Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.
Until this moment I had no idea that my name meant Youthful. It is perhaps a little late to discover such a thing. Sky Father is also mentioned which at least has some form of accuracy as my dad was in the Air Force. But like the sell-by date on perishable food the youthful meaning was lost on me some time ago. Never a popular name, I was gifted the name when it was on a tiny peak.
For most of my life it has been a comfortable enough label. Although my adolescent years were unnecessarily awkward as an acne prone face and a so-called ‘romantic’ name was an easy pairing for ridicule and unkindness.
I have never quite understood the letters that come after a word to help pronounciation in dictionaries. I suppose I should have paid more attention. This somehow makes my name feel rather brutal.
My life in bookshops started in the small market town where I grew up. Hannay in the High Street sold books and had a smell like no other. The smell of other worlds and experiences, the smell of adventure.
By the time I was 10 my bookshop tastes were expanded exponentially, my dad often worked in Cambridge and Dad Day Care involved him leaving me in a bookshop for hours. He knew I would never leave or get into trouble.
At the same age I discovered Hay-on-Wye and streets filled with second -hand book shops. In my fantasy book life I frequented Shakespeare and Co in Paris, more than a bookshop. I was taken there by Hemingway and F. Scott-Fitzgerald. In my dreams!
Daunts Books in Marylebone High Street is my favourite book shop building and probably the one I know best.
So many hours spent in there whilst I was on-call at the Heart Hospital. My friends and family got really well researched book gifts while I worked near there.
But it was a bookshop in the middle of nowhere that ignited my love of bookshops with a side serving of coffee and quirk.
Robbers Roost in Torrey, Utah brought my fantasy book shop to life. A shop that was so much more. Named because the building stands close to a hiding place of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. The bookshop was built as a home in 1976 and is also the home of the Entrada Institute.
Unknown at the time we had chanced on this bookstore soon after it had opened. We were only in Torrey for three days but I visited the bookstore every day and it has forever fueled my imagination of the perfect place to sell books and build a community hub. I would love to work in such a place. The commute is the only thing that stops me.
P.s not all my bookshop hunts have been as life affirming as those mentioned.
We were visiting Athens in October 2016 and had popped into an independent book shop.We bought some gifts. Hours later the book shop was bombed. The one occasion when my dad was wrong. Bookshops are not always safe.
Rather a subjective question this morning Bloganuary.
Good leaders are often those whose leadership is the result of organic growth rather than ambition. I prefer people who lead with considered opinions rather than certainty. I like a leader with a sense of their own self worth without an over inflated ego. I prefer appropriate action over ” talking the talk” I prefer time limited leadership. 3 years is about right. If things are all going wonderfully another 3 years can be granted if things are not quite so tickety-boo or the leader feels they have done enough then a change can be made with no loss of face.
My magpie mind has done me no good with regard to Leadership. I was about 12 when the quote below floated into my head like a dandelion seed and has stayed there ever since.
Goodness knows why this lodged in my adolescent mind. It has stuck with me and I have judged myself and others by this one sentence. Sadly this sentence is painfully true in many people who are put into or find themselves in leadership positions.
Beauty, sexual availability and physical strength, wealth and self-esteem, as well as suitability can all forge a path towards leadership. But whatever path gets you there the risk of being corrupted by the power is very real. Power is intoxicating to many. It really doesn’t matter if a leader is running a team of two other burger flippers or a country with nuclear weapons or anything in between the risk of corruption is always there.
So to answer the question. “What makes a good leader?”
In my somewhat skewed opinion. Knowledge, skill, humanity and collaboration. The ability to listen more than talk and to make appropriate decisions at the right time. To flex and pivot as circumstances change. A sense of personal style with a good moral compass in the same pocket as a smartphone. The moral compass should be used more often than the phone.
Why the cows?
Which of these cows would you choose as the leader?
They are a nod to the history of the buildings they are near.
The eager pink one is heading off in the direction of the abattoir. Not for me.
The green one needs lunch immediately. Not for me.
The orange one is ruminating, pondering the situation. Orange Cow you are my kind of woman.
Freedom in the shape of a tunnel is just a few steps away.
The path will be rocky.
But if she leads them in the right direction there will be wild flowers and lush grass to nibble at. I just hope her power is not corrupted along the way.
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
I have read a small amount of science fiction. Enough to know that tinkering with history is a tricksy thing in the hands of experts. I am clearly not an expert.
Un- inventing the Patriarchy and allowing women to flourish so that all societies had gender equilibrium from the get-go would be interesting.
6 million years of doing things differently. What would January 2024 look like ?
