Lent

 Lent, purple on altar cloth and priest's scarf and some people give up chocolate

That's all I knew about Lent!  Not a lot really, because I don't come from traditional Christian stock.

Seems there is a whole lot more - it's a time to pray, to give, to fast.  Not sure about the fasting, so I did a bit of reading.  Some people limit what they eat, some go veggie for the 40 days.  Me, I have just been a heroic failure, because I have had a cold and currently am feeling blue and down, which is standard April/post cold fare for me.  Breakfast of chocolate orange hot cross buns probably isn't in the spirit is it?

There is a great passage in Isaiah the prophet on what the real point of fasting is - to do justice, to be generous, to treat your workers well.  That's a passage I like a lot! And Jesus just assumes we'll fast.

Very countercultural to me.

This morning, not sleeping I listened to Asian Network radio programmes called "Not even water" by young muslim men and women talking about their Ramadan practice.  How it's a chance to be kind, to be generous, to concentrate on their faith.  There seems to be this massive cultural, family based support network of food and fasting culture.  I guess that makes it easier.  Quite frankly, we seem to have massively lost out here!

I was very impressed.  Though they did make me laugh - seems that eating heavy food after sundown means you end up putting on weight.  I think what strikes me as a reasonable hack through this, is to learn to appreciate what you eat, to listen to what your body actually needs rather than as they say "feeding your anxiety" and to learn to eat seasonal healthy food.  Oh, and on Sundays, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, so any rules are off - and Easter is a 40 day festival with joy and white or gold on the altar decorations

It's a whole different world in a slightly more traditional expression of Christian faith.  I feel I am learning which when you have been as intellectually arrogant as me, is always fun!

Escape

Yesterday evening everything was soaked, after a night of heavy rain. Shining puddles dance with concentric rain circles.  A burnt orange jeep, foursquare and cheery, sits perfectly parked bettween carpark lines.  I've escaped Exeter for a quick break - sore eyed from computers and too many books as well I think.  

It's not the nicest of Premier Inns.  It looks shabby and the signposting from the road is terrible - I overshoot and find a tight lane, which promises an evening walk.  There's an open Toby carvery and suddenly, after a queasy headachey day I feel HUNGRY.  So I succumb to a roast.  Turkey, lots of veg, mac&cheese, all in restrained quantities. Oh, did I mention half of Guinness (painkiller) and profiteroles? Hmm, I can never resist profiteroles in any format, but these were a bit sticky sweet but they did the job.

A bit of middle age TV - gardeners world and a programme on John Denver.  My mum loved him, had his records - she's an Anne, and he wrote "Annie's song" for his first wife.  I sadly seem to have been born singing the songs and know most of them, to my surprise, off by heart.  He had terrible, dreadful taste in shirts and should never ever have danced with 70s dance group Pans people - awful, embarrasing,  I guess that's what I remember - parents taste in music and embarrassment - but actually I really like his songs! 

With the help of radio 4 I slept like a happy log.  Good job it was only a small beer as the breakfast room has plastic grey stools with stripy fabric tops, battered, flaky paint chairs and a floor of wood laminate chevrons in green, brown and duck egg blue.  It's a bit vibrant for the morning but hash browns, bacon and the other nice Premier Inn bits and pieces make up for feeling slightly queasy.

I shot off to Montacute and spent an hour walking in the parkland, to catch the early sun. Picked up a decent coffee after the worst cup I have ever had with breakfast.

only to find this large, furry robber drinking my water.  He would have had the coffee too, if I hadn't booted him off the table.  

Montacute is so good.  It makes me feel slightly awed, knowing that in Queen Elizabeth's day, people were walking round this house, pacing up and down the massive long gallery, admiring their new tapestries, watching the cheery plaster friezes drying, slowly.  It is that old. The honey colour Ham stone glows in sunlight, it is beautiful.  This time, a different selection of National Gallery portraits on loan - last time the gallery was full of them, this time only a few.

I enjoy looking at the faces - some look unnervingly modern - one military man, minus the silly Elizabethan beard and dressed in khaki with red tabs could be a twenty first century brigadier. One woman looks like Sonia, who was one of the characters I worked with in Transplant mastertrain, I wonder if her Elizabethan counterpart was equally miserable and grumpy in the mornings!

I finished off with a couple hours of weeding for friends - 3 barrow loads of weeds and leaves for the bonfire and my half price goretex trainers are now suitably worn in and muddy.

Blackbird O'Clock?

 Friday morning I just couldn't stay in bed.  It's been a trying sort of week.  Parents needing care, lots of frustration at work, the awful, miserable angst invoking news....and so I crept out, early to grab a coffee, when I should have stayed in and done useful things or read a book at home.  But then..I would have missed the waking blackbirds, singing and warbling in the trees, by the health centre as I walked over to pick up the car.  Such a beautiful sound and the light was still "proper dimpsy" as good Devonians say.

This morning, after a swim, I sorted life for the parents - mum had a minor foot operation and poor dad needed a slightly more competent cook so I organised lunch for them, drank a glass of their sherry and weeded out the patio and pots of daffodils.  Mum supervised- which means she whinged that I was a little rough on the weeds.  At least she was getting fresh air and must have been feeling a bit better!

My own garden has a mini riot of small daffs, whose beautiful egg yolk yellow peeps above a variety of bought and donated terracotta pots.  Checking them today in a brief respite from weekend chores, I see they have been joined by rhubarb and custard striped mini tulips.  Only a few and more to come, looking at their emerging leaves. It makes life feel worthwhile and I find my energy picking up.

This evening I had a brief stroll to deliver a nearly overdue birthday card.  The street is lined with magnolia trees and around this week in March, every year, they start to emerge.  It brought back a quick flash of memory - two years ago, just pre-pandemic I went to Hidecote gardens and the memory I have is of staring into blue sky, photographing vividly pink magnolias against that standout sky.

The next year, I was walking the same street at Magnolia time, unable to meet friends, worship, work or indeed go out for more than an hour.  Memory is a weird thing.

As I turned the corner into my friends road, I was stopped by the severe pollarding of the trees - they looked like a hammer beam roof - like the ribs of the Mary Rose which I visited a few years ago.  Give them another month or so and they will be clothed in beautiful fresh lime spring green.

Lights and prophetic smoke

 Pre-pandemic, I went to the Women of God conference, Yeovil and wrote a little blog called "smoke and mirrors" about the experience. I found it difficult.  Said I wouldn't go back.  So this year I went back.  I'm not entirely sure how/why- I like going because my friend Sandy goes.  But this year I didn't buy a ticket, but one of her friends dropped out - so I went along with Sandy's friend Jen as my chaffeur/taxi.

I really don't find large gatherings easy, so this blog is a small exploration of the day, the why and wherefore of how an introvert copes in such an atmosphere.  I always get excited/nervous beforehand, but what I really enjoy is the lights.  I'm not a band going person, but coloured lights, beamed onto the ceiling in swirling spirograph colours of blue, pink and orange, chrysthamums of white and spring green stage lights make me feel happy! Not so happy with stage smoke - how does that help anyone worship?  It just makes me dry throated, dry eyed and hoarse. My friend Sandy said "what lights" - she sings with her eyes closed.  I have given up trying to sense God's presence and closeness through singing worship songs - when I can feel the band through the soles of my feet, and into the pit of my stomach, then I know it is even less likely.  I am not good at visualising things or imaging scenes but I took my imagination on a little trip to the beach at Lee Abbey during the worship and watched the sea, creaming and foaming.  As the lights went to circles of orange I imagined the sunrise there.  I sat on a bench and looked at the rocks from my favourite viewpoint and glanced across to where the light hits the trees' varigated colours in Autumn.  I am even less competent at imagining bible scenes, but I went to the last supper with Jesus, and looked at him washing feet and serving his disciples with bread and wine.  Then I just got bored, overwhelmed and noised out!

The speakers were equally loud and passionate - I know my friend loved them! It seems to me that extraverts like Jesus to be the King, the sovereign risen Lord, which he is, but people like me find they want to go meet him on the beach and have breakfast, or ask him loads of questions and are baffled by his answers.  I literally cannot follow someone who shouts at me.  I hear the tone, not the words.  And it makes me shut down.  If I could have heard from God I would happily have done so - as it was, I did retail therapy and bought my manager a journal with a beautiful tree and leaves and a prayer from Ephesians on its pages.

I am wired differently.  And that is ok.  God, who I love, through photographs, blogs, books and his outstanding creation artistry probably just shakes his head and smiles because he knows that Love prompted me to take a ticket to an event that doesn't fit the shape God made me.

