May your day
Find you
Abounding in hope
Surrounded in love
With an abundant peace
That permeates
The body
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Returnee
The River Thames on Boxing Day. Looking towards Hammersmith Bridge
Sometimes I have driven down to my destination in London in three hours. Everything goes smoothly and there are no hold-ups. However, this time, getting there took four and half hours and getting back took the same. Going down, there was heavy rain and motorway spray followed by a sluggish crawl on The North Circular Road. Coming back, it was just the sheer volume of traffic heading north. Mysterious but brief stops then back up to 40mph. Congestion. Clint had to keep his wits about him.
Down there at Ian and Sarah's house in the west London district of Fulham, I didn't have access to a computer and of course I am not in possession of nor possessed by a mobile phone. The way that Ian and Sarah view television is different from ours. They rarely look at terrestrial channels and they have little appetite for the daily news.
Consequently, some of my established habits were effectively blocked. It was cold turkey time in a vegan household. No blogging. No photo checking. No visits to news channels or football updates. No BBC teletext service. Yes I was out of it and you know what? I enjoyed that. Being off grid in England's sprawling metropolis. Five days of heavenly peace.
The new Riverside Stand at Fulham F.C. and Boxing Day oarsmen
It was a lovely time with Ian and Sarah, Shirley, Frances, Stew and Little Phoebe. Together we watched Disney's "Moana". What a beautiful film - visually, musically and narratively. On the big sofa, Little Phoebe curled up in my warm embrace. Ian worked hard to make a wonderful Christmas Day vegan feast and on Boxing Day we all went on a family walk in the sunshine.
Down to The River Thames then up to Hammersmith Bridge and down the other side to Putney Bridge before heading back to the Christmas house. At one point I asked the others to gather for a riverside family photo. Phoebe had fallen asleep in her pushchair. I considered the fact that many thousands of such images are missing a key character - the photographer. He or she will forever remain invisible - the hidden one who pressed the button. And time will move on and things will change but the photo will remain as the evidence of a lovely day, frozen forever. Something to look back upon and remember.
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Tits in Your Milk
I have a new great nephew. He’s called Rew, after his grandfather, my late brother Andrew.
I thought today, that he wouldn’t see the phenomenon that was blue tits drinking the cream out of your milk bottle.
Such activities are no more in our civilized society
But how amazing was it that a bird that weighed no more than a piece of paper would learn to survive by drinking cows milk…go figure.
Things are always changing.
And like the milk bottle blue tits, there are things that have have gone from our world.
Overhead projectors, classified ads in the newspapers, dvds in supermarkets.
A road atlas in the car, working phone boxes and waiting a few days in order to collect 24 holiday snaps. oh and the lead pipe from cludo!
Nurses wearing paper hats, Pekinese dogs, sideburns, I could go on.
these things like the ghosts of life before us are only mildly interesting to a modern eye in passing.
I can live without the atlas, the phone boxes and the sideburns
but the blue tits and their extraordinary learning skills remains somewhat of a special loss
dont you think?
from Going Gently https://ift.tt/Ei2wZfs
Know
When you think
You’ve learned it all
Is when your soul
Breaks
The well gushes
And you
Let tears
Of happiness
Flood your heart
With a gratitude
So deep
It shatters
All you
Thought
You knew
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The Significance of touch
Once, many moons ago now, I embarked on a short weekend retreat course in the Lake District.
I remember little about the event save for a few vague memories of group exercises which had more significance then than they could possibly have now, but most had to do with trust issues, self awareness, sharing , personal development and motivation.
One I do remember though and that was an exercise that I think was called Walking The Hedge.
The “ hedge” as it turned out was made up of two lines of the group, an eclectic bunch of individuals made up of psychiatrists, psychotherapists, Occupational therapists, nurses and social workers.
The two lines faced each other and one by one volunteers from the group would be blindfolded and walked slowly down the line. The hedge would gently touch the volunteer ( I’m sure we were told to do so appropriately but with sensitivity) and at any one time the volunteer could be overwhelmed by hands which were described by the French leader as a “ Shower Of Cuddles” “ showerrr of cudd…elles”
I remember feeling dreadfully sceptical and somewhat threatened by the exercise but I participated reminding myself to place my had in non sexually ambiguous places.
It was a strange, incredibly powerful exercise for some
I remember one serious young medic who always seemed isolated from the group suddenly react to the touch “wave” with intense emotion and the more moved he became the more the hands of the hedge seemed to encircle and support him as the French leader slowed the pace of his walk.
It was incredibly moving to watch.
This happened several times with different group members.
And not surprisingly I was not of them, as I had opted out of the Hedge Walk.
Which perhaps says a great deal about me at the time.
On a different level, I remember getting a gift from a patient from intensive care , who I looked after the day we woke her up from an induced coma. I washed her after she was extubated and she confided in me later that it was the first time anyone had physically touched her for 17 years.
The gift, surprisingly was two baby turkeys.
I touch people everyday at work. Even with covid at its highest I would hold hands and mop brows, and put my arm around a relative whose knees had started to buckle in grief.
Now that I’m older, I’ve become a serious hugger
I hugged Gorgeous Dave only yesterday when I bid him goodbye
I think men are much better huggers than they ever used to be.
I wondered about the Hedge Walk and thought, today how wonderful it would be to walk the walk “ again”
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Hope
Good morning. I hope your Christmas was beautiful and full of love. Looking forward with hope and joy.
God
You hear me
You see me
You know
What I need
So lead me
Sovereign Lord
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Dust on the Candlesticks
I prepared cold Turkey slices and fried eggs for breakfast.
A treat as I listened to Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs , which, not surprisingly proved to be another treat.
I could listen to her all day long.
I paused her interview to catch up with friends Ruth in Findhorn and Ben in Seoul on zoom and finished it after I came home later, after having a walk with Roger and Gorgeous Dave.
It’s just past 1pm , and already I feel as I’ve done a lot .
I sit at the kitchen table, my back to the window sipping coffee.
All I can hear is the wind, which has picked up from the East.
And notice that the candlesticks need dusting
'
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