Oh Golly, This Is Nice!

Here I am, after weeks of drought (sadly not our English weather) and absence from my blog, thanks to a mountain of work, back troubles that have reduced me to a whining wreck and heaps of other stuff going on at home. I have missed writing and will not get much of a chance next week as I'm back in smelly old London teaching again - if the money weren't so good, I'd give the toxic air a miss without a second thought!

So, it cheered me wonderfully to find Hen's enticing comment on my previous post telling me she had something on her blog for me... I zoomed over to Bee-Leaf, Hen's blog to find she had given me an award. WoooHooo!!! Thank you Hen.



The Rules for those recieving an award are:-

1. The winner can put the logo on their blog
2. Link the person you received the award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Put links of those blogs on yours
5. Leave a message on the blogs nominated

So here are my seven blogs, for all sorts of reasons and in no particular order:

Abdur Rahman writes the wonderfully thoughtful and inspiring Abdur Rahman’s Corner, which is filled with gentle wisdom, great insight and compassion. It is one of the blogs I wouldn't miss for anything.

A blog to make anyone smile is The Daily Coyote and I follow the lives of Charlie and Eli, his ginger boss, eagerly. If I'm ever feeling gloomy, this is the ultimate cure, so thank you Shreve Stockton for so many smiles.

This collection wouldn't be complete without The Green Witch who writes prolifically, has such passion and fire to make the world right and who makes me think (sometimes so much my head hurts). Your blog is fascinating and intelligent, so thank you.

I am always enthralled by the great photography on The Pig's lip blog and for the vicarious visits to Gower - Chris, you are saving me a fortune in petrol! This is a delightful blog, filled with a happy family life, wonderful outings and interesting facts.

If anyone is going to reduce me to tears of laughter, the lovely Seshat's Voice will be the blog to do it. Seshat writes about deeply thoughtful and spiritual concepts, and also personal things, with the wit and humour that only comes with a wise head and a warm heart. For all the raucous guffaws you have caused to emanate from my study, I love your blog.

One blog which I find soothing, lovely and so uplifting is Somerset Seasons, written by the lovely Leanne. As another mad-keen-on-Somerset lass, I love reading about the gentle pace of her life, the creative things she does and I'd like to thank her for all the inspiration... not least the butter recipe!

Blogging has opened up new horizons for me and I have found so many lovely people that it makes me go all warm and gooey to think about it. My last nomination is one such person and she warmly deserves the award for being such a warm, delightful person, so unaffected and natural. The final award goes to Foxchild at The Unveiling of A Pagan Spirit. When we all get blinded by the bright lights shining from our own bottoms, reading your blog reminds me what's important.

This is a tough list to make. There were others I'd have liked to include, some for their acerbic wit, others for being a prompt for me to improve myself and the things I do. To each and every one of you, thank you for writing such interesting and inspiring bogs, my life would be duller without you.

We Get What We Deserve

After breaking away from the tedium of changing words, changing them again and changing them yet again for my "fiddler" client, I walked away from the computer yesterday with a huge sigh of relief.

I drove over to Crewkerne to meet with the young couple, A & R, who are renting the little house and was completely delighted at what I found. They have made the house really homely and cosy. There are sunflowers in a vase on the kitchen windowsill, the house was immaculately tidy and they proudly showed me around all the rooms. I was rather surprised at how big the rooms seemed when full of furniture - I knew they were never the smallest but was shocked at how much open space there was in the bedroom even though there was a decent sized double in there!

Best of all, I was shown the garden. It has been a frightening wilderness and even after I had spent a lot of time in it with loppers, trying to beat the brambles, it still looked like the approaches to Sleeping Beauty's castle. Not now! Goodness, they must have worked hard, as the lawn has been rediscovered, the brambles are just a bad memory and the flower beds are weeded. More than that, they have used a pile of ham stones to build a rockery wall alongside the path and ... well, I'm just speechless.

I was given tea and met the mother of R, and we had a very cheery chat. Time to leave and I have to say that I was so thrilled when R said that she now understood what I meant about the house having a "good vibe" - it seems that as soon as she comes home, she can feel all the tension seeping away and the "happy vibe" lifts her up. How nice that the people there are not insensitive and obtuse. As I waved goodbye, to assurances that I must come again so I can see the next stages of the garden recovery I felt all warm and fuzzy with happiness. The house deserves lovely people who will appreciate and care for it and the couple are just so sweet that I couldn't have wished for nicer people. A walked with me to my car to collect something I had taken over and he seemed very proud and just a little proprietorial, in the nicest way.

The house cost lots, not only in terms of the investment we made, but in emotional bumps and knocks over the time it took to bring it to habitability - I always trusted that it would work out well, though at times the light seemed a long way down the tunnel. Now, I can breathe a sigh of relief, send a prayer to the Lady that A & R have a joyous time living there (and long may it last) and be grateful that it has all come to fruition (it's about the right time of year, after all)!

