What I did in my summer holidays

We are doing all the back-to-school things. Uniforms are ironed and hanging in the airing cupboard. Have I ever shown you a picture of my airing cupboard/hot press? It is genuinely exciting, to me. Lunches are packed and in the fridge. School bags are packed and in the hall. It is raining.

So here are a few sunny summer memories from home and away, just to remind me of blue skies! We got to the blissful middle of nowhere in France with friends, the always delightful Surrey with family, and had a wistful farewell trip with our big, blue, old, cathedral of a tent in Fermanagh.

Thank you to all you kind folk who still read and comment here, even though I've been a very absent friend for years maybe now. Working more than I did a decade ago, and having parents to look after now as well as boys, and just trying to live a life, I suppose, dictate less self-indulgence at the keyboard! I have Psalm 37 open here, and saw this in verses 25 and 26:

I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be blessed.

I'm struck by a double layer of meaning for me this weekend. Last night Prince Charming and I were delighted to get to one of Rend's Hometown Gigs. At more recent gigs of theirs that we've been to, they have promoted the work of World Vision, and we're hoping to talk to somebody soon about sponsorship. It seems to cost £26 a month, which is less than my gym membership. It would certainly be money put to better use. I must tell you someday why I joined a gym, the most boring place on earth.

Happy September!

Not still Advent, but in fact Lent!

My goodness, doesn't time fly when you're doing Christmas, New Year, back to school, school exams for Sun 1, looking at new schools for Sun 2, hibernating, stretching and breathing on occasional bright days when the real sun shines blue, organising the gamut of everyone's appointments for approaching half-term!


Time flies. I embraced hibernation between Christmas and the end of January. There was little else to do with everyone so busy! It was a revelation, though, to stop fussing about what needed done, about what wasn't being done, and just reconcile myself to a month in the house surrounded by one revising boy, one Victorian project researching boy, and one very work-stressed daddy! There were cakes as well as revision timetables, it was warm and dry inside, and the weeks whispered past into daylight.


Prince Charming cleared the garage and declared it a boat shed. He and the boys and our farmer neighbour and a school colleague have been sawing and filing and surveying and drinking tea for many cold weeks now, and apparently the bits are ready to be assembled. This has been most exciting!


I cleared my head and declared a Year of Ants and Elephants. I'm still not entirely sure what this means, but it came from friends with whom I was discussing my myriad of unfinished crochet projects. We were weighing the relative merits of clearing big things or small things first. In their house they call this squashing the ants before you can squash the elephant- or something to that effect! Maybe you know of this concept already? Anyway, I am determining to squash an ant or an elephant every month: January saw the completion of my Africa Blanket, and this month I really must finish the tank-top that was started two Springs ago! In fact, the trousers with which I envisaged wearing said tank-top are long past their best!


I also hit on a reading project. Last year a friend made it to the end of 52 books in 52 weeks- impressive. Knowing from past experience that I wouldn't make it past this point in the year, I  thought I would try to read an Alphabet of Authors instead. So in January I read Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, made all the more poignant by Alan Rickman's death mid-way, and Saul Bellow's Him With His Foot In His Mouth.  I am coming to an end of Chris Cleave' The Other Hand, and have Vanessa Diffenbaugh's Language of Flowers lined up and ready to bloom.


The reason why I have not blogged any of this is partly because I have no camera bar the one on a tablet, and partly because I never find the time. Jo's preparation for the transfer test has been replaced by Interesting Homeworks and Days in School. So once a week for more than a month now I have been racing about with him making and sourcing Victorian costume (visit to Folk Park), snow items (Book Day: the Snow merchant), baking and decorating many, many, many buns (P7 Fun Day), and reading all about the Irish Famine, the Victorian Workhouse, Victorian toys....


Conscious all the while that time flies, and that my high octane suns are becoming their own men, circling their own orbits now, and providing sources of energy in other places as well as in mine. Thank goodness for books and crochet!


Wishing you all a gentle end to your winter, or summer! I'm hoping to post some photos and some book reviews and some tales of life outside the Meadowplace, but in the meantime, Happy February x

Irish Views

 Here we are back in the North for the new school term. Dusk in April in East Entrim. This garden (inherited from the green-fingered couple who sold the Meadowplace to us) is most assuredly a Spring garden. From now on swathes of colour will roll across the beds.

 The magnolia is in full flower, and even my timid potted camellia is gaining courage. But last week we were down in Wicklow and Wexford for a few days. We stopped at Newgrange on the way..

Laid by Neolithic masterminds the overlapping stones of the roof have kept out rain for five thousand years. In Ireland by Frank Delaney the Storyteller has the most fabulous account of its construction. Maybe it'll be third time lucky when next I go and I'll actually manage to be there at the right time to visit the cairn and tomb themselves.

 Prince Charming on Brittas Beach.

 Strawberries at Glendalough for their first visit to Kevin's community. They bounded round the Lower Lough, and may have noticed some impressive sights along the way.

