Peace every day...

peaceful reflections of town

It's been too long without photos...

Right now life has been full of family stuff... time taken up over the past weeks with aunts and uncles who have been over visiting. Somehow it always sends my head into a spin, it fills up until it's about to burst, I stop being able to think logically and because you can't please everyone I end up pleasing noone.
Somehow it's all too easy to fall short of the expectations other people have of you, aswell as keeping up with the important bits in our lives - the kids and R and all the related activities and evening classes.

Seems that even when we're too tired or the brain is too full to think, there is still a capacity to feel and life has been full of feelings...

childhood feelings and adult feelings, and hundreds of different feelings, all mixed up together... till it's hard to say how you feel, because you just feel.... and to untangle them all sometimes seems almost pointless, because they change so often, and maybe just to go with the flow... focus on what can be done, and hope they untangle on their own, is all we can do...

So often food and meals have helped... even the good old cup of tea comes to the rescue.... an answer to many things... offerings of food and drink, time and company, are healing I guess....

so I'm off to shop and cook in anticipation of family visitors tomorrow...
and to search out peace in the every day...

Testosterone and stardust

He was cute, flirtatious, fun and had the most gorgeous blue eyes.... a passing encounter that lifted the day, made me walk taller and lighter, and couldn't help but make me smile... even now....

It's good when something / someone makes the world sparkle...

And so onwards to home...

and preadolescent emotional outbursts creating havoc, which send me to calm down, and try to find a reason, some explanation, for the erratic, illogical workings, of an eleven year old boy's brain...

Steve Biddulph tells me that somewhere between the ages of eleven and thirteen, testosterone levels will increase by over eight hundred percent. This results in sudden growth, and as a consequence the nervous system has to almost rewire itself.
Whats more, this reorganisation of the brain makes boys dopey and disorganised for many months and parents have to act as a substitute brain for a while.

He says far more than this - and all the time I'm nodding in agreement with virtually every word...

In fact he sounds about spot on... although I fear we may have a whole lot more to come... but perhaps I'll be so used to it by then I'll relax and it'll just wash over me...
Steve reassures me that by his mid twenties things settle down....! so we have a long time to enjoy this hormonal roller coaster....

A cunning little hormone - powerful and seductive... should come with a public health warning...
at work in two very different ways ~ in one still grappling with it, yet to be tamed, and channelled, understood and calmed, and in another, working at it's very best...
bringing magical stardust to the world....

It survived...

Shamefully it has taken until today for us all to go on a family bike ride since S passed her cycling proficiency before the Summer - there were so many things we wanted and planned to do - and only ever achieved a fraction of them...

However, we landed up for an icecream at the beach we were at the other day...and just for fun searched to see what, if anything, remained of our art work...

seems not only has it survived the tide and sea, but someone else has found it and progressed it... the children loved it - I loved it... time for another photo - though only my phone with me to take it...

and time to add more ourselves...

aswell as starting a race to the sea in stones...R told me the tide was coming in - in fact it was on it's way out and we couldn't work fast enough to catch it without us all joining in....

interesting people's reactions - we had been putting stones in place for a while when a toddler came and took one from higher up. The lady with him was so apologetic, making him put it back and almost telling him off... we were only playing - a game almost - it wasn't important - yet somehow like a sandcastle, this line of stones had taken on an importance beyond what it was...

I wonder how long it will stay, will anyone add to it, will I see it grow or will it just return to the sea and the beach...

Don't tell me....

Please don't tell me that I grieve too much
And I won't tell you that you grieve too much
Please don't tell me that I grieve too little
And I won't tell you that you grieve too little
Please don't tell me that I grieve in the wrong place
And I won't tell you that you grieve in the wrong place
Please don't tell me that I grieve at the wrong time
And I won't tell you that you grieve at the wrong time
Please don't tell me that I grieve in the wrong way
And I won't tell you that you grieve in the wrong way

I may get it wrong
I will get it wrong
I have got it wrong
But please please don't tell me.

by Michael Rosen (adapted)

Some days, some times, not necessarily grief related, I just want to shout this from the rooftops...
things happen, we all have things, some of them in the past, some going on now, that we deal with, daily, or don't deal with.
Things we try to forget, try to put aside, to live life for today ~ in the moment.
We all try our best, and struggle... in so many areas of life.
We all get it wrong, but do we always need to be told...?

We do all get it wrong... but NO, we don't need to be told - chances are we already know.... or if not we'll work it out soon enough without needing someone to point it out...

Half term, holidays, yet more dentists, still there's jobs to do...

if life could go on hold.. but it can't it won't...

and then I think - perhaps it should, perhaps it can.. perhaps I can make it... perhaps I am so caught up with what needs, and should, and has to happen...
all I would do if the kids were at school - but they're not - and that maybe we should just forget everything that's sitting there and go out and have fun... do something, anything... how many people wish they could live by the beach.. could just pop down to the ocean when they feel like it?