Now, I just need another project. Next door to the little house is up for sale and it needs a heap of work doing on it - if only I had the deposit...

Writer's Cramp!

It has been a fortnight now since I managed to write anything but brief replies on my blog, and I have missed it greatly. Last week was spent in London and as inevitably seems to happen, I finish my day and barely have the energy to eat and fall into bed; certainly there's nothing left for even the most pedestrian writing.

The weekend was spent sorting out some major issues that have been troubling me, which was pretty tiring, and then working furiously to get ahead of myself with a really annoying website I'm building - well, the site isn't annoying, just the client. He's a "fiddler". I should have spotted the tendency in him sooner - a delightful person with impeccable manners and the urge to change everything for the sake of stamping his mark on whatever he touches. Poor love, I think he's totally out of his depth and I know he's driving his printer mad too, as she does all my business printing and is normally the sweetest, most relaxed person you could wish to meet, though not lately.

However hard you try to manage the client, it can be a trial at times. This one is teaching me patience and self control. It's always a case of treading the fine line between giving enough information and over-explaining things that are of no interest and will only confuse. Another client I have is so much easier; she doesn't know anything about the web except how to surf and she knows it can serve her business well - after that, she just throws everything my way, doesn't want to know what goes on behind the scenes and just tells me how she'd like it to be. Ones like that are so easy and I've been lucky that many of the people I deal with tend to be quite 'hands off'.

So much has happened over the past fortnight that it's hard to catch up. One sad event was the death of Mousie, the Norwegian Forest matriarch, at the ripe old age of seventeen. Mousie died on Saturday, Goddess speed her to the Summerlands. I had called as Mousie's owner had brought me some heather honey and beautiful Tyrii Pottery in the most lovely ultramarine colour and I wanted to thank her. Sadly, she was at the vet's with Mousie and her daughter told me she didn't expect Mousie to come home. I was so fond of that dear old cat - she liked to be picked up and scratched about the neck and would snuggle into me. Mousie had gone blind and had to take daily tablets for her kidneys, but she had seemed so lively the previous week, dashing across the lawn, guided by the sound of clicking fingers and voices, to get her lunch. Visualising the gentle cuddles from Mousie got me through the latest MRI scan without the claustrophobia that was lapping at my shores - I shall miss her greatly.

I have made some internal changes over the past weeks and these are starting to manifest in the external world, though I suspect this is going to be an uncomfortable ride for those around me. I am finding that I'm much less accommodating of people's sloth and bad habits, and much more vocal about my dissatisfaction. It's going to be interesting to see how it all falls out. For now though, I must jump back on the treadmill, do some more work and then go on a rather pleasant trip.

I have been invited by the two delightful young people who are living in the little house to come and see what they have done with the garden. It was a jungle and we agreed a modest rent as a trade off for sorting out the wilderness that lay behind the house. A weekend with all family members roped in, a brush cutter, and lots of effort has given them a blank canvas and a vegetable plot with cold frames and greenhouse. I shall organise for a part of the path to be gravelled, as it needs cover and give them the plaudits they deserve. It's delightful that the house has such nice people in it - there was always a happy vibe from the place and it seemed sad and lonely when it was empty. I shall report back and let you know how it all went...

Erk! Terminator Rises Again...

It seems that the 2005 moratorium on producing and selling crops that will have sterile seeds when harvested is likely to be overturned. That is a scary and fearsome prospect for small and subsistence farmers the world over, but particularly in poorer, third world countries. Read all about it on GAFF, Grassroots Action on Food and Farming.

Why is it relevant to us? Well, there is the sheer greed and disgusting moral bankruptcy that starving small farmers out of existence for increased multi-national profits, but there's a much darker aspect. It seems that the multinationals who produce GM seed are arguing that the new sterile seed will stop the spread of genetically modified crops.

This clever new answer comes from the very people who modified the crop genes, and it's being sold to us as a solution. They will adulterate the earth with genetically modified crops and them make sure plants can't germinate to stop something we don't want from spreading. It's funny that the simpler solution of not using GM crops didn't occur to them really, but I suppose that would remove GM production profits and additional profits from selling us a corrupt and dangerous "solution" to the problem they have created.

I wonder if anyone had set up a petition on the 10 Downing Street website yet...?

Sunshine and Good Company

It sounds like the title of a song, doesn't it? This weekend my friends The Green Witch (TGW for short) and her husband, who we shall abbreviate to MGW, for Mr Green Witch, came to stay with Kim and I. Often, when people are coming to stay for the weekend, I get all stressed and want to run around (even though running is not something I can do these days), polish the house into sparkling wonderfulness and out-cook the world's best chefs. This weekend was such a lovely exception.

When the new sitting room wasn't finished in time for the visit, it somehow didn't seem to matter too much; the place was reasonably respectable, but I didn't have the time or energy to vacuum the carpets into eternal submission and though I had all the ingredients for a reasonable dinner and industrial breakfast on Sunday, I was too exhausted from getting the little house finished on Friday to pre-prep anything. Did it matter? Not a jot. These are friends who visit to talk, enjoy our company and have fun.

After they arrived on Saturday we had a relaxing walk along the village while I went and did the spot of work I was supposed to do over the weekend, and they had a chance to look about and come down after a long and taxing week. We retreated back to the house and spent time around the kitchen table, drinking tea, making a tiramisu and preparing the beef wellington. TGW, in inimitable and energetic style grabbed the garden fork and weeded a patch of my flower bed, for which I was so incredibly grateful - I only wish I had a picture of her with a garden fork in one hand, champagne in the other and a big grin on her face. Meanwhile, MGW and Kim were in the kitchen talking geek to each other and looking suitably hungry in anticipation of dinner.

Just before dinner, our neighbour knocked to let us know she was lighting her chiminea, and she told TGW and MGW all about the properties for sale in the village, as we had been trying to encourage them to move to our balmy, green corner of Somerset. Out came the laptop and Rightmove.co.uk was duly scoured for the postcode and positive mumblings were heard for the Green Witch clan!

Though not my best beef welly, dinner was decent enough and TGW has done a wonderful dish with courgettes and cheese, which we had with steamed rainbow chard, carrots and roasties. I had been a bit worried that the beef fillet was a shade on the small side when Kim brought it back from the butcher and there wasn't anything left over at all, so I hope they got enough to eat! Next was the tiramisu, which TGW had assembled with consummate skill and it certainly flew off the plates. The thing I loved most was the gentle pace of conversation, where a lull was comfortable and the topics entertaining and amusing - this is my idea of wonderful company.

After several bottles of wine, the urge to have a go at belly dancing swept TGW and I, and out came the hip scarves and on went the music - oh what a giggle! Suitably numbed by wine, I managed to shimmy and wiggle about like I haven't for ages - the anaesthetic properties of alcohol never cease to amaze me! Some time later, and thoroughly exhausted, we collapsed into our respective rooms for a night's sleep. Silly old me forgot that more than one glass of wine will totally overheat the body and I spent the night up and down, trying to get cool enough to get back to sleep, as well as trying to drink enough water to rehydrate the banging headache that threatened to keep me awake all night - I am such a lightweight when it comes to a few glasses of wine!

Sunday dawned hot and sunny, despite dire predictions of rain and cloud and, true to form, our old cat had made the kitchen a most unpleasant place to go, by being sick everywhere - not a great thing to have to deal with when feeling a tad bilious! That sorted, out came the bacon, sausages, local bread (I had tried making some the night before and my Kenwood died on me, oh woe!), home made butter and buckets of tea and espresso coffee, along with the chocolate croissants that TGW had kindly got from our local shop.

We went for a drive about, looking at various villages, visiting the cider mill at Dowlish Wake and enjoying the lovely countryside before they had to head off, back to pick up their little boy and get ready for the forthcoming week. I'm sitting here, rather the worse for the punishment I inflicted on my liver and kidneys, but feeling very contented for having spent time with such delightful, lovely people. I think we shall have to do this (perhaps without the wine for me) again very soon!

Being A Hedge Witch

I regularly read Moonroot's blog and after perusing a lovely artilce on creative crafts, I followed a link to this great definition of Hedgewitchery on Donald's Walking In beauty blog.

Though Donald is happy for people to repeat his work, with credit, it's worth visiting the site anyway, as there are some other fascinating items to read. I like the definition of being a Hedge Witch though, it resonated with me, though I did find No. 18 a bit much first thing on a Monday morning!

Magnetic Witch

Well, I felt like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, all trussed up and shoved into the big microwave cooker this afternoon. I went for my second MRI scan and was squished into the tube. Luckily, this time I knew what to expect, so didn't have the panic attack of the first time. I concentrated on my breathing and started to do visualisations.

I wandered through a rose-laden gate and found Mousie, the cuddly old Norwegian Forest cat who I wrote about a while back in Norwegian Swimming Cats and we sat on the patio, Mousie in my arms and purring like an engine. It was a good visualisation, as I could feel and smell her and the sense of calm was amazing. Then, being warm, I walked through the gate into the pool area and peeled off my clothing and climbed, skyclad, into the pool and started swimming lengths. I could feel the coolness of the water, the tang of chlorine in the air and the sun warming the top of my head.

Clearly, this wasn't a good visualisation to do. I thought I had been stock still and was as calm as anything, but it appears that perhaps I had been doing rather too well with my visualisation, as my butt had been jiggling about enough that the MRI images weren't usable. Hmmm, so, being stuffed longer than absolutely necessary in the doughnut of misery, I decided to visualise laying around the edge of the pool sunbathing, which was easy because my back and bum were hot enough to fry and egg on after that long being bombarded with magnetic rays. Oddly, the radiographer told me the next set of images were as crisp as anything!

I wonder if I could get fit laying around in bed thinking about swimming....? Now, there's a thought.

In the meantime, I'm a bit worried that if I go near the fridge, I'll stick to it and not be able to peel myself off...!