We're not going to talk about the red one. It's in disgrace until it bucks its ideas up.
Almond Brioche
2 months ago
Friday, 23 October 2009
Autumnwatch update
The yellow Japanese Maple at the end of my bridge is doing it's psychedelic autumn thing, as promised. The pictures show progress throughout October.
We're not going to talk about the red one. It's in disgrace until it bucks its ideas up.
We're not going to talk about the red one. It's in disgrace until it bucks its ideas up.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
The Aztecs would understand....
I had a very maudlin day today. Yesterday, Saturday, had been fine, I'd done a craft fair at Alresford in Hampshire, which effectively fills the day from getting up at 6am to getting home at about 5.30pm. I get to people-watch and usually make a bit of money, it was okay.
But today somehow ended up like a teenaged Sunday in the mid-70s. I got really bored. There was stuff I should have been doing, like making jewellery for the (hoped-for) Christmas rush, but I couldn't be arsed to do it. There was nothing on the telly I wanted to watch. I should have gone to the allotment but couldn't be bothered. There are books I want to read but I'm saving them up for a trip to Eastern Europe in a couple of weeks time (which I'll write about then). It ended up being a grey day laced with a hefty dollop of ennui.
I listened to a bit of Radio Four but it was Poetry Please and the requested poems were all those ones about death, you know the ones, "Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep" and that one from Four Weddings and a Funeral by W H Auden called 'Funeral Blues' that starts "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone". It didn't help my mood and was all so miserable that I had to turn the radio off, but it reminded me that a few weeks ago when there were one or two programmes on the box about the Aztec civilisation (because the British Museum has a new exhibition running about Moctezuma, the last Aztec emperor) that I had recalled how much I had enjoyed reading Aztec poetry and that I really should look some of it up again. As I was reading some of this online yesterday, it dawned on me how similar in outlook these Aztec warriors were with the contemporaneous warrior culture of the Samurai - the reverence for beauty and nature (especially floral - the Japanese Emperor sits on the Chrysanthemum Throne) and the need to feel that one would be remembered after death. I think there may be a research project in there somewhere, examining the comparisons.
Aztec culture was fascinated by how transitory and impermanent human life was and equated it with the short, glorious life of a flower which quickly fades. They also conflated flowers with blood and held so-called 'Flowery Wars' where tribes would attack each other in order to capture future sacrificial victims.
Much Aztec poetry is about this similarity of flowers and the human lifespan, and is very moving. Well, I think so anyway although, I have to admit, it does come over a bit Emo. It reads like contemporary poetry but was written 600 years ago. Anyway, see what you think.
Will I have to go like the flowers that perish?
Will nothing remain of my name?
Nothing of my fame here on earth?
At least my flowers, at least my songs!
Earth is the region of the fleeting moment.
Is it also thus in the place
where in some way one lives?
Is there joy there, is there friendship?
Or is it only here on earth
we come to know our faces?
Will nothing remain of my name?
Nothing of my fame here on earth?
At least my flowers, at least my songs!
Earth is the region of the fleeting moment.
Is it also thus in the place
where in some way one lives?
Is there joy there, is there friendship?
Or is it only here on earth
we come to know our faces?
- Ayocuan, Nahua poet, c. 1490
Be indomitable, Oh my heart!
Love only the sunflower;
It is the flower of the Giver-of-Life!
What can my heart do?
Have we come, have we sojourned here on earth in vain?
As the flowers wither, I shall go.
Will there be nothing of my glory ever?
Will there be nothing of my fame on earth?
At most songs, at most flowers,
What can my heart do?
Have we come, have we sojourned on earth in vain?
Love only the sunflower;
It is the flower of the Giver-of-Life!
What can my heart do?
Have we come, have we sojourned here on earth in vain?
As the flowers wither, I shall go.
Will there be nothing of my glory ever?
Will there be nothing of my fame on earth?
At most songs, at most flowers,
What can my heart do?
Have we come, have we sojourned on earth in vain?
- Anonymous, Aztec poet
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Winkworth Arboretum
Here in the south east corner of England we have had, effectively, a drought for the best part of the last two months. The weather has been pretty warm and, occasionally, sunny too. A proper Indian Summer (why are they called that?).
The beginning of this week saw a change back to what we usually get at this time of year - damp, drizzle, wind, downpours, overcast, grey, grey, grey. Not even any decent mists, just lack of visibility due to showers which isn't the same thing, not at all.
But today? Today's been glorious again. Clear blue sky, warm bright sunshine, a day that just begs to be strolled about in.
I'm a member of a local Arts and Craft Society that holds exhibitions twice a year, in spring and autumn. I show my jewellery in the spring one but the autumn one is just for pictures. The exhibitions are all completely open which means that members can submit any picture they've created and it will be hung - there's no committee to decide whether it's good enough or not for public viewing. This generally results in an 'exciting' mix of styles. I don't like the concept of art (or literary) criticism - something I like another person might think is hideous, and vice versa. But there's no denying there are some extremely talented amateur artists out there, and there's usually a handful of pictures that I give serious consideration to buying. These sorts of amateur exhibitions are a brilliant way of buying original art that doesn't cost a fortune.
This is a long-winded way of saying that the autumn exhibition is running at the moment so I decided to pop over to have a look this morning. There were a few that caught my eye - one especially was a fab picture of a purple jellyfish, sadly out of my price range - but I couldn't decide so came away empty-handed.
As it was such a beautiful day I felt the need to take my camera out to catch some of the gorgeous autumn colours. A few days ago I'd said to The Lovely Husband that a trip to Winkworth Arboretum, a local National Trust site, might be in order and today was the day.
The site covers approximately 100 acres and, until 1937, was an undeveloped steep-sided valley with two fishing lakes, surrounded by rolling hills. It was sold to a Dr Wilfrid Fox who decided to assemble a large-scale collection of trees and shrubs within a semi-natural setting. In 1948 Dr Fox was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's highest award, the Victoria Medal of Honour for his work in ornamental street tree planting. He was particularly taken with the Sorbus, a group containing Mountain Ash and Whitebeam and, to this day, hundreds of these trees are still found at Winkworth.
In 1952 he gave 62 acres to the National Trust which bought a further 35 acres five years later. Dr Fox remained on the Management Committee overseeing the care and continued development of the site until his death in 1962.
So that's a spot of background history - now onto the (many!) pictures - don't forget you can click on each picture and it will open much bigger:
The beginning of this week saw a change back to what we usually get at this time of year - damp, drizzle, wind, downpours, overcast, grey, grey, grey. Not even any decent mists, just lack of visibility due to showers which isn't the same thing, not at all.
But today? Today's been glorious again. Clear blue sky, warm bright sunshine, a day that just begs to be strolled about in.
I'm a member of a local Arts and Craft Society that holds exhibitions twice a year, in spring and autumn. I show my jewellery in the spring one but the autumn one is just for pictures. The exhibitions are all completely open which means that members can submit any picture they've created and it will be hung - there's no committee to decide whether it's good enough or not for public viewing. This generally results in an 'exciting' mix of styles. I don't like the concept of art (or literary) criticism - something I like another person might think is hideous, and vice versa. But there's no denying there are some extremely talented amateur artists out there, and there's usually a handful of pictures that I give serious consideration to buying. These sorts of amateur exhibitions are a brilliant way of buying original art that doesn't cost a fortune.
This is a long-winded way of saying that the autumn exhibition is running at the moment so I decided to pop over to have a look this morning. There were a few that caught my eye - one especially was a fab picture of a purple jellyfish, sadly out of my price range - but I couldn't decide so came away empty-handed.
As it was such a beautiful day I felt the need to take my camera out to catch some of the gorgeous autumn colours. A few days ago I'd said to The Lovely Husband that a trip to Winkworth Arboretum, a local National Trust site, might be in order and today was the day.
The site covers approximately 100 acres and, until 1937, was an undeveloped steep-sided valley with two fishing lakes, surrounded by rolling hills. It was sold to a Dr Wilfrid Fox who decided to assemble a large-scale collection of trees and shrubs within a semi-natural setting. In 1948 Dr Fox was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's highest award, the Victoria Medal of Honour for his work in ornamental street tree planting. He was particularly taken with the Sorbus, a group containing Mountain Ash and Whitebeam and, to this day, hundreds of these trees are still found at Winkworth.
In 1952 he gave 62 acres to the National Trust which bought a further 35 acres five years later. Dr Fox remained on the Management Committee overseeing the care and continued development of the site until his death in 1962.
So that's a spot of background history - now onto the (many!) pictures - don't forget you can click on each picture and it will open much bigger:
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Ode to Autumn by John Keats
TO AUTUMN
Season of mists and mellow fruitfullness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run:
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees.
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run:
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees.
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core:
To swell the gourd, to plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel: to set budding more.
And still more, later flowers for the bees.
Until they think warm days will never cease.
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
To swell the gourd, to plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel: to set budding more.
And still more, later flowers for the bees.
Until they think warm days will never cease.
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Death is the Road to Awe
Today the weather was calm, overcast but trying to be sunny.
Work needed doing at the allotment so I decided now was as good a time as any. The cucumber wigwams won't dismantle themselves, and the sweetcorn is now finished. The ground needs to be cleared, weeded and covered in preparation for next season. There is a lot of work to be done but, no matter, slow and steady and progress will be made.
The Husband doesn't come and help me at the allotment. Once in a blue moon, if I ask very nicely indeed, he may come and do a bit of strimming or help me carry it all back if I've harvested a lot of stuff (the site is a 5 minute walk from home so I never drive). And while there's still many the time I could do with an extra pair of hands to help with the never-ending digging and weeding, his boredom threshold is reached after about 15 minutes when he starts getting twitchy and wanting to go home (much like the typical bloke in Top Shop on a Saturday afternoon), so he might as well have not bothered coming in the first place.
So I left him sitting on his sofa, playing a time- and attention-sponge of a computer game called Civilisation IV. This, though, is fine.
The allotment is my place. It's only my money that goes into it, and my labour that keeps it going. I enjoy being there, on my own, with no-one to talk to. Quite often I'm the only person on their plot on the whole 4 acre site, which suits me just fine. I like being outside, unless it's tipping down but then I can retreat to the shed until it passes over. I love watching the ever-changing sky, and I talk to the bees as they clamber over the lavender planted beside where I sit. The foxes trot purposefully along the path, keeping a cautious distance from me. Sometimes I think it would be nice to share this with someone but, hey, if it's just me, that's okay. It feeds my soul and that's enough.
The allotment is where I also do many other things. It's the place where I also dance, sing, think and, sometimes, weep. I managed to do all four today as well as weed and clear the ground. Now that's multitasking.
I took my iPod with me, as I have started to lately, and today was Classical music day. There's nothing like waltzing around the raspberry bushes while listening to Khatchaturian's 'Masquerade Suite':
It immediately transported me to a vast mirror-lined gilded ballroom in some middle European palace. I'm wearing a gorgeous gown and diamonds, and being swirled around the room by a knee-bucklingly handsome Hussar in leather boots and gold braiding. *sigh*.
As I was cutting the string tying the bamboo canes together I moved onto Vaughan Williams' timeless 'Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis':
I know we've been here before but you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by this melody. It always makes my eyes feel a little 'hot', if you know what I mean. This particular piece, for me, is the distillation of everything it means to be English. (And I actually like the (admittedly fairly poor quality) video of scenes of the River Torridge in Devon that I've posted here.) Somehow it makes me feel that I'm standing in an ancient landscape which, of course, I was - St Martha's on the Hill looks down upon me from the horizon - a church built upon a hill that has been a place of pilgrimage for thousands of years. I stood and looked at it while the music swelled in my head. I thought about what a shame it is these days that bigoted fascists like the BNP have stolen the concept of 'Englishness'. I'm uncomfortable with overt and obvious patriotism such as you find in the States - it's too close to militarism for my liking - but I dislike feeling guilty for living in a culture that gave the world Stonehenge, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, Capability Brown, Christopher Wren, Turner, Millais, Holst, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Dickens, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Blackadder.
But what to listen to while pulling up the sweetcorn? I chose the soundtrack to the film 'The Fountain'. I am undecided whether the film is a staggering work of heartbreaking genius or an enormous pile of self-indulgent, pretentious wank (although it is beautiful to look at) but the soundtrack is absolutely breathtaking. Written by Clint Mansell (who, I was extremely surprised to discover, used to be the main guy in 90s chart-botherers 'Pop Will Eat Itself'), it's mostly strings (the Kronos Quartet, I believe) but with some electronica thrown in and is achingly, weepingly sad.
Briefly, the plot of the film revolves around Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman and their relationship through time - firstly in 1500 AD as a Spanish queen and a conquistadore who (I think) discovers the fabled Tree of Life; in modern times where he is a researcher who believes death is a disease that can be cured and she is his wife who dies of cancer (he is unable to save her); and then 1000 years in the future where he's in a big bubble, together with the Tree of Life, rising up through space towards a supernova called Xibalba where he will be reunited with his missus. I think. Hugh Jackman's pretty good in it and conveys this massive and eternal love for his wife, and what he had been through (and would go through) to be with her again. I started thinking about who would be there to hold my hand on my deathbed, or would I even be missed? I cannot have children so will never be a mother. This also means I will never be a grandmother. If (heavens forfend) The Husband should come to his senses and decide he's had enough of my lazy arse, slatternly ways and hightails it out of here, who would there be to comfort me in my hour of passing? No-one, that's who. There would be no-one to love me as much as Hugh Jackman loves Rachel Weisz and I'm just in that chocolate-centric part of the month where I'm prey to those loathsome girly-hormones that finds anything like that unbearably moving.
There's a melody on the soundtrack called 'Together We Can Live Forever', which made me stop and look up into the sky, ostensibly blinking away the tears, but then I noticed, waaaaay up above my head, two large birds of prey, probably buzzards, dancing around each other, slowly circling in the thermal, flying together, higher and higher - it couldn't have been more appropriate and fitting to the music.
So please forgive the length of this particular video but it contains the whole of my favourite track off the album 'Death is the Road to Awe', which is a pretty cool title just by itself. The music builds in layers and repeated themes until reaching a climax.
So after this rollercoaster of emotions, I came home to find The Husband still sitting where I left him, playing his life away on a computer game. "So, did you get up to much?" he asked. "Not really" I replied - well, where could I start?
Work needed doing at the allotment so I decided now was as good a time as any. The cucumber wigwams won't dismantle themselves, and the sweetcorn is now finished. The ground needs to be cleared, weeded and covered in preparation for next season. There is a lot of work to be done but, no matter, slow and steady and progress will be made.
The Husband doesn't come and help me at the allotment. Once in a blue moon, if I ask very nicely indeed, he may come and do a bit of strimming or help me carry it all back if I've harvested a lot of stuff (the site is a 5 minute walk from home so I never drive). And while there's still many the time I could do with an extra pair of hands to help with the never-ending digging and weeding, his boredom threshold is reached after about 15 minutes when he starts getting twitchy and wanting to go home (much like the typical bloke in Top Shop on a Saturday afternoon), so he might as well have not bothered coming in the first place.
So I left him sitting on his sofa, playing a time- and attention-sponge of a computer game called Civilisation IV. This, though, is fine.
The allotment is my place. It's only my money that goes into it, and my labour that keeps it going. I enjoy being there, on my own, with no-one to talk to. Quite often I'm the only person on their plot on the whole 4 acre site, which suits me just fine. I like being outside, unless it's tipping down but then I can retreat to the shed until it passes over. I love watching the ever-changing sky, and I talk to the bees as they clamber over the lavender planted beside where I sit. The foxes trot purposefully along the path, keeping a cautious distance from me. Sometimes I think it would be nice to share this with someone but, hey, if it's just me, that's okay. It feeds my soul and that's enough.
The allotment is where I also do many other things. It's the place where I also dance, sing, think and, sometimes, weep. I managed to do all four today as well as weed and clear the ground. Now that's multitasking.
I took my iPod with me, as I have started to lately, and today was Classical music day. There's nothing like waltzing around the raspberry bushes while listening to Khatchaturian's 'Masquerade Suite':
It immediately transported me to a vast mirror-lined gilded ballroom in some middle European palace. I'm wearing a gorgeous gown and diamonds, and being swirled around the room by a knee-bucklingly handsome Hussar in leather boots and gold braiding. *sigh*.
As I was cutting the string tying the bamboo canes together I moved onto Vaughan Williams' timeless 'Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis':
I know we've been here before but you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by this melody. It always makes my eyes feel a little 'hot', if you know what I mean. This particular piece, for me, is the distillation of everything it means to be English. (And I actually like the (admittedly fairly poor quality) video of scenes of the River Torridge in Devon that I've posted here.) Somehow it makes me feel that I'm standing in an ancient landscape which, of course, I was - St Martha's on the Hill looks down upon me from the horizon - a church built upon a hill that has been a place of pilgrimage for thousands of years. I stood and looked at it while the music swelled in my head. I thought about what a shame it is these days that bigoted fascists like the BNP have stolen the concept of 'Englishness'. I'm uncomfortable with overt and obvious patriotism such as you find in the States - it's too close to militarism for my liking - but I dislike feeling guilty for living in a culture that gave the world Stonehenge, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, Capability Brown, Christopher Wren, Turner, Millais, Holst, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Dickens, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Blackadder.
But what to listen to while pulling up the sweetcorn? I chose the soundtrack to the film 'The Fountain'. I am undecided whether the film is a staggering work of heartbreaking genius or an enormous pile of self-indulgent, pretentious wank (although it is beautiful to look at) but the soundtrack is absolutely breathtaking. Written by Clint Mansell (who, I was extremely surprised to discover, used to be the main guy in 90s chart-botherers 'Pop Will Eat Itself'), it's mostly strings (the Kronos Quartet, I believe) but with some electronica thrown in and is achingly, weepingly sad.
Briefly, the plot of the film revolves around Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman and their relationship through time - firstly in 1500 AD as a Spanish queen and a conquistadore who (I think) discovers the fabled Tree of Life; in modern times where he is a researcher who believes death is a disease that can be cured and she is his wife who dies of cancer (he is unable to save her); and then 1000 years in the future where he's in a big bubble, together with the Tree of Life, rising up through space towards a supernova called Xibalba where he will be reunited with his missus. I think. Hugh Jackman's pretty good in it and conveys this massive and eternal love for his wife, and what he had been through (and would go through) to be with her again. I started thinking about who would be there to hold my hand on my deathbed, or would I even be missed? I cannot have children so will never be a mother. This also means I will never be a grandmother. If (heavens forfend) The Husband should come to his senses and decide he's had enough of my lazy arse, slatternly ways and hightails it out of here, who would there be to comfort me in my hour of passing? No-one, that's who. There would be no-one to love me as much as Hugh Jackman loves Rachel Weisz and I'm just in that chocolate-centric part of the month where I'm prey to those loathsome girly-hormones that finds anything like that unbearably moving.
There's a melody on the soundtrack called 'Together We Can Live Forever', which made me stop and look up into the sky, ostensibly blinking away the tears, but then I noticed, waaaaay up above my head, two large birds of prey, probably buzzards, dancing around each other, slowly circling in the thermal, flying together, higher and higher - it couldn't have been more appropriate and fitting to the music.
So please forgive the length of this particular video but it contains the whole of my favourite track off the album 'Death is the Road to Awe', which is a pretty cool title just by itself. The music builds in layers and repeated themes until reaching a climax.
So after this rollercoaster of emotions, I came home to find The Husband still sitting where I left him, playing his life away on a computer game. "So, did you get up to much?" he asked. "Not really" I replied - well, where could I start?
Rosemary Beetle
Just in case any of you out there were desperate to know what the beetle from my previous-but-one posting was, I did a bit of detective work and found out that it's a Rosemary Beetle. Which would explain why I found three of them on my Rosemary bush this afternoon. (Although it does sound like a librarian - Mrs Rosemary Beetle....)
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday
I found this website today. I advise you all to rush off and spend a very amusing few minutes to create your own yearbook pictures from the past. These were mine. I am a sex goddess.
Rather alarmingly, I do actually have a school picture taken in 1979 that does look remarkably like the fourth picture down:
Butter wouldn't melt, eh? Sadly about as far from the truth as you can imagine....
But I leave you with this, a picture The Husband sent me to brighten my day:
Rather alarmingly, I do actually have a school picture taken in 1979 that does look remarkably like the fourth picture down:
Butter wouldn't melt, eh? Sadly about as far from the truth as you can imagine....
But I leave you with this, a picture The Husband sent me to brighten my day:
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