 Surely they noticed the Round Tower?

 We climbed the little hill to what is marked as the site of St Kevin's Cell. I think we were disappointed that there wasn't an actual cave. Though they do have a beautiful sculpture of the bird laying an egg on his palm. Much discussion as to whether you really could let the egg stay there until it hatched. Would the bird need to be hatching it all that time?

The Monastic City. It's as if you could catch a glimpse of someone hurrying to prayer, or carrying a basket of potatoes in from the vegetable garden. Glendalough survived numerous Viking raids, and was ultimately ended by Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. I don't think you can come away without humming this...

Safe to shore

Here's the latest from Rend, although huge as they now are in the States, maybe you've all already got your CD! Interesting spot of pier jumping towards the end. Alternative July activity for those not engaged in Recreational Rioting- our two national summer sports.


When I follow my link to "Leaving number 28", there'll be precious little to read. It's a precious time though. There will be pictures this week. For the strawberry archive! Before Prince Charming packs the computer...


For now it's all cardboard boxes and lots of Rend.

Start of Lent

I do love Lent.  I don't always have very much to say, and will happily confess to having played Rend to you all last year because I really wasn't doing too much thinking of my own! This part of Lent is nonetheless very much about the return for me. That's the first section in my annual Lent book. The Return.

Getting back has usually been about getting back to daily time for thought and inspiration. This year however, after a particularly wet, grey, tired Autumn and Winter, I'm also very much getting back to blue skies and natural warmth, getting back to suns running around outside, getting back to what's important in lots of ways. I sat for most of this morning, drinking tea and crocheting with Heather Boss, watching our apple blossom tree through the window. I'm sure the blossoms were appearing before my eyes.

Even having our house on the market makes me consider what is incontrovertibly important to us. Speaking of the possible move, when I looked back at Jane's list of Lenten thoughts, the two that struck me most tonight were:

Fast from worry; feast on divine order.

Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that strengthens.

Getting back to divine order and strengthening prayer would be a fine Pause in Lent! It's perhaps no coincidence that this house business is starting in Lent. We're wandering around in a complete state of uncertainty, trusting wholly in God's provision, facing months of uncertainty, and the wandering journey has to be part of our faith story- part of the whole family's faith story.

That's quite exciting...

Spot the strawberries!

Here it finally is! A really super video on Rend and church and community and faith. Prince Charming is very easy to spot- female fraise makes brief appearances! And if you'd like more music, try this- don't know that our voices are quite so easily distinguished in the crowd!

Novembers

There must be something about November that speaks to our collective unconscious. In one of my former lives I was a swotty counselling student, and I have to say that I loved Jung. To me November is that gorgeously stark time when you get to roam around the crisp streets with a hat and not feel slightly ridiculous. I do love and adore being able simply to enjoy Winter without all the noise, noise, noise, noise that the Grinch despised!

I was looking back at other November posts on fraise, and came across this one from last year. I remember being so excited at the prospect of a whole month of Frances and wishing I had the commitment to be as hardy as the Philosopher! (Sorry, Sandra- another set of obscure references!) But there must be something about November that makes us want to achieve something, enjoy something that is all about the season and not the great lurching event at at year's close. I'm wondering is it a deep down impulse that we all share. Maybe it's just a blogging collective subconscious!

I started reading through John's book a few days ago. This morning I got to the bit where Jesus clears the Temple. This struck a chord, having spent a month trying to clear a Land. He looked at all the materialistic, commercial STUFF that had been brought into a place for quiet, holy attention and shouted, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"

That struck a chord too. Coming out of the Forest of Toon could mean moving into Christmas. But I'm going to move into Advent instead, I think.  I also think that fraise might just be around for the Pauses in Advent that Floss is running again this year.  If you haven't come across these before do visit Troc, Broc, Recup and think about signing up. It's not so much collective subconscious as collective trying to be very conscious indeed! (And that makes me think of my favourite Collective of all, filmed in another Forest I know...)

Letters to PC IV

Dear PC,

Lookee, lookee! The beach day is nearly ready for release. I'm relieved that we can just make out your head above the double bass. I was becoming sure that they would completely edit out us old folk in the midst of all the beautiful people!  Mind you, part of me is also secretly hoping that they will do exactly that!

Dormouse

Dear Dormouse,

Thank you for your lovely thank you!  Last Lent I promised to send a Rend CD to someone who answered a question or solved some conundrum or fulfilled a quest or scaled a mountain or something. I don't recall much, except that it was you and that I subsequently and characteristically did absolutely nothing about it!

This was one of the many, many reasons why I decided to stay in the Forest this month. There is a definite need for me to stay quietly in one place, where there is cake, and not emerge until all muddle has been resolved.  Do you read E. M. Forster? In all the works I have read there is always a muddle of some description.  Much emotional tangle and upset. I'm fond of E. M. Forster...

