First Sunday in Advent 2021

Friends, bloggies, countrywomen, I am curled up on the green sofa here feeling deeply deeply grateful for the grace of our year that turns and turns again time after time, bringing us back to the same gentle points of pause. The places where, no matter what that year has brought or wrought or wrangled, you can start again. Happy First Sunday in Advent.

I love November. I say this every year! I love November. It has no agenda for us in our house - no birthdays, no big events, no demands. It has become my time to marvel at the big, bare, bleak skies and just breathe. However - this year I have noticed with awe the colour of it all.

We have had spectacular sunrises and sunsets in this northern part of our northern Ireland. Mind you, maybe we always did and I didn't notice because I wasn't spending as much time down on the shore and beyond. So, here is my rather fanciful idea for the start of my Advent...

I wonder if the vibrant, glowing, sky-illuminating colours of this November's skies could paint all the emotions of the last year - all the joys and all the pain and all the hope and all the persecution. It could all be written on the clouds, laid out, inspected, recognised, declared. And even if some of the beauty was a terrible beauty, too much of a beauty to take in, it was still beautiful.

And haven't the skies been recognised as declarations for so many generations of thinkers? A young man who achieved great things after years tormented and chased and abused could still say, " The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (Psalm 19)

The week after Jolly was here I spent a lot of time wondering why I had used the word "command" when I was describing our dusk walk down at the shore. At the time I hesitated over it and couldn't explain to myself why it was nonetheless the only word that I knew I needed to choose. I decided eventually that the closest I could get came from a passage that our assistant minister had talked about earlier in the Autumn. "But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. "

I think that the command for me recently has come from my November skies and I'm taking it as my Advent word this year. I'm going to try to let all those colours of the year settle as I make some attempt to take stock. I'm going to heed the instruction to take "a long thoughtful look" at what is over my head, and in it. I'll declare all those emotions as the skies declare their Creator God, and we'll finish another year together, He and I.

Happy First Sunday in Advent x

(Apologies for my generally depressed and depressing thoughts! It's been a tough old time here, and I do know that I really need to get over it all! And you know that the Bible bits are from Psalm 19 and the Message version of the first chapter of the letter that Paul wrote to early Christians in Rome. And I'm also still sorry for the rubbish pictures from my phone which is still all cracked and still held together with sticky tape!!)

November

 

Jolly and I have had a blissful day today discussing how much we both love, adore and cherish the stunningly beautiful month of November. It turns out that we both take great comfort from the bare blue skies at this time of the year. It's a stark month, with falling temperatures and darkening days, but it has a purity and a command that is spectacular, we think!

We went for a slow short walk along the shores of Belfast Lough when I finished school and errands. Dusk was creeping across the water, itself glowing with all the colours of the day. We were very happy, but also glad to get back to a wee cup of tea. Quite a big cup of tea in fact, and look at the mug that Jolly chose... Do you get the feeling that he might be getting homesick?

He is curled up in that big armchair now with the blanket round him, reading a book while I finalise his plans for tomorrow. He has decided to get all his meetings done in a day, so he'll have coffee with Niamh before lunch with Aoife before dinner with Grainne. I asked if he wanted to pace himself, but he said that there was no point hanging about. 

"It's like when I have lot and lots of heavy parcels to deliver," he said. "I could spread them out over a few days but then people would be cross at having to wait, and I'd wake up knowing that there was still work left-over. I much prefer to keep everyone, including myself, jolly," said Jolly!

He also said that he will be wearing his kilt. It is apparently keeping him warm in these chilly Irish climes. Annie, did you tell him what he's (not) supposed to be wearing underneath?

So, a busy day tomorrow! We wish you all a beautiful bare sky above you, a blanket around you, and a wee cup of tea in both hands x

Happy Pumpkins

Might I be honest? Could I tell you what I really think about Thanksgiving? Divulge my secret from across the wide Atlantic sea? Well, presuming your affirmative reply, I shall whisper quietly, lean in, that it's all about the pumpkin pictures. I fully understand and admire the looking back on past Ebenezers, and hasn't the Lord been good to us after all? I fully understand and admire the gatherings of family and friends without quite all the trappings of materialism and tinsel. I also fully understand and admire the recipes and the pies and the feasting and the more time off work.