How easily I can slip into a mind set of doing what needs to be done and being all the things I promised myself I wouldn't be when I got older - and I have to shake myself and remember why I had said I didn't want to be like that when I was a Mum - why I wanted to stay spontaneous and fun, and sod the things that can and will wait - while I enjoy the holidays - remember what it really felt like to be on the FIRST day of the holiday... it's their's why not make it mine too?
Getting to a point where I can have the same free time as them on their holidays has taken much thought and effort and now finally I can choose to live it if I want to...

so, snatched moments from today as we headed out...

And so the day progressed...

The morning was off to a brilliant start.... the sky was beautiful and the world was glowing...

I spent the morning at work and then made my way back home.
Time for a cup of tea and contemplate what to do with the rest of the afternoon until I had to collect the children... It felt unusually relaxed and peaceful for a weekday... it being Tuesday...

so I was thinking "what do I usually do on Tuesdays?" I don't usually have time to come home and drink tea...
I usually go to Yoga straight from work...
which was when I remembered that this week I had cancelled Yoga because of my son's Harvest Festival... which started at 2pm...
and the time at that exact moment was...2pm...

Ok so I'd miss most of it, but at least I could still be there to collect him at the end...

I arrive and as usual there is nowhere to park, so I leave the car at daughter's school and take the path round the back to appear less blatant about it... get to the church, say hello to the head teacher from the junior school and sit in a seat just at the back...
Just as I sit down everyone else starts to stand up...and I've missed it...

There was a moment of realisation that I could only see quite small boys...
and then I was wondering...as I registered that in fact they were ALL small boys...there were NO bigger ones...and the people I knew who were there all have at least one child in the junior school... but R is now in senior school... we left this behind last year...

Yes, I had both just made it to, and missed, the wrong Harvest Festival, and missed Yoga... much to the general amusement of my friends who were at the right Harvest festival....and very keen to point out the fact!!

there was nothing for it but to go out for tea and wait until it was time to collect S from school...

and hope my brain made it's way home from wherever I left it that morning... presumably lost looking at the sky!

Relief

Initial appearances can be deceptive...
and sometimes we are granted a lucky escape..
today was one of those times -

I thought I wanted it after the interview... till later that night when questions started to arise from information not disclosed until half way through the interview....
and questions have continued to surface like bubbles during the week, while I waited to hear - they said they were interviewing in odd lunch hours...

there were sufficient question marks for me to be concerned about what I would say if I was actually offered the job...

Call me old fashioned but I was brought up to think, and experience would lead me to believe, that it is only courteous to let applicants know by telephone if they have been successful or not...

so I took a mental step back when I found an e mail tonight telling me they had offered it to someone else - apparently a standard e mail in which they had even got my name wrong...

the equivalent I guess of being dumped by text...

rejection is never easy... but that aside, my inner feeling is one of relief... and of a whole heap of positives...

how come charities that deal with people, look after people, communicate and promote and aim to facillitate communication... are so bad at it...? Last time I found this out I was in the middle of working for one, and was hurt terribly in the process...

An interesting and worthwhile avenue to explore...however, inner feelings have to be listened to....
I've never been rejected by a prospective employer before...
which is strange for me...
my heart wasn't in it totally...
but failure doesn't come easy...
so relief wasn't the feeling I expected..

odd how things work out....

in essence the day is good...

One day, every four weeks or so, it is predictable that I would be kinder to myself and to anyone who wanders, either by intent or by chance into my world, if I just stayed huddled inside, preferably under the duvet with a good book or a good film and a constant supply of hot drinks and something warm to cuddle...

On this particular day.... it is possibly not the wisest thing to sandwich a job interview, for a job I have now decided I really would like, and would I think, find challenging and rewarding, inbetween two other exciting and productive meetings, which in itself requires a degree of mental dexterity which is lacking today more than most....

However, should I choose to focus on the upside of the meetings, which were exciting,
and that S has her photo in the local paper for her swimming at the weekend, albeit with the wrong name under it,
and that we now appear to have what I assume are tits in our box - I only saw a tail earlier, but it made me stupidly happy to think they would make a home in our box..

I would see that the day is actually quite good....

it doesn't earn me any money, and has generated lots more work in the process.... but given the fact there was little I could have done to organise things differently, it is possibly an appropriate time for that quite irritating phrase "Que Sera Sera"

* I thought it an odd time to see birds go into the box - it would seem they were only popping in and out...perhaps they check their home out for next year in advance...I'm hoping anyway :) *

Just thoughts...

