Fun on Friday

Dear Diary,

It's Friday so time for a bit of fun. I was going to do a serious blog but that can wait. I have just done some skool homework for Purplecoo and so I am posting it here. Why don't you have ago too and let me know if you do.

My favourite time of the day or night is evening, night, bedtime. I am NOT a morning person.

Favourite day of the week is Sunday.

My favourite month of the year is May.

The worst meal anyone could put in front of me is a mix of avocado, aubergines and anchovies with olives.

Today I must do.... Spring cleaning!

If I had to spend an hour locked in a lift I'd like to be with.... (would you change this if it was four hours? No. Tony Benn,.

If you looked in my loft you'd find... I haven’t got a loft.

One drink for the rest of your life - what would it be? (you can have water also) - Cranberry juice.

The colour I think I look best in is... Blues

I wish I knew..... The meaning of life

My favourite song of all time is ...... I can’t choose just one, sorry. Imagine by John Lennon would be a good anthem.

Have you ever had a lucky find? What was it? - I traced my (late) father on the net, would that count? Have never found anything tangible.

My favourite precious stone is..... Rose quartz and amethyst.

My 4 grandparents names were.....Daniel and Catherine, Thomas and Gladys and my 8 great-grandparents names were.... Mary Ann and Henry, Thomas and Ellen, John and Bridget and Stephen and Ellen.

My homework idea to use is... Write your own manifesto for the forthcoming election. And we can see who would get the most votes.

My quick dessert recipe is.... Something with raspberries, digestive biscuits, brown sugar/cinnamon and cream.

On my bedside wooden chair which serves as a table are books, books and more books. A few favourite poetry books. A book clip on type light which is fantastic - I highly recommend it. Always a notebook and pen, tissues.

In a perfect world I'd have a .... self-cleaning house, a non-ageing/getting ill body.

I'm looking forward to .... Every day.

Favourite chore/most hated chore? - I was only talking about this yesterday. Cleaning the fridge and the oven. I love hanging out washing, lighting fires, opening windows to let bad energies out and good ones in…….

St Patrick's Day

A traditional Irish blessing

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

May God be with you and bless you:
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.

May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.


Before I go

here

just for me

a favourite song from a favourite singer.

Enjoy.

Signs of Spring?

Dear Diary,

Happy Mother's Day

I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.

 William Butler Yeats

This could be the first day of Spring.  The wind has lessened and has lost its cruel bite and the Sun has such warmth in it.  I have been doing a spot of spring cleaning indoors and a bit of sweeping outdoors so I am feeling pretty smug now but a wee bit worn out.  Time for a quick blog before I cook,

Blessings have been absent far too long.  Well not absent but have not been noted here.  Here are five just for today.

Sunshine, spring weather. 
Goes without saying really, I am rather repeating myself.

Free logs.  Our local forestry angel felled a dying ash tree for us and we now have plenty of free wood.  The tree was right on the edge of the riverbank and was leaning rather -  so much so that had it fallen it could have blocked the flow of the river.  Not a nice thought should it flood again.  Nothing pleases me more than the sight of a load of new logs and free ones are even more pleasing to behold.

I bought myself a bunch of daffodils on Friday for 99p.  I have them on my desk and they are so cheering, they were only in bud but have opened now into those lovely big old--fashioned blooms.  At work I have on the counter a little pot of miniature ones, narcissi probably and I noticed that one or two have twin flowers on one stem - I have never seem that before.

Ireland won the rugby yesterday!  Sorry Wales.

*

Having read two really good novels recently I am seeking suggestions for a good novel to read..  I have tried one or two but they have not gripped me.  Any suggestions welcome.  I need a good book to live in.

I have rediscovered Delia Smith lately.  In the absence of a mother to do so, Delia did rather teach me to cook  many years ago and I am still impressed by her.  I call her St Delia.    Her recipes never fail and always taste delicious.  I dip into her website when I am brain dead and can’t think of what to eat or what to cook. She has many wonderful suggestions and recipes for almost everything you can think of.  The site comes in handy when I am doing a shopping list.

Talking of shopping I have a bit of a wish list.  I am coveting a carpet bag even though I already have one and I am wanting to buy tops of  (tiny) floral prints _ I am sure it is the need for spring flowers manifesting itself.  I am also wanting to fill the cottage with scent, it may have to be candles instead of flowers.  I guess I just can‘t wait for summer.

I watched a good film last night.  Disney for grown ups really.  It was ‘Up’ and was really enjoyable, if you haven’t seen it try and catch it because it is really one for oldies.  Quite moving and works on several levels if you get me.  I have The Hurt Locker to watch next, that will be a different film altogether. 

Well that’s all for now, I have to go and cook.

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

. 

Letter to Jack Frost

Dear Jack.

You looked so cool in your white suit and in the beginning I must admit that you bewitched me with your wintry charms.

Your ways with magic led me down paths to cosiness and sweet hibernation,

I watched you endlessly from my windows and lost myself in your beauty.

I believed your promises of snow-to-come and you did not let me down.
And I revelled in the blizzards and snowed-in days of laziness cut off from humankind with only dogs, books and warm log fires for company and hot soups, stews and toddies. 
(ah the toddies…).

In truth though you are a cruelly harsh and unforgiving guest who has stayed too long.
(Why do you stay so long?)

The ground you whitened is so hard and there is just no release from your stone-like icy clutch.  Beloved birds have perished at your feet, as have frogs and toads, the young, the old. 

Faded away to sleep in a long, long cold. 

Depression is rife, there is some sort of epidemic in these parts.
It is a blight of the blues where only sadness rules.

I am sated now, you have worn me down, tired me out with your coldness
You have frozen me so that I am chilled through down to the very bone,
chilled and dulled, but I really should have known that was always your intention.
 Just to freeze.

