Positives and Revisitings

Dear Diary,

I have just heard of three recent deaths in the local area, two of which were young people, it is so sad.  Round here everyone knows everyone so any death touches the whole community.  Bad news doesn’t seem right on such a beautiful morning.  Why do such sad things have to happen and why in threes?  I can only believe they have all gone to a better place, a cliché I know but I am sure it is true.

Just for today as we say in Reiki circles I will try and dwell on the positives here on Earth.  It is a beautiful spring day and I will not tarry long as the outdoors is calling me.  I have already been out to my local garage, they did a small job on the exhaust pipe of my car and have not charged me a penny; this is the  third time they have done this sort of thing.  Isn’t it wonderful that in today’s Rip-Off Britain there are still some folk left who are not out to fleece you.  A good start to the day.

I have just re-read Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn for my book club, it was such a joy.  I am not one to re-read books very often but Toibin’s way with storytelling just flows, his writing is superb.   If you haven’t read him yet please do.  He is one of my favourite writers; I admit that so many of my faves are Irish authors, it is not bias, it is just that the Irish love words so much and weave them so well. I am now re-reading another - Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry.  I almost bathe in his prose; I just have to stop and go back to re-read his words, they are so poetic. 

Talking of writing I have set up a blog for our writing group members as a place to post our homework and leave each other comments.  Just because I like a change I have ventured into Wordpress (ssssshhhhhh don’t tell Blogger) but although it all seems very professional I am a real Wordpress virgin still finding my way on there.  We are starting to post all our old bits of ‘homework’ and it struck me how many pieces of work are there which proves that the group is worthwhile and does indeed spur us on to write.  The blog will remain firmly private, open only to members.

I am still tired from the clocks springing forward. I can’t go to bed on time,  I can’t get up in the morning and I look like death warmed up.  I am on the genealogy trail once more, not my family but someone else’s - she has a close relative with a bit of a mysterious past.  It’s a case of burning the midnight oil with this one,  I think I should have been a detective.  My daughter is on the case too; perhaps we should set up in business…….

I received two lovely cards yesterday.  One was this picture by Gu We, a new-to-me artist, isn't it lovely when you discover a new one? I have posted one of his pics as my new header above........

and one by John Shannon, a tree-free card not this one but the one I received I can't find online.

What else am I looking forward to today on this day-off  work day? 

A CD soon arriving in the post by Gurrumul, so haunting, it reaches deep into my soul.  I have posted this before but it must be a time for revisiting,






Spending some time in the garden in the sunshine.  I have treated myself to a new garden bench - my present very cheap one is starting to crumble and the new one should be delivered soon so when I am tired from gardening I can try it out.

Reading more Annie Dunne of course, also in the sunshine, if it lasts.

Watching the birds nesting from my window;  several species are busy at the moment and I shall need to get the binoculars out.

Visiting my daughter and granddaughters later (I have to keep them supplied with reading matter).

I had better go,
Enjoy your moments today.
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

Christy Moore - Magdalen Laundries

Words by Joni Mitchell

Magdalene Laundries

Turning the Corner

Turning the Corner

As she settles in for sleep she remembers the words of the clairvoyant as she scried in her crystal ball.
She told her she could see barriers around her heart, shutting out her need for love……….

Even in a dream it takes her by surprise,

such an old but pretty gate, quite small,

wreathed in scrolls of heavy iron,

their Celtic spiral patterns painted black as night.

The gate is tightly shut but able to be opened

if she would only try.

Belief helps her open it,

trust takes her through it,

relief is there to greet her at the other side

where she feels strangely safe.

On a bright pathway

strewn with coloured blossoms

fear takes its flight,

till she feels strangely light.

As she turns the corner

she does not look back

but only forward, led by hope 

to a place where peace can take her hand

and bring to her a heart where love lies,

between the arms of stillness and serenity.

Cait O’Connor

Too much light and shade perhaps

 Dear Diary,

I am a little out of sync. today as I hate it when the clocks change, it affects me for weeks.  I shall be 'one hour out'  for too long a while and then when I am fully adjusted they will change the damned things back again.  Why can't they leave them alone?

I love daydreaming and my (new) beautiful header pic was topping an article in Saturday's Guardian so I thought I would post it here.  It got me dreaming about dreaming..... I do a lot of it: staring into space etc. I have always done this and I also love studying clouds by day and the skies at night and the river as it flows.  Birdwatching takes up much time here too.  I suppose it's meditation.

Has anyone else been watching the fantastic Danish crime serial The Killing?  It has been unmissable; the best thing on TV as far as I am concerned and though it has been dark, in more ways than one, it has really brightened Saturday nights TV-wise.  Everyone is saying that it puts British drama in the shade. (Too many mixed-up light and shade references here, sorry).  It was the last episode in the current series last night but still left me with much to think about.  I had to read something 'light' (sorry I am at it again) in bed before going to sleep because I think I would have been kept awake still wondering or perhaps I would have had bad dreams.   I had better not give anything away in case you haven't seen it and you watch it in the future but it did fiercely bring home to me how one killing can affect the lives of so many.  Can ruin the lives of so many.  That of course applies not only to murder but also to war.  Are the two (too) closely related I wonder?

