Dancing With Wasps......

Have you ever been stung by an enraged wasp? Enraged because he's trapped inside your baggy old threadbare linen gardening pants? Trouble is, you, too, are inside your baggy old threadbare linen gardening pants, and, baggy as they are, there isn't room for both of you. So, with your pants on fire, you dance wildly into the house, dash to the bathroom, trying to divest yourself of your baggy old threadbare linen gardening pants as you go. As they fall to the tiles, the enraged wasp zooms out and lands on a cabinet door.

Your husband, the man who promised to love you and defend you against all harm, has followed you to the bathroom and is watching your antics with detached amusement.

"What happened?" he asks mildly.

"I got stung by a wasp!" I gasp.

"That wasp," I add, pointing angrily at the cabinet where the dazed wasp is gathering his wits and contemplating his next move.

"I'll get him," says your hero gallantly, but too late. With the single mindedness of the thrice stung, I had already grabbed a tissue, pounced and dispatched the nasty flying criminal to insect hell. None of that "sentient being" nonsense that I sometimes use when escorting captured spiders through the front door. I'm a sentient being. That didn't seem to give the wasp any qualms of conscience.

"How did it happen?"

Does he really want me to explain this right now, I wondered, tenderly dabbing calamine lotion on my nether regions. It would be much more helpful if he would just play doctor, since I'm not quite flexible enough for the contortions needed to actually see what I'm aiming at. But, with no such offer forthcoming, I continue to dab with a little bit more ferocity.

"I sat down on a chair on the porch, and next thing I knew my pants were on fire."

Having just removed one of those hard mud, bug incubator thingies from one of the window screens, I had repaired with my prize to the porch, intent on a little scientific research. I have explained before the science deprivation we suffered at the hands of the holy nuns, so I wasn't exactly on the lookout for evil-minded wasps intent on flying up the leg of my pants the minute I sat down. With a knife, brought from the kitchen for exactly that purpose, I had just poked open one of the mud compartments and was examining, in fascination, the tiny, squirming creatures within, when suddenly, I shot out of the chair in consternation, bugs forgotten. Something very unpleasant and completely unexpected was happening inside my pants. Yes, the baggy old threadbare linen gardening ones.


And that's when he said what no person in his right mind should say to someone still smarting from multiple wasp stings, and even as he's opining, swelling up like a balloon.

"You shoulda looked!"

I shoulda looked??

Why of course, my dear! Because any prudent person, intent on a little natural science, carries a checklist in the pocket of her baggy old threadbare linen gardening pants? Which she carefully extracts and reads before sitting? One of the several precautions advised thereon being to turn the chair you have in mind to sit on, upside down for inspection, since everyone knows that the undersides of such chairs are favourite places for rogue wasps to set up housekeeping and raise their young......

Right.

Subsequent investigation revealed that my winged friend and accomplices had indeed built their Taj Majal on the underside of one of the porch chairs. Understandable, I suppose, that they would go into attack mode when an unwary human bottom plonked itself down so unceremoniously right next to where they were grooming their next generation. Understandable too that I showed not a modicum of mercy in my liberal spraying of "Wasp and Hornet Killer." I restrained myself and did not turn the nozzle in the OC's direction, much as I might have been tempted to do so.

Obviously my injuries were not life threatening; I lived to tell the tale. I even lived to laugh about it....Just not right away.

When no helpful, kind, compassionate or sympathetic words come to mind, it is wiser to leave unsaid whatever smart-arse remarks do spring to mind, regardless of how witty they might seem!

Not Your Grandma's Sawtooth Block.........

We had a quilters' day out recently. We drove south [towards civilization!], stopped at one of the area's best quilt shops, effortlessly whiled away a couple of hours, and did our bit to stimulate the economy....[code for "bought fabric," shhhh!].

Then the highlight of the outing---we went to the American Quilt Society's traveling exhibition of the winning quilts from their 2008 "New Quilts from Old Favourites" contest.


This is the First Prize winner, called "Berry Patch."




What would Grandma have thought? Likely her mind would reel, as mine did. I can tackle pretty much any pattern, with adequate instructions.......




But the quilts in this show were made by a whole 'nother level of quilters; people who are artists first, and just happen to express their creativity through cloth, rather than paint or clay. My pictures don't come close to capturing the details of piecing and quilting, but they were amazing.....



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Each quilt in the exhibit was gasp inducing, for the design and the workmanship certainly,




but most of all for how each quilter took the simple, traditional




and let her imagination soar. Compared to the twists and turns and pirouettes they put that simple block through to arrive at their finished quilts, my imagination is a sorry, earth bound thing, fit only to drool in disbelief at what can be done when you shake off the shackles of traditional techniques.




Amazing to me was how each quilter had the same set of guidelines, yet each quilt was stunningly different from the one hanging next to it.




Some of the quilts did not stray far from Grandma's methods, updating her Sawtooth block with stunning colours.....




and unusual positioning of blocks.....




Others, like this quilt from a Japanese quilter, painted bold, sweeping strokes of colour with her fabric. Only when you looked very closely could you see the enormous amount of intricate piecing that went into creating something that looks so spontaneous and exuberant.




And do I hear you asking "What about the quilt in that first picture?" "A Gathering Of Geckos" was my favourite quilt in the exhibition. I studied it up close,




and from a distance, bemused by how the quilter had come to the idea of this particular design. It probably had a little to do with her living in Arizona. It had a distinctly Southwestern feel to it. The Bean is not much interested in quilts. He will give an opinion on colour, design, whatever, if asked, but when he saw a picture of this quilt in a newspaper article on the exhibition, he excitedly declared "That's the quilt I want!" I wouldn't, however, be holding my breath if I were him!

Aren't those quilts amazing? And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish this month's humble little basket applique block......

