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Monthly Archives: September 2016

Singing for Peace, Steam Train and Raindrops

Tomorrow my choirs are to be part of a world event – One Day One Choir, A Global Project for Peace. I am telling you about it today so that you can find out if you, too, can join some singing somewhere in the world and be a part of this amazing day. http://www.onedayonechoir.org/    Our day is being organised by Paul Haines about whom I have written before while he was on his Pilgrimage for Peace – click here to read more about that adventure and to find other links.

one-day-one-choir

We heard that a steam train was coming by this morning so joined several neighbours to hang out over the bridge to watch the Cathedrals Express race through – and it did, smothering us all in smoke and steam and evoking memories of our childhoods. For those who would like to know such detail, it was LMS Princess Class 4-6-2 no 46201 Princess Elizabeth.

LMS Princess Class 4-6-2 no 46201 Princess Elizabeth

LMS Princess Class 4-6-2 no 46201 Princess Elizabeth

We pulled our first leeks today and I loved how the raindrops were still hanging on to virtually vertical leaves.

Home grown leeks

Home grown leeks

 

 
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Posted by on September 20, 2016 in Beauty, Photography, Postaday 2016, singing

 

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Glass Bowl, Navajo Art and John Keats

I promised to show you the beautiful piece of glasswork made by our very talented nephew, Mark Lucas, who lives and works in Jerome. It was so well packed and survived perfectly.

Glass by Mark Galen Lucas

Glass bowl  by Mark Galen Lucas

When leaving The Grand Canyon, we called in at Jacob Lake where there is a very tempting shop full of lovely art work and we bought this quirky little chicken made by a Navajo artist, Charlene Watchman. He is less than 6″ tall and we loved his cross-eyed expression.

Chicken by Charlene Watchman

Chicken by Charlene Watchman

Today in the Guardian on their Weatherwatch page, they quoted from John Keats‘ “Ode to Autumn” in their discussion of climate change as this season comes along rather later than it did in1819 when Keats wrote these lovely evocative words on 19th September.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and 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.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too –
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Over the next few days I will show you more of the beautiful little treasures we brought home with us.

 
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Posted by on September 19, 2016 in America, Arizona, art, Beauty, glass, poetry, Postaday 2016

 

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Back Home, The Garden and The Sea

Somewhat spaced from the 22 hours travelling and and 8 hour time difference, we have enjoyed a quiet day, checking out the garden, catching up over tea with our lovely neighbour and an evening stroll to one of our favourite haunts. Click on any photo for captions and enlargements and if you missed any of our amazing road trip in Arizona to The Grand Canyon and Sedona, please feel free to look around!

 

Sunset at Phoenix Airport

 
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Posted by on September 17, 2016 in America, Arizona, Beauty

 

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Peace

Oneday....Peace

 
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Posted by on September 16, 2016 in Beauty, Peace, Postaday 2016

 

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Peace, Phoenix Museum of Art and Chay Chien

Temperatures of 97F (36C) meant we had to find refuge indoors today so off we went on the Metro Light Rail to the Museum of Art,  stopping off to see a sculpture to Peace which was very moving, surrounded as it was both by weapons of death and words of Peace.


The Museum was full of beautiful works  that we can show you as American museums encourage photos and the sharing of artistic delights. At home, photos are rarely allowed. Join us to see a few of our favourites.

Upside Down, Inside Out by Anish Kapoor


I loved this one, The White Rose by William Merritt Chase. My choirs sing a beautiful Cornish folk song of the same title. This photo  is for all of them.


And in the children’s room……



The very best part of the exhibition though was Yayoi Kusama’s You Who are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies which was a almost indescribable experience. If it comes near you, please don’t miss it. We stepped into a black space filled with tiny lights and couldn’t tell where the walls or the floor began or ended. It seemed as if we were stepping out into the universe to be surrounded by stars – quite magical and just a bit scary. The photo does not do it justice.


Our lunch/tea tonight was at Rice Paper, the Vietnamese restaurant attached to our hotel, The San Carlos. I had a vegetarian Tempura Spring Roll with a miso ginger sauce and it was truly scrumptious. 

We fly home tomorrow, a ten hour flight arriving at Heathrow at 1.30pm UK time, then the train to Cornwall arriving home by 10pm if allgoesto plan.

 
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Posted by on September 16, 2016 in America, Arizona, art, Beauty, Food

 

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From Sedona to Phoenix

Another early start as we had to drop off the rental car by 10.30. I love the cacti, the like of which we see only in Westerns, along this route, every decorated bridge along the highway and the swimming pool on the roof of our hotel where we can watch planes taking off!

 
 

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Tuzigoot, Jerome and Politics

After an amazingly beautiful switchback drive along Oak Creek Canyon and up to the lookout, we set off for Jerome via Tuzigoot, an ancient, hill-top, 100 room Pueblo site of the Sinagua people, another amazing bit of history.




In Jerome we met up with one of our nephews who is an artist in glass – and what beautiful pieces he makes, many small but also this remarkable human. We bought one of his little bowls which is all wrapped up for safe travelling so I will show you when we get home.

After lunch together, we strolled about this old mining town, wondering if any Cornish miners had made it this far. Jerome, like Sedona, needs a post of its own soon but on the way out I caught this treasure which, whatever your politics, I hope will make you smile!

 
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Posted by on September 14, 2016 in America, Arizona, art, Beauty, environment, glass, History

 

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Sedona Sunrise to Sunset and Peace Tour 2


An early start for a busy day of petroglyphs at V Bar V Heritage site, a lake at Montezuma Well, Montezuma Castle – all sites linked to the Sinagua people in these places around 1100-1400. Do look them up, just fascinating. Then on to The Labyrinth and later a stroll around Sedona and sunset. I wish we had a whole week here, there is so much to see and we have too little time!


Here a mountain lion is attacking a deer.

This lake is a limestone sink hole and fed by continuously flowing springs. This gorgeous lizard was sunning himself on one of the rocks nearby. Just look at his toes and the wonderful colours.

This is a five storey, twenty room dwelling 100 feet above the valley built by Sinaguan farmers sometime between 1100 and 1300. Remarkable!

I walked this lovely labyrinth and as I did, a dove landed on the poles of the tepee and stayed there all the time I was walking.
I shall have to devote a post to the artwork around Sedona. I have never seen a town so full of delightful sculptures and wall paintings. Sunset was less spectacular than the other night but beautiful in a different way.

 
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Posted by on September 13, 2016 in America, Arizona, Beauty, environment

 

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The Sedona Peace Tour

On September 11th, it seemed appropriate that we should be here and following the Peace Trail in Sedona. We went to see the Peace Bell which I struck, the vision being that ” when one strikes the bell, a prayer for peace goes out, not only for your own soul and consciousness but to the world as well.”image

I also went to the Sedona Arts Centre to find the Peace sculpture by Nassan Gobran, an Egyptian artist, a beautiful piece.In Sedona, just near our hotel there is another beautiful sculpture by James N Muir.imageimage

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Posted by on September 12, 2016 in America, Arizona