To lighten the tone here is the best Dreamy song I know, written by Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks who by chance also featured in the Guardian yesterday.  I was planning to feature a piece of music by The Shadows as Jet Harris died recently, God rest him, I shall do that another day.





I'm off to take some air now; unfortunately the sun hasn't got his hat on yet, unlike yesterday when he paraded all day and all was bright!

But I must eave you with a poem by the great Wallace Stevens.

Looking Across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly

Among the more irritating minor ideas Of Mr. Homburg during his visits home To Concord, at the edge of things, was this: To think away the grass, the trees, the clouds, Not to transform them into other things, Is only what the sun does every day, Until we say to ourselves that there may be A pensive nature, a mechanical And slightly detestable operandum, free From man's ghost, larger and yet a little like, Without his literature and without his gods . . . No doubt we live beyond ourselves in air, In an element that does not do for us, so well, that which we do for ourselves, too big, A thing not planned for imagery or belief, Not one of the masculine myths we used to make, A transparency through which the swallow weaves, Without any form or any sense of form, What we know in what we see, what we feel in what We hear, what we are, beyond mystic disputation, In the tumult of integrations out of the sky, And what we think, a breathing like the wind, A moving part of a motion, a discovery Part of a discovery, a change part of a change, A sharing of colour and being part of it. The afternoon is visibly a source, Too wide, too irised, to be more than calm, Too much like thinking to be less than thought, Obscurest parent, obscurest patriarch, A daily majesty of meditation, That comes and goes in silences of its own. We think, then as the sun shines or does not. We think as wind skitters on a pond in a field Or we put mantles on our words because The same wind, rising and rising, makes a sound Like the last muting of winter as it ends. A new scholar replacing an older one reflects A moment on this fantasia. He seeks For a human that can be accounted for. The spirit comes from the body of the world, Or so Mr. Homburg thought: the body of a world Whose blunt laws make an affectation of mind, The mannerism of nature caught in a glass And there become a spirit's mannerism, A glass as warm with things going as far as they can. Wallace Stevens

Happy Sunday to you all,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait

March Garden

It has to be a quick blog

Listening to: Adele’s 21 Album.

Thinking about: the problems in the world.

Feeling: sad about the problems in the world.

Dreaming of: a perfect garden.

Dear Diary,

I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy.... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago.  

Sir George Porter

At the start of spring—the vernal equinox—day and night are each approximately 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days before the vernal equinox). The Sun crosses the celestial equator going northward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.

It is a special time of course, the Spring Equinox was yesterday. It was 15 degrees today and sunny even though the weather forecasters said Wales would be cloudy.  Seems like nothing can be relied upon these days.  At least the sunshine and the abundance of yellow daffodils is cheering everyone up.

I have not been lucky enough to see the Super Moon, it has been covered in cloud every night.

I worked hard in the garden today starting my yearly battle with the cursed ground elder.  To reward myself I visited the garden centre and treated myself to an angel statue, a birthday present to me in  advance……. I got the price reduced as the poor wee thing had damaged toes on one of his feet.  I also bought a  large pink David Austin shrub rose, well it will be five feet tall when it grows….both of these will go in a circular bed in my back garden.  I found a witches ball in a local antique centre last week, it is made of a gorgeous deep blue coloured glass, that will go at the feet of my angel.  The person who served me in the antique shop asked me what I was going to do with the witches ball (fishing to see if I was a witch perhaps?) and I told her I was going to put it in my garden.  She said my garden sounded interesting.  I wish…….

I also bought some winter pansies and violas (violae?) for my baskets to replace those bought just before the Big Freeze which disintegrated in the many minus 18 degrees of frost days.

Just a quick blog tonight as someone else wants to get on to the computer (!) and  I need to get to bed soon for an early night as I am back to work tomorrow.

I will return on another day with pics of my new acquisitions.

Off to bed now with Colm Toibin, 

Nos Da,

Cait

St Patrick's Day

St Patrick's Day Dreaming

On a St Patrick's Day's morning

I can only dream myself home

back to that Irish mountain's precious stream
amongst carpets of sweet celandine

with purple violets at their edge,
peeping shyly, hiding coyly

 and so timid in their beauty.

Daffodils, full-on bright yellow,
  not the least bit bashful,
compete with primroses

along the river’s bank.

And all around is greening

and every plant and shrub is budding,

simply bursting into life.

And all the while the river sings her song
and birds join in the chorus as she flows.

And I detect a brightness in the tune,
a tinkling sound of joy rings in its melody,
as if the whole of Nature loves an Irish Spring

and all can feel God’s beauty in its midst.

Cait O'Connor





And just for you on this special day here is a poem by the late John O'Donohue, one I have posted before but make no apologies for doing so again.

Beannacht*

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

John O'Donohue

 *Blessing

(From his book Echoes of Memory)

And here is an extra treat, an interview which took place in 2005 with dear John O'Donohue, God rest his soul.

On Beauty.
Click on the link below.

News | John O'Donohue

www.johnodonohue.com


(Pic by Barrie Maguire)

The Ides of March

Dear Diary,

Paradise starts with the love we show each other here on earth.