On top of everything I am now poverty-stricken, (sky-high bills for fuel) and worn out with fetching and carrying all those logs to burn, ashes to empty, hearths to clean.

Your hoarfrost images of beauty will stay an imprint  in my memory; those trees and fields in all their splendour, I hope they come again.

But now a new love beckons; she is called Spring and she is warm and forgiving. Her charms will beat yours hands down.  They are endless.

So am I fickle?  Yes maybe I am. 
But all my passion for you is spent.

I am bored with the ways of Winter.

This is goodbye.

Trelystan

The church at Trelystan

Friday was a day for much looked forward to meet-up of a dozen Purplecoo folk and began with a nice lunch around a huge circular table in a pleasant pub in Shropshire followed by a visit to the nearby little church of St Mary's in Trelystan which sits alone on a hill, beside two ancient yews in the middle of a field and with views to die for.

I shall remember this day for its sunshine, its wealth of snowdrops, its icy wind and the lovely warmth from the people I met for the very first time after having only known them over the Internet.

There are a couple more photos on my photo blog.

The Lost Children

Dear Diary,

I was going to post just a poem, a picture, a song and a  thought for the day.

I was going to have a little rant about the media’s obsession with so called celebrity’s divorces.

Other things are on my mind. 

On this days of apologies there will be a lot of tears being shed all over the world.  My thoughts are of all lost children wherever they are.

I copied this from a CBS website.  I make no apologies.   Their story needs to be told.


Feb. 3, 2002
The Lost Children

It's a mind-boggling story, one that sounds more like a bad movie than reality. But it happened. In the two decades after World War II, 10,000 English children were sent to Australia, reports 60 Minutes II Correspondent Bob Simon. Many were mistreated and abused. All were lied to.


The story begins in Britain after World War II - a nation victorious but battered, broke, and burdened by overflowing children's homes. Many of the kids were put there by families too poor to raise them. What happened next is almost unfathomable in civilized countries or in modern times.
The British government, in collaboration with churches and charities, developed a secret plan to clear out these children's homes; a plan which has only recently been uncovered. The kids were told that they would be adopted by loving families in Australia. And they were shipped off by the thousands. It was as simple as that.

The first ship to sail in 1947 was the SS Asturias. Cargo: 147 boys and girls. John Hennessy, 11 years old at the time, was one of those children. Only a few weeks before it sailed, some priests and bureaucrats showed up at his children's institution in England. They were rounding up kids to go to Australia.

"We thought Australia was down the street or it was around the corner," says Hennessy. "How did we know it was on the other side of the world? Well, anyway, they, they came with the stories, you know, that there's fruits there, plenty of fruits."

Like many children, Mary Molloy didn't quite grasp what was being proposed: "I just thought, you know, we're going away for a while."

All across Britain, at children's homes and institutions, kids were being told the same thing: you're going to a new land, a new life, a new family. Many were illegitimate children. Many were dropped off by single mothers who'd fallen on hard times.

But that's not what the kids were told. Tony Jones, who at the time was in a boys' home in Malvern, England, was told that his parents had died: "They said, 'You're an orphan now.' And I was an orphan."

That's what they told all the kids, that they were orphans. That there was nobody for them in Britain.

Over the next 20 years, 10,000 children, somas young as 3, none older than 15, would depart unaccompanied for their new homes in Australia.

Six weeks and 12,000 miles later, the children arrived at the Fremantle docks in Western Australia. They looked around for the fruit trees, the kangaroos, the adoptive families they were told would be waiting for them. But there was none of that here. There was something quite different.

Not long after they disembarked, they received a lecture from a man in black, the archbishop of Perth.

Hennessy remembers the man's speech: "He said, 'We welcome you to Australia. We need you for white stock.' Because at this stage, the 'white Australia' policy was on. And we didn't know that we were part of the scheme to - to populate Australia with the - the white people. And the archbishop says, 'The reason why we do [is] because we are terrified of the Asian hordes!' Course, we didn't understand that."

These children were a commodity to a continent that was terrified of being overwhelmed by Asia. They had, in essence, been exported by a nation that had a surplus of white people.

Afterwards, the children's fingerprints were taken and they were herded into lines. Says Hennessy: "They grabbed the girls from their brothers. Brothers from their sisters, screaming. And I can still hear the screams today."

These children, who'd been plucked from institutions in Britain, were now trucked to all over Australia. Where? To institutions. No parents were waiting for them - just picks and shovels.

John Hennessy was sent to a place called Bindoon, an institution run by the Christian Brothers, an order of Catholic monks 60 miles from civilization in the sweltering bushland of Western Australia. Bindoon was a home and school for boys. But this was no Boys Town, and education was not the priority.

The priority was construction. Brother Francis Keaney, an imposing, white-haired Irishman who ran the place, was obsessed with building the largest Catholic institution in Western Australia. He used his charges as labor. From sunrise to sunset, the boys built Brother Keaney's shrine, with no shoes, and no questions asked.

Bindoon is a real school now, an agricultural college. But it's still run by the Christian Brothers. And old boys are not welcome, particularly not when they're accompanied by newsmen. When Bob Simon went back with Hennessy, who helped build Bindoon, they were kicked off the premises. The Christian Brothers are not eager to showcase their past as users and abusers of child labor.

"They got us dirt cheap," says Norman Johnston, another boy who helped build Bindoon. "We might as well have been slaves. And, you know, we endured all of that when we didn't have to."

For these children, there was nowhere to run. At the Fairbridge institution, sponsored by the Church of England, Tony Jones tried to escape whenever he could. He once made it as far as the docks where the children had first arrived.

Says ones: "I got down to the beach. I remember looking all over the ocean, and I asked this couple, 'Which way is England?' If there was land all the way across, I would have walked there. I would have walked there."