Well Bloganuary, here it is. The tricksy prompt that I don’t quite know how to answer. Being loved is like Harry Potter’s Cloak of invisibility. Although the cloak is invisible it is a collage of different loves. Some old, some new. Some brief, some long. Some transient or fleeting. Some surprising and some unknown. We go through life with the cloak as a constant and when we die the cloak remains behind. At that point, particles of the cloak settle on other people and become grief, before transitioning back to love and finding a proper place within the cloaks of all who loved us. Cloaks are perpetual and like DNA we carry tiny fragments of our ancestors loves within our own cloaks.
Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?
Wherever we are and whoever we are the cloak is always with us. Sometimes we wrap the cloak tightly around ourselves on other occasions it flows loosely from our shoulders. Now Bloganuary, how to illustrate that whimsical notion.
I tiled images of friends and family and then superimposed that image over an actual cloak hanging on a Hare coat hook. I think the Hare is the closest thing I have to a spirit animal.
There isn’t a part of my life that isn’t cluttered. Isn’t life meant to be cluttered? As the festive season ebbs away and seasonal trinkets are packed away there is a definite sensation of decluttering but beyond that I quite like clutter. I believe I have clutter under control rather than the other way around so that seems fine. Good clutter is like good food. Life affirming and positive. Bad clutter just needs to be gone.
The trick with clutter, in my opinion, is to keep it constantly under review and tidy, with regular trips to Charity shops and the tip. The same can be said for mental clutter.
I find clutter inspirational and creative but it needs to be under control. Stringent control. Declutter to reclutter. Out with the negative, always, to allow more positive in
I am drawn to Hares, there is an elegance about a hare that a rabbit simply doesn’t have. The elongated body and oversized ears give them an unmistakable profile on the very rare occasions when they are seen out and about. Hares were a popular subject on Christmas cards that we received this year.
Hares are never a common sight in the UK but I grew up in the flat, rural part of Essex with large arable fields all around my home. Traditionally the best time to see hares is in the Spring, when they are looking for love. The best time near us was late August or early September when the harvest had just been done and hares ran across the fields almost unaware that their hidden paths through crops were now fully exposed.
In all the usual ways but oh so much quicker than ever before.
This Victorian clock is on the Cornish side of a local ferry service. I’ve always thought it was quite an inappropriate theme for passengers who had no choice but to squander time in a queue for a ferry.
As long as I get my time differences right I can ask friends in Australia a question and get a message back immediately. This would have taken more than a hundred days when letters travelled by sea. Probably two weeks using airmail and would once have been very expensive by phone.
Communicating online is fast and as effective as the humans that use it. Since communication is one of our most valuable and essential human skills speeding it up must be a good thing. As long as the communication itself is the very best that we can do.
Communicating by writing was always one of my favourite things to do. Blogging is how I reacquaint myself with slow-form writing. Just stringing some words together every day helps me wake my mind up for the day ahead. I think it makes me a better communicator and I better appreciate all that I love about life. The time spent is not squandered.
I have been very lucky and done some great road trips around the world, but I would argue that the most memorable road trips are the mundane ones that we sometimes do every day of our lives. The repetitive unconscious road trips by public transport, or being driven by someone else. The Public Light Bus Service of Hong Kong are perhaps the scariest I have used regularly. They are ramshackle minibuses that are supposed to be speed regulated, but night journeys are done at high-speed with the over-the-speed limit alarm as the constant accompaniment of the journey. Apart from when the bus speeds to a stop to swiftly drop off passengers and their possessions, before hurtling to the next destination. In complete contrast the Number 3 bus from Crystal Palace to Oxford Street hurtles nowhere. But it follows a fabulous 6 mile route from South London through leafy Dulwich and vibrant Brixton to the historic heart of one of the Worlds most diverse cities.
As luck would have it both these memorable road trips coincide in one photograph. Our grand-daughter driving a Number 3 bus in the Dragon Centre. Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong. Sadly we did not catch the Public Light Bus to get there, but we could have.
January is snack heaven. All the festive season left-overs ease us gently through the long dark month. Early on there are soups and curries to be made but at the mid-point all that is left is cake and cheese. Stilton cheese and Christmas cake is a traditional snack and one that we enjoy from Christmas Day until one or the other runs out. In the giddy yuletide days the traditional drink accompaniment is a glass of Port. Productivity and the need to drive means that the port addition is dropped early on. This is not an every day snack.
I am not a hugely snack driven person but a couple of times a week a small plate of cheese and cake is all it takes to chase the worst of the winter away.
I’m participating in this blogging challenge for the month of January, which supports starting the year on the “write” track. You can find other posts with #bloganuary.
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