Nettles and the Karate kid

 Yesterday, I had an epic 120 mile round trip, collecting parents from holiday in Barnstaple, driving them to Sidmouth and breaking for a quick leftover cold meats and salad lunch at my house so they could see the new double glazed windows.  They thought the rapid appearance of a feast fairly miraculous!  Mum calls packet salad "dandelions" - she ate the spinach leaves I threw in from another pack without realising.  "I hate spinach!!" Fair play, the salad leaves do look like dandelions.

I drove back to go to Thorverton for spiritual direction.  Sometimes my planning skills go awry like this. Taking show and tell was a good idea.  At the moment I am reading (as part of the "big church read) with a couple friends, Pete Grieg on prayer. His quote that I had read that morning was about slowing down and being quiet with God.  Regarding our heads, he says we find it is "Like some wild cocktail party of which we find ourselves the embarrassed host" That is an exact description of my head at present!

So, when asked what I want to look at in spiritual direction, I say "how to be quiet" And think that this is like climbing snowdon for me. Challenging, kind of exciting?  Basically I absolutely need some time away and what my friend Lynn calls a "mental holiday"  Relaxation. Exercise.

Many years ago my friend Sandy and I watched the "karate kid", original version. The trainee karate kid goes to his master, and he is asked "paint the fence" clean the car, "wax on, wax off" Phrases that people of a certain age trot out when giving someone something tedious to do. Turns out that the moves you need to perform karate well are the same actions the kid has done over and over again whilst being practical.

What's the point of that?  Well, Kathy the spiritual director has a house with an acre of garden. It's an outside gym really, keeping that from descending into chaos. So I asked if I could help.I am grateful for the time and listening.  And I either put a bit back via foodbank or this time, muscle power.  Because I am both grateful and like being there. 

My task?  Clearing nettles.  Huge 5ft nettles.  Lots of them.  With a full size fork and wheelbarrow. Wearing shorts and borrowed leather gloves.  They sting.  Even when you pull the buggers up and stack them on the compost heap.  You can tell I am not a gardener can't you?  My grandad was a "jobbing gardener, my dad hated but did gardening, and I can't tell weeds from flowers (according to a gardening friend) 

 But funnily enough and I have absolutely no idea if this was the aim or not, the plodding work for an hour calmed me and my head down. Listening to blackbirds whistling and singing, smelling fresh cut grass and clippings on the compost pile. The stamp and wrestle with the fork.  Sunshine dappling through.  A cuddle with the beautiful, brainlessly affectionate labrador and hauling the cutting and clippings to the compost heap and the bonfire pile.  

I will definitely go back and have another nettle battle some time!

LLF & G&T

 LLF & G&T? The power of acronyms! 

This morning in costa I listened/watched/read the first session of the "Living in Love and Faith" in the booklet that goes with the course that the church of England is doing on modern relationships in all their glorious complexity! I have never liked to turn up to a session of anything unprepared and this starts on Thursday night.  Wednesday night is my "book group" for the Big church read which I seemed to have volunteered to lead - 3 friends, one book, one easy-peasy cheat sheet of questions...

Then I picked up the parents for their big, excellent adventure - a much anticipated and welcome break in Barnstaple. They love the hotel, the staff look after them well and, as they are increasingly tottery I am quite glad that they can potter around, enjoy some nice food and wine and raid Marks and Spencer and the local bookshops.  They love to sit in Queen Anne's cafe most mornings and play scrabble in the evening.  But how are they going to do the crossword without their crossword fiend - me?

How to scare a nervous passenger? Overtake a very dodgy motobike and sidecar combination that was weaving in and out the lanes, by hitting the gas and driving in the outside lane.  Mum says, fearfully, from the Command Chair next to me "what speed are we doing?" Um, 80ish at that point, but usually a nice steady 70.  I do try to be legal.  She says she is shutting her eyes!

We hit the link road and having asked Mum what the legal speed limit is (it's 60) so one up to me as she thinks it is either 50 or 70....glad it is me driving.  I teach her "car snooker" while Dad dozes happily in the back.  Spot a red car, colour car (pink/green/blue/brown/black/white(cue ball) red car etc until you either get bored or reach Barnstaple.  Dad is counting caravans/motor homes.

Bless them, I hate watching their tottery progress.  Getting back, I down 2 pints water, 2 cups of tea and a  tin mix of G&T before church. It's a frying hot day and I feel totally dehydrated and in need of fizzing bubbling low level alcoholic sustenance!

Randomness

 This morning was one of those lovely fresh, clean blue sky mornings.  I don't have blackout curtains - they are certainly pretty but the light leaks round the edges by 5am.  Irks me on a Saturday, so I retrieved my phone and listened to the radio until the more decent hour of 6am.  As it was so early, booking an 8am swim seemed a nice Saturday possibility.  The joy depends on the ratio of porridge to stomach. If I judge it wrong, then the swim feels like swimming against a bellyful of lead!

This morning the swimmers all seemed to know each other, a Saturday splash of slow in the medium lane.  I'm not really fast enough to overtake them, but too fast to swim behind so I duck, weave, cut short circuits round them and build a nice 20 lengths or 500 metres to my English Channel swim virtual challenge. This one of course doesn't really have much streetview.  But I did trawl around the virtual map and found myself "virtually" in the gents toilets in the cross channel ferry.  How totally bizarre.  It is a great way of ensuring I count my lengths rather than aimlessly drift along. Although I have, before, done a charity swim of 26 miles in 12 weeks, that was ludicrous and I'm too sensible these days.

Afterwards I met a friend who is a good birder and we walked from Darts Farm to Topsham, looking through the cutouts on the wooden cycle bridge, and spotting a patiently fishing  heron and some kind of bird of prey.  Fabulous day!  It circled lazily, running the sky, hovering, dropping down to grass level, fighting the air currents.  I personally have not a clue what it was- friend says probably buzzard. It didn't cry out like a buzzard but it wasn't sparrowhawk grey.  A fan tailed brownish bird who brought joy.

I'm reading Monty Don's book on garden wildlife and flowers through the year.  It is a stress busting evening or before bed read. Not that I am stressed but it does mean that I will sleep.  He describes plants with love and a naturalists eye.  It's not the kind of book I usually pick up - Gardeners world isn't really my kind of show - but it was cheap in Tesco and is a lovely read. I also have chapters of "The big church read" book - Pete Grieg, how to pray to work through.  So far it is good, he has a poets knack of creating memorable images, and crafting the chapters so that I feel I am learning in a small way that doesn't kick off the oh so easy to kick off guilt and failure cycle.  That wouldn't be helpful at all.

As I type I can hear seagulls wailing but can't see them. I bought a water pistol of my own but so far it has been far more useful to clean their mess off the nice new windows.  I would so love to surprise them with a quick, watery blast!