Four-month old baby rescued

There seems to be so much unrest in many places in the world of late.  People are roused and are rising as one against oppression in more than one country, this can only be a good thing but so dangerous.  When bad things happen I  always think of the saying You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and I can’t help feeling that we are entering a period of great change.  We can only hope and pray that all will be well in the end.

Even the Earth is reflecting this unrest with so many earthquakes of late.  Yesterday a blogger I follow, Decadent Housewife, alerted readers to this blog written by a woman living in Japan.   I read it before I went to bed last night and it really brought me close in to Sue’s life (and her family and friends) who are luckily alive but living now with shortages of every kind and most dreadful of all on top of the shock of the earthquake and the tsunami are suffering the heightened fear of radioactive fallout.  I read back through Sue’s postings before the earthquake and tsunami struck the people of Japan and it was, much like ours, filled with the everyday and  you could say but only in hindsight, rather mundane matters.

My heart goes out, a cliché I know but it does, especially to all the bereaved; there will be many orphans and many who have lost children.  Am I the only one in that I almost feel a sense of voyeuristic guilt watching the film footage taken by onlookers of the tsunami as it struck and I wonder how people had the calm presence of mind to film it (they must have been up high surely?).  I get rather annoyed with journalists who keep commenting on the huge number of cars strewn about - the number of cars shocked me, they typify our dependence on them and how they pollute in more ways than one.  James Naughtie on Radio 4’s Today was waxing rather too lyrically about the cars, saying they would not see the light of day again - I found this rather insulting in the light of the numbers of human lives lost.

Watching the news from Japan I am lost for words and have been quiet for a few days, wanting to blog about it but hardly knowing how to express my sadness and my sympathy for the Japanese people.  I am glad that our local Mid Wales Search and Rescue Firemen are going out to help.

Sue gives this wise advice, something we all hear and say over again but too soon forget.

Make the most of the present. 

Live in each moment.

The present is indeed our gift and we should treat it as such, savouring each one and the next that is soon to be upon us and enjoying every aspect of life which is really so short and meant to be good; dispelling negativity and dwelling on the positive blessings.  I often wake in the small hours unable to get back to sleep; I usually start ruminating and worry often dominates my thoughts, they enlarge at this time of day, I know not why.  When I woke this morning at 4 am I deliberately set out to think only of blessings and it was incredible the numbers there are, they are endless really. 

As I sit here at the computer I can start counting blessings again: my hands, my ability to type and spell and read and write, the computer itself, the internet, the view from my window, my cottage, my animals beside me, two dogs and a cat, music playing.  Time off work,  I am feeling better, the daffodils are coming out, I have good things to look forward to, books to read, places to go, plants, birds, warmth, clothes, food, peace, photographs, my camera, blogs, email messages,……   I will stop but I could go on all day really and I haven’t mentioned the most important blessings of all, my children, grandchildren, other family and dear friends.

The Dalai Lama got it right when he said Only Kindness Matters. The pictures from Japan should bring home to us the fragility of materialism and that what really matters are people and the love that we can give to each other (and the Earth).

In one of your moments do send out a prayer for Sue and all the Japanese people,

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

pay attention: a river of stones

From small stones a book has been produced.  This is how it began with the words of writer Fiona Robyn.

Fiona Robyn is on a mission to help people connect with the world through writing. She is a novelist, a blogger, a creativity coach and a Buddhist. She writes a weekly inspirational newsletter & runs e-courses. She started writing small stones in '05, launched a handful of stones in '08, & started a river of stones with her fiancé Kaspa in '11. She is very fond of Earl Grey tea and homemade cake, her cats Fatty and Silver, & the lovely Malvern hills (which she can gaze at from her home office window). 
 
This is how  it began. Fiona's words:

If you’d like to feel more at home with yourself and with the world, then you’re in the right place. Write small stones. You don’t need any previous experience of writing or any special equipment. You just need to notice one thing properly every day & then write it down.

Pay attention: a river of stones.

This is a book I shall be ordering and I would like to recommend it to you. The excellent idea was spawned by Fiona Robyn and I am pleased that there may be a future collaboration.  I think I shall try and write something myself  if possible; I have no excuses as I am lucky enough to live beside a river of stones.

Below is a little interview I had with Fiona's partner about the book..

For those who have not heard of this creative writing project can you tell people a little about it?

Years ago Fiona started writing small stones - one per day. A few lines of writing based on an observation in the world. She's been encouraging people to write them for a while and has an e-zine at www.ahandfulofstones.com. Towards the end of last year we saw the potential of using writing small stones to encourage people to really connect with the world - to really pay attention.

Somehow the idea of encouraging people to write one small stone a day for the month of January entered the conversation and a river of stones was born. We had lots and lots of people taking part, all over the world, and received lots of lovely comments and emails. When we started to see how many people we writing, and how many people were writing well - we had the idea to collate lots of our favorites in to a book.