The food at the institutions seemed to have been cooked up in a Dickens novel. At Bindoon, the boys were so hungry one Sunday, 12-year-old John Hennessy led a raid on the vineyard out back. They enjoyed their grapes, but after mass the next morning, Brother Keaney was in a rage. He'd learned of the raid, and he called out for his leading suspect.

Then the man whipped him. "He stripped me naked," he says. "In front of 50 boys, put me across the chair and nearly flogged me to death. I've-I've-I've got medical advice that that's where I got the stutter from." He had never stuttered before that day, and has ever since.

The children say that floggings and beatings were part of a daily routine. The nightly routine with the Christian Brothers included priestly visits to the children's beds. The brothers were taking away boys who were less than 10 years old.

Hugh McConnell was 9 years old. One night, a bad storm hit Castledare, his children's home run by the Christian Brothers. Terrified that the world was coming to an end, Hugh ran outside and hid under a tree, where a Christian Brother found him. The man invited McConnell into his bed, where the boy fell asleep quickly. Later that night, the priest raped him.

There was no one to go to. Certainly not the Australian government, which was the legal guardian of the children. "The state supposedly were to be looking after us," says Johnston. "In the nine years I was institutionalized in Australia, I have never been spoken to by a child welfare officer. These Christian Brothers had us for what they wanted in those institutions. And they did with us what they would."

The head of the Christian Brothers in Western Australia, Tony Shanahan, admits that there was abuse, but he also suggests that some of the stories may have been exaggerated. A British government inquiry last year was more critical, saying that what happened at institutions run by the Christian Brothers in Western Australia was of "a quite exceptional depravity."

In 1993, the Christian Brothers, responding to a lawsuit, officially apologized to the child migrants and paid reparations totalling $2.5 million dollars to 250 who'd been abused at their institutions. The girls, who'd been sent to different places, suffered very little sexual abuse compared to the boys, but many were beaten, and all were exploited as free labour.

The shipments of both boys and girls stopped suddenly in 1967. The British simply didn't have any more children available for export.

But the 10,000 already in Australia? Only five - not 5,000 - were ever adopted. Few had birth certificates or documents of any kind. It seems their motherland wanted them to disappear without a trace.

Mary Molloy grew up in an institution outside Sydney. When she graduated into the real world and applied for a passport, she was in for a surprise.

"The only way I could get a passport was to become a naturalized Australian," says Molloy. "I thought I was. Now, to me, that was crazy. I've been out here since I was 9. I was brought out here. And yet, I wasn't acknowledged as an Australian. And yet, according to Britain, I didn't live there anymore. So, where was I?"

For decades, Britain was able to forget about the children it threw away. For decades, the children believed what they were told, that they were orphans.

But just a few years ago, these lost children - now lost adults scattered all over Australia - were stunned to learn that none of this was true. They weren't orphans at all.

The governments of Great Britain and Australia, the Catholic Church and the Church of England had not only exploited and abused these 10,000. They had conned the kids for 50 years.


Not only had these lost children been shipped 12,000 miles from Britain to the bottom of the world. Not only had they been exploited and abused. They had been deceived.

They weren't orphans. They had families back in Britain, families which had dropped them off at institutions with every intention of getting them back.

When Tony Jones discovered that his mother was still alive in England, he was shocked: "All them years, and they didn't even tell me I had a family?" he says.

Too poor to care for him, Maud Jones had placed Tony in a children's home in England after she divorced his father. She never gave consent for Tony to be shipped to Australia. She was never even asked.

It took Jones months to save enough money to return home to see his mom. Their reunion was set for the middle of January 1993. But she died just two weeks before that.

Jones went back for the funeral. "I saw my mother in the coffin," he says. "It's the most heartbreaking time of my life. And they knew she was alive. They knew. Bastards."

When he was a boy, the Church of England told him his parents were dead. That was a lie. When he grew up, the British and Australian governments told him his records didn't exist. That was another lie. And Tony Jones was far from alone.

That was the conclusion reached by Margaret Humphreys, an English social worker who began lifting the lid on this sordid chapter in Britain's history.

Humphreys stumbled upon the story accidentally when one of her clients insisted that her younger brother had been put on a boat to Australia as a child. Humphreys set up an organization called the Child Migrants Trust to help the children find their birth certificates, their parents and their past.

The trust bought copies of every birth, marriage and death certificate in England dating back to 1890, a total of more than 100 million documents on microfilm.

It was the database for a desperate search. Of the 10,000 child migrants, Humphreys and her staff could find only one who was actually an orphan. Month after month, year after year, they found more and more parents alive in Britain.

"The astonishing thing was that they had no idea that their children had been sent to Australia," says Humphreys. "They had not signed any papers for adoption or migration. And for most of them, they had gone back to collect, to reclaim, their children - to bring them home."

"They went to bring them back home to their families - to be told, and given explanations like, your son or daughter's been placed with a very loving family in England. They're very happy. We're not going to disturb them now. You did your best for them. Goodbye," she says.

As a child, Mary Molloy had also been told her mother was dead. But Humphreys and her team couldn't find a death certificate for her mother, May Fitzgerald. They continued searching, and last December, Humphreys flew to Sydney to give Molloy some startling news. Her mother was alive.

Molloy was ecstatic. "It's incredible. I mean, everything's based on a lie, right from the beginning. It's just one lousy lie," says Molloy, breaking down as she says it.

Her mother had been lied to by the priests. As a single mother, . Fitzgerald had placed her daughter in a Catholic children's home. A year later, she told the home she wanted Mary back, but was informed that her daughter was being adopted. Fitzgerald fired off a telegram telling the priests to stop the adoption, but was told it was too late.