Battered Feet

 Battered fish sounds more fun than battered feet. I'd even settle for a battered mars bar...if forced.  But I AM forced to admit that walking from Lands End to John O Groats - even virtually, in a pair of old, wrecked and comfortable boots has damaged my feet. I don't know why I didn't listen to friends when they told me I needed new boots.

I have plantar fascitis - along, it seems, with at least half of those who walk.  It seems everyone gets it - a bit like Covid...and it doesn't help much but at least it isn't sciatica.  Exercises, and yes I will keep walking.

So I have bought slippers.  I never wear the things, I far prefer bare or socked feet, but apparently, according to my nurse friend (who, guess what, has PF) it's the thing I must do. Who knew?

New boots, well, I will get there.  At about £150, they will need to wait for pay day.  Limping is something I can do, physio exercises are something I can do.  Complaining isn't an option - I am not in the pain I was with sciatica and maybe I will just get a plastic parrot for my shoulder and dignify the limp a bit!  I am grateful in the extreme to be 56, healthy, on nothing but asthma drugs and otherwise healthy.  Who worries about a slightly weakened left leg and hip (the legacy of the sciatica apparently)

It hasn't stopped me signing up to walk the Great Wall of China - or 2000 miles of it, over 2 years.  At the moment I am seriously behind, according to the nagging walk app, which tells me to "get a move on" I wish.

But the sun is out and the weather is crispy.  I am sure that is a good thing.

Borders and Belonging

 I'm reading a slim book by Irish poet Padraig O Tuama (and Glenn Jordan) called "Borders and Belonging" .  It's a study on the Bible book of Ruth, but to call it a Bible study is maybe not quite what it is. The book started as a series of reflections and workshops on Brexit and how the Irish communities Padraig worked with could find some kind of Christian take on it, using the book of Ruth as a mediating lens to view it through.

Before, I've loved Ruth for the study of Naomi, a middle aged lady deep in loss and depression - the book read me well at one point in my life.  But this study asks deep, penetrating questions of the text and of us.  In a world of "others" - migrants, economic and assylum seekers, poverty and female vulnerability in a male dominated world.

They certainly aren't "conservative" scholars and they draw on Jewish texts and Bible scholarship - the book is just peppered with contemporary questions and I found it asked me some awkward questions too.

Particularly, it gave me an angle on the horrible passages in Nehemiah and Ezra, where the returning exiles who have married "the people of the land" are forced to divorce them.  Sitting in the rain, listening to the law.  And it always felt to me such a negation of love.

There is a suggestion that Ruth was written down, finally, as a counterpoint, a theology of grace and kindness through story to counter this thread, this stream in the return from exile.  Never thought of that.  Never even knew that it was a possibility.

I just know that if it had been me, sitting in that rain, knowing I was a forbidden person, someone who had wrongfully married a man from the land, I would not have thought much of Israel's God. 

I haven't finished the book yet, but when I do, I think I will go straight back to the beginning and read it again.

Talking in parables

 Talking to a friend last week I explained I have a love/hate relationship with Jesus' parables.  Maybe that's because of the "stories with a single point" explanation - in which case I would rather the single point was made big and clear!  Or because it all seems so utterly totally irrelevant to a 21st century city dweller.

That kicked off a little journey which is ongoing with me reading the excellent Paula Gooders book on parables.  She has helped me understand the context a little more - for example, explaining that in Galilee landlords are mostly a "boo/hiss" type of character - not her words - they are mostly absentee landlords which I guess makes things even more complex - God is not an absentee landlord.

Another option I have found - from a different friend, is that Jesus likes to make us "wonder", as in "I wonder if" .  That's had me "I wondering" about the supremely unfair story of the landlord and the workers in Matthew's gospel, which was Friday's passage to read.

If he's not an absentee landlord, maybe he's a small landholder - and why is he going to rustle up workers for his fields?  Hasn't he got staff to do that for him? What sort of parallel is there today to that highly rural story - maybe an insurance company who pays the teaser rate to it's existing customers? (unheard of!) or - for me, Gregory Distribution, who paid me and my team a large pay rise 2 months into probation - a colleague had been there 5 years. Maybe she felt like the day workers who had slaved all day when the late comers got equally rewarded?