Random Thoughts On Real Lives and Weddings

Births, deaths, weddings, funerals. I've been thinking about these things, the significant events that cement our bonds with each other. No matter how far we roam, these events bring [or should, but life is complicated and distances are long] us home to reaffirm the connections that are most important to us. A person would like to be there at the important times in the lives of those she loves, for her own sake as well as theirs. Because everyone needs to feel part of something bigger than themselves, and to know there are a few people in the world, to whom their existence matters.

My niece got married a few days ago in London. I was unable to be there, as I'd made that trip earlier this year for another momentous event, the birth of the Precious Bundle, and Donald Trump is not my uncle. Since my niece could hardly be expected to reschedule her wedding to coincide with the birth of our newest grandson, and Dear Son and Beloved could likewise not reasonably be expected to delay PB's birth by five months, since even five days beyond the due date stretches the patience [among other things,] a choice had to be made.

Rise was sixteen when the OC and I got married. I was twenty two. She was my bridesmaid but though we were sisters, we hardly knew each other. Six years is a gaping chasm when you're that young. I was the goody two shoes, she was the one with a life. When she got married we were in California, up to our oxthers in small children, skint, so missed that, which made me sad. Swore that, when I grew up, I wouldn't miss these kinds of things.....life went on.

I was sorry not to be in London on Monday, dancing, and toasting and connecting with Rise and clan. The bride is Rise's first born, our Godchild, if that means anything anymore in a world gone secular. She has all her marbles in one sock, unlike her aged aunt, and possibly even her mother, both of whom, not being gifted housekeepers, have been known to go mad cleaning whenever their oldest daughters are due home for a visit! I'm sure she has a better grip too on why we're here and what makes the sky blue than either of us do.

But that could be a generational thing. Young people seem much more sure of themselves, much more in tune with how they feel about the world's shenanigans than I ever felt when I was young. Possibly because they were not brought up with all the fire and brimstone "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" that we were. At sixty, I'm finding that beliefs I thought had rock solid foundations were actually built on shifting sand, and are, possibly, a lot of Bokum Hallah. Which is quite disconcerting.

PBS had a Roy Orbison concert on TV tonight. "In Dreams," "Pretty Woman," "Sweet Dream Baby." I was sixteen when I first heard him singing those songs, and every time I hear them the years roll away and I'm sixteen again, breathless with the excitement of being at the brink of my real life which would surely be full of mystery and romance, adventure and visits to exotic places. Going to school and being brainwashed by the nuns about the evils lurking out there, in the big bad world, and how we'd better obey all the teachings of The Church, or else! was something to fill the time until our real life began.

But when did it begin? Did it begin when a special person of the male persuasion thought you were a "pretty woman" or a "Sweet Dream Baby?" Or when you went away to college --- that feeling of being so independent and sophisticated, though you still depended on the few pounds pocket money every couple of weeks from home? Or was it when you started your first job, when you traded skills you were born with, or had acquired along the way, for the means to keep yourself alive and warm and fed? Or did your real life begin the day you got married? Or when your first child was born?

The Plan was I'd fit myself to earn a living, earn it, travel, take wonderful photos in those aforementioned exotic places, write scintillating stories and be unafraid and brave and daring and able to converse with anyone in a variety of languages.......What's that saying "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans?" How true! Of course there was a nebulous knight on a white charger in the plan, who would obligingly come along after I got the wanderlust out of my system and had a secure grip on the tail of the world. But he had his own Plan and came charging out of the mist on his white horse [actually it was a Pontiac LeMans, and it was burgundy, details, details} way before my Plan called for him to do so.

Which required major adjustments to both Plans. Well maybe, possibly, more adjustments to one plan than the other.... But it was still good. Not quite as tidy as I would have liked, but a tidy life might bore me to death. Besides, life is a work in progress, not something hanging in an art gallery or a museum, and I shouldn't want to squeeze it to fit my daydreams, to make it like a television show, where all the boo-boos are fixed, all the ruffled feathers smoothed, misunderstandings squared away, egos stroked, and problems resolved by 9:58 p.m. so they have a couple of minutes to roll the credits.

Part of growing up [I'm still trying!]is facing the facts: That even though you think you'd write great scripts for your children's lives, and your OC's life, and the lives of the in-laws [who have never hesitated to try to write your scripts for you!] you shouldn't. They need to write their own scripts, dream their own dreams, deal with the "not according to plan" things that happen in every life and learn from them. The best you can do is be there with your mouth closed, and your heart open, on the off chance they might need you. And, of course, be there [if possible] to dance at the weddings, rejoice at the births and mourn at the funerals.

I was at my niece's wedding in spirit, dancing my heart out! I like weddings. I'm the old fossil who still believes in the old fashioned tradition of standing up before kith and kin, promising to love and cherish through thick and thin. A wedding is not the beginning of a person's real life though. That starts the day we are born, which I finally figured out, and my niece has probably known since she was in diapers. But it is the start of a whole new chapter. Here's hoping it'll be her happiest chapter yet!


A brief e-mail from the new Mrs. declared the day "brilliant! The best day of our lives!" I'm still waiting for the more in depth Rise Report......

Scribbling My Life Away

Writing . . .
Originally uploaded by korestore

Three years ago today was the date of my first blog post. Is it possible? How could three years have flown by so quickly? There were no comments on that first post and I told myself I was OK with that. I'm good at lying to myself when the need arises.

If I write a blog post and nobody reads it, have I satisfied the urge that made me write it in the first place? I would have to say that yes, I have had the satisfaction of organizing my thoughts, which, unwritten, are usually a chaotic jumble. I have had the satisfaction of arranging words in a manner that pleases me and says, as best I can, what I want to say, which, admittedly is often something that is of very little consequence to anyone but myself.