A few weeks ago, Mary Molloy packed for an improbable journey back in time. For nearly a half century, ever since she had been put on a boat to Australia, she had thought of herself as a war orphan. Now it was time for Molloy to be a child again, and for 80-year-old May Fitzgerald to be a mother again.

Accompanied by her daughter Beverly and family friends, Molloy left Sydney for a 22-hour trip to Dublin to meet her mom.

Can you call it lucky to meet your mother when you're 55 years old? In terms of these child migrants, the answer is yes. In terms of the 10,000, Molloy was one of the lucky few.

Humphreys says that many thousands of these "orphans" have not yet found their parents. And as both parents and children age, time is running out.

Help from the Australian government hasn't been forthcoming. The nation that so desperately wanted white stock has never offered the mildest mea culpa for its treatment of the children.

When Philip Ruddock, the Australian minister of immigration, is asked why the Australian government hasn't apologized, "I don't know what we would be necessarily apologizing for," he says.

"What we sought to do in Australia was to provide an environment in which young people who were brought here and chosen by a government abroad were given opportunities for a new life. And many have had that opportunity," he says.

Ruddock says that he isn't sure that the horrible stories he's heard are really true.

As for Great Britain, the country that deported its kids in the first place, there has been a vast silence ever since the children sailed off.

Humphreys says she finds that people are not interested. "They didn't help, and they didn't want to know," she says. "You see, these children left our shores, and it was almost as if they left our consciousness. They'd gone.""

Who in the British government knew the children were being shipped to Australia? David Hinchcliffe, a member of Parliament and the leader of a British government inquiry into the scheme, believes that many high-level officials - including the prime minister, the archbishops, possibly even the queen - probably knew about the scheme.

So if the prime minister knew, and Parliament knew, and if the queen knew, one would've expected something resembling an official apology to the thousands of abandoned children. But in fact, no one in Downing Street, or in thHouse of Commons or for that matter at Buckingham Palace has apologized.

The best the British could come up with after 50 years was to acknowledge in 2000 that the scheme was misguided. It also set up a travel fund for the children to return home for family reunions.

But as of yet, no money has been made available. That's why 60 Minutes II paid Mary Molloy's airfare so she could be united with her mother in Ireland.

Their meeting was deeply emotional. As they met, Fitzgerald was overwhelmed: "Oh God. Oh God. I never forget you. Never. I always knew some day you'd come back. I don't want ever to let you go now….You're just the same as I thought you'd be. I'd know you if I met you in the street. I'd know you were mine."

Around the age of 50 many lose our parents and become orphans. In Molloy's case, that natural order was reversed. And she will stay in her mother's arms happily for a while, until she contemplates what could have been, the enormity of what was taken away.

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait

Jewels

Dear Diary,

She came with her cushion
to the cliffs. She sat
strained in the wind
in a pink old-fashioned hat.

Alice Oswald

What have you found today?

So far I have found sunshine even though it is still very cold outside and there is such a cruel and biting wind but I have tasted the sweetness that is warm friendship which is a blessing in itself. I even found it in the early hours when I logged on to Purplecoo - there are usually folk around to chat to on there when one is suffering from insomnia. Some members are from across the globe and I had a wee chat with a few online friends and even learned that New York was snow-covered and also heard some nice soothing music which was just what I needed.

Who was the writer who said friends are the jewels I keep inside my head? I heard these lines on the radio recently, it may have been on Poetry Please on dear old Radio 4. That radio station is like a true friend don’t you think? I can’t imagine life without it. As someone said to me recently they could live with out TV but they couldn’t cope without the radio. I agreed. Then this morning I heard by email from another dear friend and also from my sister and then I spoke to my daughter on the phone. Small things make such a difference.

But there is another find and it still only mid-morning! I am so pleased to have found this new poem. I borrowed the book from the library because I always check out all their new poetry acquisitions and I pounced on this one as Alice Oswald is one of my favourite poets. It is a beautiful book.

Weeds and Wild Flowers
Poems by Alice Oswald
Etchings by Jessica Greenman.

Thrift is one of my much-loved plants, I love its shade of dusky pink and its air of sweet delicacy but also admire its toughness and persistence; its habit of flourishing in the most dry and unpromising situations.


Thrift


Born by the sea.
Used to its no-hope moan.
Forty or thereabouts.
Lived on her own.

Heaved a small sigh.
With a handful of stone
to get started,
she saved up for the rain.

She came with her cushion
to the cliffs. She sat
strained in the wind
in a pink old-fashioned hat.

No prospect
but the plunge of the beach.
All except nodding,
no speech.

But she worked she worked
to the factory rhythm
of the sea’s boredom.
Its bouts of atheism.

And by the weekend
set up a stall
of paper flowers.
And sold them all.

So she made substance out of
lack of substance.
Hard of hearing,
She thrived on silence.

Alice Oswald

Do you ever read a poem or a piece of prose and the words strike such a cord that you think Oh I wish I had written that, do you ever feel that those words were within you somewhere and that someone else has somehow resurrected them? Could it be linked to the idea of there being a Universal Consciousness? I think it might. Do you even understand what I am trying to say, probably not as I am not explaining myself very well.

I am only half way through the book so there are sure to be more gems within it; the etchings are pretty too, I am fan of etchings.

That’s all so far, I shall return to you if more bounty is uncovered as the day passes.

I hope you find some pieces of treasure today, do let me know if you do.

Take care,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

The F-Word

Dear Diary

Mind is the master power that moulds and makes,
And we are Mind, and evermore we take
The tool of thought, and shaping what we will,
Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills,
We think in secret, and it comes to pass -
Our world is but our looking glass.

James Allen

Flip It.

I read a bit about this book in Amazon’s Bestsellers recently.

I read about it; haven’t actually even seen it and we don’t have it in the library but I like the ideas contained within it. The F word has been running in my brain since I discovered it. No not that F word even though I have had cause to use that one this weekend but am unable to blog about it here. I can’t blog about it but I have thought about it and maybe this book’s philosophy has reminded me of what I believe anyway and it has spurred me on in a direction that perhaps I should have taken long ago.

But hey ho, I can’t help but be happy today, it is a Sunday and there is something about this day that always puts me in a happy frame. Even if it’s a bit damp and cloudy and not very warm, the snowdrops are out and Spring can’t be too far away. There are buds-a-plenty in the garden, the daffodils are rising, the snow has gone and the birds are at ease once again.

I digress..

Flipping, now that used to be a teeny bit of a swear word in my youth. Probably like feckin it was a more acceptable word to band about than the unspoken F word . Funny how words can carry so much emotion, a good thing though or I wouldn’t love poetry so much.

So it’s all down to turning negatives into positives and how we should and could do that to make life better. Simple when you say it like that but not always easy in practice. But I am thinking of it and making lists helps. Write down all the negatives in your life at the moment and then re-write them (and the script) in a positive light. Ask yourself open ended questions that invite a positive proactive response, it is quite fun when you start. One door closes another one opens, that sort of thing. You may find it nauseating, you may not. But the Greek word crisis means opportunity and that is how I like to see it.

Before I go here is a poem, totally unrelated but I like it. It somehow suit’s a Sunday.

The Superwoman


What will the superwoman be, of whom we sing -
She who is coming over the dim border
Of Far To-morrow, after earth’s disorder
Is tidied up by Time? What will she bring
To make life better on tempestuous earth?
How will her worth
Be greater than her forbears? What new power
Within her being will burst into flower?
She will bring beauty, not the transient dower
Of adolescence which departs with youth -
But beauty based on knowledge of the truth
Of its eternal message and the source
Of all its potent force.
Her outer being by the inner thought
Shall into lasting loveliness be wrought.
She will bring virtue; but it will not be
The pale, white blossom of cold chastity
Which hides a barren heart. She will be human -
Not saint or angel, but the superwoman -
Mother and mate and friend of superman.
She will bring strength to aid the larger Plan,
Wisdom and strength and sweetness all combined,
Drawn from the Cosmic Mind -
Wisdom to act, strength to attain,
And sweetness that finds growth in joy or pain.
She will bring that large virtue, self-control,
And cherish it as her supremest treasure.
Not at the call of sense or for man’s pleasure
Will she invite from space an embryo soul,
To live on earth again in mortal fashion,
Unless love stirs her with divinest passion.
To motherhood she will bring common sense -
That most uncommon virtue. She will give
Love that is more than she-wolf violence
(Which slaughters others that its own may live).
Love that will help each little tendril mind
To grow and climb;
Love that will know the lordliest use of Time
In training human egos to be kind.
She will be formed to guide, but not to lead -
Leaders are ever lonely - and her sphere
Will be that of the comrade and the mate,
Loved, loving, and with insight fine and clear,
Which casts its searchlight on the course of fate,
And to the leaders says, ‘Proceed’ or ‘Wait.’
And best of all, she will bring holy faith
To penetrate the shadowy world of death,
And show the road beyond it, bright and broad,
That leads straight up to God.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Well that’s enough for today, I have a lunch to cook, a log- fire to sit by, a Sunday paper to read and more writing tasks await.

I hope you have a great Sunday!
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait

Quite by Chance

I have spent a long time this morning just surfing around, seeking for you you a song and a picture and maybe some words, just bits and pieces that might brighten your day.

So it's just a bits and pieces post today.

Cara Dillon won an award at the Folk Awards 2010, I love her voice and own one of her CD's but I couldn't decide on a favourite song of hers to post for you. Then I thought of Paul Brady who I also love and started looking for a song from him. What should I find quite by chance but a song with Paul Brady singing with Cara Dillon and a song that I love so. I hope you enjoy it too, it is a shame that video is a wee bit dark colour-wise... but the voices light it up don't you think?

The Streets of Derry


After the morning there comes an evening
And after the evening another day
And after a false love there comes a true love
I'd have you listen now to what I say

I swear my love is the finest young man
As fair as any the sun shines on
But how to save him, I do not know it
For he has got a sentence to be hung

As he was marching the streets of Derry
I own he marched up right manfully
Being much more like a commanding officer
Than a man to die upon the gallows tree

"What keeps my love so long in coming
Oh what detains her so long from me
Or does she think it a shame or scandal
To see me die upon the gallows tree"

He looked around and he saw her coming
And she was dressed all in woollen fine
The weary steed that my love was riding
It flew more swiftly than the wind

Come down, come down from that cruel gallows
I've got your pardon from the king
And I'll let them see that they dare not hang you
And I'll crown my love with a bunch of green

And here is something visual to complete the mix. I stumbled across this artist while surfing, quite by chance...but then nothing happens just quite by chance does it?

Bolus Head

The Kerryscape

Killorglin,

All paintings of County Kerry, my mother's homeland.

Quite by chance Killorglin was the town nearest to her home.

Jay Mulligan is the artist
http://thespilledpint.com

Ireland has been calling me this week and quite by chance I caught a snippet on the Welsh news last night that the Swansea to Cork ferry is at long last opening up again. I am thrilled because it means I can now be in County Cork quite quickly and painlessly. (I hate flying). All it takes is a not-too-long drive to Swansea, an overnight sleep in a cabin and then I am there, landed in my favourite Irish county.

I am a little late posting this as I had, quite by chance, a visit from my beautiful daughter

and my equally beautiful granddaughter who is one month old now.

I spent a couple of hours cuddling her, what more could I ask?

A perfect afternoon.

The day is not over yet, what may yet be about to happen, quite by chance?

I hope you have had a perfect day too, if not there is always tomorrow.