I wonder - about the persistence in sitting and waiting in the hot sun, of the un-hired workers.  Maybe that's all they could do - wait. Show up. Waiting for someone to notice them.

The kicker from Jesus is that the landlord is generous.  And the simple answer is God is generous. And maybe that's what has frustrated me, as you can say that in one sentence but perhaps Jesus likes me to wonder and ponder and ask others and tell him I haven't a clue why his frustrating stories are peppered throughout the gospels.

Angels

 It must be hard to be an angel

Wherever, whenever they show up in the Christmas story

they spend the first five minutes saying "don't be afraid"

I wonder, idly, what it must be like to be that intimidating

It's hard, at 5ft, to intimidate anyone - I struggle to get a drink in a bar:

to make my voice heard - this Christmas, my parent tells me "I'm not deaf - it's you"

The angels rock choir turns up, excited and unable to contain themselves for joy

and a tight knot of boys with sheep guarding duties gets a look in on cosmic events.

How like the God I try to worship to tell me "don't be afraid" - he knows I need to hear it

And how like God to spill over into the black darkness of our world in a way that my mind can't handle

Dictates from on high

 Someone in power issues an edict and the ripples and rivulets of this decision

impact a teenage couple and their relations

Pregnant, uncomfortable, not good for travel - I am sure Mary and Joseph had plans for a birth

at home, surrounded with love, somewhere for a loved child.

But, instead after a tedious, unwanted isolated journey, they arrive 

and Jesus is born - laid in the hasty equivalent of a drawer lined with straw.

An animal feeding box, for a treasured boy.

This morning, isolation threatens - again.

Sometime, someone  in power will issue an edict

And the ripples and rivulets of this decision

 will impact families.  Loved ones in care homes,

people in their twenties longing for parties and the relief of some fun.

Lonely and vulnerable people, those who struggle with solitude.

the workers for whom WFH means a cramped space on a sofa in a shared house.

The packers and drivers, small companies and supply chain workers

And their families.  Minimum waged, lacking in paid sick pay.

Many on zero hours contracts.

But the people on high couldn't give a toss.

what is a little decision like that to them?

it's not like they will feel the impact

For them, the party will go on.

Gaudete

 Gaudete.  Rejoice, Joy sunday.  A pink candle on the Advent wreath. And I am grateful,  This Advent, for Jesus, born of Mary, for Mary whose willingness to be part of this at such cost enabled it all.  For the light in my own darkness.  This year, no depression, no SAD.  Beyond a little bit of seasonal grumpiness and lethargy.  For the light of Jesus, which means there is hope this dark season with threats of COVID/Omnicron/rising taxes, rising prices.  Rejoice - and roll up your sleeves and work to make the kingdom come!

Why the explosion of joy?  Quite simply I have a negative covid test despite being pinged by the app, and an eye watering, nose bleeding 24 hours of anxious waiting.  We are surrounded at work by drivers, warehouse staff, trainers, and managers and office staff.  We have strict rules - masks, sneeze screens, temperatures taken, wiping down desks, phones each evening.  But as I had a cold, and my colleague has children in school - it was a possibility.  And now I feel like those TV photos of calves being let out to fresh grass in Spring.  Except - I still have not much more than a squ eak for a voice from oral steroids.

I have listened to Gaudete - that amazing vocal classic by Steeleye Span, both the original 1970s version and a more modern version by them.  Their voices sound even better. Haunting.  For an absolute non musical philistine, this Advent I have discovered "Hills of the North Rejoice" and the song Judith hated - "Lo, he comes with clouds, descending" admittedly awful (aweful?) words but a fabulous tune which even a non singer like me can have a go at belting out at a good volume.

The 24 year old lass who plays the organ at St Marks likes to "make the windows rattle" and it is a good sound.  It's just that I feel I am in a time warp,  But having had a year of online worship, I'm just so glad to be around. Because I will always be grateful to Belmont chapel, my home, who gave me so much.  To whom I must seem so ungrateful.  But, in a congregation which barely tops 50 worshippers, it is a little easier not to drown.

Prophets and Profits

 Today is another candle on the wonky Amazon fake greenery Advent wreath.  As a complete newbie to all things traditional, Anglican and higher than the St Leonards end of church, I have learned these candles have meaning - except this seems to vary, depending on which wikipedia source you read!  Nothing strange there.