So I am most glad to have despatched the CD! It was the first on a long list of things that I really must send, and send soon.  I noticed today that Rend have some songs on this year's Soul Survivor Live CD.  Just in case that might be as interesting to you as it is to me on a possible Christmas shopping list!  Although I notice the free delivery is only within the UK, and you are beautifully en France!

I like your blogs very much. I can link to the delicious foodie one, but not to View from the Teapot which will not load for me at all tonight. This is not good!  I like the snapshots that you give of a happy life in a beautiful country. I think it must reflect a very happy, beautiful soul.  In fact, I think that you should really be Dear Dormouse all the time!

I'm also very glad that you are doing the Grow Your Blog thing in January.  I signed up too. Isn't it that a strange and disconcerting side to blogging?  I have carelessly lost followers over the last two weeks, and fully expect that by the end of this mad forest month there will be only the six of you left. And that would be very nice.  But nonetheless, that's not really how my alter-blogging-ego feels.  The one lurking in the shadows tempted by numbers!

Mind you, I lose things all the time. Usually car keys and phone. Marbles, mind, that sort of thing. I think you are very wise to live in a teapot. Not too much space to mislay things there!  Thank you again for your lovely words.  It is indeed a great pleasure to make new and real friends in such an ethereal environment as this.  Maybe we will indeed meet some day soon in the house on the hill. I'd like to hear more about that quite soon.

Until then, Dear Dormouse,

Bon appetit, x

Nearly the weekend

Rend have released their first video from this winter's Campfire stuff. No sign yet of beach strawberries- but excitement mounts in the Land nonetheless!

September is a bit manic here. And there's a little something missing. Just a hole in the picture, which is generally happy and cosy and relaxed and good. But right in the middle there's an empty spot. Will be spending the weekend trying to decide what might fit!

In the Collective!

So, here it is! A while ago on facebook Rend asked for volunteers to come down to the beach to help them record a live Campfire Worship album. But you had to be young, so obviously I didn't think anymore about it. Then, on the deadline, they said that they had a few spaces left, so I stuck my brass wrinkled neck well out and emailed to ask if two over-ripe strawberries, one of whom was able to sing, could come and play with the other children. And they laughed a lot, apparently, and said we were in!

So here are just a few of the many out of focus photos. There would have been copiously more were it not for the fact that it's jolly hard work singing on a beach for six hours, let alone bouncing up and down enough times for the camera crew to be happy! (If you want to hear them, they were also on Songs of Praise tonight at 12 minutes 20.) The album will be released free, hopefully around Christmas Day 2012- and fear not, as soon as there's a link to a video, you'll be invited to spot the small jumping strawberry with the brass wrinkled neck!

Bursting with excitement!

I know. I know! More Rend! You see, Prince Charming thinks that I probably can't tell you why the both of us will be on a North Down beach from 3 to 9pm tomorrow, with a set list and a raincoat (or two). But believe me, as soon as tomorrow is over, I won't be able to hold my water, as we say, sometimes, some of us. Suffice to hint, for the moment, that I think it will all look something like this...

Land of the Giants

After two and a half hours logged in and locked in and totally obsessed one morning last week, I somehow ended up with eight armbands for Land of the Giants instead of the maximum four!
The BBC has a super article that explains the event much better than I will, but I'll bet they weren't at all as moved as I was! The sequence where they took "snapshots" of generations of Belfast folk living Belfast lives was fabulous.
And the way in which they built up a model of Titanic, waltzing sadly towards the iceberg was beautiful. The building of Titanic Belfast had been the backdrop for stunning son et lumiere effects from the start of the night, but now its craggy, icy exterior was the main character.
And this is my Jo, perched high over the heads of 20,000 spectators, braving the late hour, and the rain. New generation of Belfast folk living (suburban) Belfast lives.

And finally, just because we're just back from our annual Day Out at Summer Madness, where You Know Who were leading worship, here's a wee dose of You Know Who- giants from my land!

Easter Sunday

Good Friday

Fun with Floss

Thank you, Floss, for hosting another Thought Fest in Lent! I have very much loved reading hearts and minds this year! Today I am very struck by Angela's enjoy and Floss' fun! As the drummer said at the Rend album launch we were at over Christmas, "For those of you who don't have faith, it's not all weird, you know!" Last Rend of Lent, you may well be glad to hear! I will be choosing a commenter from this post to send an album to this week- Happy Easter, esteemed bloggistes xx

Nearly midweek

It's very sunny, very busy, very exhausting and very good here in the sunny, sunny Land of the (sometimes tearful although at the minute that's generally only one of us) Strawberries. So here is this week's very belated dose of Rend. A little something for a moment later in the day when the sunny sun goes down!

Ancient Irish Bluegrass and Bins

I'm really not keeping up well with our theme this year! I have been thinking a lot this Lent about seeing things through new eyes, through His eyes. So here's an ancient Irish hymn through Rend's eyes! PC is playing his version of this for church in me for Mothers Day! Happy St Patrick's Part 3, Happy Mother's Day, and Happy Birthday for tomorrow, Mum!