Look out for happiness, it can come quite by chance.


Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait

War on a Whim

 
War on a Whim

A Recipe


Do not entertain any alternatives to war.

Be polished; hone your obvious acting skills and make sure you are always well-rehearsed.

Mix up one full pail of pride and lace it with wishes for a future sense of achievement  and national greatness.  Madness helps.  Believe in yourself.

Convince yourself that 9/11 was instigated by Saddam Hussein.  Or rather convince others  - you have already convinced yourself for the sake of convenience.

Spice the lies and sex them up as much as you can over the few months leading up to the invasion.

Keep the 45 minute mantra going, it will persuade the weak and scare out living daylights.

Hold private meetings away from Cabinet, exclude those in opposition to your plans.  Some will resign anyway, some will die.

Disregard all international legal experts and most senior civil servants when they say military action is contrary to international law.

Override the rules of the United Nations Security Council at all stages.  Call them ambiguous.  Ignore the fact that there is no legal basis for regime change and send in the troops, however ill-prepared.

Play down any mass protests on the streets of Britain and abroad.  People must not believe in such a thing as a democracy.  Ignore all protest, your self-belief will hold the cake together, however fragile the base.

Come the invasion.  Label it with shock and awe.  Be macho. Swagger alongside the Bush man with your coat off, hands in pockets and shoulders wide.

Talking of Bush, keep all your correspondence with the man forever out of the public domain.

After it is cooked, ignore the burnings.  Play down casualties, especially civilians, women, children and babies, young boy soldiers… and their mothers’ tears.

You will have to keep this up for years and years.

And years.

At any possible future enquiries spend your time arguing over pieces of paper.  Bring your professional skills to bear here.  You are so good at this you could win an Oscar. 
Again ignore the tears and the anger of bereaved families by so doing.

Never feel, show or admit regret (this will come easy to you).

Remember that the law is always the law except in an imperialist’s war.

Above all never mention the O word (OIL).

Cait O’Connor 2010

Another Good Read

Dear Diary,

Two things. First is a poem that I promised to post for the wonder that is Willow and then a book review. Well not a proper review, just a little mention really.

First the poem by a much loved poet Czeslaw Milosz

On Angels

All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe in you,
messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems.

Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.

They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.

The voice -- no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightening.

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

day draw near
another one
do what you can.


Czeslaw Milosz


And now the book.

Guernsey is a place I have visited only once but it left a real impression on me and I loved it. My brother-in-law and his family have lived there for many years, they are lucky so to do. We spent a holiday staying with them many moons ago.

My son was conceived there and he is a young man now. I always remember the feeling I had as the boat set sail from Guernsey back to England at the end of our holiday - I just knew that I was ‘with child‘. So it holds fond memories for me. Apart from that it is a beautiful island; it is genteel, quiet, full of gorgeous bays, magical coves and pretty countryside. Island life is very appealing to me though some say it can be claustrophobic. I guess nothing is perfect.

Enough about me and Guernsey; it is a book I want to promote. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. You may have already read it as it is not a new one but if you haven’t I would like to recommend it to you.

It is our library book group's latest 'book of the month' and we meet in a week’s time to discuss it. I must say that I am very grateful to the person who put it forward. Someone else had suggested it to her and I find that word of mouth is always the best recommendation. I had picked the book up before in the library but not been tempted. This has happened to me before, with The Secret Life of Bees for example - that was also recommended to me (or rather forced upon me!) and it also turned out to be another must-read book. I digress.

When I finished the Guernsey book I was bereft. I felt I had left a host of close friends behind and I had that awful feeling ‘What can I read now?’ Nothing will live up to this, And the author Mary Ann Shaffer died a few years ago so there will be no more of her writing to look forward to and she has written nothing else in the past.

I turned again to Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka, a book I had put aside for a while, I had been enjoying it very much prior to switching to the Potato book (I call it the Guernsey book or the Potato book for short). But now Caravans was really too harsh and depressed me greatly, so much so that I couldn’t read it - the description within of the lives and deaths of battery hens didn‘t help. I have put it aside for a time in the future when I am over my too recent literary bereavement.

Mary Ann Shaffer wrote her novel as a series of letters sent to and fro between the characters in the story. It builds gently and softly, layer upon layer and you get to know and love each one of the people purely through their correspondence. As a would-be writer I love this kind of writing. I always love books that are constructed from letters or diaries I won’t give much away as I think it spoils a book to do so; I would like all to unfold for you as it did for me but I will tell you is that it is based upon the story of the Nazi occupation of Guernsey during World War II and a literary society that was set up by a few islanders during that period. It is informative, well-written, light of heart, uplifting, romantic and very moving, everything one needs from a novel. A perfect read really..

So that’s all, if you haven’t yet done so, do read and enjoy.

I started with a poem by Milosz so I may as well fnish with one. It seems appropriate somehow.


And Yet The Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.


Czeslaw Milosz

Bye for now,
Cait

PS What are you reading?

A Home

Dear Diary,

My little Welsh cottage is writing today.

(She writes in Welsh but I have translated).

I am of the riverside, Ty’r Gof is my proper name which means 'home of the blacksmith'. My other half, the Forge is set apart but not far away. Happily I nestle not too near the water’s edge, I know her moods too well and am always prepared for those rare days when she can quickly roar, flood and turn against me. There are sandbags at my door.

Do come and visit me. Everyone says I have an aura of calm and I will surely welcome you in like a long lost friend. The locals used to call me 'little house' in Welsh for I was not much more than a cabin once, if truth be told, but I have been added on to overtime and always very much loved. I am built of river-stone, no-one knows my age but it is over two hundred years at least. A road of the Romans is in my pastures, I may have dwelled here before but in some other form, a past life is highly likely.