However, what it does for me, here, in this little and frozen Northern land, is prolong the visual pumpkin season. We only see pumpkins for those weeks before Hallowe'en. Very few of them are grown here; indeed I imagine that only recently have any of them been grown here at all. But you, y'all, you have pumpkin fields galore; I know; I've seen one, once! In Indiana many harvest moons ago now...


All this to say- obviously Happy Thanksgiving to all you fabulous American bloggistes who make my screen shiny with love and life. But more importantly for me, thank you for all those glorious pumpkins x

Paddington 2

 Friends invited us to come along to see Paddinton's big screen movie sequel last Saturday. Oh, it's just beautiful. It's all golden and shiny and full of wholesome ideas. We all laughed and laughed, and we all cried and cried too. Admittedly we laughed not just at the script, but also at our friend who guffawed outrageously at Phoenix Buchanon's lines. Quite soon we were guffawing in anticipation of his guffawing. It was all fantastically delightful, but would be even better if you decide to leave it until the holidays. Perfect Christmas viewing. (Certainly better Christmas viewing than any of the other Big Store Christmas mini-films this year, I would propose. Although Marks & Spencer have scored the goal of the merchandising year in this little bear!)

 I did love Mr Gruber's shop and, on the subject of merchandising, PB's hat. If M&S were selling red fedoras with a South American ribbon, I'd be right there. We have, I must confess, already bought their PB tree ornament and some of their PB wrapping paper. This from a woman who bans all discussion of Christmas until after the first of its month, and who doesn't get her children to write Christmas lists. Yes, M&S are doing a very fine job. I'm amazed they don't have PB marmalade in the food hall. Do they?

 I was concerned at PB's incarceration. I wasn't at all sure that this was a plot twist with potential. I was wrong. From the blessed pink sock, redeeming all of us who have ever dyed their manly menfolk's clothing pink, to the pink-spectacled transformation of the penal system, all was well, all was well, and all manner of Oliver Twistian reference was well.

 Speaking of Dickens, Hugh Grant was a gloriously dirty Magwitch, alongside the whole catalogue of his felons. I'm not sure how much he enjoyed the gamut of Phoenix Buchanon- on Graham Norton two weeks ago, I thought he seemed decidedly cagey about his involvement.  And actually, I enjoyed the catalogue of other actors, token or main, so much more even than him. It was a treasure trove of faces, popping up everywhere, like that gorgeous book at the centre of the plot- Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Joanna Lumley, Eileen Atkins, Ben Miller and Tom Conti. It made me think of a whole queue of darlings lining up to be allowed in to play with Hugh, Hugh and Julie.

 Here are my two top stars, though. Brendan Gleeson as Knuckles nearly broke my heart! Did you see him as the guard in The Guard? The first thing I am going to do when my boys turn 18 will be to watch The Guard with them- it is too, too rude to put before them now, but if you haven't seen it, love Ireland, and are not easily shocked by expletive, you might want to watch this. You have been warned. I missed him in Hampton with Diane Keaton. I might want to watch that.

However, Sally Hawkins: the beautiful, creative, flowing, funny Mrs Brown. Does every mum in the land want to be like Mrs Brown, and live in a house with a cherry tree mural growing up the stairs? And not minding her seventies kitchen? I was the same with Maggie Gyllenhaal in Nanny McPhee 2, after which I wanted a Shetland tank top to wear over a tea dress in my bright green living room. I was also the same when I watched Margot in Despicable Me- tweed jacket, glasses, worried expression. It's very clever what these movie people do- although I think Louisa May Alcott did it just as accurately in Jo as well.

A friend thought PB2 quite political- I found it less so than PB1. You could undoubtedly write an essay on how both movies argue against a Brexit stance, and/or any harsh immigration policy. Certainly, Mrs Brown's final adventure leaves one in no doubt about what the producers think about all that. Our guffawing friend was very much in favour of the film, and he is most vociferous when it comes to "Down with things like this". Indeed, he spotted the ten commandments in one of the songs? I was sorry I'd missed that, so if and when you do give yourself one of the greatest possible treats of this strange and not-yet Christmas time of the year, do listen out for that!

For Your Tomorrow...

