pphhhhhhh…….what a SIZZLER

just a few  images of my summer – being retired means you can relish every minute!

beautiful Oriental poppies full of style, colour and delicate beauty

BUT even those beauties suffer from ‘the morning after the night before’ look – still look stunning though in a bedraggled way!

my favorite plant, well one of them – what a colour and I love the black centre

this Campanula has blown me away this year – it obviously loves sunbathing!

never seen these emerge before but yet another delight

wall art – obviously this hot weather has bought forth little shy plants

my cool spot under the copper sycamore

wish I could grow chickens in a pot but no, this one thought I’d made her a nice dust bath!                                

on Knuckles and my daily walk we found some beautiful Butterfly orchids

natures sculpture -this always reminds me when I’m a bit down that a life with no heart is no life at all – hope this weather is not melting you. Knuckles having a cool off – I even have a paddle and it is so……. C O O L aahhhh!

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The treasure of leisure.

I now use words like amble, stroll, space (not outer but inner). I now observe, stop and stare, follow up my observations, just gently learn. Time is on my side and I try not to waste a moment. I have always been over eager, over enthusiastic, rushing, dashing. Life so full so many parts to attend to, endless servicing this bit and propping up another, accepting parts that were over and either joyfully or sorrowfully watch them disappear. But through all this hustle and bustle, joy and sorrow, unaware of images, feelings, emotions, beliefs, needs, strengths, weaknesses, that were weaving around my inner core. I am more aware of myself as a person than I ever have been in my life. Its as though I have forgiven myself for being a fool, and am trying to concentrate on improving the good bits.

I am now not afraid of the silence but joyfully accept noisy bits when they cross my path.

My silence is full of wonderful memories and fun; of numbing sadness and sorrow; of always going forward; of trying to make the right decisions; of embracing life with all my limitations. So silence is never quiet and I joyfully accept the noise from the hear and now when it crashes in and opens up new possibilities. Because they are all there if you want them enough and I think I do!

4.26am

awake but warm and cosy.  My new ‘no car’ life is fast approaching.  Am planning all the things I must do whilst still a car owner.  All very mundane really.  Suddenly dull jobs like filling the car up with old carpet pieces, a rusty bike frame, numerous broken and useless items which sort of hang about well, for years must be sorted NOW.  My mental planning resolves itself  so I turn to my trusty friend the radio for some early morning company.

My sleeping for some time has become erratic.  In the past I could  just manage to read a page or two of my current title before the gentle sound of snoring plus the crash of a falling book woke me for a minute, so light off and then back to the snoring. Thank goodness this ability to drop off easily amused my poor husband  as he never found sleep easy to come by.  But now if  I manage four or five hours its fine.  It doesn’t worry me.  I don’t make cups of tea or nibble biscuits.  I sometimes try to read but mostly I have a good think with just the gentle night sounds for company and then I turn on the radio.  What an extraordinary night world there is out there.  Talk about travel I am always being transported to the many, many countries I will never visit, to cultures I had no knowledge off, and simply to gasp at the enormous breadth of human existence that inhabits our beautiful jewel like world.  Then there is the shipping forecast which takes me all round this little green island, whipping up pictures of cold rough seas tossing small fishing boats full of hardy folk trying to make a living.  And I’m cosy and warm and awake! Last night there was a lovely interview with a youngish Australian photographer who has an exhibition of his work at the moment in London.  He is part aboriginal and has been exploring  his ancestry . He started out being a wedding photographer but now enjoys the luxury of being “answerable to no-one about my work’.  He was interested in peoples take of his work but had a really lovely attitude towards it being ‘art’ . He just did it because he could and luckily he found an audience.  Good luck to him. And its takes me nicely to 6.00am so I think I’ll have an good hour of Radio 3 to set me up for the day. Good morning day.