I will become another

For now to be unremarked would seem to be right

Not yet a wizard carrying a carved wooden staff
Or a beard that had grown long, through the long ages
Matching waves of hair from under a pointed cap
But soon when the world ceases to be all that it promised
I will obtain the magic lore and walk in the world reborn
A new wanderer in grey; serious and grim, with a heart...
As big as the world, that is full of good deeds and songs

So I will desire for understanding and the humility to see it

For from the heart of Christmas must surely always come peace
But though it does not last and is so often bereft of sincerity
We celebrate what may yet come to pass within our wishes

Though the heart desires more speed, the world moves so slowly

In intricate slow dances that only the wisest may know truth of
For though hope is perhaps a window to look down on folly
Without that sweet chance of change we would not continue

Attest to be the unlooked for excellence within a gentler world

Release the encouraged separations we bring about so easily
For me I will take of the goodness I am offered and use it all
Unrestrained by conventions and the blind obedience to virtue

For of all the gifts and words and deeds we may give and receive

Time is the only one true endowment we have that is worth giving
Spend it wisely lest its jaws seize fate and nip away at our existence
That for all the heady semantics of prose; is my Christmas wish.

For whit I now make my plea of ignorance no less the bold for its stupidity

Sooth it was as colossal in size as told from legend by a nurse to a cradle
The elephant in the room now reveals itself and so may sit down beside me.
Yet I though alike to a juvenile, stumbling half king that possesseth no kingdom
Having less of the better part of valour and more of the main part of jest
Have a care and mock me not, for this regent my yet bite back if provoked
Or would so if it were unrestrained by convention and blind obedience to virtue

How may we live such sightless lives seeing naught of the devastated stratagems?

That sinks a country lower than heathen realms while its people decay Portamento
Whence good is lost to commerce so the world we knew looks upon its own feast
Devouring first its singed toes in spite and then each finger with aberrant relish
The marrow sweetened by idolatrous celebrity news hides the bitter taste of wrong
Feast away thus poor nation for I cannot help you regain thy mark in the world
Empires fall surely as night but more the pity that the treachery came from inside

© Edetric Vistal

Some pictures from around Entwistle reservoir yesterday. The tree decorators have been out in force this year but there is a note from the water company saying that if the decorations are not removed after Christmas then next year they will not be permitted and will be removed as soon as they are put up. This is because apparently; the Countryside Ranger time is too valuable to be used to remove them. But if they are going to remove them one way or another then they don’t actually gain anything, so humbug to you United Utilities.

This one is desperately sad – shame on you tree decorator people

Some other shots

 

Now into my 7th week of not smoking. I have an electronic cigarette for the moment which is completely harmless and smell free. I am loving being able to walk up the inclines without any huffing and puffing. It’s amazing how much of a difference it makes to the lung capacity so quickly. Don’t think about it - Just do it. There is a scare story circulating of increased resistance after vaping but this seems to be a red herring. My oxygen levels are now amazing. Gee it only took 38 years and loads of missing teeth to wise up.

I have saved so far up to today a total of £450 but have spent on the electronic substitute £185 so really saved a grand total of £265. It would have been more but I switched types of e-cig so that bumped up the cost a bit. I now use the Liberty Flights kit. There is a shop just around the corner. Good vape and looks like a mini huqqa pipe. They also do a pipe – cool!! Thinking about one of those.

 http://www.liberty-flights.co.uk/

 

 

I previously used the ‘nicolites’ product which was good but way too expensive.  It was also too realistic if you understand and long term I don’t want to get hooked on a long term replacement.

 

 

You know one other great thing was that finally the taxman didn’t get the revenue... that is so pleasing. Let’s all move to ecigs, get vaping and then stop. Don’t get hooked long term because the chancellor’s eyes will be looking this way at the tax revenue he’s missing.

I finally decorated the cakes this week. The square 14 inch monster (22lb) is for Nick’s Rumbletums catering in Clitheroe and the 12 inch round one (14lb) is for home. Simply decorated really, (what else) but holly is a good Christmas motif. Both cakes have a combined weight of 16.5 kg or 36 lb.

A heavy hoar frost has been with us for some days now. It is thickening its grasp on the trees and plants. Even without snow after a while it starts to look almost like we have had a blizzard.

T-6 Days

 

The end of the world is nigh so apocalypse observers would have us believe. The Mayan calendar may have begun in 3114BC and continued accurately ever since, but it comes to an abrupt halt on 21 December 2012. Hence, the belief that the cosmos will cease to exist in a few days' time...It would have been my brother Phillip’s 53rd birthday on the 21st.

Soon enough; without the help of the Mayans, this will all end for each of us one way or another and then our entire current personal world will fold in upon itself to dissipate into the cosmological machine. The time of that event is unimportant because probably we are living multiple parallel lives that span simultaneously the whole of time. When one strand finishes another begins and joins with those already in play.  They touch, caress and repel with equal force through the spatial time layers triggering thoughts and reverie in us from the other strand events.