As time went on and I wrote a few more, a couple of people started to comment and I had to admit I had lied to myself. Just organizing and writing down my thoughts gave me a certain level of satisfaction. But when another human being read what I wrote and felt moved to make a comment,I was over the moon!

When the OC was a small boy he used to tell his mother that when he grew up he would buy her a farm in Australia and bring supplies by helicopter every few months ~ Australia's a big country and I guess he planned on this farm being way out in the bush. Then, when we lived in Montana, he thought that some day he'd like to come back and live out in the middle of the prairie. Since I do not share his hermit-like tendencies that idea made me shudder. Not because I didn't like Montana. I did. I just knew I wouldn't like being isolated from other human beings. I like people. I like being around them. I like talking to them. I'm interested in where people are from and what they think about and what makes their world go around. The OC's job, however, meant that every three or four years we'd move to a new place. We'd have to leave a familiar place and familiar friends and go somewhere totally new and establish a life for ourselves there. Which was in some ways exciting, but in others extremely tiresome.

Worst of all was leaving friends. You'd have acquaintances everywhere, but making friends was not so simple, so that when you did you were loathe to leave them. You'd write for a few years, then it would dwindle to a card at Christmas, and eventually just peter out. There was usually one person at each place, though, who was such a kindred spirit that the friendship survived, in spite of miles, and sometimes continents between us, and those are the friends I treasure still.

Then three years ago I discovered blogging, a whole community of people who like to write, with whom I can connect whenever I feel like putting something out there, or commenting on something they've written. I've "met" so many interesting people, with whom I never would have connected without blogging. I love the interaction and I love the glimpses into other lives, often in other countries, and most of all I love the realization that we are all more alike than different.

So, thank you to all my bloggy friends for your interest, your encouraging comments, your patience when drivel flows from my pen, and not least for the pleasure of reading some of the clever, intelligent and often downright hilarious things you all write!

Here's to the next three!

By The Sea, By The Sea, By The Beautiful Sea

The coast is a mere twenty miles away from Rebel Rose country. So close you think, but ah, it is twenty miles of switchbacks on narrow mountain roads in RR's rattletrap! The OC stoically sat in the passenger seat while I sat in the back, white knuckles fully deployed. RR took the turns serenely in stride since she knows them like the back of her hand, unaware that her mother was whispering silent prayers in the back seat while her life flashed before her eyes. It wouldn't be my first choice of route for a relaxing drive, but it was so.o..o worth it. What a difference from the tame gulf coast where we live. The Pacific is like a wild and dangerous animal, alive and roaring, crashing over and over and over on the black rocks, occasionally biting great chunks out of the cliffs, where people nevertheless build holiday homes perilously close to the crumbling edge.....





We came upon a colony of seals piled companionably all over each other on some rocks off shore.




We crept as close as we could and settled down to watch them.




What fascinating creatures they are! They looked back at us with only the mildest of interest, while we were totally besotted by them. We sat there for ages and I ran my battery down taking photo after photo after photo.....and almost fell into the water in my zeal.........The seals had a good snicker over that I'd say...

"Clumsy humans! Running all over the rocks, gawking at us [didn't their mothers ever tell them it was rude to stare? And to point?]"




Sorry seals! We only did it 'cause we love you! And admire your sleek grace in the water, and love those soulful eyes and funny whiskers, and how you snuggle up to one another, and get along, and don't bicker. Forgive us, we're only human after all!


Next up: The Redwoods, if I can keep the momentum going.....

This Post Brought To You By The OC's Wild Hair.....

Weekends around here are pretty humdrum......usually.

Last weekend was different.

The OC had to go to California for a meeting, and got an unaccustomed wild hair and asked if I'd like to go with........

"Yes! Yes," emphatically, before he had a chance to change his mind!

We had our coffee here at home on Wednesday morning. In the afternoon we snacked on a pretzel in Las Vegas, and had dinner that evening with the company high mucky-mucks in the mountains outside Sacramento. Next morning, while he went off to his meeting, I snoozed and had a luxurious read, and when he returned we set off driving north, to Redwood Country and the Rebel Rose.

When my children were little, I could not have begun to imagine not seeing them for a month, let alone a year, or longer. My mind could not wrap itself around that concept and never thought it would have to. But time sped onwards, I blinked, and youngest daughter, our Rebel Rose, is living on the opposite coast, and between horses and dogs and the convolutions of daily life, work, and animal husbandry, she cannot break away to come to our side of the country. So here we are coming to her side of it, and looking in wonder at the gorgeous creature who wraps her arms around us in the hotel parking lot. Some fast blinking is needed to avoid a spillover.

She has dressed up, since we're headed out to dinner. No jeans, no chaps, no cowboy boots, but instead a very pretty sundress. When did I last see her in a dress? And heels?? Was it her big sister's wedding? No, surely more recently than that! Was she always so slender? And so tall? Maybe she looks taller because there's less meat on her bones! Only the best hay and oats for the horses, and the finest kibble for the dogs, but what about her? Does she eat enough? I suspect she does not. Her features are leaner, so that the similarities to her siblings are more pronounced than before. The girl looks like she could use a little fattening up. We only have three days. We'd better get started!

We've lived in California before, but not where she lives. Her California is like the alps with sunstroke. Beautiful mountains,




hair raising switchbacks, stunning vistas of sweeping valleys,





golden mountain meadows,




dark spreading oak trees,




lazy eagles drifting on invisible currents




--- no wonder she stubbornly stays, though it's not the easiest place to make a living.

It's a place to make you believe in God.


More tomorrow. I promised Rise!

This Heat Could Kill You!

You've got to get out early here in summer if you want to tip around in the garden. Otherwise they'll never find the body, just a mysterious melted puddle of something over by the azaleas.

