Friday Rambles

Windswept by Paul Henry

Dear Diary,

Who can tell the dancer from the dance?

W B Yeats.

This is just a bit of a Friday ramble, just a list of a few nice things about the day.

The sun has been shining, it has been very warm, more like summer in fact and I have primroses out in my garden which, nestling beneath the roses make a rather unusual coupling.  A fuchsia I have planted in an old Belfast sink has also decided to flower once more.

There is also something rather nice that helps me get out of bed in the mornings and it’s a new kind of cereal.  Chocolate Weetabix, have you tried it yet? Simply delicious, the naughtiness of chocolate mixed with the healthiness of wholewheat, what a grand combination.   I feel I should  perhaps be paid for advertising it but never mind.  I must admit that I have been unfaithful to my organic porridge for a few days now, Jordan’s porridge which I adore, their organic and chunky oats which I have had religiously every morning for literally years as anyone who knows me will confirm.  I usually add ground almonds, raisins and whatever fruit comes to hand…. Very healthy and sustaining for me ……but not lately.  I  have a new temptation.  I know the answer …. Jordans will have to make chocolate porridge…..they don’t do they?

So what else has been good?

I found some YSL Elle perfume very greatly reduced in a local Boots and a Wallis skirt in a charity shop, it is my favourite skirt-colour -  grey in my much-loved herringbone tweed mixed with a textured tweed and just below knee length.

Talking of clothes I am a bit late I know but I have just discovered Boden’s 'pull-ons', I have a pair in lovely jade green and white flowery pattern and really, as their website says, the comfort and quality of these is out of this world.  Worth every penny. I sleep in them, wear them to lounge about or snuggle up in, do my yoga in them, I even blog in them.  I think I need two pairs!  I am getting well into snuggly type clothes now as winter draws on.  I have got some really soft  socks from M and S, quite inexpensive too but soooo warm and comfy. Again I wear them for everything.  And I bought a pair of their cheap soft boots, the sort you wear indoors.  I have to be prepared for the hard winter that is forecast.  Someone said to expect snow showers next week!

I also discovered a new fruit and veg shop today in one of our market towns, it is a little bit hidden away on an industrial estate and  sells the most fantastic range of stuff which is all really good quality.  They sell eggs, plants, ice cream and  bird food too.  There is a dearth of places round here to get good vegetables and fruit so I am very pleased.  Also for sale  there was a fantastic classic car - a 1953 burgundy coloured Vauxhall Wyvern.  Stumbling on this car was a real trip down memory lane for me as when I was a child my adoptive parents had one in a metallic green colour - I even remember its registration number - 729 HEV.

I treated myself to a magazine today, an Easy Living with a free gift of an Emma Bridgewater tea towel which can’t be a bad deal.  I shall read my book (Stepping Stones - Interviews with Seamus Heaney by Denis O'Driscoll)   in bed tonight by the light of another much loved object, my little reading lamp which can be clipped on a book - I just hold mine as it can be bent into any position, the light it gives is fantastic, the battery has lasted ages and it even doubles up as a torch.  I am putting a lot of effort into simplifying my life and getting rid of stuff, and as well as 'stuff' I am trying to eliminate what I call the 'nuisance' in life and all its 'unwanted obligations' but there are some things one just can’t live without.  What can’t you live without?
What are you getting rid of?

Before I go here is a poem by one of my favourite poets. She speaks of things you can't buy but which are the most valuable of all.

Barter

LIFE has loveliness to sell,

All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children's faces looking up,

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be. 

 

 

Sara Teasdale

 What was good about your day?

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait