Just had to post this...

they need our help.

I can't believe the BBC blocked an appeal for emergency aid to Gaza...
Good on Tony Benn for speaking out





The Disasters Emergency Committee launched their appeal a couple of days ago and they have ways to help and how to donate on their web site

Feeling good :)

The future needs a big kiss
Winds blows with a twist
Never seen a moon like this
Can you see it too?

Night is falling everywhere
Rockets at the fun fair
Satan loves a bomb scare
But he won’t scare you

Hey, sexy boots
Get on your boots, yeah

You free me from the dark dream
Candy floss ice cream
All our kids are screaming
But the ghosts aren’t real

Here’s where we gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity
If joy is real

You don’t know how beautiful
You don’t know how beautiful you are
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you?
You don’t know how beautiful you are

That’s someone’s stuff they’re blowing up
We’re into growing up
Women of the future
Hold the big revelations

I got a submarine
You got gasoline
I don’t want to talk about wars between nations

Not right now

Hey sexy boots…
Get on your boots, yeah
Not right now
Bossy boots

You don’t know how beautiful
You don’t know how beautiful you are
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you?
You don’t know how beautiful you are

Hey sexy boots
I don’t want to talk about the wars between the nations
Sexy boots, yeah

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Meet me in the sound

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound, now
God, I’m going down
I don’t wanna drown now
Meet me in the sound

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Meet me in the sound

Get on your boots
Get on your boots
Get on your boots
Yeah hey hey

U2 - Get On Your Boots

Am loving this song right now
and we all have one.. a sexy side that is ~

Sultry and mysterious...
feeling good from the inside out
looked after,
pampered,
clothed in materials chosen to feel good next to naked skin ~
soft and silky,
smooth,
velvet or lace.

Painted, cared for nails,
the intoxicating scent of a favourite perfume,
senses alerted,
make up applied,
not too much, yet just enough,
check in the mirror,
eyes shine out, feeling good...


Now, a choice...

do I put on my sexy boots and head out...

or instead, like every other day, do I put on my work clothes, my uniform, and leave them all wondering exactly what it is they can't put their finger on that is different today... ? ;)

Now and again

Ribbons on ballet shoes,
Colours on sports kit
new lanes in swimming
prizes in competitions
stickers, and house points

Now and again things come together, if only for a moment.
Inbetween the rest of life there are rays of light
recognition of efforts and achievements
some smaller than others, but all significant
things that make the heart swell and beat faster and lighter than before,
that bring a smile to eyes and lips, even tired and weary ones,
warmth in the cold, to send winter blues packing.

We all need to be recognised, all need to be valued for what we do
for our efforts
to know we have done something,
that we have succeeded
and that we are significant
in some way, somehow,
to someone

these achievements ~
and the physical rewards,

they may belong to someone else,
someone I love,
but they all make me smile,
make me glow,
a little warmer than before

and it's a glow that can be both felt,

and seen.

The imagination of the young.
Encouraged by his mates who were going to follow suit - 'do you think we could?' 'Of course we can...' 'lets try...' 'I dare you...'
A stunt gone wrong,
a miscalculated risk
his timing was out ~ the gap was too wide, below him a pile of granite,
and very fortunately, to my immense relief although I can't work out how, the only damage was to the glass.

I wonder realistically when brains develop the capacity for calculated risk.
It would appear to be a skill that requires some fine tuning and perhaps a little luck along the way and left me thinking about judging things, choices and reactions.

Filled with many emotions (anger, relief, incredulous disbelief, frustration), I opted for the calm approach, pointing out how dangerous it actually was, and what could so easily have happened, and how devastated I wold be if anything ever happened to any of them, which was all true, and on balance I think perhaps better than my other instinctive reaction.
It seemed to have the desired effect...apologetic, strangely quiet and calm and big hugs from all of them, until next time that is, I guess!!

They are all wonderful and lovable but it's like they have suddenly just grown, sprouted longer legs, lost coordination they once had and their brains haven't quite caught up with any part of them. They believe they can and yet it just doesn't quite all come together when they ask it to. Plus they aren't on 'receive' mode at the moment and so tuning in to relay information is incredibly hard.

Now boarded up and waiting for glass to be cut on Monday.