Was it relatively easy to self-publish? Would you recommend this route to others?
We  received  submissions all through the month of  February, more than three thousand pieces of writing, (most only a few lines long). About once a week, we'd print a batch out, sit down together and read through each one. We chose based on what fitted the 'form' of a small stone: how observational was the writing? occasionally we suggested edits to create a stone that was more focused on the world, than on the writers experience of themselves, or ask contributors about repeating words, or capitalization.
This meant that not long after our submission deadline we knew what was going in. We'd also collected and written some prose pieces. We then worked in to the night for a couple of days, creating the order of the chapters and so on, creating the documents in the correct format. It helped that Fiona had used lulu before to publish and had book templates on hand.

I designed the cover and the insides of the book, and we had to proof read everything ourselves.  I know some writers who publish with 'small press' publishers and although much of the support, in terms of editing, is much less than it used to be, you still do get your manuscript read by a professional, and a cover designed and typeset. And depending on the size of the publisher they often have different routes to sales than an individual might have.
I think if you are writing something very specialist, and you want to create a hard-copy for yourself and people who might be interested in that area then print-on-demand is not a bad way to go. But it does take time and energy. On the other hand you can end up with something really beautiful at the end of the process.

I do hope the River will keep flowing. Will there be any future editions?
The main focus of the River was never the book for us, although recently it became an all consuming process. What is central is encouraging people to go into the world and really pay attention,  to see and hear and smell the things we usually miss, the wildflowers growing in the cracks in the pavement and so on. 
We're going to run the river again in July 2011 asking people to observe and write one thing down each day.
About half way through the process of reading submissions, sitting in a local coffee-shop, we talked about how much work the book had been and how we'd love to do something 'low maintenance' in July. I'm going to have another go at collating .rss feeds of people's blogs (the technology failed me in January) so that we have a webspace where anyone can log on and see the river. As I said I tried that this year with the Yahoo! Pipes widget and it only worked intermittently.

We're both away in July as well, in the second week we're running our 'Connecting with Others' workshop in France, a week long workshop using writing, and using psychical theatre to connect with the world.
After July? Who knows.... Next year maybe...

Remind us how we can buy copies of the book.
Currently available to download, in paperback and hardback at Lulu.com - soon to be available at Amazon. Watch this space.

Her New Beau

A chameleon does not leave one tree until he is sure of another

Arabian Proverb

Her New Beau


Sometimes she wonders if it is kind to keep him in a jar
as he surely has a brain,
a rarity in these no-brain  parts.
She has always attracted these reptilian males
but this one popped up spilling culture
from his wide, reptilian mouth.
He is, after all, a Guardian reader,
a slow and gently creeping thing, ophidian
and his eyes are not too bulgy,
a rarity in these bulging-eye infested parts.
An intellectual reptile, both hard to say and to believe,
he will readily cosy up and chat to old ladies
who are shrivelled up and just as unattractive as he
but they do say affinity breeds kind deeds.
His warm, slow breath is always light;
no wild, Welsh dragon, heavy-breather of the fire is he
(and between you and me there are far too many of those
 in these heavy-breathing parts).
He cuts quite the fine dash in his suit of green
and his wrap-around vermilion scarf
and she is secretly charmed by his un-croaky
but not quite tipping-into-velvet voice.
They both want the same things from life:
warmth, enough food, drink in moderation
and plenty of loving attention.
She hopes this one will not be another chameleon
but still she wonders,
is it really kind to keep him in a jar?



Cait O’Connor

Tree of Life

Tree of Life Gustav Klimt

Genealogy Days


Perhaps it was because I had no roots at all, I took to
playing keenly and too well the generation game;
making myself at home in others’ times,
playing the extra’s part in others’ live-in history.
Chasing the dead, feeling joy but also others’ pain,
treading with care when walking in another’s shoes,
spying on the secrets and the sorrows from their past.

Detection is not easy but persistence pays me well
through the many hours of boredom, sweat and toil
but finding folk is like a fever breaking.
Consanguinity, linking life to life,
creating a wider, ever-spreading family tree,
beginning with paternity and maternity,
growing a tree of linkage, lineage and heredity,
attaining a sense of place,
gaining an identity.


Cait O’Connor

March Ramblings

Dear Diary,

It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.

J. Krishnamurti

It has been too long since my last posting so I can only offer many apologies. I have been suffering from a berludy virus that is doing the rounds.  I am still not fully better so bear with me, I am a wee bit fragile.  I had a break of fever in the night and felt so much better, so much so that I got up for an hour and checked emails etc while supping on ginger tea.

What am I doing now? Very little, keeping warm having dosed myself with strong analgesics, cough mixture and herbal teas.  I am trying to avoid going t o the GP and going down the antibiotic route.

Blessings?

Radio 4.  How could I live without it?

The  book programme at 6.30 pm on BBC2 every evening with Anne Robinson (don’t worry, she  has softened and is excellent in this, she has also apologised to the Welsh!).  She and Chris Evans also made a fantastic case against closing libraries on TV recently so both have gone up in my estimation.

A ‘comforter’ which I bought in a lovely craft shop in a  local market town recently.  It is Fairtrade, made in Nepal and just the thing for my sore throat.  It is knitted in multicolour; turquoise, rusty red, burgundy, greens and  dark pinks.   I am a firm believier in colour healing. It is also very soft and soothing to my neck and throat., if I had the energy I would photograph it for you.

