guild night

So to Rhos for our embroiderers guild meeting. i felt my time had been wasted when about 20 minutes and a few slides in the speaker said that that was that and we could go and look at her work and her workbooks, which were interesting but not spectacularly so. I can do without work based on car parts and air filters, concept art which doesn't particularly interest me.Maybe that was my fault but we had had a lovely day up to that point looking at a wonderful new exhibition in Ruthin craft centre of which more when I get the photos done, and possibly I was not really in a mood to be receptive.

Today the weather is glorious and we are stuck here as I get the washing and ironing done for going away to Southampton. I hope its worth it!

70th birthday greetings

Today would have been Brendas's 70th birthday so J and I had a day out in her honour. We went to Chester Zoo because that was a place that she liked, and that we both really enjoy. The best part of the trip today was seeing the Spider Monkey who did a trapeze artist dismount and more or less fell through the tree he was aiming at. Monkeys always fascinate me, their hands, their faces, their tales especially when they are prehensile like those of the spider monkeys. It was only a quick spin through the zoo as it was crowded and we can go back when the human animal babies are back at school. Some schools are back already after Easter but not all as we discovered.

Next we had lunch at The Bells in Christleton and excellent it was too, pizzas, tea and a biscuit. We tried to go to the antiques emporium whose name I have forgotten which is south of Nantwhich but the traffic!!! There were queues everywhere including queues to get off roundabouts. We went to Nantwich in the end, and spent a half hour in the Oxfam shop there. The woman in charge told us that  she had been asked to take a personal delivery of some books and CDs and she had agreed thinking that there might be a van full. In the event, two removal lorries turned up. These had belonged to someone who had ended with just enough room to sleep in. A moral there methinks.

Thence to Bunbury and a coffee in a pub, where I sat with dripping hair, and the dog was made a fuss of and given treats which she really doesn't need. And finally home.

This is the second time this week that I have been soaked to the skin and I have a sore throat. I have fingers crossed that it will subside and my cough improve before we go to Petersfield.

Son back off ship yesterday but I have yet to hear from him and we are supposed to be going down there come Friday. I wish we hadn't booked now. It would be easier to be ignored at home than if we have made the trip down and are made to look like fools by a no-show. Oh well! Plus ca change as I have said on more than one occasion in my life.

And just to finish.. a photo of Marthadog. xx

A New Start

I have finally decided to invest in myself and my belief that one day I will write something that matters. To this end, here is the first posting on my brand new Mac. It cost a small fortune but it feels great, the screen is wonderful, I will be able to use my photos directly all being well, and I will be able to start to write here by a bright and sunny window in a chair that is remarkably comfortable seeing that I have been sitting here for a good couple of hours trying to get everything sorted out.

It is still hard to spend money on me. I just feel guilty all the time. Guess that is how I will be for the duration

Josephs mum is in a home. We had a huge drama yesterday when she basically had either a panic attack or a temper tantrum. Not sure which. Anyway, she has been for an EKG and thankfully there was nothing too untoward for an old lady of 89. Her BP and Kidneys were fine as mine are not... So now there is a pow-wow to decide whats next and I am not sure what they will do, they being Christine and Hilarie my sisters in law and J my hubby. Interesting times.

Thats fine for this posting but how easy it all is on this machine.

2014

I am so ashamed of myself - its nearly the end of Feb 2014 and I haven't even looked at this blog for such a long time.
I don't have writers block I have a block abour writing itself. Perhaps I know that once I do start everything else will fall away and I will be jealously guarding my time, and at the moment we do a lot in our lives and I don't want anything to interfere with that precious commodity - time.

Time is a curious concept. We have clocks to measure it, so time must be progressing at the same rate every day, so why is it that time seems to run ever faster for me. I can't begin to believe that I lost Glyn nearly 10 years ago. TEN years. Its the same as from 10 years old and at school to 20 and being away at the Academy and learning about life. Ten years is a huge amount of time. No wonder Proust wrote so much about it in La Recherche etc etc. And so does, in a much smaller and more accessible way, Penelope Lively in her book Ammonites and Leaping Fish which deserves many quotations being copied out.

We were in Spain just a month ago, watching the hills turning into brides covered in confetti as the almond trees came out in blossom. This year, more than ever, it was the country that called to me and not the hotel or Nerja in particular. If I were alone I would live there, endure the summers but love the rest of the time, and it is only really bad around July and August. Oh well. That was another life. Life after Life as Kate Atkinson might have put it.

I miss the mountains, I miss the views, I miss the sun and the depth of blue in the sky. I miss the lovely relaxed atmosphere which is so much a part of the country. I love the language although I don't speak Spanish. I just would love to go back and go back soon, It will be next year though before we do which is a shame.