"Well, at least she died trying!" they'll say at the funeral, where there is no casket and nothing to view. Instead they'll have a picture of neatly trimmed azaleas and a grimacing eight by ten of the face that was yours. Your soul hovers over the mourners, tut-tutting "You'd think they could've found a better picture than that?" No glory, not even in death!





Who are these people anyway?

Neighbours hardly known. Everyone here has their own little acre, like islands in a stream, and no boats about. They've seen you puttering in the garden, peering at you from behind their hibiscus. They've seen you heading off to run your errands, seen you come back. They know who comes and who goes from your house, what time they arrive, how late they stay, but they keep to themselves. After all, they left the life and the people who matter to them up north. They're only here for the sunshine and the absence of snow. They honk and wave if you're out with your secateurs as they drive by on errands of their own. Using your shirt to mop the salty sweat that's dripping into your eyes and stinging, you straighten your aching back and wave at you know not whom.....And now it dawns on them---"You know, we saw her outside that day, over by the azaleas...."

Here's a little cluster of young adults, little people swirling about their ankles. Two lovely young ladies, so different, so opposite; three handsome young men, two bearded, one getting there, grave expression, glint in the eye, and Little Guy, now tallest of them all, looking on, thinking---"It took this to get them home?"





Could it be, is it possible, they were my babies once, in the land of Long Ago? They needed me. When I think about it, no one had ever needed me that much before, or since. I learned more from them than from anything else in life..... It must be so boring for the little ones, this somber talk, these gloomy faces. No wonder they are fidgety and swirling. Why doesn't someone play the ABC song to liven things up? This music they're playing in the background could kill you. If you weren't already dead.

You think if you can just manage to keep them alive until they're toilet trained, until they finish primary school, until they find new friends at the new place, until they finish junior high, until they find a summer job, until they finish high school, until they apply to college, until they get accepted---by a college, by their peers, by the world---you'll breathe easier......

And then they learn to drive. Oh my! You're so excited for them. They're really growing up! But as they vanish down the road you start to feel queasy. And later, around midnight, you begin to wonder what they slipped into your tea....Excited? Have you lost your mind? Excited? For them to be out in the dark, behind the wheel of a lethal weapon?? You thought you were sleep deprived when they were in the cradle.....and now they have drivers licenses and they're out in the Ford or the Honda and you're getting less sleep than ever.......They may be out of diapers but we're not out of the woods yet.




But maybe they'll meet a nice girl, or boy, and settle down, and at last you'll be able to relax. But what if the nice girl decides, one day, to toss aside your darling son of the grave expression, like last season's tattered jeans, and you don't know how to console him and he doesn't call and you fret and worry and lose more sleep? And what if your dear, stubborn daughter is so far away, you cannot vet her suitors and you worry she'll be too trusting, and make bad choices.....More sleep up in smoke. Shouldn't you be trusting them at this stage to run their own lives? They only look like grownups, but really they're just children, your precious children. And the world is too cruel a place ....where dreams can get splintered on the harsh rocks of reality.....

The littlest one, the "big" sister moves imperceptibly closer, protectively, to her siblings. From my perch, up near the chandelier, I see why. A tall, feeble, but still upright old man is shuffling their way. They brace themselves for the onslaught. He always thought I was too big for my britches. And now, and now, I've had the temerity to die before him! I never did know my place!

My soul flutters above them, agitated that he's there! He often told me that he didn't want to come to our wedding, because I'd insisted on being married over there. Little upstart that I was. So why is he at my funeral? Probably wants to make sure I'm gone!

I'm looking, I'm looking. Where is he? Ah there he is....over there, see? Looking at the eight by ten and the nicely trimmed azaleas. Dark hair thinning, with just a hint of gray, brooding, lost in thought. I'd sell my soul to the devil to read those thoughts, but I'm already booked into heaven......



It's been hot here! The OC has been out of town. We've had lots of rain, between bouts of scorching sunshine. Everything is growing and needs trimming, not least the weeds. The sweat is drip,drip,dripping, the bones ache,the mind wanders.....lost in Lala Land. The moral of the story---Go call your mother! She's probably out there under the trees, la la la-ing, dehydrating, getting spider webs in her hair and mumbling to herself. Be quick about it....... unless you want them to find a mysterious puddle over by the azaleas.





I need to get out more, obviously. And not just to trim the azaleas.

Quilt-In-A-Day Ha Ha Ha Ho ho ho

I was just over at Thimbleanna's reading about her first quilt, and I started to write a comment and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. Then my hand started to hurt from all the strenuous hunting and pecking so I stopped. And when I stopped some pistons started [I have no idea how pistons work or what they are even, but it sounds good and it makes me sound like I know about engines and such, so I'm leaving it in here and it's my blog anyway....] Where was I? Oh yes! Pistons. Firing in my head. Pennies dropping. And God knows, that happens slowly enough around here......

Wait a minute, I said to myself. There's a whole post in this. Why am I writing it here, then wringing my hands over there, without a clue in my head what to write? So I copied and pasted and took it home and told her to come and get it. Cruel, I know, but sometimes a person has to hoard her words. Her quilt, by the way, was beautiful--all complicated baskets with tiny triangular pieces and the accompanying bias edges that strike terror into the hearts of experienced and novice quilters alike. And completely hand quilted! Also faded, but just enough to give it a charming antique look.

That's your first quilt? Go on! You should see mine.





It still lives on the back of the couch in the TV room only because the menfolk have trained El Pussygato to attack the moving hand that stalks him from under the quilt while he snoozes, or tries to, on top of it. I'm not about to put a nice new quilt there so they can rip my loving stitches to shreds with tooth and claw and feline insanity! Meanwhile, it makes me cringe, it's so old and faded, and not in a good way, like Thimbleanna's baskets. Nothing charming or antique about it. Old and ratty, maybe..... If we had a dog I'd give it to him. The way it looks, you'd almost expect it to have a smell of damp dog about it [but it's clean, except for the ever present cat hair!]