The weather is also comforting me, it is bright and blue. cloudless and sunny (!), as it was yesterday for St David’s Day.  The sky was a mass of blue then too which made the day special.  I spotted several children in national costume which was sweet.   The yellow sun here in Wales made up for the lack of daffodils in my garden  which  are nowhere near out yet.  I have instead bought some wee pots of the lovely dwarf varieties and they are very cheering.  Yellow is the perfect colour to lift us from winter blues.

A new magazine to get lost in.

Some new books ordered from the library:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog., Muriel Barbery
Life in a Cottage Garden, Carol Klein
Stranger in the Mirror, Jane Shilling.
Life Alignment, Philippa Lubbock
A Discovery of Witches, Deborah E Harkness
Bird Cloud, Annie Proulx
21 golden rules for cosmic ordering, Barbel Mohr
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

A no-work today day luckily.

A poem is brewing in me, a line came to me during the night.

I made a breakthrough in my husband’s genealogy trail yesterday when I  found  a relative in France, thanks to the Ancestry website.

The birds in my garden, better than TV sometimes, I could watch them for hours.

My daphne is flowering, its colour is a perfect mauve.

I am soon going to make a big pot of spicy and  hopefully curing, vegetable soup.   I had a very tasty bowl of spiced parsnip soup in the aforementioned craft shop last week, very spicy indeed, just how I like it.  And along with most delicious home-made bread it was delicious.

March is underway, thank God.  A friend and I have come to an agreement, we would like to abolish two months from the calendar and they are December (my number one hate it is so stressful, pressured and I hate it!) and also February as most folk are a tad depressed, exhausted, or are suffering from some virus or possibly all three.

But now the only way  is up and

(wait for it a cliché  is coming)

Spring is just around the corner……………………..


But just before I go here is  a newly discovered poem by Elizabeth Bishop.

The End Of March

It was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken, seabirds in ones or twos. The rackety, icy, offshore wind numbed our faces on one side; disrupted the formation of a lone flight of Canada geese; and blew back the low, inaudible rollers in upright, steely mist. The sky was darker than the water --it was the color of mutton-fat jade. Along the wet sand, in rubber boots, we followed a track of big dog-prints (so big they were more like lion-prints). Then we came on lengths and lengths, endless, of wet white string, looping up to the tide-line, down to the water, over and over. Finally, they did end: a thick white snarl, man-size, awash, rising on every wave, a sodden ghost, falling back, sodden, giving up the ghost... A kite string?--But no kite. I wanted to get as far as my proto-dream-house, my crypto-dream-house, that crooked box set up on pilings, shingled green, a sort of artichoke of a house, but greener (boiled with bicarbonate of soda?), protected from spring tides by a palisade of--are they railroad ties? (Many things about this place are dubious.) I'd like to retire there and do nothing, or nothing much, forever, in two bare rooms: look through binoculars, read boring books, old, long, long books, and write down useless notes, talk to myself, and, foggy days, watch the droplets slipping, heavy with light. At night, a grog a l'américaine. I'd blaze it with a kitchen match and lovely diaphanous blue flame would waver, doubled in the window. There must be a stove; there is a chimney, askew, but braced with wires, and electricity, possibly --at least, at the back another wire limply leashes the whole affair to something off behind the dunes. A light to read by--perfect! But--impossible. And that day the wind was much too cold even to get that far, and of course the house was boarded up. On the way back our faces froze on the other side. The sun came out for just a minute. For just a minute, set in their bezels of sand, the drab, damp, scattered stones were multi-colored, and all those high enough threw out long shadows, individual shadows, then pulled them in again. They could have been teasing the lion sun, except that now he was behind them --a sun who'd walked the beach the last low tide, making those big, majestic paw-prints, who perhaps had batted a kite out of the sky to play with.

Why?

Why?


Why did God make Men; was She only joking?
Why does the caged bird sing?
Why do I beat myself up and always drive myself on?
Why do the good die young?
Why do I always fall asleep on the sofa
and then wake at the end of the film?
Why can’t I sleep when I get to bed
but not want to wake in the morning?
Why do I feel wide awake at night
yet  could easily drowse the day long?
Why does time pass more quickly the older you get?
Why does each year go faster than the last?
Why do a few minutes pass so slowly when I am willing them to go by?
Why do hours just whiz by on the computer?
Why does time fly when I’m having fun?
(Where does the time go?).
Why does food always taste better out of doors?
Why, if I am looking for a particular card in my purse, it will be the last to be found?
Why does a good book always end too quickly?
Why do people only call by when the house is a tip?
Why does no-one call when it’s clean and tidy?
Why, if heat rises, is it colder the higher up you go?
Why does the phone ring just as I am dishing up a meal or wallowing in the bath?
Why does a word keep cropping up after it has been discussed?
Why do we always want what we haven’t got
and not appreciate what we already have?
Why is youth wasted on the young?
Why can’t there be an end to war?
Why do we never learn from history?
Why do we laugh?
Why do we cry?
Why do we write?
Why do we blog?
Why are we here?
Why are you reading this cr**?
Why do we worry anyway?

Answers on a postcard please.
(Or in comments below).



Cait O’Connor

On Finding An Ancestor's Will

On Finding An Ancestor’s Will


In Cumberland, upon a hillside’s crag,
sweet Archibald, I  found you.

But were you really not so sweet,
were you rather sour and tight?

You lived and worked by border folk
and married one, Christiana.

Two hundred years have passed,
each archive speaks, yet hides from us its story.

You made and dealt in earthenware,
you dreamed in clay, your land was stone and slate.

A gifted artist, palms worked their alchemy
to make the finest china in the land.

You left great wealth but all was spoken for
by creditors, well more than one in truth.

When you were safely cold, buried deep
and moulded in St  Andrew’s clay

the first in line was Samuel Binns, the local man of coal.
Another dealer, patient, open-palmed,
he’d quietly watched you die.

Six hundred pounds lay wait for him.
his conscience clear and firm, un-pricked,

the money owed to him had kept you whole,
had warmed your body and its heart

and hopefully your artist soul,
through all your long, cold, dying days

in Cumberland, upon a hillside’s crag.


Cait O’Connor

Adele at the Brits

I was babysitting last night and only caught some of the Brit Awards.  A lot of what I saw left me unmoved but not Adele's performance.  What a talent; she stood out from the rest as far as I am concerned.

See what you think.


I heard that your settled down.
That you found a girl and you're married now.
I heard that your dreams came true.
Guess she gave you things I didn’t give to you. Old friend, why are you so shy?
It ain’t like you to hold back or hide from the lie.
I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited.
But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it.
I hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded
that for me, it isn’t over.
Never mind, I’ll find someone like you.
I wish nothing but the best for you too.
Don’t forget me, I beg, I remember you said
“Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead”
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead, yeah.
You’d know how the time flies.
Only yesterday was the time of our lives.
We were born and raised in a summery haze.
Bound by the surprise of our glory days.
I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it.
I hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded,
That for me, it isn’t over yet.
Never mind, I’ll find someone like you.
I wish nothing but the best for you too.
Don’t forget me, I beg, I remember you said
“Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead”, yay.
Nothing compares, no worries or cares.
Regrets and mistakes they’re memories made.
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?
Never mind, I’ll find someone like you.
I wish nothing but the best for you too.
Don’t forget me, I beg, I remembered you said:-
“Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead”
Never mind, I’ll find someone like you.
I wish nothing but the best for you too.
Don’t forget me, I beg, I remembered you said
“Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead”
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead, yeah.

Just a litle romance

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
   Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
   And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
   And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
   By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
   Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
   When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare

 Here is a song for the day.

First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

The first time ever I saw your face

I thought the sun rose in your eyes

And the moon and stars were the gifts you gave

To the dark and the empty skies, my love,

To the dark and the empty skies.

The first time ever I kissed your mouth

And felt your heart beat close to mine

Like the trembling heart of a captive bird

That was there at my command, my love

That was there at my command.

And the first time ever I lay with you

I felt your heart so close to mine

And I knew our joy would fill the earth

And last till the end of time my love

It would last till the end of time my love

The first time ever I saw your face, your face,

your face, your face

Crazy Valentine

Dear Diary,

When love is not madness, it is not love.  

 

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

 

 

I was thinking this morning (dangerous I know) about the places and times that inspiration strikes me.  I usually get an idea for a poem, or a line for one in in the middle of the  night,  in the shower, out on a walk,or when I am driving.  These are all places where a notebook is of no use whatsoever.  I wonder where you get your flashes of inspiration about what will be your next creation?  Do you always carry the essential notebook and pen?  Or are you like me who often has little scraps of paper all over the place?

I was leafing through a Country Life magazine in the library in my lunch hour yesterday as there are often interesting snippets in it.  I have discovered an artist I had not come across called Arthur Hacker, (1858-1919).  I expect you all know of him but my education is often sadly lacking.  I have picked one of his pictures to illustrate a wee poem about Valentine's Day.  It is a bleak poem which is about love but not the happiest aspects of it so I am posting it before Monday when I expect the day to be a happy one, full of Cupids, arrows, soft nothings and anonymous messages of love.

Vale of Farewell

Arthur Hacker

The idea for this poem came to me when I was driving. It is a true story, based on real people who shall obviously have to remain anonymous.


Crazy Valentine



He has lost his wife.
Some folk said he should have been more careful,
that the cause was his neglect.
He swore she was not lost,
that he had just mislaid her
but now she lays with another.

He lives a solitary life now
in their longhouse below a Welsh mountain.
Memories of their sweet union still hang around the yard.

Even the hills are sexy, their curves seem way too beautiful;
symmetrical, symbolic, their view from the cottage
both attract and pain him in equal measure.

He has joined a dating site and goes on nervous assignations
but the women all seem coarse and not remotely like his wife,
the one he swears is calling to him from some secret  place.

She is still arty, awash with sweetness and a cool allure
which he knows can quickly sway according to that moody moon.
He looks out for her in special hope upon the feast of Valentine.

Sometimes she is dominant and close,
sometimes distant, hidden and reserved.
but he believes that she is there and that she calls to him alone,

that she is waiting for the moment to return
that life will return to normal
and that everything will be the way it  always used to be,

before he had woefully mislaid her.


