It’s hot and birds are as still
In the heat of the day
As the depth of the night
But I as ever raise thoughts
And forment a hazy dream
That takes shape on time
To float away into a cool dusk

Who are you really... says the summer wind that flows like a snake between the hills that bar the distance. Are you soft gentle and kind today or has the world hardened you into intractable decisions that hurt everyone though you can never rescind them?

Can you ever find peace? So says the sunlight as it filters through the trees to bathe you in celestial calm as the world sways beneath the heartbeat of greater destinies swathed in song until the melody tears at your heart.

Will a heart ever heal? Ask the wasp who watches her great work disappear under the poisoning spray of humans demanding a perfect world without her in it. Even though she is good and follows her heart toward what she was born to do it boots nothing and now she is alone.

Is it too late? Says the Robin who watches the Jay eat her clutch of eggs that she tenderly turned and can only now see the sun rise too high in the sky to begin again before winter. Where shall she now find peace and of what will it consist?

We journey on after touching the stars in our youth weaving a sullied path across all that we see and touch. The wind, the sun and the moon can only guide and often we do not see, but we always endure and in regret we grow stilted as all of us slowly realise we must go on alone.

Nothing but the sweetest thought occur as I look around my world
For the world has emerged into my life in vibrant, shades of green
Beeches and Birches leaf like lettuce among dark green conifers
A cool wind laden with the essences of life blows over browning faces
It whispers “awake” and be a part of what is so greater than you are
A sweetest thought occurs again that I am greater from your touch
Sweet love and patience is the key that unlocks a waiting heart
To look in joy on life in a spring evening while the chaffinches sing
Gaze inward on my soul; see reflected smiling faces of those I love

In case you're wondering that a lot of the photos keep showing the same view it's because I am trying to capture how different things look as the year moves on

Monday 25th May 2009

Woke early this morning and baked some bread. While it was proving I took a walk up to the garden and there was not a soul about. Just the sound of birds and the odd rumble of traffic from the road but it was a completely different experience due to the sun being in a different part of the sky. The nuances of light and shade cast different hues and shapes and I enjoyed sitting amongst the green and aromatic morning vista.

Somebody saw a deer in the cemetery yesterday and I spent time looking over the wall this morning (and under all the trees in the garden) but to no avail! In fact that was my prime reason for going so early. However my searching did reveal a well trodden path on the hillside and I wonder what has made it. I’m sure some of the indents looked like deer prints. Cool!!

Life to me consists (no matter how we rationalise it) a pursuit of money and power. For in this material world our survival depends on it and no matter really the greatness or lack of success in attaining it, so long as we are here, we are alive to the need . That is a simple inalienable truth, but here sat in this green and sweet world it briefly becomes just about living and I wonder how much time spent here on a beautiful late spring day would it take to leave everything mortal behind and be content. A minute, an hour, or perhaps never? Too much too think of now and like the bread the world is rising into a new day and I head home.

Sunday 24th May 2009

Well today the weather has finally come good again. Bright blue skies from 5am this morning and it looks like it will be sunny all day. Would have spent the whole day up in the garden but a guy is coming at some point to collect some hifi magazines I sold on eBay. Still making lots of room if not lots of money!

Spent most of yesterday up in the garden with thick blanketing grey cloud overhead, (it even rained at one point.) The cloud finally lifted around 4pm to reveal a deep blue sky. It was like having 2 days in one but I much preferred the second half. Planted some climbing roses Nick and I bought the other week around a metal archway and also planted a giant Himalayan lily which will hopefully look stunning if the slugs (and snails) leave it alone. Yes have to put snails in that sentence now. I’m not one for all this global warming normally but we definitely now have many more snails in this area; and big ones too! 20 years ago they would have been a very rare oddity but now they are everywhere. They must be spreading northward as the winters get milder. If we ever doubt the fragility of our grip on nature we need only think of the humble slug. It survives and thrives despite our best efforts to eradicate it. Would that Blue whales could match their fecundity as I suppose it is too much for certain countries to stop killing them. If these great creatures become hunted again then we know one of the best things to happen to the environment and a huge success of world cooperation has like everything we touch; failed through greed.