No word like property defines my soul (I am a home) and there are no en suites to be found. My mistress would not allow the words master bedroom over my threshold. She is a feminist and she is rather eccentric She cares not that all about me is offbeat and quirky, all is small. But I do have a big heart (but then between you and me she does too).

I am built of ancient heartbeats, there is buried silver in the ghosts of passed children’s laughter and the sound of the blacksmith’s anvil breathes in my rough-hewn walls.

My kitchen has walls of deep red now, she is like a scarlet woman who comes into her own at night. Her bare wood shelves spill over with staples and pots and pans hang over the cooker. Everyone and everything is just comfy here,not grand but comfy. It is a place to eat, to watch birds at the feeder outside the window, to mull and to moodle or to lose oneself in music or the radio, to cook even and to maybe bake a poem from a dream.

My tiny snug is rough-ceilinged but walls of gold adorn her and the view past the river is of an ancient wood. A very old Rayburn lives here. She is an easy-sleeping and a peaceful reading room, I cast a spell on all who enter here as I sit upon a magic spring.

Come into my parlour where fairy lights adorn the walls and crystals dress the windows - like dogs they are not just for Christmas for the angels love them all year round. They love my bright colours, candles, music too.

My bedrooms have not much room for more than a bed of brass with patchwork thrown across them but there is a vast patchwork of green without for the tiny windows open on to a river-view, the tops of the pine trees and a field with hills beyond.

My garden is still sleeping but as if from a dream has been reluctantly emerging from the deep snow which adorned her for weeks. She was beautiful and magical then, I miss it so, we made such a pretty pair. And now she is just a soggy mess. But Spring is nigh and I promise to show you round her then when she is looking her very best.

For now she must not be disturbed……..

Remind me, do.

Bye for now,

Ty r Gof.xx

Haiti

Go to this blog, Poet in Residence for a brilliant idea, spread the word.

Meditation

Each day I climb my hill to meander through a wood of oak

but I cannot see much below me on this grey December morning.

All is shrouded in silver and even I am lost in meditation,

dry-wrapped in a white and frost-ridden silence

which seems holy and most soothing

for it dulls the senses and muffles tears

with a sound that is something like Peace.

Its soft blanket of comfort embraces and protects me,

over and over till I am warm and safe again,

snug in its womb-like cocoon.

It is starting to clear now and

I believe that with its inevitable lifting

will come a dissipation and true inspiration,

a renewal,

a different view of things

and warm, warm sunshine.



©Cait O’Connor

A Walk in the Snow

White snow, blue sky, black trees, hoar frost.

The bride of Nature is dressed in white from head to toe
and she is calling the tune.
Miles and miles of white, her train is a work of art
and her icicles parade decoratively from the branches.
Across the edge of the frozen river
the Sun picks out the jewels that sparkle on the moor.

It is a day to pause as we put our extra layers on
and other layers are peeled away, like the dour reserve
of adulthood as our eyes widen, our faces glow
and we smile as our childhood selves are found beneath.
I want to be Heidi on a Swiss mountain
and I do not stroll or saunter, I simply tread and tread
and joy fizzes up through my woollen socks and my boots;
up and up, all the way to my heart.
My dogs gallop with white moustaches
as they race and taste the drifted snow,
just right in its pure crunchiness.

Dear Mr Media,
don’t make a crisis out of this season
for it is a gift of special days,
a drama rare enough to rise above
and we can all become as players on its stage.
It’s only winter once a year
and at least the rain has left us for a while.

Back home now at the cottage door
my stone angel is white-capped as she sits and blesses me.
Still deep in her book and deep in snow as well.

White snow, blue sky, black trees, hoar frost.


Cait O’Connor

From a train, lightly

From a Train, Lightly

Sentinel trees hold sway
standing watch through back-lit mists
across the anonymous valley.
Emerging from the white fog
the outline of a black farmhouse,
I am half expecting
a troubled Cathy or
an emotionally disturbed Heathcliffe
to emerge from the door.

The unseen river
divulges its presence
by a meandering, fluid cloud
of pale grey.
Flat flood-mirrors
grip leafless trees against
a pink-silver streaked sky
as the rumour of a sun becomes clear.

Dawn, ageless beauty, exits
a la droit
as startled sheep again scatter
from the nant’s edge.
We are speeding now towards the light
still hidden by the ubiquitous hills.
A lonely, lost heron mistakes a puddle
for a breakfast pond.

©Christopher Challener December 2009

Once in Royal David's City

The text that goes with this is in the next post, I had a job posting it.

Just a few seasonal thoughts

A Painting by Pollyanna Pickering

Dear Diary,

Once in royal Davids city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby,
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall:
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

For He is our childhood's pattern;
Day by day, like us, He grew;
He was little, weak, and helpless,
Tears and smiles, like us He knew;
And He cares when we are sad,
And he shares when we are glad.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love;
For that Child so dear and gentle,
Is our Lord in heaven above:
And He leads His children on,
To the place where He is gone.

I’ve been thinking about Christmas, well you can’t escape it really can you? As I drove home from work last night I heard the carol Once in Royal David’s City on the radio, it was sung so beautifully by a choir, I forget which one. I found it very moving, a story plainly told with due relevance and reverence, it was all there. The line where a mother laid her baby has always brought a tear to my eye. Perhaps thinking of an unmarried mother, homeless in a strange land, reliant on charity is something close to my heart. I got to thinking about the story of the birth of Jesus, the nativity tale that we are told from childhood and I wondered again about its truth in historical fact. We know Jesus existed but how can we be certain about the circumstances of his birth? I believe he was a healer, a holy man, a mystic, a psychic, a prophet indeed , but not the only one that has walked the Earth amongst us. And what he preached was quite simply love and that is all there is. We should take heed of this all year, not just at Christmas.

There are things I hate about Christmas but when I started totting up I discovered that there were many that I love.

