similarly the Bronze Turkey.
We made animal noises in English and Polish. They are not the same.
And stare in wonder at a tiny fairy ring growing in a border.
But a small person version of a favourite place is not all hustle and bustle. I was left for ten minutes in the potting shed and again in the head gardeners office while playing hide and seek. Wonderful silent places where the illusion of stepping back a century or so is tranquil and authentic.
And where my pursuers are glimpsed through dusty old windows.
My fascination with bees is tempered by worrying if small fingers may try to touch a bee bottom. For once, a good enough photograph is the perfect balance of being a competent and trusted nana.
The other thing busy days with small people affects is enough moments to summon up a blog. My apologies for yesterday, maybe I can crack out two today. Maybe not. But there are plenty more pictures to share…
List 30 things that make you happy.
What I think is the point of a list like this?
An infinite amount of things make me happy most days.
Better and easier perhaps to list the things that make me unhappy and yet that list is also infinite but in a much less significant way.
The impact of happiness is sustaining and expansive. We must all dwell in a state of unhappiness from time to time but I find it is best given a good thinking on. Pondering perhaps, but then finding ways of diminishing the impact of sadness on daily life. Dwelling on happiness is a good thing. I find the inside of broad bean outer cases as an instant happy fix. Not perhaps something that marks me out as a wise old sage or internet wellness coach but it works for me every time. Similarly the inside of Horse Chestnut, conker,cases.
Imagine being so loved and nurtured that a disposable soft cocoon of natural fibres is created just to encourage you to thrive. If I was feeling particularly decadent as a small broadbean I would ask to grow near a bed of tomatoes so that my fluffy thriving was enhanced by the fragrance of crushed tomato leaves. So many things to make me happy. Why ever would I stop at thirty?
Funny how things pop up in life. I am that someone, if I feel I have the life skills and the time and energy to be the ‘someone’
But being ‘someone’ sometimes bites you on the bum. And when that happens a little time is needed to recalibrate. What better way to recalibrate than with another shot of Lark Ascending.
A beautiful rose is a fabulous thing. I think this one is called Lark Ascending which is a famous poem by George Meredith . I am not particularly familiar with the poem but am much more familiar with a piece of music by Vaughn Williams which was inspired by the poem.
The Lark Ascending https://g.co/kgs/dzr1Jn9
Then in the way of a chain reaction the music inspired the naming of this rose. And the rose inspired me to do a little bit of digital tweaking and some googling.
I love chains of creativity and sometimes I love that a beautiful flower can knock all other thoughts, especially the grumpy ones, from my mind just by being droopily lovely.
I feel I am a late convert to roses and this summer the peachy coloured ones are my special favourites. My grandad was a rose grower in quite a big way . Having lived through two world wars he favoured one called Peace. Primarily yellow and pink, his were more peachy growing in a clay soil. Which maybe is the link. Peace got its name because it had an extraordinary creation story. Just a little research led me to another WordPress Blog page.
https://countrygardenroses.wordpress.com/category/history-of-the-peace-rose/
A lovely little blog journey for a Friday.
Co-incidence is a wonderful thing. The serendipity of life is a major factor in my blog writing.
Until this popped up yesterday I had no idea I had been blogging so long. The early years went through a few transitions and I really only found my niche when I accidentally hit on a prolonged daily blogging regime. Like many things in life Covid-19 caused a three month course related project to become open ended when the end point,the second part of the course failed to happen for two years.
15 years and 1000 editions of the current blog feels like an achievement. Not epic or outstanding, certainly not life changing for anyone beyond myself. I have become much more observant of the minutiae of a moment or tiny details in the bigger picture.
This picture of a snail appeared in the blog in 2017.
Much more recently Snails and I have been pondering companions as I undertook the white wall painting in the yard.
The two snails nicely demonstrate the different textures and directions of life. The last snail posing occurred this week. Not such great focus on the snail.
But this is where blogging, and my love of art and odd photography collide. A Surreal celebration of 15 years or a thousand blogs. Courtesy of my unpredictable photo manipulating app.
Below is the snail of the moment.
A snail just waiting for something to pique her interest. The USP of my blog. Just waiting for something however small to spark a few words
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