Here's a picture of a leftover piece that's been hiding all these years deep in the scrap bag, safe from the ravages of cats and sun.






The pattern is Trip Around the World and it was [excuse me while I writhe on the floor in helpless laughter] a Quilt-In-A-Day! [What a canny business woman she was, even if she does make me crazy tossing things over her shoulder!] My children still chortle about that...........I think it took me three years, all told. We lived in the Peace Garden state at the time. I [hangs head in shame] sent it away to be quilted somewhere in the vast midwest. [In my defense, I didn't know any better in those early years--you mean I have to stitch all over it, by hand? Do I look like a woman who has no children? If I do that, it might be ready to use as a shroud for my withered bones when I die...a very shaky might. So I sent it away.] And was so impressed when it came back, looking like---a quilt----did I make that?? Aren't I the clever girl!

And so the die was cast, the hook baited.

The sun was very bright up there and I wanted something to cover the back of my nice new couch, which sat in front of the big picture window in the living room. The plan worked. The couch survived North Dakota unfaded, but the quilt took it in the shorts.

One of these mornings I'll walk into my sewing room, close the door, pretend my name is Thimbleanna, and not come out 'til I've made a gorgeous new throw for the back of the couch. Then I won't have to be ashamed of the ratty old couch because everyone will be too dazzled by the beautiful quilt thrown, oh so casually, over the back.





That, of course, will be after El Pussygato has a claw job. And the menfolk have their lobotomies.....

Needed: Bigger Buckets.......

My recent visit to England was just long enough for me to realize I'd have liked to stay longer, much longer! The southwestern part of the country has a magical quality. I felt as though I'd stepped back in time to a slower-paced, more contented era, to a rural landscape of farms that have been worked continuously for hundreds of years, to rolling green fields, and wild flowers, and cozy cottages with lovely gardens and blue smoke curling up dreamily from their chimneys.





And what is more timeless than a brand new baby, with the eggshell still on his head, as Isabelle so aptly put it! But almost gone in this recent update......




Too soon, it was time to leave, but consolation came from an unexpected source. From a woman named Mary Webb. It would have been a real pleasure to have met her in person, but since she's been resting under the Shropshire soil since 1927, my new friend and fellow grandma, G, did the next best thing. She gave me a copy of "Precious Bane," one of Mary Webb's best known books.





Mary Webb lived most of her life in Shropshire, several years of it in a house next door but one to where G lives now. I was delighted to have such a memento of my few days there, and thought that, some day, I might even read it.





Home, unpacking, and moping because it all flew by so fast, I picked up "Precious Bane", and as I thumbed through it, Mary Webb cast a spell on me and lured me into the world of Prue Sarn.


"Shropshire is a country where the dignity and beauty of ancient things lingers on," writes Webb in the foreword, "and I have been fortunate.....in being born and brought up in its magical atmosphere....."





I feel that way about the place where I grew up.........

As I read, it occurred to me that, even though the world and our daily routines have changed drastically since those days, the things that are really important and give meaning to our lives have hardly changed at all. Something to believe in: Prue has her faith in God. Something to do: She has plenty to do, helping her brother, Gideon, with all the work on their farm. Someone to love: Aha! Very few people can see beyond the birth defect Prue was born with, so they write her off as someone not deserving of love. Even Gideon, her brother says

"Being as how things are, you'll never marry, Prue." At which Prue's heart

"beat soft and sad. It seemed such a terrible thing never to marry. All girls got married..........even Miller's Polly, that always had a rash or a hoost or the ringworm or summat, would get married. And when girls got married, they had a cottage, and a lamp, maybe, to light when their man came home, or if it was only candles it was all one, for they could put them in the window, and he'd think "There's my missus now, lit the candles!" And then one day they'd make a cot of rushes, "and one day there'd be a babe in it, grand and solemn, and bidding letters sent round for the christening, and the neighbours coming round the babe's mother like bees round the queen."

Mary Webb,[and through her, Prue Sarn,] is so in tune with human nature, and the natural world around her, that she draws you into that world of Shropshire a hundred years ago, to Prue's life and her thoughts, to all the subtle signs of the changing seasons, to her everyday worries and occasional joys, to her strength and how she deals with the cruel handicap life has dealt her, and to the cozy little attic where she writes it all down.

"For you canna write a word, even, but you show yourself - in the word you choose, and the shape of the letters, and whether you write tall or short, plain or flourished....."





You hardly realize she's doing it, but while she captivates you with the twists and turns of the story, she takes you there, to the cornfields and cottages and lane ways of rural Shropshire, to the air humming with the "murmuration" of bees and birdsong, so that when winter creeps over the fields around Sarn Mere, you shiver in your armchair and draw your imaginary shawl closer around you against the cold, damp fog rising off the water. As I read, and the landscape came alive in my mind, I couldn't help thinking again and again of Constable's beautiful paintings of the English countryside......

......and thinking in the Shropshire dialect between bouts of reading! It too has a comfortable, cozy "murmuration" to it!

Reflecting on the characters' vain attempts to quench a blazing fire, by passing buckets and pails of water, one to another, Prue writes

"And I've thought since then that when folk grumble about this and that and be not happy, it is not the fault of creation that is like a vast mere [sea] full of good, but it is the fault of their buckets' smallness."

I liked Prue, her way of thinking and her way of writing. Or was it Mary Webb, and her thinking and her writing that I liked so much? To what extent can you separate the writer from the characters she creates? Can you invent such a beautiful character and mind without being so, and having such yourself? To me the mind of Prue Sarn and the mind of Mary Webb are one and the same.