Shall I start with the negatives?

Things I hate.

The pressure on women.
The pressure on everyone to consume.
The element of competition that creeps in, the need for everything to be perfect just like in the magazines and now the TV programmes that have popped up with Delia, Nigella, Kirsty and even Rick Stein.
Music in shops (if you can call it music).
Tackiness everywhere you look.
Overindulgence.
The loss of its true meaning.
The hijacking of the Winter Festival by the Christians many many moons ago.
Enforced jollity.
The Queen’s speech.
Repeats on TV.
Crackers, far too expensive, always disappointing.
Pressure to conform, I have always resisted that.
Most of all I hate the fact that it all starts far too early.
The phrase Are you ready for Christmas?
The very people, the over-zealous types who start Christmas far too early are the very ones always moaning just after Christmas and cannot wait to take their decorations down! Don’t they know that Christmas starts on Christmas Eve and that is the proper day to bring in the tree and decorate the house?


Things I love?

Snow, a white Christmas is magical, I love it when it starts to snow on Christmas Day for the first time, alas that won’t happen this year but it might well be a white one.

Carols, their words are pure poetry and the music heavenly.

Red candles.

Fairy lights indoors and understated outdoor lights in trees, I am going to look for some solar lights today. I have fairy lights up in the parlour and will probably keep them up all year. The spirits love them as much as they love bright colours.

Evergreens, holly, ivy, laurel and pine.
Holly wreaths on doors.

Spicy smells. I had a lovely essential oil last year, a special Christmas blend, I must try and track it down.

Brown paper parcels, bright ribbons, hand made labels written out in beautiful italic script.

I love those nativity cribs, I don’t own one but one would look nice on the cottage windowsill.

I don’t send cards, I donate to a charity instead but I always pick a favourite from the ones I do receive. This year’s winner features a picture of a country kitchen with a Rayburn, below which is a sheepdog like mine and a tiny lamb curled up together. It is from a painting called Keeping Warm by Pollyannna Pickering, great name. The winner is usually an angel so this will be a change.

I would like to say I enjoy the alcoholic drinks associated with Christmas but I have had to give up the demon drink because of my migraines. I will so miss Baileys, sherry, brandy, whisky, mulled wine. Not all at once though…. I will be content with grape or cranberry juice or tonic water.

Same goes for chocolate but I will get vicarious pleasure from watching the men in my household tucking in to chocolates.

Christmas pudding I will enjoy, just a wee bit with custard as I shall be too full of roast dinner, rib of Welsh beef, Yorkshire puds, roast potatoes, parsnips, sprouts, carrots, horseradish. Yes I know I said I abhorred overindulgence!

Mince pies are nice too with a blob of cream.

Children make Christmas for me, I love to feel their excitement and see the happiness on their faces.
I miss Father Christmas, he used to visit when the children were small. That was the time I really loved Christmas because with children ‘therein the magic lies’ but sadly those days of childhood went too quickly.

I love watching others opening presents, that always brings me joy. But I would rather give spontaneously than feel it is an obligation at Christmas.

I don’t want any presents and have asked folk not to buy for me. I don’t need anything and am trying to simplify my life. Just lately I have been getting a good feeling from getting rid of stuff, I certainly don’t want to accumulate more.

But I am having the best present I could wish for this year - my fourth grandchild is due any moment, s/he was expected on the Winter Solstice. I can’t think of anything that will bring me more happiness than holding the new baby in my arms.

I wish you all great happiness over the Christmas period too and not just for Christmas, let’s keep the goodwill and the love going for each and every day.

Thank you for visiting my blog and if you have read all of these ramblings…..congratulations.

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

In the Bleak Midwinter

All Things Radio

Dear Diary,

I shed a tear this morning (I do so at the drop of a hat these days) because I caught the ending of Terry Wogan’s last programme on Radio 2. I bet I am not the only one.

Also on the radio theme.

I have been listening to Dear Granny Smith which is Book of the Week on Radio 4 this week; I haven’t been able to hear it all but what I have heard has been very moving especially if you work in public service as I do and can empathise with a lot of his experience. So much of it I understood and could identify with, working in public libraries as I do which are also under extreme threat.

If you want to break a civilisation you close libraries, it has happened in the past.
Just an aside here….something struck me as odd, interesting, infuriating (pick what word you like) when I heard we were giving Pakistan money to set up libraries for the people........????

I digress again forgive me, back to the Royal Mail, for which I have nothing but the highest praise.

Roy Mayall is a postman. 50 something. Lives down south and has been doing his round for "a number of years". Roy has the most fascinating blog detailing his working life and he portrays a wonderful view of life within the Royal Mail.

His book, 'Dear Granny Smith: A letter from your postman', is currently the Radio 4 Book of the Week. "A letter from your postman written by Roy Mayall and delivered by Philip Jackson; a heartfelt musing on the past, present and future role of one of the oldest British institutions, the Postie. Why postmen used to have the best job in the world, and why it's heading towards becoming the worst"

There is to be a discussion on issues raised by the programme on Radio 4 at midday today, I must try and catch it.

Also on Radio 4 this morning I caught Carol Ann Duffy on Woman’s Hour talking about poetry (of course) and she read this poem - I thought it tied in well with the postal theme.

Christmas In Envelopes

Monks are at it again, quaffing, carousing;
And stage-coaches, cantering out of Merrie England,
In a flurry of whips and fetlocks, sacks and Santas.

Raphael has been roped in, and Botticelli;
Experts predict a vintage year for Virgins.

From the theologically challenged, Richmond Bridge,
Giverny, a lugger by moonlight, doves. Ours

Costs less than these in money, more in time;
Like them, is hopelessly irrelevant,
But brings, like them, the essential message
love

U A Fanthorpe

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait