Forty two years ago yesterday, September 29th 1977, the older of our baby twins was operated on to save his life. He was 13 days old and the surgeon described his aorta as being as narrow as the inner tube of a biro. That wonderful surgeon, Mr Devereux, saved D’s life. I am reminded of this as a friend mentioned that yesterday was World Heart Day.
That lovely boy, who had to undergo two more heart operations, the second at 6 months and the final one at two and a half, is now the father of twins himself, LiveWires 5 and 6.
Shape sorting
The most important thing for us all to learn, in my mind, is to be kind.The following is what I wish for all our LiveWires.
Our walk ‘around the back’ along a short stretch of the Flat Lode Trail was rain free today. It was wild and windy and quite hard work but very satisfying. I was delighted to find Cow Parsley as our niece-in-law, a brilliant poet, recently shared the following poem about Queen Anne’s Lace, the much prettier name used by Americans.
Cow parsley or Queen Anne’s Lace, a much prettier name used in USA
Fresh seed pods
Seed heads dried out
Queen Anne’s lace grows quiet by the roadside in spring. With brilliant purity, leaves of chartreuse and flowers champagne. With edible bitter roots,
wild carrots you could call out by name.
Queen Anne’s lace grows dark and brittle as a backdrop by fall. She stays the night just as quiet as before, with a heart hard as timber by sunrise still delicate and breakable and by some fortune still ignored by the creatures with limbs that might call out her name and
snap her by the stem for a memorial.
She will not break beneath the endless rains the frost of the morning or the bleak quiet of the cul-de-sac, the shades of grey you could call out by name, the warm bodies which brush blithe against the lines of her form.
Queen Anne’s lace sleeps with her fingers to the sky and her body deformed in glory, patient for the warm rains of late winter and the sun like a cold flashlight in the hazy sky which will beckon her to wake once more and glimmer by the highway in hindsight restored.
By Kari Bijou
We call this walk ’round the back’ as it goes up behind our house which can be seen, just, in the next zoomed in photo. Ours is the yellow painted one (the paint is called Cornish Cream) with a window in the attic, on the right of the two Victorian semis.
Another busy day starting with having a stall at the Redruth Re-use, Re-cycle Market which was fun and I sold several pieces which was pleasing. The boots are a tiny version of the Sally-boots I knit for all new babies, knitted with fine golden yarn on very thin needles.
My sign on purple, white and green glass and a pair of golden boots
In the afternoon I attended a fascinating conference “Cornwall – Herstory”, run by the Institute of Cornish Studies. My choir were singing at the end of the conference which went down very well. I loved this particular slide when the speaker was telling us of the part Cornish women played in the abolishment of slavery while also explaining how some Cornish women benefitted from sad slavery – very interesting.
The campus at Tremough in Penryn is enormous and set on what was farmland. From the car park down to the lecture theatre students (and I) walked down this lovely lane which was transformed into a stream by the downpour that was happening as I splashed my way back after the conference.
There is just one Nasturtium in our quirky monkey planter.
Sometimes only jelly babies will do!I made ‘A Most Excellent Vegetarian Roast’ today to share with veggie friends and it is very tasty! There was too much mixture for the tin so I made balls and fried them for our meal this evening. The recipe came from The Observer Food Monthly from August 2019.
One of the roundabouts in Truro has won an award! It is a delight to drive around but hard to take photos of so I have borrowed this one. If anyone can tell me the photographer, please do so that they can be credited. “The Roundabout Appreciation Society (RAS) praised the “quirky” roundabout in Truro, which features hedgehogs named Cecile, Patricia, Denzil and Kizzy.”
Truro roundabaout voted best in UK 2019
I have made another Jackfruit Lasagne to share with veggie friends. It is truly delicious!
Jackfruit Lasagne
In our late September garden there are Fucshia, Japanese anemones, Clematis and amid them all, a smiling Welly Dog.
We arrived home on Wednesday evening and went straight to the sea.
Porthtowan
We spent Thursday unpacking etc. On Friday morning we went to stand with the Youth strike for the Climate in Truro
The Red Rebels
…….. Â and in the evening to a splendid Sing and Supper at Mount Pleasant Eco Park with friends.
The delicious menu
Saturday saw us in Truro again for International Peace Day and taking part in a flashmob in Truro Cathedral. The following video  gives a flavour of the wonderful event.
Today I have made my first Christmas angel of the season out of Victorian window glass and some pretty beads I picked up while away.This afternoon we have been blackberry picking and got caught in a drenching storm and this afternoon ……..
Water rushing down the hill
….. I have made a blackberry cake, Thomasina Miers’Â Spiced Blackberry and Brown Sugar Crumble Cake and so – we are home! More about our adventures in later posts.
I couldn’t resist posting this for my readers and friends who are poets and for those of you who love poems as much as I do, even though it isn’t Monday and even though I am taking a break. Â For Kim and Kari in particular.
Monday – Billy Collins
The birds are in their trees, the toast is in the toaster, and the poets are at their windows.
They are at their windows in every section of the tangerine of earth- the Chinese poets looking up at the moon, the American poets gazing out at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.
The clerks are at their desks, the miners are down in their mines, and the poets are looking out their windows maybe with a cigarette, a cup of tea, and maybe a flannel shirt or bathrobe is involved.
The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong game of proofreading, glancing back and forth from page to page, the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes, and the poets are at their windows because it is their job for which they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon.
Which window it hardly seems to matter though many have a favorite, for there is always something to see- a bird grasping a thin branch, the headlight of a taxi rounding a corner, those two boys in wool caps angling across the street.
The fishermen bob in their boats, the linemen climb their round poles, the barbers wait by their mirrors and chairs, and the poets continue to stareat the cracked birdbath or a limb knocked down by the wind.
By now, it should go without saying that what the oven is to the baker and the berry-stained blouse to the dry cleaner, so the window is to the poet.
Just think- before the invention of the window, the poets would have had to put on a jacket and a winter hat to go outside or remain indoors with only a wall to stare at.
And when I say a wall, I do not mean a wall with striped wallpaper and a sketch of a cow in a frame.
I mean a cold wall of fieldstones, the wall of the medieval sonnet, the original woman’s heart of stone, the stone caught in the throat of her poet-lover.
I’m taking a break for a few weeks so leave you here with the Action for Happiness Self Care September Calendar. Have a good month and look after yourselves, Dear Readers.