I touched the roof of the world
I held it within my arms grasp
Just for a little while; a heartbeat
But no mortal can endure it long
For the weight is greater than I
It beats me down by every day
And I grow smaller and am content

We have a great show on here called "ladies of letters" so am doing my own version of it as a blog...see hear

http://longlifeletters.blogspot.com/

See what you think...is it too rude?

Wednesday 20th May 2009

Well back to work again this week but it has not been too bad I suppose. The weather has been swinging between wet and sporadic spells of sunshine. I planted some Geraniums the other week but it has been so wet that they were in danger of floating out of the containers. Last night saw me stood in the rain with the drill making drainage holes with a swarm of very hungry midges comforted that dinner had finally arrived for them. I’m not sure the forecast is showing an improvement any time soon either and we are coming to the Spring Bank holiday this weekend. I took some photos of a frog and the raindrops in the pond just to show you the weather. Also me hiding behind the monkey puzzle tree trying to hide my fat tummy (to no avail)

And so the long promise of summer warmth
Again eludes our land as all our eager hopes…
Fade into grey closed skies that breathe gloom;
Over a misty watercolour vista painted in May

eBay sales going for the most part well I feel, though one of the recipients has been a little challenging. I think to succeed one would have to do it full time as the whole process is time consuming. But boy, am I going to be able to wrap Christmas present a whole lot better this year. (Well assuming I remember to buy them in the first place.) I got some bits and pieces for you by the way…must remember to send them on very soon. What are they? Ha! You’ll have to wait my dear.

Hope you’re keeping a little dryer than I and enjoy the rest of the week.

I was sat in the yard briefly yesterday before the rain began in earnest. Birds were singing and the pigeons cooed softly to usher past planes slicing through the clouding sky while the smell of herbs and pine drifted over my senses. It is not paradise but I sit and see the world and it rises up before me in the shape of the huge sycamore, a leviathan of wood and green waving leaves. What would we make of a world without the trees? It is not a world I should be happy to live within. For the tree is the mightiest creature within our natural world. Just as people within my life, (and like the trees) have become solid and resolute and my anchor to all I wish to become and I love them more than even the trees.

Well never got the records done but instead have cleaned out the attic and done several runs to the charity shop with the goods no longer wanted. What a fun place the attic is! Cobweb draped beams of just the right height to smack my head on sending huge spiders down in my hair. I mean where do all these spiders come from and what are they eating...hobbits? They are like the offspring of Shelob; spawn of Ungoliant, (if you don’t know who Shelob or Ungoliant is Google the words,) halfway through just as i sat down with a cup o' tea Nick phoned up being perfectly pleasant but I was more than a little grumpy...sorry. I could really do with a nap but a big auction finishes soon and I may need to answer questions. Hope you’re having a better evening.

Wednesday 13th May 2009

I am having the week off and the Weather thus far has been breezy but warm but this morning all that is about to change. I did think I might get a few late mornings spent fast asleep but not a chance...early to rise every day. But at least I get to see the sun this morning even though now at 8am the clouds are moving in fast. Been busy baking some wholemeal bread, watching the birds and packaging some stuff I sold on eBay. Got quite a bit listed at the minute and will be busy the next few days packaging it all up and I wonder to what far flung destination some of the items it will end up in. Still it has to go and I don’t want to become some nutter who shuffles off and is found to have a houseful of old audio gear which promptly gets dumped or sold. Don’t mind being a nutter but don’t want to leave a mess for someone else...if that makes sense.

Spent the last 2 days in the garden pottering and enjoying the sunshine. I love the picture of the Robin I took. They are so innocent looking aren’t they? Skimmed the leaves and duckweed off the pond. Trimmed back a few trees and made a geranium shelf for the pond deck area. I love my decked area by the way.

