I always enjoy watching the river when we sing nearby on Thursday mornings. Today there were gulls on a buoy and a pair of swans gliding around.
Our friends’ chickens are laying again so on our rack we now have medium brown shop eggs and wonderful blue, cream and white eggs, some of which look big enough for two! 
On this International Women’s Day, I had a brief letter in The Guardian where every letter and opinion piece today had been written by a woman.
“Re messages on vehicles, here in Cornwall, you’ll see, “No pasties left in this van overnight” on bakery delivery vans. We value our proper Cornish pasties very highly.”
I took a little posy next door today, with rosemary to remember our lovely neighbour’s wedding anniversary.
I’ve been listening to Dreadnought South West on Phonic fm today as they take over the airwaves for International Women’s Day. Claire, our choir leader, was being interviewed and singing one of her songs about a Cornish woman, live in the studio with her daughter Ruby. Ten years ago, Claire wrote the music for a production of Oxygen written by Natalie McGrath of Dreadnought and on Monday The Ingleheart Singers recorded the song to be used in today’s programme. You can hear the song by clicking on the red link above.
After my writing workshop this morning, I called in at Community Roots to say hello and was amazed at the progress made – seedlings up, new herb garden prepped and some wonderful hanging trays for seedlings to keep them off the workbench.
A photo was taken of the happy gang of volunteers after lunch of a wonderful soup made of vegetable harvested this morning. You can see the new herb beds behind the people on both sides.
Thanks to Matty for the photo
I love this quotation from Hans Christian Andersen and, of course, the wonderful E H Shephard drawing.
I love these words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as it is what is happening all around us.
“The Spring came suddenly bursting upon the world as a child bursts into a room,
with a laugh and a shout and hands full of flowers.”
It’s lovely to see the little Wren and even better when one of the photos catches it still for a moment.
There are catkins in abundance all along the hedgerows.
Daughter No 1 has been with us today to celebrate her birthday so we’ve been to the beach, watched the surfers and the incoming tide for over an hour, called in at The Blue Bar for hot chocolates and cake, talked and talked and talked and had a delicious birthday dinner. She travelled in her favourite car which has a new personalised number plate, part of her birthday present. I love it!.
Audi S8
Redruth was buzzing today, all in town for the St Piran’s day celebrations. I especially loved the stilt walkers.
Later, on my way to sing in the Market Hall, one of the stilt people called to me, “Hello, lovely lady! Would you like a daffodil?” Of course, I said that I’d love one but please would he hold it for a moment while I took his photo for my blog!
Singing Cornish songs in the Market Hall with The Ingleheart Singers, and with an enormous, enthusiastic audience, was an absolute delight. Thanks to Sue for the video. You can see I am holding my daffodil.
The river this morning when we started singing was very calm and the masts reflected almost perfectly. After singing we had two visitors from the charities we have supported over the last year, Penhaligon’s Friends and ShelterBox, £400 to each, thanks to our generous audiences. Here we are presenting the cheques to their representatives.
Photo thanks to Mandy Rolleston
This afternoon we visited our dear friend, Ti and took her a little bouquet of flowers from our garden.
Afterwards we went to Godrevy for a walk in the chilly air with the glorious warmth of the sun on our backs – a day of apricity!
I’m celebrating my Welsh Heritage today with photos of some of the daffodils in our garden.
It’s March already! Here is this month’s Happiness calendar
It’s meteorological Spring and our garden is celebrating.
I loved today’s writing workshop and especially the activity that came in little eggs! Each egg contained the traditional words for starting a story from various countries around the world – ours being “Once upon a time…….” From that start we each wrote a story for 10 mins and I have never known time fly by quite so quickly. Mine was the Irish beginning. I shall ask our Ukrainian friends for the story beginning they use. 
A List of Beginnings
Arabic: ‘There was, oh what there was (or there wasn’t) in the oldest of days and ages and
times…’
Armenian: ‘There was, there was not…’
‘Three apples fall from the sky/heaven. One for the writer, one for the storyteller, one for the
listener…’
Czech: ‘Beyond seven mountain ranges, beyond seven rivers…’
Esperanto: ‘In a time already long past, when it was still of use to cast a spell…’
Estonian: ‘Beyond seven lands and seas, there lived a…’
Filipino: ‘At the beginning of time’, or ‘At the first time…’
German: ‘Back in the days when it was still of help to wish for a thing…’
Gujarati: ‘This is an old story.’
Hungarian: ‘Once there was, where there wasn’t, there was a…’
Irish: ‘A long, long, long time ago it was (and there was a king in Galway)’
Japanese: ‘Long ago, long ago…’
Korean: ‘In the time when a tiger used to smoke…’
Koti (Mozambique): ‘Once upon a time, there was a truly great friendship…’
Lithuanian: ‘Beyond nine seas, beyond nine lagoons…’
Persian: ‘Someone was, someone wasn’t…’
Romanian: ‘There once was, (as never before), because if there wasn’t, it wouldn’t have been
told…’
Russian: ‘In some kingdom, in some land, there lived/there was…’
Slovak: ‘When the water was being strewn and the sand poured…’
Tanzania: ‘I remember something that our father told me, and that is this:’
Turkish: ‘There was/lived in an exotic land far, far away, a/an…’
Walking through town later, I came across two sign-writers, very carefully repainting our direction signs. They were happy for me to take their photo, found it a very funny request and I could hear them laughing all the way down the street!
Just back from a brilliant evening of remembering the amazing protest camp at Greenham Common, hearing from some women who were actually there and singing some of their songs. Here’s one. ‘Hey Sister, Don’t You Weep.’
Commentator Award