Cait O’Connor

About toleration

Dear Diary,


A short blog post today. It is a trifle chilly up here in the study and I am a little under the weather today. The sofa and log burner (and Brian Keenan) are calling me from downstairs so I won't keep you.  My book group are comparing Brian Keenan's book An Evil Cradling with John McCarthy and Jill Morrell's Some Other Rainbow, an excellent choice for this month by one of our members and I am looking forward to the discussion.

 I apologise because I have been lazy and posted a copy of an article.  It is Nicky Wire of the Manics speaking to Robin Turner of the Guardian.  I realise I am preaching to the converted here but I am so incensed that in a so-called civilised society anyone could even consider closing a library.  There is a great song at the end for you.  Stay with it.

Do check out the Lauren Laverne link, (if you missed it on 10 o'clock live)........ it's great.

It's hard not to feel utterly despondent at the current plight of public libraries. Along with the NHS and the BBC, our libraries are some of the few truly remarkable British institutions left. So often absolutely ordinary in appearance, a good library should offer escape routes down the most extraordinary avenues, pathways into different worlds from the one you've left outside. Ridding our villages, towns and cities of libraries, which are essential in shaping a nation's consciousness, seems like a direct attack on the soul of the country.Libraries have always reassuringly been there when I've needed them. Blackwood library in Wales helped me through my O- and A- levels. They have given my parents decades of pleasure, satiating their desire to read and learn. This country's greatest ever poet and one of the biggest influences on my life and work, Philip Larkin, was – of course – a librarian. My wife Rachel worked as a librarian across all the branches in Newport. My brother Patrick worked in Blackwood library. I remember clearly my mother bringing home a biography of Under the Volcano author Malcolm Lowry during my teenage years. Here was a life that was truly beyond eccentricity, incredibly sad and fucked up. I was wholly drawn to the nihilistic, hyper-intelligent nature of Lowry's story. That was the turning point that made books so precious to me, part of the transformative process that would eventually make me almost fetishise books themselves. For these and countless other reasons, the public library was a key factor in shaping who I am today.
There's a tendency to resort to romantic cliche when talking about libraries; clearly in a digital age they aren't a "sexy" alternative. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I still believe that the core of libraries will always be printed words rather than screens or keyboards. In any town or city, you can walk in and pick up the works of TS Eliot or Brett Easton Ellis, extremes of taste that you can dip into and thumb through without having anyone nudging you to make a purchase. There really aren't many things in life that can enrich you for free yet ask for nothing in return.
As an utterly self-made band, in our formative stages we vociferously consumed high and low culture – magazines, literature and TV. Without money, libraries became something of a lifeline, offering a clear window on to a wider world. In the summer of 2009, the band were honoured to be asked to open the new Cardiff Central Library. For us, it seemed like a chance to give something back to Wales. Seeing one of our lyrics – "Libraries gave us power", from A Design for Life – inscribed on the opening plaque was in its own way as affecting as playing the Millennium Stadium.
That opening line was adapted from an engraving above the entrance to Pill library in Newport that read: "Knowledge is power." The weight of those almost Orwellian words became intertwined with an idea about what the miners had given back to society when they built municipal halls and centres across the country – beautiful looking institutes that they proudly left for future generations. The lyric was me railing against what I saw as a flippancy pervading the country with the rise of Britpop, a wholesale adoption – and bastardisation – of working-class culture.
The double life of that song's opening line is one of the most amazingly serendipitous things that's happened during the life of the band. I still feel intensely proud when I hear it cited out of the context of the song, like last week when Lauren Laverne dropped it into a brilliant piece of polemic on 10 O'Clock Live.
At the moment, it really does appear that the establishment is back in control of Britain. After 30 years of semi-pluralistic governance, the establishment is pushing hard its own agenda. When you look at the cabinet, the millionaire's row in the front benches of Parliament looks like a very public-school coup. One of the most amazing things about public libraries remains their utter classlessness. You don't have to have gone to Eton to make the most out of a library. They aren't inhabited by the kind of people currently damning them. The closure of libraries in conjunction with tuition fees, the sell-off of our forests and radical reorganisation of the NHS are symbolic of the blatant power grab of this fiasco of a government. There is a way of solving these problems – it's called higher taxation of the wealthiest 10% of the country. In the 90s, I'd have gladly included myself in that bracket.
We need to cherish these things while they still exist. Seek solace, seek knowledge. Seek power.
• Nicky Wire, the Manic Street Preachers' bassist and lyricist, was talking to Robin Turner of The Guardian.




Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait

Libraries Change Lives

This will be the first of many posts about libraries and the fight to save them.  

Support your Local Library – The Pillar of Civilisation

These are the words of Shoo Rayner, a very popular children's author and illustrator.
I tried very hard to embed a copy of his video (with his permission) but to no avail. It can be found here should you wish to view him speaking. However I am able to copy the words below.