 Now, let me make my poppy position clear. As with all else in Northern Ireland, it becomes as divisive as the way you pronounce the letter "h" or as the way you answer the question, "Where did you go to school?" With this year being the centenary of both the Somme and the Easter Rising, you can imagine which event was claimed by each set of hard-line defenders of culture, heritage and identity. And I'm not particularly interested in belonging to either one of them, thank you very much. I find this day and these rememberings just as painfully poignant as anyone else. I have, with my army childhood rooted in The Troubles, just as many reservations about our dealing with the past as the next forty-something Northern Irish native. As a mother, I work hard at discussing all of it with as much good sense and faith perspective as I can muster.

However, when our Hookery group was asked by the council to produce two installations to mark the Somme centenary in our local Mossley Mill and the council offices in Antrim, I did crochet my little heart out. Admittedly my thirteen poppies were but a small offering towards the 282 we needed to symbolise twice the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme. It was undeniably moving to watch the huge pile of individual poppies on the table come together into a collective whole, twice! All the different patterns and shades and textures becoming on vibrant flower, twice. For me it represented more even than the 420,000 individual lives lost in one huge and bloody whole. On a much smaller, but more hopeful, scale it depicted what our Hookery group is for me. Individual women coming together with their different ages, stages, worries, joys, stories, and forming one very warm, very lovely, very supportive whole.

Heather Boss' account of the poppies is over on the Hookery blog. The two pieces are called: For Your Tomorrow and They Gave Their Today. I am so sorry to all who have and to all who do and to all who will.  That we should live in such a world as this.

Our daily bread

 Mattman baked his first loaf of bread this week. It was Savoury Irish Bread week in Home Economics this week and he came bolting out of school brandishing his box and a smile. There were three mouthfuls left! Two were buttered and left for Jo and Dad.

 I have been soaking lots of fruit in lots of brandy and ginger wine for Christmas cakes, but I haven't got much further than that, despite today's great plans, because Prince Charming has had the fire lit in here all day, and it's very hard to leave!

 Jo did the second of his three transfer papers for Big School this morning. Two down and one to go, and then it will be Christmas! So we're all at very humble stages of getting things done this week- all very ordinary, common activities that don't set the world alight, but that are nonetheless filled with lots of personal satisfaction. They're the sort of things that warm the house in gentle ways.

This weekend winter wanted to make sure that we knew it was here. We had lots of stormy snow last night, that didn't lie, but left us with low temperatures and the stark beauty of November in all its fullness. I do continue to love November! It is my time of my getting ready, quietly, gently, humbly.

What I have discovered this month though is the website of Our Daily Bread. The photography is lovely, the resources are extensive, and the readings are very helpful indeed. Love to you all, and to you all a good night x

Remembrance

When I was in London at the start of last month everyone told me to go to see The Poppies. I will be honest and say that they were not top of my list. I grew up the daughter of an army man in Belfast in the seventies and it was not good.

So while my father and my brother are both now members of the British Legion, and while I go to buy poppies from them, and while I talk much to the boys, especially at this time of the year, about war and its consequences, I am not comfortable with these long weeks of remembrance.

Interestingly I have a colleague in work who grew up in the South of Ireland. Her grandfather volunteered to fight in the Second World War, as many Southerners did. She has however been struck by the intensity of remembrance since her move North. I do think, and this will be a very different experience from across the water, that Remembrance has often been appropriated by one side of our communities here in the Frozen North, like the Irish language and Ulster Scots, like hurley and rugby, like flags, like the National Anthems.

It is very exciting then to see today that Irish diplomat, Dan Mulhall, laid a wreath at the London Cenotaph, that Taoiseach Enda Kenny was at the emotive Enniskillen Memorial for his third time, and that Minister for Foreign Affairs, Charlie Flanagan, went to Belfast's ceremony.

Angela from Tracing Rainbows happened to be visiting us in Belfast on Remembrance Day a few years ago. I had to explain to her, in tones hushed for the demographic of the crowd as much as by the solemnity of the occasion, that the Mayor was not there because he was from Sinn Fein, but that the Deputy Mayor would be happy enough to attend because he was from one of our many and disparate unionist groups.

She has a fabulous post today about the Hovering Angel. I had seen a picture of it this week on a Radio 4 link. The accompanying paragraph said that Germany had lost twice as many people as Britain's 880246, but had no national day of remembrance. The boys wanted to know why. Maybe because only the winners get to celebrate their lost? Maybe that's why here in the North we still fight for our right to remembrance not just for what we have lost, but also for what we think we have won. Mind you, history does point to the sad fact that here in the North we just fight!