And now I'm "afeerd" you'll all think I've lost my marbles. I'm not advocating that we go back to the way things were in that time, milking our own cows, spinning our own yarn, sending our daughters off to neighbouring villages to be apprentice milkmaids....... But it was somehow comforting to feel such a connection with Prue. Almost like reading something my great grandmother might have written, like getting a glimpse into how her everyday life might have been, and into the things that might have occupied her thoughts and made her world go around. And finding that, despite the intervening years, we are still more alike than different.

Go read a "tuthree" pages of "Precious Bane", if you can find it, and let me know what you think.

Of Mattresses and Applique

rug in bedroom
Originally uploaded by ooh_food

Applique. How I do love thee, Applique! I used to look forward to "Bunty," on Mondays when I was a girl. "Bunty" was a schoolgirls' magazine/comic book. It was within those pages that I was first introduced to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Pocahontas" and other worthwhile reading material, as well as to the likes of "Uggy Muggy From Mars," which is, inexplicably, burned into my memory. Bunny Hill Designs Block of the Month inspires the same excited anticipation in me as "Bunty" did. I wait eagerly for the fifth of every month, and hold my breath to see what Anne S. has decided I'll be stitching, on and off for the rest of the month. I am her slave. Which is not like me. I like to blaze my own trail. I don't like to make quilts that anyone else can make. What's the point? I want what I spend hours doing to be unique. In the same way, I dislike cookie cutter houses. I want mine to be different. Cookie cutter children? Not in this family!

But I digress......

It may be that I like the discipline....I have to finish one block before the next one comes out. I need that. Anything to prevent me from constantly starting new projects, while those already underway languish in quilters' purgatory! [Was it a Freudian slip that I wrote quitters' purgatory there? And hastily corrected it!] Besides, I decide which fabrics and which colours to use, so it really will be unique!

The OC smiles indulgently. Isn't it nice that the little woman has a hobby, although, God knows, a little dusting wouldn't go astray around here. We'll be able to plant tomatoes on the book shelves soon, but it keeps her happy and off my case, so it can't be all bad.

Yes, I read minds too. Another of my fabled talents.....Now, where was I?

Ah yes. He who would like the dusting done is away for the week. My mission, in his absence, is to hunt down a new mattress set. And yes, I have made a start. Yesterday afternoon I visited two mattress stores. Customers were thin on the ground. Salesmen almost fell over themselves in their rush to my side. Not a good sales tactic, as such behaviour tends to make me want to turn and dash right back out. Better to leave me alone for a while, then sidle slyly over, so as to be available when I start to look confused. Available to spout a befuddling barrage of mattress information. More information about mattresses than a person could possibly store in her head, nine and a half percent percent of which actually registers with a brain cell in there. If you haven't been in the market for a mattress lately, let me tell you, it leads to befuddlement!

To my credit, I stood my ground and resisted the impulse to run. I listened, while most of the information washed harmlessly over my head. I even lay down obediently, and nodded sagely, if somewhat self consciously, from a reclining position at the finer points of traditional spring mattresses, and sleep numbers mattresses, and memory foam mattresses, and the dizzying variety of thicknesses and densities, the relative pros and cons of each explained to me in excruciating, mind numbing detail. Mattresses were pointed out to me that had the endorsement of the Chiropractic Association. Then there were the pillow tops, the bases, and of course, the prices. Oh my Lord, the prices!

"I only want to sleep on it!" I almost said, then thought better of it, not wanting to get into a discussion with Mr. Eager Salesman of other bed related activities. And it's true, we spend a large enough percentage of our lives sleeping, that it's probably wise to invest in something of substance and reliability. While being bamboozled with figures and statistics and prices, I made a concerted effort to look intelligent, and give the impression that I found it all fascinating. In spite of the fact that I was beginning to think my brain must be made from exactly the same high density foam about which the salesman was waxing so poetical.

I came home with a handful of business cards and a head swimming with information. The OC was very pleased when informed, last night on the telephone, of the progress made.

And now it's Tuesday, and I should sally forth again to do some further mattressy investigations. But first, I told myself, since I am being so virtuous, and loathe to venture out into the killer heat, I could do a little applique first, to bolster my resolve, as it were.

So, having made a start yesterday, I agonized for a while, today, over which fabric I should use for the flowers. Decision made [with difficulty,] I cut them out. Then I thought

"I really should go. Sooner out, sooner done."

But then I remembered that supper was ready, only to warm it up, so what's the hurry? A person could sew on at least one petal, just to see how it looks. Of course, that was so easily done, and looked so nice that a person thought she might as well sew on another. Then, there being only five petals to a flower, a person thought, if she did one more, she'd be more than half way to a finished flower.......Do you see where a person could go with this?

Exactly! All five petals are sewn on.



A person thinks they look gorgeous. So, sighing with satisfaction, she has now pushed herself away from the sewing table and is bravely heading out the door to go and look [God help us!] at more mattresses. Wish a person luck, please.......

Concerning Flouting....

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day today was "flout", meaning

#1. To treat with contemptuous disregard; to scorn.

#2. To indulge in scornful behaviour.

I've never been a Flouter. I've been called names in my life, "'Fraidy Cat" for instance. That one was to goad me into a little flouting; "Goody Two Shoes," to explain to me, as to the particularly dimwitted, as if I didn't know and wish I could change it, that I was too un-daring for my own good; "Pollyanna," by persons exasperated with my persistent belief in the possibility of everyone getting along and peacefully co-existing, on a global as well as a more personal scale. Possible, yes. Probable? Hmmm. I've been called other names, not all of them flattering. These few, however, will suffice for now, but let the record show that no-one ever called me a Flouter.

I do not flout the rules of the road [well maybe a teeny, tiny little bit...]

I do not flout the laws of the land [since I am a registered "Alien" I have to watch my Ps and Qs, otherwise they might send me packing.]