Now, here in Leeds, its dark and damp. I suppose that the diagnosis of COPD that was finally put onto my records has rattled me. I am fed up not of coughing, but of the exhaustion that comes with the condition. But, I will not be defeated. I will live in the sun by the sea one day. I will.

Another day..

A nice day today apart from the pain in my back which is still overwhelming at times, especially in the morning when I first wake up and I think I will never move again. Joseph took me out for lunch and we went to a little cafe bar called The Olive Tree which is a Turkish restaurant. We shared mezzes and then had a wrap each and coffee. Nice food and we will definitely go there again.

I spent some time tidying as we are going back to Wallasey tomorrow and I hate coming here and finding a mess. I have enjoyed this short stay and wish this flat was somewhere other than Leeds as I love the flat but have grown to dislike Leeds intensely. I hardly ever go into the city centre, and if I do I get out at the first opportunity, and the roar of the traffic is incessant as we are bounded by Harrogate Road and also the Ring Road which are busy all day long. The flat itself is a little haven of peace. Even the work in the flat below doesn't disturb the sense of calm in the space itself, and I am wondering if we can transfer this elsewhere, by buying somewhere on the Welsh Coast or even somewhere like Mold or Ruthin - if they are affordable!

I played around with some expandaprint on fabric and have two backgrounds that I really like so I will sort them out when I get back to Wallasey - they need mounting and backing fabrics and I need to choose them carefully. I also need to finish Abigail's cardi so that I can get on and knit something else - that has just blocked everything for some reason and its annoying me. I only need to actually work about another 10 rows - but its complicated and I have put it off and put it off. No more dilly dally -  I will do it tomorrow.

I am wondering about returning to study philosophy and get on with the ethics course that Joseph paid for. I also am considering applying to do a city and guilds course but as I am always looking at that perhaps I should really do it. It is just the thought of endless samples, but then I might find some inspiration for design ideas. Just wondering as ever.


 

musings

I named the blog thinking I might take the chance to "muse" awhile here and I don't appear to have done so. I have been so resistant to the idea of writing at all, and that is a puzzle. I enjoy seeing the words appear on the screen in front of me, I feel that sometimes I do have something of interest to say, but most often I seem to let the moment pass by. Which is a shame for me if not for anyone else. After all, if I don't write down what I am considering, perhaps it is the same as never having considered that thought at all. An unexamined life, perhaps?

Perhaps its the fact that I live fairly quietly and that in the end other people are neccessary for a flow of ideas? Perhaps its the fact that I live in a lot of pain and am taking heavy duty drugs to try to control some of it? I don't know the answer. I think that writing might be a way out for me, a way to reconnect with the past, to relive some of the occassions that brought me the greatest joy or sadness, to reconnect with the things I used to live for which include music and my piano. One of my greatest regrets is that the music has been silenced. I would play and improvise and enjoy the feel of the keys under my fingers and that doesn't happen too often anymore. I need a music room that is private, where nobody can hear what I am doing, and then I think I would regain some of that pleasure, part of which was physical - the joy of playing - and part of which was the love of piano music and how I could express so much of what I was feeling through my playing.

So what should I turn to first?
a) the memory of childhood?
b) my teenage years
c) my time in London - which I still dream about. In fact, I dreamt about it again only a couple of nights ago.
d) my marriage to Glyn and leaving faith.
e) life as an exile from family, life on the dole, life at the edge in Scarborough.
f) the jobs I had before I returned to music.
g) motherhood, being a wife,
h) being a teacher
I) being widowed
j) Spain!
k) falling in love again, remarriage, moving into a widowers house and selling the family home
l) having adult children who are so far away and what that means
m) my new life
n) Pain
o) being Jewish
p) the things I have loved - stitching, reading, music and what they have meant and mean and new interests.
q) treatment at the hands of the medical profession.
r) learning to love again after being widowed.
s) complicated grief - why, and how it affects me.

Those seem to be whole chapters of books in themselves and it is daunting to start to put them in some kind of order. But if I just lay out these words and put things in - rather like a pointillistic painting - then the whole picture could eventually emerge?

Let me start then at the beginning. Its something I want to do.

 

Laburnum arch at Bodnant

This was the first time we had actually managed to see the Laburnum arch at Bodnant and it was worth the wait, although I would have like to see it at a slightly less crowded time! There were many more species in full bloom - azaleas, rhododendrons, and my favourite wisteria. I would love to grow wisteria and will do so once I know where we are going to live full time. I have loads of pictures of the arch and will use them to do some embroidery in due course.