So my soul looks to the hovering angel tonight. It broods as I do thinking about all the colleagues Dad lost, all the rivers of blood seeping from countries near and far. I did go to see The Poppies at the Tower, and I have ordered two for my Legionnaires, and I was moved by the scale and the sadness and the beauty. I stood for a long time in the warm gold of early evening and watched the wave wash up over the bridge. I said the other day that my favourite war poem is Owen's Parable of the Old Man and the Young, and I think of it every time I see a Prime Minister at the Cenotaph,

But the old man would not so, but slew his son
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Happy Hallowe'en Views and into November

 Here we are in my favourite month of the year. Clear, grey, empty expanse of a month that revels in its calm before the neon explosion of Christmas! Who will be blogging everyday this year? I think I might. It's become my catching up month. My catching breath month. My Forest of Toon Tellegen month!

 I went into Mattman's room to snap the glorious golden foliage of the tree outside his window, but it's all gone!

 The Argory have expanded their forest playground. Lots of things for adult children to try as well!

 And beautiful textures and colours all around.

 This was the walled garden on Thursday. I could not believe the heavy fragrance of the roses at this stage in the year. It really has been the warmest Autumn I certainly remember.

 It all made me think of the box of green wool that constitutes most of my limited "stash". I love having a blanket on the hook through the winter, and I'm thinking of an Argory Blanket- all greens with rows of brown and gold?

 More colour at the Ulster Museum's fascinating exhibition on the periodic table. I had not one inkling of scientific comprehension at school. But I'm making up for it now!

 Today I am gradually packing away all the orange; more quickly than these mild days are allowing the garden to do! I am also picking up lots of sweetie wrappers and lolly sticks after an impressive haul brought home by a house full of trick or treaters last night.

Hallowe'en is really quite controversial here among people of faith. We've always tried to steer an Autumn-celebrating line that nonetheless allows guests to dress as witches or be gruesome if they so decide. There is trick or treating, we laugh and gurgle our way through ducking for apples, we have food and fun and friends. We generally jump at any excuse for a party! I'm not sure that I would warn my children from the ways of the occult just by forbidding them to take part in any of the above. I wonder would I be more effective at building up their spiritual armour by being more patient, more joyful, more faith-ful all year long?

View from my keyboard

Sorry, Jane. I could have had a spectacular view of Belfast Lough under cold, fabulous winter skies today. Or a possibly last golden views of the most resilient autumn foliage outside. And one of these days I'll charge my little camera to have a spectacular view of Cave Hill from my new place of work.  But here it is. The dining room, again! Complete with laundry, vestiges of dinner, and an aspirational monument to ironing in the corner. Installation art, I like to think of it as.

Today I:

Got up, got boys out, got out. I'm getting better at this in week two of being back at work. I've got to Thursday before crying at the cold, dark monotony of getting out of bed early EVERY day. I know. Pathetic.

Went to work. Worked. Good grief, did I work today.

Came home from work to my glorious big son.

Took him with me to collect my glorious smaller son who been eco-clubbing in the school garden. Sounds like an environmentally-friendly version of going out and having a blast. They were out. And he did have a blast.

We went to the least swish of our three four Loughside cafes and watched dusk come down over Belfast Lough with a little plane bound for the airport.

When it was time to go to the solicitor's we walked through the cold village and Jo managed not to be knocked down.

I signed a very important legal document, and came one step further to being/having Power of Attorney along with my brother.

Got home to find my brother on the doorstep, and we had a needed debrief on being/having Power of Attorney. (I did bring him in off the doorstep.)

Made dinner whilst conducting a long telephone/text/facebook exchange with my friend and mother of my children's friends who keeps me sane in the realm of homeworks, preparations, and all things needing to be done that I may not be at all aware of.

Ate dinner with Prince Charming, allowing the boys to eat in the other room because they could NOT miss this episode of Scooby Doo Something. I know. Pathetic.

Left PC struggling manfully with aforementioned homeworks, preparations and all things needing to be done.

Took Dad to hospital to see Mum. She is poorly, at the minute, despite having made some wonderful progress from a Very Bad Thing that happened way back in August.