I had planned a weekend of self medicating relaxation, catching up with myself and bits and pieces that needed doing around the place. This disease seems to have brought with it an increased susceptibility to opportunistic infection which I can only attribute to a physical manifestation of stress...
As much as I try to ignore it, and wish it wasn't so, I am kind of forced to accept it as a reality and will have to work around it and accept that sometimes I will need to give into it - am annoyed with myself that I am back on antibiotics but perhaps it is a lesson learned too.

The weekend, much needed, has flown past - I can hardly believe it's back to work and school tomorrow... sleep and exercise and a promise to myself to listen to what my body is telling me....

A most wonderful blessing.

In the end what matters most is
How well did you live
How well did you love
How well did you learn to let go.

I'm not sure who to accredit that to but I read it first on Jayne's blog
and it struck me as very wise...

It was the letting go that I got really caught up on though...
never the easiest thing to do, no matter how many times you have had to do it,
all the losses, little and big
all the moving forwards
all the brave faces, and all the tears behind closed doors.
all the new beginnings, tinged with sadness at what has been left behind to be where we are now.

But also that ~
The past is also my present, from which there is no escape, and I am working on it because it is also part of my future.

Some things hang round like bad smells you can't get rid of.
Where is that odour neutralising spray for life when we need it?
Surely we could all be cheerful like they are in the adverts, sniffing our carpets and furnishings, or something like that if only we could find it, content in our freshly spruced up surroundings with the odd spray here and there?


Some things we leave behind
other things leave us behind
and sometimes the things we'd like to leave behind end up stuck to us like glue we can't shake off...

The Interview game

I saw this on Charli's blog - she had been interviewed and in a moment of impulse I agreed...no, I should say asked, to be interviewed...curious as to what she might ask me.
These are her questions, and my answers.
If anyone wants to play just let me know.

1. If you could take a one month trip anywhere in the world and money were not a consideration, where would you go and what would you do?
I'd work in Africa as a volunteer - have been searching out opportunities to do that for some time now, it was a childhood dream

and if I could have another month I'd include Antarctica and the Northern lights - quite like the explorer side of me, would love to experience the vastness and wildness of it, would love to live there for a while.

2. What are your most compulsive habits?
LOL - I try hard to break anything that looks like becoming compulsive...apart from being incredibly curious, which I positively indulge as I am rarely satisfied with whats on the surface and am compelled to search out more.
However, to answer you more specifically, I love smooth sheets to sleep on - whatever else may happen in an unmade bed, at least the bottom sheet has to be made by the start of bedtime for me to sleep properly ;)


3. Would you rather play a game with someone more or less talented with you? Would it matter who was watching?
I was going to say definitely more talented...have always enjoyed learning, being stretched and developing new skills, but it depends on why we are playing - I love playing games (any) with the children and then it doesn't matter.
I hate being observed...either way.

4. Which of the following restrictions could you best tolerate: leaving the country permanently or never leaving the state in which you currently reside?
A question ~ Could I take my family with me?
If I could, then it would easily be leaving the country permanently... to have to stay here could and sometimes already does, feel like a prison I need to escape from now and again. However, I'd rather be imprisoned with my husband and children than never to be able to see them again.

5. How do you picture your funeral? Is it important that people mourn your death?
Interesting - I have often thought about my death, but not particularly my funeral...
who will be there - my parents, husband and kids?
or maybe just my children?
maybe noone...
I think if we make a difference in peoples lives then we will be missed when we are no longer around. I would love it if people thought of me as I think of those who have made the biggest impact on me, like John who I blogged about, or my son's namesake - his godfather who became ill and died within months while I was pregnant.
I guess I'd like it if my death was mourned.. I'm just not so sure I've earned that yet..


Great questions Charli, thank you :)

now the rules if you want to play....


•Leave me a comment requesting an interview.
•I will e-mail you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
•You then answer the questions on your blog.
•You should also post these rules along with an offer to interview anyone else who e-mails you wanting to be interviewed.
•Anyone who asks to be interviewed should be sent 5 questions to answer on their blog.
•It would be nice if the questions were individualized for each blogger.

Bits 'n' pieces

First off I read a story I loved over at writing in faith which made me think about how we see other people, and how others view us.. not a new idea but one that this social experiment made me think about again and also about what we miss if we are not open to and looking at what is really around us.

Secondly, I haven't been around much ~ yesterday was the year anniversary of the death of someone who I thought of as my second Dad..not family as such, but as good as, and a wonderful person. It was so lovely that after I called and had spoken with R, one of his daughters, I then heard her calling out that it was Katie B on the phone. It is rare that I am called, and happy to be called, by my maiden name any more, but there always had to be a differentiation between the two Kates in the family and it took me straight back to happy times with my 'brothers and sisters' getting up to way too much mischief, especially as, for many years, I was the youngest.

It is both beautiful and painful how some people leave permanent marks on your hearts and souls.
We love and we hurt and we laugh and we cry, smiling through the tears, and we do it all at the same time, and we hug each other because we are still here and we miss them and we can't bring them back and it just doesn't seem fair...
and we pick ourselves up and we carry on with them in our hearts every day, not far away and yet far too far away.
Changed by knowing them, yet I'm not sure how comforting that really is....


So, there was that..

and there has been time trying to get my head around what is going on in Gaza...reading and listening, inbetween children and mealtimes and lessons and work ~ quiet time when there is nothing else that demands attention, to be able to concentrate and absorb, is hard to come by!

and a stack of work to get through and prepare, a daughter revising for exams and taking them seriously....and other adolescent issues, growing pains I guess, both physical and otherwise to attend to.

and the minor, yet drastic (for me that is) discovery that my work trousers fit rather better than they should if they are to remain decent, which has meant I have had to seriously up the exercise and cut out some of the things I love because there is no way I am buying new ones.

Which means life, as ever, has been and is, a mix of big and small things, all significant, all changing how I have been feeling and thinking, and has left little time or, if I'm honest, mental space, for catching up with friends anywhere, or blogging or replying to e mails....sometimes life just takes over for a while...

It's cold, breath catchingly cold, and winter is certainly making it's presence felt.

I find it is so easy to get drawn into it's dull grey gloom, and to absorb dismal days, letting them infiltrate how I feel and think.
There is much to sweep up and clear outside and it is too early to deadhead.
It is so tempting to just blitz it, to make it look good, and yet I know I must wait until the last frost has been and gone...
or that's what I was taught as I was growing up if you don't want to damage the new shoots waiting.

Patience

Inbetween and hidden under bushes some bulbs are sprouting, getting ready for spring.

Things happen at their own pace, there is no rushing and if we try and rush it we end up destroying something in the process.
An analogy for life? It feels like it, and something I need to keep in mind too...
To live and appreciate living, whilst waiting for the next certain surprise to come along. Because if we wait, it will arrive sooner or later, and so often when we least expect it.

All the family went back to work and school yesterday, and suddenly, where there was chaos, now there is order, of sorts anyhow, there is structure and lists are being worked through.

A meeting with someone I will be working with later this month made me realise just how much easier it is when you have someone next to you saying we can, and we will, when you can work together, supporting one another.
Although I am quite comfortable working alone, it is a welcome input and experience to share and develop ideas and exchange stories over coffee, and confirms to me that there should definitely be more to work than merely working!

My aim right now is to keep looking for, and focused on what is good and kind and beautiful in each day whilst hoping there really are some delicious surprises ahead....

Words fail

Words fail
when I watch and listen to the reports about Gaza,
feelings of disbelief,
anger,
sadness,
helplessness,
frustration,
outrage....

please God let it stop...
let there be a way through

Revelatory shower moments...

Revelatory moments are few and far between it seems
a fleeting moment of inspiration, filling a gap
a longed for missing piece of a jigsaw
yet they happen now and again.
Revealed this morning,
of all places, in the shower, amidst shampoo and soap

a new perspective on 'why?'

years spent asking 'why?'
what it is that motivates a certain type of behaviour?

And now it occurs to me following this, that I'm not so sure that knowing why actually helps with what to do about it...
(even if it's not knowing as such, and merely another perspective)

just maybe, why? isn't always the most important question...

It's begun

Perhaps it's not the best start to a party to turn up and admit to your friends that you really didn't feel like going...but then to be greeted with equal honesty from them meant we were united in our lack of enthusiasm, and it set the tone for the evening - no pretences whatsoever.
In fact this was exactly why I had said yes in the first place. They are the one place I can be honest with how I am feeling and who I am, or at least one of the places I can be.
A safe place to dwell.
In the end it was a really good, fun evening.

And so the year began, a late one at the rugby club and then onwards to our friends house where we stayed up, until dawn had well and truly broken.
One by one people took themselves off to sleep, leaving a small group behind relaxing and being together...

We hadn't started out wanting a party, but in some ways I needed to be there.

I couldn't sleep even though I wanted to, and for quite some time I lay on the sofa, watching as the others played karaoke on the playstation...and contemplated all kinds of things...it is good to take a step outside your world now and again - to be a part of it and yet disengaged at the same time.

As it turned out there were moments of sharing very personal stories which have left me thinking and once again realising how little I really know about life or anything that goes on in it...and humbled by others stories and experiences and honesty in telling them to me.
And we try to figure out the way forward together.

It's been a very low key day, gathering ourselves for the new year that has already begun.
Not so much making resolutions, which I do very badly, but looking ahead, as a friend put it so well on facebook, to embrace the new surprises, wonders, failings and learnings that lie ahead.

What price happiness?

Little things that have made me happy in the past couple of days.
Just before Christmas my beloved, if indeed vintage U2 ipod died...suddenly! This meant all packing had to cease for me to run into the shop whereupon they pronounced that the hard drive had indeed gone to ipod heaven, however, they offer a wonderful replacement service at a fraction of a cost, but due to Christmas and it coming from Amsterdam there would be a delay.
Yesterday I called in to collect my brand new shiny identical pod... and am back to functioning normally with it...yay... good news!

I miss music if it's not around.

I also returned to the gym, and hence have been borrowing other peoples ipods, something odd about having someone elses collection of music in your hands to play with, even though they have been those of my family. It gives an interesting perspective on each of my children somehow.
I grew up without much music, other than radio 2 in the car on the way into school in the mornings with my Dad, and I do wonder what I'd have had on my ipod back then if they had existed.

Getting back to the gym and exercise is starting to take effect, not physically so that you'd notice, but to how I feel, getting back in touch with my body and feeling it working as it should be, pushing it enough to feel my heart and be aware of my breathing, letting the endorphins kick in, as well as time and space and the pleasure of seeing the fit young toned and tanned anonymous skipper/boxer/footballer... who knows who he is...but yesterday he was cycling, and I know I stayed exercising for slightly longer than I would have done because of it, a kind of personal trainer without paying for it :)
(hope I didn't go overboard on that aspect of the gym there...)

Last night we watched the sing along version of Mama Mia with S - and in the comfort of my own home I enjoyed singing along. I enjoyed it far more here than I did at the cinema, and it did have that certain 'feel good' factor.

Today both my children have been out playing with friends. Something I take for granted. Lots I take for granted... I wonder about what price happiness...

I listen to the news, read bits and pieces, not ever as much as I want to,
time is such a governing factor...and yet I find myself reprimanding myself for that, it is a lame excuse most of the time.

just caught up with this pod cast(s)/ video from the trip made to Palestine earlier this year by a group of people from Greenbelt

Bethlehem - somewhere there are no parks or playgrounds...

and yet in the midst of all that is around them they keep hold of hope, hope for a new year better than previous ones.

Worlds apart I sit and pray and ponder and hope for peace...

Thoughts this New Years eve on what I really need to make me happy.

Hope your New Year is peaceful and 2009 is a great year full of magic, awe and wonder, x

Inbetween

Feeling flat, wiped out, jittery, needing to get ready and prepared for next term..
Christmas has meaning for me, new year really hasn't
always feel like this to a degree after Christmas and family birthdays have been and gone and I need to get back into the swing of things again,
it's an odd transitional time I have never liked.
we said we'd go out at new year, a rugby club thing, but right now I'm not so sure...
might just keep my head down and emerge when it's all over :)

merely pondering

"We've come a long way, we really have"
~ a comment made to me by a very good friend late one evening this Christmas.... just made me think

think how far we do go without realising it, until perhaps the years pass and we look back... we could never see the way through at the time, and yet we get through one step at a time and find we are still searching for the way forward...but with more experience and perhaps more hope than before.

It also made me think about the constants in our lives,
the things that give us stability ~
the reassurances.
When we are stumbling we return to that which we know, which we can rely on,
the things we all need in our lives
the bare bones, the rocks, the things and people that won't let us down,
our faith,
our belief

There is a reassurance in things that stay the same ~
in nature,
in the sun rise and sun set,
in the ebb and flow of the tide,
the seasons.

We all need to know who and what we can rely on,
we need something, even one thing, as a constant,
something to steady ourselves on until we can find our feet again.


Just got me thinking, and I was grateful to be sitting with some of mine and sharing food and wine with them at yet another Christmas.

Thankful and thinking

Plans....

