Monday Inspiration

Our woods this evening and my antidote to my often stung heart.

'I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the worlds otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst stung heart'.

Mary Oliver

Vivid and delicate

This little dish, I found in a charity shop, and it was covered in thick gloss paint. Someone had used it to hold paint rather than had been attempting to paint it. I risked 50 pence on it, took it home and got to work. I scraped off the paint carefully and found this beautiful and exquisite hand painted scene underneath. The colours, pale and delicate but the gold still vivid.

These perfect little blooms plucked from my rockery this morning are very at home here. Inspired by Lisbeth via Lou's Nature in the Home.

Monday Inspiration

I need inspiration on a Monday.

Raindrops inspire me and so does the writing of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

'I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in our individual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking. It is the simple things of life that make living worth while, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest and living close to nature. There are no hothouse blossoms that can compare in beauty and fragrance with my bouquet of wild flowers.'

Laura Ingalls Wilder, July 20, 1917.

Out and about

Its been quiet around this blog for a while- sorry.  We had a rather stressful time a few weeks ago and its taken its toll on any creative feelings I usually have.  But like everything that has passed and we enjoyed the bank holiday weekend with its extremes of weather and I even managed one or two passable pictures to show you where we have been! I swear it felt like November out at the Lochwinnoch nature reserve on Saturday.  It was officially too bloody cold for a picnic. The bottom photo is me and the wee one warming our hands on a coffee cup (obligatory flask of strong coffee for the adults).

Yesterday we visited Finlaystone - a beautiful country park, with some amazing Rhododendrons.  We danced inside them on a carpet of pink!

So onwards and upwards or in the words of Susan Lenzkes 'Rise higher, look up and live'!



{Have a wee read at some of my fiction here - I will post a few other excerpts in the coming weeks}.

The Key

Another leap into the unknown for me and with faith,  I will post some of my fiction writing here from time to time.  This is an excerpt from writing that I am working on just now, it is an early part of Rachel's story.

I turn the key over in my hand.  It is a heavy with a perfect circle that my thumb locks into.  Not a message as such, just the means to open the door to a new chapter.  The key represents safety and a tangible place to rest for me.  My lawyer handed it over to me this morning.  He had called me from his dusty offices, piled high with papers and leather binders last week, the appointment was this morning. Mr Johnston was coughing more than usual and looked quite tired and dishevelled.  I imagine when my mother first engaged with him that he cut a rather different figure, just as well none of us have a mirror to our future selves. Time had not been kind to Mr Johnston.

He asked me to open an envelope, which contained keys and particulars of a flat.  My benefactor had arranged a property for me to live in and there were no payments to be made other than the bills, which my income should be sufficient to cover.  I was not in any way surprised by this.  My decision to come back to London and to remain quiet and purposeful for a period would have prompted this type of gesture.  My years of travel and adventure were over for now.  I was relived to surrender to a safe harbour, to exist with little pressure, stress or pain.

If I had been in flight I was now grounded and the ground beneath my feet on a daily basis felt safe and the anonymity of the city a cloak to surround me.  Mr Johnston and I made the final arrangements for what little possessions I had left here to be moved from storage to the flat.  He assured me that the flat was furnished beautifully and that I should ensure that I had all that I needed in addition.  I thanked him and clasped his hand, an unconscious echo of my mother's gestures here in this stuffy room many years ago.  I asked him to visit me in the cafe if he was passing Chapel Street.  He coughed again, coloured slightly and asked me to take care of myself.

It was almost as if the square had been in my mind for some time.  It felt familiar, comfortable but new all at the same time.  It was quiet and it was beautiful. Well heeled but still bohemian enough to have traces of a community.  The gardens in the centre were full of mature trees and flower beds, children were playing, neighbours meeting to talk.  It would be a haven in the summer.  My key was leading me to a corner block on the edge of the square.  I could see that the flat would have windows on three sides and that it would be peaceful in the back rooms.  I stepped up two flights of stairs and the heavy main door opened into a light filled hall.  There were polished wooden boards, white walls and doors opening off at all angles with dazzling light flooding through.

Cloudbusting

You could if you were being uncharitable file this under 'off the wall posts by Jo #124'; but then you wouldn't, would you! Some of you will appreciate my recently re kindled Kate Bush obsession I am sure.

I blame 'Earth Hour' and the re discovery of our huge vinyl collection (all power off in house save record player, candle light, old records and red wine). But for the last few weeks I have not stopped listening to 'Cloudbusting' or watching the video. I mean Donald Sutherland, a Cloudbusting machine (designed by the Team behind Alien), beautiful cloud images and a really intriguing back story - what is there not to like here?

The video is apparently inspired by Peter Reich's book 'Book of Dreams'; about his childhood with his father psychotherapist (amongst many other things) Wilhelm Reich growing up on a farm in rural Maine. I was amazed to read that there was such a machine as a Cloudbuster. Reichs could manipulate the weather.

So when I see skies like this out my window, above my city I get to thinking. Well the main thing I am thinking is that we need nothing to make more rain than we already have here on the West coast of Scotland. But I guess I mainly think about Kate Bush's boundless creative energy and imagination- The places it takes me after so many years are still constantly surprising.

I am trying to track down a copy of Peter Reich's book but it is rarer than hen's teeth, having gone out of print in 1974. So if anyone happens to see one let me know!

Last Weekend's Owls

I did manage last weekend to drag myself out of bed to go to the Salvation Army 'Shabby Chic' sale on Saturday morning. The large, hanger like Salvation Army Store on Glasgow's Dumbarton Road is rightly an institution. It is in my opinion the best charity shop in the city. For starters it is huge, it therefore has a vast turnover of stock and it always, always has a fair pricing system. The staff have been the same for years and are lovely, and its the one Charity shop I let my kiddos run around in unhindered by buggies. There is a great buzz about the place.

They do hold specific sales every so often, the last one was a 'Geek Sale', for that read Dr Who, Star Wars etc memorabilia. Some of these sales are auctions and others like the 'Shabby Chic' one are first come first served. They also fill one of the huge windows with a display of what they will sell, so you can set your heart on something and attempt to secure it on the day. I had spied a kitsch owl print with four owls that my wee one had already identified as the four of us. It wasn't a terribly valuable thing so I reckoned I would take my chances.

The sale started at 10am and I got down there at 9.30am, already there were 30 people in front of me. I could hear people talking about the things they had set their hearts on. One woman in front of me was desperate for a 1930's mirror that reminded her of her grandmothers, another wanted the pink retro fringed standard lamp for her living room.

Eventually the doors opened and a very polite sort of scrum ensued. The owls were nowhere to be seen, but I consoled myself with a beautiful tile mirror with an owl and a pussy cat at each side, a bargain at £5. Then when I went to have a final look in the window and I spied my print propped against a table. Delighted I scooped it up and paid for the two of them. After closer examination I just love the mirror, its a wee bit 1950's and goes perfectly with my Tretchikoff print. And the four owls, well they are actually all the way from Kampala (Framing details on the back) and now hang above our breakfast bar.

The lady got her 1930's mirror, and she had tears in her eyes as she hugged it to herself in delight.

{I have so many posts I want to do but of late I have had little time or energy. We all had a horrible vomiting bug at the end of the Easter hols and with being back at work this week, school and nursery we are all playing catch up. More to follow!}