I do not flout the rules of civilized behaviour.

I do not even flout the laws of fashion, erring mostly on the side of conservative dress, and the laws of decency have a loyal follower in me. [Now that I've listed the many ways in which I am a non-flouter, I begin to wonder if I am, perhaps, a candidate for sainthood.......Hmmm.]

All this may be about to change. I am not getting any younger.

"The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly-and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing."

I'm finding more and more with each passing birthday, that I am less and less inclined to smile when I would really like to growl. I think I feel a serious bout of flouting coming on. I might even go so far as to start wearing purple.

Travels with Molly. Pull up A Chair.....

So I went to England. I'm very allergic to it, but I'm afraid if I get started I just might end up gushing. The other danger is that, in trying to convert the teeming impressions in my head to something articulate, the motor in my brain will burn out! Don't say you weren't warned! So, what would you like to hear? Tower of London? Westminster Abbey? Madame Tussauds? The Tate Museum? Cathedrals? Shakespeare? Tea with the queen? Oops. Sorry. You'll have to go somewhere else!

While I was muddling through the mysteries of English change at Gatwick, having landed fifteen minutes early, and cursing the phone company back home because, in spite of their assurances, I couldn't make my cell phone work, a handsome fellow in a rasta hat found me, hugged me, and whisked me westwards, and back in time, it almost seemed, to meet his Beloved and their Precious Bundle.



I fell in love with her myself. The boy has exquisite taste! I marveled at the Precious Bundle and the fact, at which I have marveled many times before, that such magic is possible in this sometimes gloomy old world. The sweet, pure innocence of a little babe restores hope. Does the world start anew with each new birth?



I rocked him, danced with him, jiggled him, and bounced him. I sang to him and talked silly nonsense to him, and he looked back at me with wide, attentive eyes as though giving it all very serious consideration. Babies make me foolish, maybe because they look so wise?





The soundtrack to my time there was birdsong, bleating lambs, and the wondering murmurs of a new babe. Oh, and reggae, which he has already made it clear, is his favourite kind of lullaby!

If I had to describe my trip in colour, I'd choose spring green, with yellow for daffodils and blazing gorse bushes, and blue for blue skies and woods full of bluebells, and white for hedgerows snowy with blossoming hawthorn.



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The Precious Bundle is truly a citizen of the world. One grandfather is from South Africa, the other is from the Ukraine; one grandmother is from England, the other from Ireland. What will he say when asked where he's from? I think he will say he's from a place called "Love." He has certainly been exposed to a lot of it in his short time here. The first weekend was a baptism of fire, for me and the PB too. We met crowds of the little fellow's maternal relatives at a "working weekend" at a cottage in Wales. I was smitten with Wales and the southwest of England. Which doesn't make me a traitor to my first love, surely? There's room in my heart for both! I'm pretty sure the PB was passed around, and hugged and cooed at by everyone there. Even one teenager, R, known for not being much into babies, was caught sneaking a snuggle! They didn't hug and coo at me quite as much, but everyone was really friendly and welcoming!

The weekend is an annual event, where the Beloved's clan gathers to ready the cottage for summer, optimistically trusting that there will be a summer!




Not a given in recent years by all accounts...... Everyone comes ready to work. Walls are built, firewood is chopped, ponds are expanded, flowers are planted, rocks are hauled, gravel is spread, birthdays are celebrated, hills are climbed, photos



are taken, connections are re-established, ashes of loved ones are scattered, stories are told, gallons of tea are swallowed, mountains of delicious food are prepared and relished, campfires are built, songs are sung---it was truly amazing! The oldest relative there was a spry and lovely lady of ninety two. The Precious Bundle was the youngest, and in between there were teens and twenties, moms and dads, grannies and granddads.




And everyone got along. And everyone worked together. And everyone had fun. And no punches were thrown. And so much was accomplished and such lovely memories made. There is room for Pollyanna in the world after all.

I'll leave it at that until another day.........

"Waterlogged and Saintly"

I've been back home now for about two weeks and I know that one or two of you are getting impatient with the silence......I will write about it! It just needs time to percolate. I had a lovely time with the new parents and the Precious Bundle; made some lovely new friends; saw some beautiful places, and suddenly it was time to come home, just when I was hitting my stride. I spent ten days with Rise. Is it churlish to say it wasn't enough? I was delighted to see her, but, it wasn't enough! She keeps looking for new posts on my blog. I keep looking for new posts on hers. We're both feeling uninspired!

Meanwhile, The Bean noticed that there were six hundred and thirty messages in my in box.

Six hundred and thirty.

Stretching all the way back to October 2003.

Oh dear.

"Don't you ever delete anything Mom?" he asked incredulously.

"of course I do!" I said. "I just keep the ones I want to reread."

That sounded lame, even to me. In what lifetime do I plan to have time to reread six hundred and thirty old e-mails? So I've been on a mission to delete, and give my in box a lean and hungry look.

These things cannot be accomplished overnight. I have to be careful not to delete any gems such as the following, until they have been properly savoured. One incautious click and it would be gone forever. Phft! And look what you'd have missed! This is part of an e-mail titled "Waterlogged and Saintly" that I got from Rise last August. She even mentioned that she planned to blog about it. Did you see a blog post about Lough Derg over there? Uhuh. Me neither. So what I'm doing here could be thought of as a public service....if you stretch your mind a little! Go on, stretch it!

Hi Molly,

Sorry for the silence from this end. Myself and the black dog took ourselves away for a couple of days to Lough Derg!

Do you remember Lough Derg? The place of pilgrimage for all God fearing, holy Catholic, slightly deranged Irish folk?? What was I doing there you might ask ... Not being a believer in coincidences, when a leaflet about Lough Derg fell into my lap out of a magazine, while the black dog was nosing around, and the world was looking particularly gray, I thought to myself, "Why not?" Over the last couple of years, I had often mentioned that I'd like to do it, some day, soooo....Off I went to Donegal.