I was going to blog but we had a last minute supper invite...
and I was going to reply to all the lovely comments on my last post... ( I appreciate them all - thank you )
we were going to have an early night
the kids were going to catch up on sleep
I was going to watch a movie
start to read my new book...

but instead we were out and had a lovely time
I am tired
the kids are tired
there is no school tomorrow
no work tomorrow
and tomorrow I can lie in and catch up and do all the things I didn't do tonight
because we were out having fun....

laughing and eating and enjoying the holiday with good friends...
the best way to spend a holiday

Seeing through young eyes

After all the excitement and fun,
the stockings and present opening,
the noise and the magic,
after it has all died down and the mess has been mainly cleared away.

I find myself sitting still at the end of Christmas day.
It has been beautiful in so many ways,
in sharing with friends and family, in coincidental meetings,
and in the beauty of small heartfelt gifts.

One inparticular, a precious photo album compiled by my daughter of memories past ~
ones we created, and which now they both share.
Remembering precious times, with love.
My album was instantly a treasured possession.

Sometimes I think children see so much more clearly than we do, without the clutter that comes with adulthood.
They see through the mess and straight to the heart of things.
To care and be cared for, to give and receive love, to be accepted, to forgive
and to be happy just to be together.

I need the reminder occasionally to see through young eyes that haven't yet grown weary of living, that see as they feel, and give importance to the feelings, and that are now old enough to identify and express those feelings.

Today has been simple, uncomplicated and very very lovely....

thankful of the peace
we progress, one step, one day at a time...

there is no other way.

Just a feeling

Today is busy, tomorrow is going to be busier.
Like many we have a lot to navigate around this time of year.
We never know how it's going to pan out,
but year on year we step out
hoping this year will be different,
Hoping to find peace, hope and understanding
and not just open old wounds and hurt again.

some years we make it...

I love the image this gives
It's just a feeling
sent out to many,
for many reasons,
but especially this time of year
When it seems there is nothing we can do,
and all we can do, is be there
hoping and praying, loving and caring
for, and with
each other.

Trusting, and being there,
being here in the moment.

It's just a feeling, a thought,
a wish,
sent out with love.

Just thinking

Just thinking, on all kinds of things, on all the illness I see and hear of around, and on all the sadness and the ripples from people's lives and stories which make this time of year especially hard for many. It's a quiet day here right now, which will change before too long! Just thinking...

U2 - If God will send his angel
Uploaded by Angkor

The best adventure ever

What was your last good read? Or film to watch? What keeps us fascinated and transfixed, what captures our imagination? And what makes life worth living?
Lately I have heard some brilliant stories during evenings or various conversations, humorous, adventures, dramatic risk taking, consequences, close shaves, wild stories of survival. Some perhaps embellished for the moment, but in essence true.
Great fodder for a social evening out.
Real life.
But that's the thing...all the best experiences, all the good stories, are best because of these elements, and mainly involve risks taken, not stories of safety and comfort...

Life is an adventure, by nature I guess... and adventure makes life fun and interesting, we search it out.

If I want it, it makes sense that my children might crave it too.

Yet it still takes courage to wave him goodbye as he goes off on his racing bike to his mates house, have given him the cycle helmet talk and sent a couple of silent prayers upwards as he goes.. pushing the images of people I have nursed in A&E who have had lucky escapes out of my head - sometimes they are just not helpful!

and then when he comes home he tells me he just took a detour into town to see if he could go up and down the big hill a couple of times...wanted to do it on his own and not with his Dad - just to see if he could, in the busy Christmas traffic too...
like rock jumping off the highest rock here in the summer... just 'cos!!
and sleeping out on the common in bivvy bags in the summer...

Am starting to understand this whole thing on a cognitive level, it just takes a whole lot of putting into practise... letting them experience what they want to - what they will do anyway to an extent, whilst keeping faith that they will come home safely.
And then being excited for them and at the stories and adventure whilst quietening the parent in me that will always want to protect, wanting to hear the stories, yet knowing if I'm going to be allowed to hear the 'best' ones I am going to have to keep my nerve and be true to my heart, allow myself to feel the adventure, not the what ifs....

love, protection, freedom, risk, safety, learning to trust in faith...letting them live.
Perhaps it is all about roots and wings, but it feels a whole lot more complex than that.

And I fear it is only the start - the start of being witness to, and part of, two other humans amazing incredible adventure story - mystery, intrigue, drama, I just hope there aren't too many times when I will want to hide behind a cushion, or will those ultimately BE the best bits?