Today I’ll start on whittling down the record collection. My aim to reduce it by 50% (or a 1000 LP records) so that should take some time. It’s one of those jobs I don’t want to start really. Sometime this week Nick and I will go watch the new Star Trek movie at the Imax 3D cinema in Manchester. That looks cool...but how much more mileage can they get from this I wonder. Science fiction used to be all about looking to the future but they seem to be getting closer and closer to the present time. I think there are some steamy scenes in the new film and well...when they bring sex into science fiction you just know the skids are under the genre.

Ps heard of Scottish singer Susan Boyle yet? Look her audition up for ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ on YouTube (she’s already been booked to go on Oprah...she’s that good.)

We’ve decided we like President Obama a lot...honest demeanour and way of talking and he’s funny too. Why can’t we have someone like that here instead of the money-grubbing fraudsters we have currently. What a fine example those British MP’s have set the rest of us here huh! Commit fraud and lie or say sorry if you get caught...no wonder the country is getting in such a mess. I reckon it’s just about to all go down the pan shortly and I wonder what are those European parliament MP’s claiming as expenses? I am sure that story will run very shortly as the EU has got to be the biggest gravy train in the world. I wish I could have a second home never mind claiming the expenses on it from the taxpayer.

Anyway enough of this politic gloom the sunshine looks inviting so I’m off to the garden till the rain gets here later.

See you later.

Monday 11th May 2009

The garden is erupting into green like a verdant firework at the moment. All the rain has recharged the earth and now the plants dig deep and pump their leaves full of goodness. How fresh and delicately green does a new leaf look...with the sun backlighting it so all the veins show. It’s great at the minute to sit and watch the world from behind a mosquito net (draped over the swing) as it makes me somewhat invisible. Whether it is robins feeding their young in the nearby bush or a weasel snaking around the margin of the pond every day is a new chapter. The robin is particularly funny as it looks at me before flying in the bush as though imploring me not tool look where it is going. I do like robins as they are such a brave and friendly bird and I think given enough time and titbits they would eat from my hand eventually. It’s 4.30am but already the sky is lightening and the birds are up. I’m not and I shall linger in bed for a while longer, make a cup of tea and read a chapter of Lord of the Rings. I managed to buy a first edition (sixteenth impression) of the first book of the trilogy at a good price the other week and have been trying to see any difference between it and the revised second and subsequent editions. I haven’t as yet but I never tire of the book.

Chaffinch why do you sing so cheerfully and lift my heart tonight?
Is it the dripping cherry-blossomed rows of trees stretching into the distance?
Polished bark pillars of pink and white supporting a regal entourage of…
Diligent bumblebees that furiously work your treasured, fragrant petals
Like there shall again never be, another evening or flower in the entire world.

Or is it just that the sun slants through the heavens to find and caress
Your soft blue and grey feathers with gentle, velvet rays of hope
That the summer comes swiftly and warms your days of wonder
As it does mine for there is love waiting in the world we share
Perhaps we both have found it for I wish also to sing among the blossom

But then sun fades to the west of the world and the dusk closes the day
Yet the heart rises to the joy it feels for like the obsidian shapes that crowd…
Under the branches of sycamore and like a swirling maelstrom of geometry fly,
Jet-black bats swirling and wheeling to the points of an angled map that points
To a constellation of hope made stars that shine my love for you in the heavens

I like the chaffinch lay my head in some safe warm place and sleep alone but…
The nights can never hold fear now for you are with me always till the dawn

Thursday 7th May 2009

Been a bit busy the last few days with getting some things ready for more eBay sales...getting better at it but still don’t know all the ins and outs...still interesting and decluttering at the same time. Our summer weather has faded and at the moment it is quite windy and cool. We have had so much rain in the last week or so that the ponds are filling to the brim and the water is as clear as I have ever seen it. I can see all the remaining leaves too, which need to come out this autumn.

