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Monthly Archives: April 2016

Inman Park Festival and Parade

Join us to share some of the fun and vitality of the Parade this afternoon, Saturday 30th April, despite the date on the photos! It was brilliant to be able to be here this year and to get caught up in the excitement and jollity

  As well as the parade, there are streets full of beautiful art work for sale, scrumptious food and drink all accompanied by live music.

Both of these I would have loved to have bought but taking home would sadly be impossible. Tonight is Theatre Night…….

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 30, 2016 in America, art, Beauty, Celebration, community

Tags: floats, happiness, Parade

Inman Park Festival and Tour of Homes

30 Apr

Full picture tomorrow.

Birthday Treats, A Visit and Spiral Staircase

28 Apr

It was my brother’s birthday yesterday and he had his own google doodle!

We went to see the wonderfully inventive Cirque Du Soleil last night and that was a treat indeed as was his Guiness Chocolate Cake.

I loved how the sunlight made light and shade patterns from the spiral staircase which leads from the car park up to the Law School where P works.

1 Comment

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 28, 2016 in America, Beauty

Tags: cirque du soleil

Inman Park, Mocking Bird and Lullaby

27 Apr

Let me take you on a brief walk in Inman Park, Atlanta, taking in the mini libraries, some flowers and a sculpture.

We passed a chattering tree and realised that we were too close to a pair of Mocking birds and their nest.

The mocking bird brought to mind the lullaby, Mama’s going to buy you a mocking bird, which is an old Southern US lullaby, appropriate given where we are right now.

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,

Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.
And if that mockingbird don’t sing,

Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring
And if that diamond ring turns brass,

Mama’s gonna buy you a looking glass.
And if that looking glass is broke,

Mama’s gonna buy you a billy goat,
And if that billy goat won’t pull,

Mama’s gonna buy you a cart and a bull.
And if that cart and bull turn over,

Mama’s gonna buy you a dog named Rover.
And if that dog named Rover won’t bark,

Mama’s gonna buy you a horse and a cart.
And if that horse and cart fall down,

you’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 27, 2016 in America, Beauty, environment, garden

Tags: Atlanta, Inman Park, lullaby, mocking birds

Sunset and Jenny Joseph

26 Apr

The sun has burst the sky

Today’s poem is by Jenny Joseph, well known for her poem, ‘When I am an old woman’. I love the joy in this one and am lucky enough to feel like this about my man.

The sun has burst the sky
Because I love you
And the river its banks.

The sea laps the great rocks
Because I love you
And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away
And saying coldly ‘Constancy is not for you’.
The blackbird fills the air
Because I love you
With spring and lawns and shadows falling on lawns.

The people walk in the street and laugh
I love you
And far down the river ships sound their hooters
Crazy with joy because I love you.

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 26, 2016 in Beauty, Photography, poetry, Postaday 2016

Tags: The Sun has Burst the Sky

Spring Garden and e e cummings

25 Apr

Our Spring garden

As regular readers will know, I love the poetry of e e cummings. Here is another for your delectation, in Just spring

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far          and             wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and

the
goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

April Morning, Seeds and Sara Teasdale

24 Apr

It is so lovely, on this April morning, to see the new green shoots everywhere. Despite the cold it seems that Spring has sprung.

I love how raindrops collect inside the new Lupin leaves. Zoom in on this one. It is truly beautiful.

We have taken advantage of the sunshine to plant some seeds in the hope that they will germinate while we are away.

Nigella, Cornflowers and Night Scented Stock seeds planted

This seems an appropriate poem for today, April Morning by Sara Teasdale. I especially like the last two lines in the first stanza.

I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky.

There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 24, 2016 in Beauty, garden, growing, nature, Photography, poetry, Postaday 2016

Tags: Cedrus Atlantica Glauca, Sara Teasdale

Shakespeare’s Birthday Stamps, The Sea and A Sonnet

23 Apr

Today is Shakespeare’s birthday and, as it happens the 400th anniversary of his death. Some beautiful commemorative stamps have been issued in his honour and I just had to have a complete set of them.

Beautiful commemorative stamps

On Monday we start our journey to America for a family visit and then a road trip from Atlanta through the Appalachian Mountains along the Blue Ridge Parkway into the Shenandoah Valley and then on to Washington. Am I excited? Oh yes! You can travel along with us through my blog if you would like to though I doubt I will be posting every day. So, today we had to go to the sea as we won’t be seeing the sea for three weeks.

I used to tell my dubious teenagers that love at first sight, or love at first sonnet as here, is really possible. It happened to us across a crowded room in October 1966 and we have been together ever since. I love how Romeo and Juliet begin to intertwine their words as their first love engulfs them.

ROMEO	[To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
	This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
	My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
	To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET	Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
	Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
	For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
	And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO	Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET	Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO	O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
	They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET	Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO	Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.

My Sister-in-law sent me Shakespeare’s Obituary which was in The New York Times today. It is very entertaining. Thanks V.

12 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 23, 2016 in Beauty, Cornwall, Photography, poetry, Porthtowan, Postaday 2016, Sea

Tags: commemorative stamps, romeo and juliet, Shakespeare's Birthday, Shakespeare's obituary

Weekly Photo Challenge – Abstract

23 Apr

This is sunset from our bedroom window looking through the trees toward St Ives, with just a small movement to make it abstract.

Abstract sunset through branches

For others in this Challenge, click here.

This month, I am accompanying each post with a poem to acknowledge National Poetry Month. As this photo is of the sun, here I give you another favourite, this one being by John Donne – a love song,

The Sun Rising

        Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
        Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
        Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
        Late schoolboys and sour ‘prentices,
    Go tell court huntsmen that the King will ride,
    Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

        Thy beams, so reverend and strong
        Why shoulds’t thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
        If her eyes have not blinded thine,
        Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
    Whether both th’Indias of spice and mine
    Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me?
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, ‘All here in one bed lay.’

        She’s all states, and all princes, I;
        Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
        Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
        In that the world’s contracted thus;
    Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
    To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here, to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

My next post will be in honour of Shakespeare whose birthday it is today. It is also 400 years since his death, on the day that he became 52.

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 23, 2016 in Beauty, nature, Photography, poetry, Postaday 2016, Weekly photo challenge

Tags: Busy old fool, Cornish Sunset, John Donne, sunset, Weekly Photo Challenge - Abstract

Happiness, Hydrangea and Rudyard Kipling

22 Apr

Catching up with a fellow blogger, Unexpectedincommonhours, I found this delightful video which sums up my philosophy too. As she says, it may be a children’s song, but it is a good way to live. Debs also had this quotation – perfect. Thank you.

I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition. (Martha Washington)