The pilgrimage involved three days of fasting, going barefoot over the rocky, stony beds, and praying. The website was at pains to say that one didn't need to be a practicing Catholic to do the pilgrimage, but, in true Catholic Church tradition, that was a load of horse-[expletive deleted, tsk, tsk!]. Quelle surprise.

Lough Derg itself is in Donegal, at the back end of nowhere. Long drive. The pilgrimage takes place on an island in Lough Derg reached by a ferry. I had hoped it would be a silent time, but the world and his mother were there, with their corns and bunions on full display, praying fervently. I think I was the only non-Catholic present, but I'm glad I did it. It was very tough. The weather was, as usual,[expletive deleted, potty mouth!] Not to mention cold, wet and windy. Going without food and staying awake for thirty six hours does funny things to your brain! What brain, you say?

I came home just in time for the Leaving Cert results. He[youngestsonofrise] did very well ... surprised everyone, including himself! I told him it was all due to Lough Derg, and me spending three days on my knees, starving, freezing, and battling the demons in the rarefied atmosphere of saints and sinners!

"You didn't get where you are today, sonny boy, without your mammy at your back pushing your arse up the hill!"

He had the grace to be slightly amused.

I feel a post coming on about the Lough Derg experience ...

L [oldestsonofrise] is off to Sicily tomorrow for a scuba diving course. Wish I were going too! Not with him of course ... just to go somewhere its not raining ... it hasn't stopped [expletive deleted, again! The shame of it all!]-ing rain here for the last 2 weeks....

The Met office are issuing weather alerts regularly about the possibility of severe flooding;

The farmers are whinging;

The slugs are about to take over the landscape;

The government is on holidays;

The country is beginning to go down the tubes economically, and the experts tell us it's time to tighten our belts.

Bet if the sun came out, the entire population would down tools, grab their buckets and spades and head to the seaside ....



So there you have it. A blog post from Rise, just not on Rise's blog. I'm feeling kind of saintly myself. A big sister's got to do what a big sister's got to do. Now that I've moved those words over here, I can delete one message from my inbox. Which leaves only six hundred and twenty nine.

Bold* Girls On Bikes

* "Bold," as used in 1958, in that place and that time, did not mean "brave" but rather "naughty" or "troublesome."



Walking recently along the Shannon banks, enjoying the sparkle of sunshine on the water, my mind slipped back to 1958. The summer I was ten.

Mary Grant had led me astray----again.

Against all parental taboos about riding our bikes through town and across the river to a certain forbidden swimming hole,





we were trundling said bikes down these steps:





Then jumping on again and peddling like the wind along this narrow riverbank path





so as to have as much swimming time as possible before going home for our tea.

"They'll never know!" she had said, tossing her silky mane.

"Come on 'fraidy cat!! Don't be such a baby!"

I was the timid one, the goody-goody. Mary Grant was bold and brave and a year and a half older than me. She was also blessed with a big brother. I felt that having a big brother gave one advantages, made one more courageous, more daring. I thought it a terrible oversight on God's part not to have given me one.

For my part, if my parents said I was not allowed to go somewhere, it didn't occur to me to argue or disobey. I just didn't go. Mary Grant, on the other hand, saw rules as parents' attempts to keep us from enjoying life to the fullest. Her thirst for adventure far outweighed her fear of consequences. The day was lovely. The sun was shining. The river was calling. If I didn't manage to summon a little courage, there were plenty of others who'd be delighted to join Mary Grant and leave me at home, sucking my thumb, wishing I had some guts.

So off we went.

We had a delightful time, jumping and splashing about. We didn't drown, though I was not much of a swimmer, while Mary Grant swam like a fish. We were not attacked by marauding bands of hooligan boys. And we negotiated our bikes expertly through the busy part of town. But time is always on the wing when you're having fun, and it was soon time to gather ourselves up and start peddling homeward in time for tea.

After parting company with Mary Grant, I let myself quietly into our garage and put my bike away, then summoned my courage for the unavoidable dash through the kitchen, hoping the Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose picture hung on the kitchen wall, would show some mercy, and not let my mother's eagle eyes detect the towel-and-swimsuit shaped bulge under my shirt. Everyone was already seated at the table, and my mother was serving up the food.

Not being an experienced strategist, my plan was to simply hurry through, doubled over, mumbling about a desperate need to "go!" Then fly upstairs and shove the evidence under my bed. It didn't occur to me that when I had left the house several hours earlier, ostensibly to go play with Mary Grant, I'd looked like a skinny string bean. Now, barely three hours later, I looked like Billy Bunter.....

I almost made it. But the Sacred Heart let me down.

"Where have you been all afternoon?" mum asked sharply, her eyes sweeping over me, taking in every detail.

"Just out playing," I mumbled, trying unsuccessfully not to turn beet red.



Moving out of the way of a man on a bike, wobbling towards me on the narrow path along the river bank, brought me back to the present. The gleeful thrill of forbidden fruit, the joyous shouts, the splashing and the laughter from that far-off day faded away, and I was once again enveloped in the quiet sights and sounds of a sunny May day on the river. The water slapped gently in the rushes;





birds sang in the trees;





buttercups the size of saucers poked their sunny faces out of the ditch;




a pair of ducks led their tremulous ducklings out from the shelter of the bank;





a domestic dispute broke out between a couple of swans;





an airplane droned overhead.

I turned contentedly towards Rise's house. I was glad I'd broken the rules that day. Living safely can get awfully boring. Sometimes you have to fly in the face of well meaning authority, stretch your wings, take a leap and a splash into unknown waters.....and damn the consequences.