It is all rather quiet at the moment (well apart from swine flu)...not sure it’s the global pandemic the media keeps reporting. Seems rather over-hyped but I may regret saying that. (oink, oink)

Enjoy the photo of the rhododendrons from the back door

See the difference in a few weeks...................

Echo sighs on voyages of finality
Unravelling softly under eucalyptus
Seeping into all the dusky spaces
That sits between the sky and me
Tracing secrets on the back of bats
To last briefly till the dawn comes
Vanishing as the last bat flies home

The clouds may hide the sky but the heart sees through the gloom into a clear blue morning that wears your name. For the essence of you is behind my eyes and you are with me always. Turning each and every day into a wonder…I love you

It seems to have been a day of extremes today. Periods of sunshine stitched together with heavy bursts of thunderous rain from the blackest clouds. I watched the rain falling at work this afternoon and I haven’t seen such a fury in the elements for the longest time. Water drops bounced and ricocheted off the floor like liquid bullets fired from a celestial gun lying black and malign, smoking overhead. Then clouds open again and sun shines forth and a wonder of seven coloured bows lies across the horizon to enhance the extremity of the day. Then just as abruptly the clouds thicken and standing shoulder to shoulder sling bolts of lightning sung on the roar of thunder. The wind sweeps fast and furious across the land emanating from the northwestern reaches of the watery sea and its breath reaches into all the humid and heat-closed alleys and blows away summer for a brief time. Trees become huge ships afloat in a reckless sea, their huge green sails billowing into the freshening wind. It is truly a day of the valkyries and I hear their calls as they fly through the sky toward the deep crimson dusk.

Wasp picture from

http://www.naturspaziergang.de/index.htm

Because credit where it is due

Titanesque in her demeanour
Queenly in her deliberations
And confident as a pride of lions
Stands the yellow banded sentinel
To bar my way into her realm
Sporting inbuilt, eager defiance
In the face of washless grey skies
She cannot win, but she would try
And I for my part; for just today
Shall leave her house intact
Till the weather turns fine again

For we are all carrying the presence of a hidden greatness and it warms me like the spring sun, feeding my soul as spring rain falling on the budding forests. When the world sets me to rest it shall take my chains and place them in your hands; within your care and I shall never be enslaved again for you will set me free and at the same time make of my eternity the sweetest prison. I shall inhabit the greenest cell with only joyous bars of dappled sunshine and laughter spending days sat on grassy banks watching butterflies and swallows swoop and dive and always we shall be right there with them flying on the wings of our love for the world. For love is strong and true and if ever yours should falter ever would mine be strong enough to hold you high in the sky alongside me.

Monday 27th April

Soft is discarded the warming rays of April
Into heady showers of waterous raging rain
The heavens open and I awake to moisture.
Pervading every part of the panorama through,
A filigree of open boughs onto the parched,
Earthen cracks that lie below like a wound.
This fluid gift weeps murderously into holes
To wreak ruin on kingdoms that have endured
So it seems an eternity, but as their brood fails
On waxen or paper beds the populace weeps
For the heart of the spring has been broken

Well I knew the current spell of weather couldn’t last and today the heavens opened for most of the morning and afternoon bringing much needed rain. The rain has given way to bring a brighter demeanour to the day and it reminds us of the need always for balance in everything. What good would be endless sunny days without growth?

Had a relatively busy weekend but mostly in the garden finishing some paths and other general jobs. Not been a weekend for exploring any nice places and so no pictures to show. Don’t know if this is a good sign but we have been a little bit busier at work. Funny how more work to do lifts everyone’s spirits? Devil and idle hands and all that I guess.

Well April is zooming away nicely, as we are almost over it. It has been quite sunny for the last week with unseasonably high temperatures and pretty much wall-to-wall sunshine. Days of perfectly blue sky with small fluffed clouds and sunsets of delicate peach hues that framed the hills and trees so perfectly. I also got my first midge bites the other night so I know it must be warm. How wonderful though to start the year with a spell of good weather. Even if we know it may not last.

The spring days are here and the world calls us together and fires our souls to see its beauty and the joy of all the possibilities. For time is on our side and how wonderful it shall be to move through the spring and summer as one. To be a part of every birdsong filled dawn and dusky evening. To see bats that shall ever fly so quietly under the trees. To meet minds and close the circle by the light of the night moon where we shall make our wishes come true.

Someone sent this by email and it makes you think so be careful..

Subject: Notice on car (not a joke)

Just last weekend on Friday night we parked in a public parking area. As we drove away I noticed a sticker on the rear window of the car. When I took it off after I got home, it was a receipt for petrol. Luckily my friend told me not to stop as it could be someone waiting for me to get out of the car. Then we received this email yesterday:

'WARNING FROM POLICE - BEWARE OF PAPER ON THE BACK WINDOW OF YOUR VEHICLE--NEW WAY TO DO CAR JACKINGS (NOT A JOKE)'

.... You walk across the car parking, unlock your car and get inside. You start the engine and shift into reverse. When you look into the rear-view mirror to back out of your parking space, you notice a piece of paper stuck to the middle of the rear window. So, you shift into neutral, unlock your doors, and jump out of your car to remove that paper (or whatever it is) that is obstructing your view. When you reach the back of your car that is when the carjackers appear out of nowhere, jump into your car and take off. They practically mow you down as they speed off in your car. And guess what, ladies? I bet your purse is still in the car. So now the carjacker has your car, your home address, your money, and your keys. Your home and your whole identity are now compromised!

BEWARE OF THIS NEW SCHEME THAT IS NOW BEING USED.

If you see a piece of paper stuck to your back window, just drive away. Remove the paper later and be thankful that you read this e-mail. I hope you will forward this to friends and family, especially to women. A purse contains all kinds of personal information and identification documents, and you certainly do NOT want this to fall into the wrong hands.

Please pass this on.

The darkness closes tight around the rose tinged sunset in the west and the blackening dusk sky frames the moon as the first stars begin to sparkle and glisten. The air blows cold and the paths sheened with dew take the remaining light and twinkle a starlit path for my footsteps. Funny, but the birds are still singing even into the dusky evening and it lifted my heart and gave the greatest thoughts of you and I wished you were now at my side. Strong, gentle and sensitive hearts at ease in the evening gloom. Fluid as gossamer threads that stream from the unfurling leaves in our purpose to find peace in the beauty and wonderment of lives raised up high in nature.

The world moves and I answer its siren call, as the nights yield to the turn of days and the sun rises a degree higher each day above the eastern hills. The song of summer that has enraptured me through winter remains and hugs every corner of my soul as spring now calls me forward. The music of the cycle of the seasons cannot ever be denied and it falls around me like raindrops escaping light summer clouds to freshen a dry world. My world, watered by all of you, slowly turns into the greenest garden. It grows and sets life in the joy and solace it finds within.

Monday 20th April 2009

The weather has been fantastic over the last few days...so I built this deck by the side of the pool. I’m quite proud of it even though it’s a bit skewed on close inspection. The other picture is well; see if you can work it out. I was knackered last night after building the deck but it was worth it. Everything is growing fast at the minute (apart from the hair) and the weather looks set to fair till the weekend. Hope you have a good week too.

Tip - If you cannot always see the whole picture on some versions of browswers you can click in the bottom right of the screen and change the zoom

Had my long overdue haircut on Thursday and have decided long hair...well it's not for everyone!! Especially when it grows sideways in curls....still grew quick from the head close cut in Nov.

Found how to post quizzes...they should get more interesting as i get the knack for it

Some info on the Heysham pictures below...beautiful little village but shame about the power station being so close by

http://www.citycoastcountryside.co.uk/site/Heysham-Village