Personally I like the "Patriarchs/prophets/Mary/John the Baptist explanation for the three deep red candles.  The third one is, apparently, rose - the "joy" candle.  Quite frankly my candle is Barbie pink! The white candle is the middle is the light of Christ and that I light every morning when I pray as it is any excuse to have some light on a dark Winter morning.  For some reason, this fills me with joy.  I have my fairy lights up in the front room and when my non church going friends from work come for dinner, Emily says "you can't have them up, it's not December" I tell her that they are Advent fairy lights !!!  Any excuse for multi colour living room joy.

At work we have corporate Christmas cutouts of snowmen/reindeer/elves and penguins(?) in the appropriate group colours pinned to our "Sneeze screens" and tinsel around everything.  I've been given an Elf crew mug, and Friday's Christmas jumper for Save the Children day.  I love it, I am not scrooge, it's just there is something in me, deeply, that wants to keep Christmas as that twelve days festival that starts on Christmas Eve.  Ex.cept you know I won't.  I will give in and put the tree up

Beginnings

 Last week I went to my first Tai Chi class. Having wanted to do something martial-arty for years.  So, as Pilates practice made my neck feel worse and the classes were expensive and at times that I coudn't make, I decided to be brave and go see for myself.

It's always difficult being the clueless newbie! Last year, that was me at work, this year it is me trying my best to follow the demonstration of our tutor, who looks like a buddhist monk - shaved head, gentle demenour (he works in a physio as a therapist)  He moves like a crane, dancing with it's wings outstretched.  Flowing and smooth.  But he's the tutor so he should be a master of his craft.

We start with an awareness/breathing exericse to loosen up and I breathe a sigh of relief and wish I'd not had to rush home from work/had so much tea.

45 minutes later I am trying to remember my left from my right - I didn't last the whole "beginners form" class, but sat and watched the last 15 minutes.  It's hard - to focus, to flow, to be gentle and precise, when all my sport has been strength based - swiming, walking, lifting a few weights, cycling in the gym. None of these prepared me for the subtle shifts and transfer of weight and what he described as "moving meditation" although, for me, swimming can feel like prayer.

I will go back again and remember that it takes 36 hours of practice at least - to master the beginner's form. 

Remember

It's good to remember

And I marked it, standing in pitch black, 

listening to an owl relentlessly calling.

Swirling and scribing liquid fire 

Scattering star sparks

And standing in wonder.

Looking at friends faces

wondering like small children

Fully alive.

COP26

 It's hard to listen to the news sometimes isn't it?  Domesday has been the theme for so long - Covid19 and now COP26.  

It's very tempting to stick your head under the duvet and pretend it all isn't happening.  It's such a complicated, inter-connected world after all.  Greta Thunberg is well intentioned, but she annoys most of the folks I have worked with - think it is her simplictiy of vision, her contention that we must act, without any idea of the cost implication of how complex societies will implement the ideas she champions.  She certainly annoys me if I am honest.

This week, I have shouted at my TV - some show on saving money and the planet - listing the changes as ground source heat pumps - but "you'd need a big garden" oh and they are ridiculously expensive, electric or hybrid vehicle - expensive and nowhere yet to charge it in Terrace-house land.  What, I wonder, will they do with all the scrapped conventional cars?  Let alone that most mechanics are, apparently, not trained in dealing with this technology.

I did a quick "carbon footprint" calculator  - WWF, because an article on BBC news tells me that the sustainable footprint is 2.3 - well, no surprise that I am above that, even with a simplish life - I drive to work and I don't think 15 miles by bike is going to happen anytime soon.

But, positive, small steps.  I have swapped to a veg box, delivered on a more affordable plan, and a couple of other changes too.  There are some lovely, positive podcasts on BBC sounds that I would recommend - 39 ways to save the planet and also People fixing the planet which is from BBC world service.. From harvesting locusts for livestock feed, to building multi-storey homes with wood, not concrete and many other innovative and genuinely encouraging things.

There is enough doom and gloom in the world even if it is needed.

Flames

 A friend of mine, Morag Lobley has a book of "poems and wonderings" published.  It's called "Flames" and is available from Bridge Books or I can get a copy.