We have already lived so many lives flowing ceaselessly through time in multiple directions and will subsist in so many more that we have no need to fear anything from the future; for not all of them can be tainted by our current measures of regret and longing. That is my belief because in the final analysis; just one lifetime would be too easy. The world and the universe don’t appear to do fair and uncomplicated in this strand. But hope is a child born of hidden knowledge garnered in the cosmic cycle of rebirth.

 

 

Went to watch the latest ‘Great Expectations’ film last week. Enjoyed it very much (so recommended) but I generally like anything Helen Bonham Carter is in. Love the line (departing slightly from the Dickens text) from Miss Havisham (played by HBC) as she shows Pip the wedding table complete with decaying cake “The mice have gnawed at it, but the sharper teeth of time have gnawed on me.”

 
I won’t be going to see the new Hobbit film though as I am not playing the 3 films over 3 year’s game again. The Lord of the Rings was quite enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Expectations_(2012_film)

 

Gabrielle’s chariot descends to bear me away

The inviolate forever meets the indomitable
Pity the porcelain now lost amongst the glass
Yet all is not lost; while we attempt restoration
The king has lost his crown; gainsay not his head

Uncalled but not unlooked for on the horizon

The first snow of the winter season fell today
Swirling in unison down onto hard starlit paths
Highlighting the fading relief on ancient words
Biting through melancholy; wrapping us in glee
Whispering promissory notes of cold sterility

The first house east of the sea and west of the world sits atop a green rolling hill that rushes toward the sea like the keel of a ship. Proud chalk bows pierce the waves that crash and roll remorselessly against them. If ever you arrive in winter all may seem bereft of joy and warmth on the desolate deck of this land but there is a welcome waiting for you within the halls of the steward that assuages all hurts.

One day we will travel there and see ourselves what dreams a smouldering sunset over calm sea can bring to our eager minds. There we shall sit on the edge of the aquatic realm in the garden of Qustal and count stars emerging as the day sun passes away to draw down night from the heavens. As gentle and gracious shall the transition to dusk fall, that it shall recall to us the russet and gold gown worn by fairest lady Agrimonea, as she exits our presence  in a passing of beauty that we know shall come not again; till the morrow. If hope were a star that could be plucked from the heavens; its name would be Agrimonea.

© Edetric Vistal

Bread prices set to rise after bad weather hits UK wheat crop. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said millers were expected to import 2m tonnes of mostly German wheat to make up for a 13% shortfall in the home-grown crop. It will be the biggest wheat import since 1980, and is expected to lead to a substantial increase in the price of bread next year.

The price of bread-quality wheat for delivery rose by £5.50 a tonne last week to £261.50 a tonne, according to the Home Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA), a trade body.The cost of basic feed wheat on the futures market rose to a record high of £227 a tonne, a 45% increase since January. Global wheat prices are also at near-record highs.

Glencore, the global commodities trader, which controls about 8% of the global wheat trade, is expected to be a big beneficiary of the price rise. This year the boss of its food trading business said the worst drought to hit the US since the 1930s would be ‘good for Glencore’.

Chris Mahoney, head of Glencore's agricultural division, told investors this summer. "High prices, lots of volatility, a lot of dislocation, tightness, a lot of arbitrage opportunities (exploiting price differences in different markets). In terms of the outlook for the balance of the year, the environment is a good one.”

Thanks for the reassurance Chris and perhaps it is good for Glencore investors but probably not so good for the rest of us – no wonder they call money by the old euphemism ‘dough’.

See full story in the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/04/bread-prices-uk-wheat-crop

 

On a clear and frosty day to surely attend

Under trees; do shadows and sun blend
The beauty of the winter we may lend
But remember, fauna from the cold; fend

One day I will live in a house high on a bleak heather clad hill close to the stars. The air will be as clean as the stream that feeds the well and shall carry to me the scent of the world and there will finally be room for the mind to expand to its potential across the rolling, empty spaces...one day!

Most authorities trace the name 'Darwen' to the Brythonic* derw "oak", originally applied to the river; an etymology supported by an older form of the name, Derewent (1208).

The area around Darwen has been inhabited since the early Bronze Age, and the remains of a barrow from approximately 2000 BC have been partially restored at the Ashleigh Barrow in Whitehall. Artefacts including a bronze dagger and urns containing human ashes were found, and a small number of these finds are now on display at Darwen Library Theatre. The Romans once had a force in Lancashire, and a Roman road is visible on the Ordnance Survey map of the area.

Mediaeval Darwen was tiny; little or nothing survives. One of the earliest remaining buildings is a farmhouse at Bury Fold, dated 1675. Whitehall Cottage is thought to be the oldest house in the town, and was mostly built in the 17th and 18th centuries but contains a chimney piece dated 1557.

* The Brythonic languages derive from the British language, spoken throughout Britain south of the Firth of Forth during the Iron Age and Roman period

Here are some pictures from the walk around Bury fold the other day.

 

The ultimate futility of the inbuilt need to exist can only ever be modified with exquisite grace. It rises and falls extant in delicate virtue till we are transformed to constant joy by it.  

The world sits behind the stars

The stars sit behind the creator
The creator sits beside nothing
Nothing is the design of intent