Took Dad home and made him dinner, at 9pm. He's still working on the mealtimes thing.

Came home. Boys in bed. I packed Mattman's PE bag and PC packed his sleeping bag and pillow for a relaxation time in school tomorrow. He has three big tests this month and school brings someone in to do candles and incense and the like to de-stress the poor souls. Mattman, however, appears less stressed than hugely excited at the prospect of candles and incense and our promised Subway lunches when he comes out of the tests.

November is racing by; I can hear it as it goes. It whistles softly in the wind sometimes very late at night, like now. I am not blogging daily this year, although I do miss that opportunity to savour every cold, clear, calm moment that November holds. I have finally worked out how to link to all the fabulous bloggistes who are blogging daily though. Do call round for tea and biscuits. MK might show you how to make a hat...

The November Challenge: they're off!

Update: The thought-full Amy has joined our November bloggistes- visit her over at Considering Lilies, and feed up on food for thought...

 

 

Under starter's orders and the November bloggistes are off to a flying with the blustery leaves start!  I have been trying for half an hour now to add a blogroll to my sidebar with no success, so here is a little post from me on the places to find those cheering us with daily wit and wisdom in November:

Pom Pom at Pom Pom's Ponderings

MK at Through a Glass, Darkly

Kezzie at KezzieAG

Ang at Tracing Rainbows

Dormouse between View from the Teapot and Fat Dormouse Getting Thinner

Obviously we will be most understanding when the pressures of real life preclude  post on absolutely every single one of thirty days, and will contain our disappointment. Another criterion for this little November Challenge is that we, the adoring public, will comment daily. And the last and most exciting criterion is that we will send prizes for the daily blogging in November, as a small token of our gratitude for the brightening of our days as winter descends! (Or for the rays of summer sunshine if you are reading this on the other side of the world!)

Now, off to catch some W&W...

Who's up for this year's November?

In November of last year I needed to hide in the Forest Of Toon (Tellegen) with my to-do list and a daily foray into the Land of Blog to remain sane. The year before that Frances blogged every day in November and demanded prizes for the achievement. I think the sausages were a later demand, but they have become all tied up with blogathons now in my tired and increasingly warping mind.

Reasons why I have announced to at least two people (both of whom I knew) today that November is my favourite month:

1. The slate skies and the wet footpaths are beautiful.

2. The slate skies and wet footpaths mean that winter is here,ergo it's now ok to get out everyone's thermal underwear, replace outgrown thermal underwear, and wear thermal underwear. I am wearing mine right now underneath my witch's dress.

3. November is the gloriously, peacefully, greyly empty month. It sits vacuously with the colourful riot of Autumn and its conker collecting needs on one side and the colourful riot of Christmas and its activity needs on the other. November is festival-free and serenely colourless in my book, and is my time to enjoy the advent of winter with no glittery strings attached.

4. November means that it is nonetheless time to be preparing for Preparing for Advent, our now annual retreat morning for stressed women. Preparing for Preparing for Advent is not the same thing as preparing for Christmas, oh no, mightily indeed. Preparing for Preparing for Advent means a month of my sitting quietly thinking up ways to facilitate other mums thinking quietly and catching a quiet thought with which to survive the preparing for Christmas. I love Preparing for Advent, the event. I also love sitting at home preparing for Preparing for Advent.

5. November is about catching a quiet thought that will sustain.

6. There's usually someone who decides to blog daily in November and I really like that thrill of logging in to see just what they've been up to, or not as the case may be, today...

So, my question is: who will take a turn at blogging daily this November? There could be prizes! This November's blogathon bloggiste will be...

Farewell to the Forest of Toon

So, enough of this tramping around aimlessly in the lovely woods. 'Tis time to engage with the frenetic activity of December. I have cleared most things from the Great Muddle, and still managed to have a very relaxing month. Taking a break from the whole thinking thing is most useful.

I even managed to find, at the back of the bread bin, Angela's marbles. This nearly pleased me more than anything. A dynamo of a woman like that really needs her marbles at this time of the year. They are somewhere between here and there, Ang, and will hopefully be with you in time. In time for what?  Only you could know.

Thank you, forest followers, for bearing with me in the Forest of Toon. I'll be back in the Land of the (sometimes tearful) Strawberries on Sunday for Floss's first Pause xx