It's excellent - Morag writes from her heart as she says in her introduction - and she can certainly write!  There are reflections on bible characters, on current events, and on Jesus.  Most touchingly, there is a section on grief.  I don't have experience of loss like this, but for my own much smaller loss, I have found her poem "Steps" very, very resonant, as a friend has said to me, "Judith would have wanted you to enjoy life" - which she would, of course!

"Steps" Morag Lobley (Flames)

He died..

And I said,

I choose life,

Not knowing how big a step that was.

The next day

 I chose life again

and the next....

How

    many     

        steps?"

Poems drive deep into our hearts.  I used to write, but I find that I can't write that kind of thing so well, so will make do with blogs!  There will be a blog soon on my adventures in the South Hams, when I have a bit of headspace.

SAD - for beginners!

 SAD - seasonal affective disorder.  It's not "winter blues" even if I may tell you it is.  I have been doing some reading around as it is something I have experienced, as regularly as the seasons, for about 10 years.

It starts, usually for me, as the light wanes, early September and kicks in as the clocks change bringing dark mornings, dark evenings.  It starts to lift in February - as the light changes.

I read that if you have 2 or more episodes, it is diagnosed.  That would be two years of miserable winters!

The treatment varies - for me, the ususal "have you tried a light box" works not at all.  I take a bit more anti-depressant in the winter - my brilliant doctor and I have worked on a pattern that is effective although the weight gain makes me snarl in total utter frustration.  It is a very miserable side effect.

The best things are simple: SAD makes me want to sit on the sofa, go to bed early and hibernate and not see people.  It is like one of Harry Potters Dementors - it draws the life and energy out of you, leaving you no energy to do the good things that work.

So each Autumn I make a plan.  This usually involves me booking an early swim, and forcing myself to walk for 10 minutes outside even if it is just about light, before work.  Planning meals - otherwise I eat chocolate! And I start to plan a spring holiday - in this case it will be in March, two walking days in Cornwall. St Ives - beautiful in Spring, horribly crowded in Summer.

I'm planning on leaving my trainers by the door, so that I practically fall over them because I work 40 hours and that's a fairly long day.  I need to get out.  I'm preaching to myself here.

Being honest to friends is another good strategy.  And now I'm off to swim!

Shades of Autumn

 "Bereavement" (Ann Lewin"Waiting for the Kingfisher"

Dark place

Where, vulnerable, alone,

We lick the wounds of loss.

Wise friends say little,

But hold us in their love,

And listen.

There are no guarantees,

Only reports from those

Who've been there. 

That there is hope,

And life persists."

The words above say it far better for me than words of my own.  

I lit an early morning candle for Judith in the Cathedral, a place about which, working professionally for the diocese, she had very mixed feelings.  It helped me anyway.  

It's the little things I miss - teasing her that everything has to match - toilet rolls, towels, soap, washing up liquid - who on earth matches their washing up liquid to the colour of their kitchen?  Judith did.

Hearing her voice in my head, quietly and sanely responding.  Walking on Dartmoor - crossing a river on a sluice gate because "the map says there is a path" and me saying "but it isn't on the ground" The retort was a cross "well it should be" I couldn't argue but we ended up wringing out socks and tipping out boots after ploughing through sodden marshy ground the other (safely path strewn) side of the river.

Listening to the endless search for an impossible item of clothing - straight trousers in a year of flappy wide ones, white sandals (!) in a year of navy blue. And wondering who else cleans window frames on an evening when you could be sitting in the garden with a book?

I think it will be standing room only at her funeral.

September ups and downs

 What a September!  A little summary should follow I think.  We have had weeks working in a tiny training room and now we have been unleased on the remodelled new office.  Comments vary from "airport lounge" - blue carpet, white walls, gregory logo obscured glass breakout rooms, lots of space.  It's much nicer but at the moment, oh so noisy!  Myself and Stacey are in the cool, quiet corner but we face three noisy managers who shout at their laptop microphones when they should be using their headseats.

We are surrounded by piled up dismantled desks, emptied cardboard boxes, discarded ceiling light boxes. But it is clean, light and I like it!

Sandwiched in between was a holiday in Cornwall. Most of the week the skies were like this:

The usual mix of some lovely coastal waks, amazing smoked salmon and scrambled egg breakfasts, leisurely coffees and a bit of touristy shopping in Porthleven. And lazy evenings watching sunsets and Netflix.

It's hard to write a blog sometimes.  

This is one of the times, because for the last few months, my long time friend Judith has been slowly losing her fight with cancer.  To put it into perspective, I've literally known Judith half my life.  We walked together in the same walking group, worshipped together in St Leonards church, laughed and, in my case cried together, through my divorce.  And then as she had her first and second cancer diagnoses.  Through losing her parents, through losing my job - several times, redundancies are common these days.

I'd been to my aunty and uncles. A long day, a long drive.  I poured a tin of G&T.  The phone rang - Judith. "I have spine cancer" I remember saying to her "did you just say...." Hard to take it in. 

Cancer is such a bastard.  It takes the gentle, wise, stubborn friend.  Who hated floppy trousers - wide legs - such as I will wear to her funeral.  Whose warm smile and enthusiasm and cry of "mmm" when presented with anything she liked, I am sorely missing. Who had to have all film and TV references explained as she was too busy being kind to people.

September is a lovely month.  But I will remember Judith with love.

Playing with Fire

This week I have been for one of those box ticking exercises inflicted by the NHS - a health check.  I have a suitably bruised arm from a fairly novice blood taker, and an instruction to walk more - despite being in the "active" category which apparently very few are!! Madness.  Didn't need any encouragement - I swam at 8am and then went to Knightshayes to walk.  The kitchen garden is always the best bit - lovely shapes and the fragrances of herbs.  The weird and twisty shapes.  The bright dahlias and sunflowers lifted my heart.  Quiet trees and needle strewn paths and an avoidance of the honey pot of the tea shop!

Afterwards, I helped my friends in their project of a garden: I was their bonfire warden, after telling them last time that I wanted to be the one to light the fire:  I left too long between visits so the fire was a damped down, smouldering ash heap with blackened stumps but a heart of glow and embers.  My job to wake the dragon!

Fire. Warmth, light, danger, safety, flickers of orange dancing up around green mottled wood. Feeding it air and fuel to awaken it. 

The hissing and crackling as green leaves and fir branches went on.  Explosions of sparks from the giant fire cones - nature's fire lighters, resinous and eventually alight and blackening.  I couldn't stop staring into it's depths as the tiger flames hungrily curled into the green wood. White smoke curled and billowed up and out, drifting across the grass. Ashes swirl around the firepit.  

Standing and watching, feeling the warmth on shorts and bare legs, sign of the spirit, life and unpredictability, holiness and an edge of challenge.  And because I am overthinking as I write, what I actually thought was "other people invite you to a barbecue, here it's me being barbecued"  It was a shame we didn't have chocolate biscuits and marshmallows to toast - it was reminding me of being a guide, and building fires to cook on - going home reeking of woodsmoke and happiness.

Tarka Trailling

 

Yesterday I kicked myself out of a cosy-duveted bed to walk in North Devon.  I think I drove on auto-pilot, fuelled by Tesco chocolate milk from the meal deal I picked up as I had a couple of small glasses of red wine the previous night and that is more than enough to make me feel fairly seedy. Enough not to want to make a packed lunch at 6.30am.  

Parked up in the train station carpark at Barnstaple, the lure of a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich called to me.  It's been a tough week.  An old friend from St Leonards died from kidney and lung failure - I found out, by text, at work. And a long term friend is slowly losing a brave battle with cancer.  Steadfast friend that I am, I find it hard - it's the August that does it - the same month as I lost another friend 6 years ago.  Memories!

Fuelled, and fortified and very slightly more awake I walked up to Fremington Quay.  North Devon is like Cornwall - full of holiday folk ; Tarka shared his trail with a huge rush of bikes - families with little kids on bright bikes, elderly folks on electric bikes, and lycra clad men who thrashed past at speed.  

And the occasional walker. I passed one flagging couple as I walked back and we had a little banter about tea and cake - his knee looked dodgy but I hope he made it as the cake is very nice.

It set me up for an epic battle with the weeds, grasses, and most of all the brambles of Kathy/Peter/Morag's overgrown "secret garden"  A very warm battle, indeed but so mind altering in a good way.  Hard work digging out a border with good company and a very huggable labrador who likes to share her beautiful blonde fur with me.  All over my navy shorts!

It's the time of year that nature goes spectacularly to seed.  Weeds and wilds.  People are like grass - they don't last.  Not forever.  Not on this earth anyway.  Not for now.  But in nature I know nothing goes to waste.