I don’t get this country sometimes. As an island nation in a cruel, new, worldwide economic environment, we are in peril.
Our future relies on the imagination of our people. The future will be dominated by the intelligent and the imaginative. That is where profits will come from.
So what do we do in a time of short term political stress? Obvious… go for the short-term easy option – as always. Let’s cut the libraries.
Great Britain became great for many reasons, but I would hazard to suggest that universal education was the main reason.
The real driving power of the industrial revolution was the autodidact, the man who wanted to better himself and move up. How did he do this? He went to the library or the worker’s reading rooms and taught himself. That is the British way – that is the British genius that has kept us “punching above our weight” all these years.
Andrew Carnegie, the richest man that ever lived, understood this. He was that self-made man. He knew what it took to make it in this world, and far from pulling the ladder up behind him as our politicians propose now, he bestowed thousands of libraries to provide a place of learning for those who would follow him in self-reliance, determination and all the other qualities needed in The Big Society.
So now, at what is probably our hour of greatest need, what do we do? We start closing down public libraries!
I admit, there are so many good accounting reasons to do this. You can massage the figures anyway you like, but leadership is not about accounting. A great leader listens to his advisers and makes brave, visionary decisions. Any leader who follows the obvious advice of accountant is just a manager – not a leader.
My mind has been in turmoil over the issue of public libraries in the current economic situation. The internet has changed everything. It is cheaper to ask library users to order their books from Amazon and keep them, rather than pay for a library and its staff.
But a library is so much more that a pile of books or bricks. At its best it is the heart of the community and the centre of life-long learning. With the rapid pace of change, life-long learning is something we will all have to get used to, and the Library is the perfect place to go for the information that we need.
People of my generation are obsessed with books and paper. Kids really couldn’t care what form their information comes in. They have no loyalty to paper or books. If they weren’t told to read books because they are a “good thing”, they wouldn’t.
I find that scary – I make my living selling books. I know I and all authors have a very scary but exciting ride ahead. The times they are a’changing.
Forget books. They are not the point – it is what is in the books that counts. All that information needs filtering, storing and organising, and that’s where libraries and librarians come in.
Libraries have changed a lot since I was a kid and I think they have a long way to go yet. In fact, I think the role of the public library will always keep changing. But a public library’s core business is knowledge and information.
Maybe those in power want to keep us in ignorance? I don’t believe that’s so. I tend to go for the cock-up theory of politics. Keeping us in ignorance will lead to a “Fourth World” future. Post-industrial, bankrupt and only fit to make cheap plastic goods or decontaminate the waste of the rest of the world.
Our future lies in motivated, educated citizens and the library should be at the heart of their lives. Teaching them the stuff they need to know to keep this country at the forefront of the information revolution.
Librarians may well be stereotyped as quiet, tea-drinking cat-lovers who will go meekly when presented a P45, but in reality they are the guardians of our knowledge, our history and everything that has got us to where we are and where we shall go.
Sir Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” And so our vision of the future is only possible because we stand on the shoulders of those that have come before. Their legacy is kept and guarded by libraries and librarians.
Librarians are priceless and so is the service they provide and so are the buildings they work in.
We need to have a discussion about their future and our future, but there is no point having that discussion if the buildings and the people who know how to handle information have gone.
At the moment, the Library is there for children who need to read books, They need to read lots of them repeatedly. Wonder why literacy levels are falling? Literacy is not about school records or results. Literacy comes from reading lots of books. It takes a lot of practice to get good at reading. Reading books may be seen as entertainment, but if a book is not entertaining why would a child want to read it? Literacy comes from reading entertaining books. Fact. Get over it!
Oh! And let’s not forget the home schoolers and the sick. And story time and toddler’s groups and craft sessions. Libraries are as much a part of our children’s education as schools are. In some case maybe more. The library is where you go when school’s out or it doesn’t teach what you need to know.
And what of older people once they have switched the telly off? There’s not a lot on the box for them. The Library is there not only to borrow books from, but it’s a meeting place and source of information.
The library is often where older people discover and use the internet. How confused are you by your computer? Can you imagine being eighty and trying to get to grips with one on your own? Libraries provide computers that work and don’t need to be fiddled with all the time.
And the computers are there for everyone else too. Information at your fingertips in the information age, with Librarians there to help you find what you want. Yes, computers are cheap and easy to get hold of now, but they are no easier to maintain. How many people have a computer sitting in their front room, unused because it won’t start up and no one knows what to do with it? Millions probably.
And what of all those people out working all day? The ones who earn the money to pay the council tax, who complain about the expense of the libraries?
Well, maybe we need to re-examine opening hours. Maybe we need to examine what those people want and need from libraries.
Maybe more evening book groups, special interest groups, more adult education.
Maybe this is where the Big Society comes in, local lectures on any subject under the sun, passing on information, making connections in the community, building new groups and businesses, the library as the human/person/body/real-life meeting place of the faceless, FaceBook generation.
I know that libraries are going to go through massive change in the next few years. I’ve met one or two young librarians who are champing at the bit, with visions of entirely digital libraries, free of the weight of paper and dusty shelves.
There is an amazing future ahead for public libraries, at the heart of our communities and at the heart of the life-long learning and self -improvement we will have to invest in for the sake of the country’s future.
But if you take away the very pillars of civilisation don’t besurprised if everything comes crashing down on you!
Take libraries away and they will never come back and soon the dark shadow of a post industrial wasteland will descend upon this once great nation.
We can rise again and lead the world into the next historic revolution, but not without our libraries..

Shoo Rayner