Thanks to Renee for this.
Monthly Archives: January 2015
Guest Post from Hawai’i No 1
Being on crutches makes it quite hard to take photos! My beautiful sister who lives on Big Island, Hawai’i , is sending me photos so that you and I don’t miss out on beautiful things. Here is the first one she has sent for us all to enjoy. Isn’t it absolutely glorious?
Lovers in the sunset Thank you, Deborah, for helping me out, very much appreciated.
Lots of Love on the Mantelpiece
All these birthday cards and get well soon cards from friends and family remind me how much I am loved! Thank you, too, to every one who has sent love for a speedy recovery here on my blog. It is all very much appreciated.
Singing, Rainbows and Narcissi
I was very happy this morning to be able to sit in our sun room for an hour, watching the birds and feeling the sun through the glass, first time in a fortnight. One of my lovely choir friends called me on the phone and The Suitcase Singers sang for me which just about made my happiness complete! Thank you all so much.
Our delicate Christmas cactus still has a few blooms.
As the low sun was streaming in through the windows, it was catching the crystal that hangs there and rainbows were being thrown around the room. I tried several photos and was delighted by the serendipity of the rainbow catching one of the seagulls on the rooftops of our driftwood houses, a delightful piece by Jo Perry.
Mr S found more flowers on the doorstep this afternoon. This time they were glorious Cornish Narcissi which have filled the sunroom with their delicious scent. They came with a note marking our 6th anniversary of moving to this house and were from our lovely next door neighbours who made us feel so welcome from that very first evening.
Sunrise
Just look at the beautiful sunrise that greeted me this morning!
When I was in the hospital there was a lovely young care worker who came in first thing, drew the curtains for us and said, “Just look at this lovely pink sky, ladies! It’s going to be a beautiful day!” Clearly a woman after my own heart.
Photo taken on iPad.
PS The post has just come and with it a long, lovely letter from a friend and colleague whom I haven’t seen for years. What a joy and such a beautiful thing, that over the years and the miles (she now lives in France) we remain close.
January Blooms
These beautiful Camellias were left on our doorstop on New Year’s Day, the day I came home from hospital with my new hip.Thank you, Angela, they are truly beautiful and belong on here!
Photo taken with iPad.
Twenty-one Homes Before I Was Twenty-one
We moved to Cornwall from Birmingham when I was six years old. I had already lived in Cockerham, Surbiton and Edgbaston before that and was to live in ten more addresses before Mr S and I had our first home together. These are all the beautiful (well, most of them) places that I grew up in with fields and lanes, creeks and the beach as my playgrounds. I was so very lucky. Click on any photo for the caption and detail.
Creek Vean, Feock
My little sister’s Christening party in the garden of Creek Vean
Path down to the beach
Creek Vean, Feock from the creekside
Fields nearby where we played
Looking down Pill Creek
Terraced garden where strawberries grew at Christmas!
Penwartha Green
Penwartha Green
Penwartha Green and gate
Stream at the bottom of the garden
The farm up the lane where I went every evening to ‘help’ milk the cows
My primary school, now a private home just across the road from Penwartha Green
Tywarnhale Road, Perranporth
This was my playground
View from the Liskey Hill caravan park where we lived one summer
12 Kirby Road , Malabar
52 Daniell Road, Truro
View of the Cathedral from Daniell Road The hills beyond were all green fields then.
Kelsey House, Chapel Hill, Truro
19 Treyew Road, now a Samaritans’ House
‘Kindness’ by Naomi Shihab
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Gallery
Woodstacks and Imagination
Stacking wood – tree
Wood-stack Austria
Stacking wood – in Austria 2008
Stacking wood – with goats and a window
Stacking wood – owl