Several things combined today, and initially but not solely, prompted by a beautiful e mail from one of my best friends who I haven't talked to or seen for some time, left me thinking how
a little kindness, or even just niceness,
and a little communication
can drastically change one's perspective on life...

It really isn't the big things at all...

Indulgence

Anticipation only made the desire stronger... however, my patience was rewarded and I eventually made it to town to find the boots were still there...
but not before I had spotted some other, higher, all black, leather boots that called out and asked to be bought - they are perhaps, though I'm sure I can work on it, a little impractical, but sometimes desire deserves to be indulged, and has to override practicality... a girl deserves at least one pair of 'kinky boots' in her wardrobe that make her walk taller, even if they are bad for your feet!

In fact, starved of shopping for some time now, though I haven't either missed it or had the impulsive urge to, until this week that is, I quickly found my stride... it proved to be a day where most things I tried on both fitted and looked good... and as thats a combination that doesn't often happen, it made perfect sense to take advantage of it.

Some winter shoes, a couple of jumpers and a few tops later, together with both pairs of boots, I made it back to the car just in time to collect S from school - all in all, a good day's work :)

These are the boots that sparked off this trip.... and the photo above is the rather wonderful box they came in....exquisitely packaged... AND they were reduced in the sale....

Right here, right now...

Excited, anxious, nervous, anticipating, buzzing butterflies... 5 words for today... well 5 words right now....
Five words - something Pip made me conscious of... thanks :)

should be rewriting my cv....

want to go to town in case the boots I saw have been sold and I miss out....

R is away playing football today - returns tonight, I hope he had fun, hope he was a part of a team... yesterday he played and the team didn't work - it was a two man team of nine players... I was disheartened, he wasn't. He has so many lovely qualities, and loyalty and understanding are just two of them...

The skip has just arrived, can't wait to get clearing big time...

Back to jewellery class tonight...

Too much going on - life is full again...

I like life being full, I hate asking people for references....
and I really don't enjoy it when it spills over to writing out application forms at gone midnight...
coffee is keeping my numb brain in slow motion, but at least some motion.... Those boots are stupidly becoming more and more important the later it gets...!

A day in pictures...

Today our last ever guests left and we are breathing - not learning to, or trying to, it just happened - the air feels lighter and it's as if we've moved into a new house - the card was a thank you card from them - a lovely way to end this chapter.
Thank yous are relatively rare, which makes it extra special

this lily comes out in the same place every year, all alone, the only break in the overgrown hedge, and every year I miss photographing it because it's hedge cutting time and they get to it before I do...



A familiar scene that tells me I'm nearly home...reassuring, and always beautiful.

It's blowing an absolute hoolie outside and it would seem fair to assume that we have said goodbye to summer and are welcoming winter... first conkers are around and it's almost time for log fires...
The school term is well underway and the nightly struggle to get through three or four homeworks is becoming a part of life. Tonight's music theory was testing for all of us...and brought back long hidden memories - I'd forgotten how hard I found music...

Evenings are filled with football, dancing, night classes, meetings or other after school activities, despite our best efforts to keep them to a minimum...

So, when I have had time for me, I've been busy buying flowers for and spending time with friends, fiddling and getting more familiar with flickr, playing with the new office software for our mac...and my newest distraction...facebook, which is strangely compelling...

It's not that interesting, unless you're me of course... it's just life finding some kind of rhythm after all the change

" In wild places light illuminates beauty"

clouds on the way home

Forces at work, serendipity or something else....the silver lining, the balance of nature...
the right person with the right words, not often I grant you.... but sometimes...
the right book at the right time...

after a day like today which has centered around disappointing test results from the hospital - (not mine), and a whole host of feelings, emotions, criticisms, judgements, fear and pain being unleashed in my direction,
"Beauty ~ the invisible embrace" by John O'Donohue was exactly what I needed to be reading.

To read about beauty in such a way is to rekindle something within me, to reignite and strengthen a belief in the beauty that is around me at all times, and in the beauty, tenderness, care and kindness, that remains hidden from view...

in short, it made me feel so much better

thanks to Paul for the book recommendation

Reality bites..

Busy with work and meetings and after school activities and catching up with people, cooking and having friends round...

Trying to ignore the ear/throat/headache, which probably means I am brewing what half the population seem to have at the moment, and still getting frustrated by the number of avenues that have brick walls at the end of them. Waiting for e mails from people who promise they will, and trying hard to relax and know that it all works out in the end...
patience is hard to come by...

Knowing that money isn't everything, and hanging on to the reality that money isn't really what makes people rich, but still, not having it stops you from doing things you want to do and means we can't always join in with things we'd like to...

reshaping our lives, and creating more of a blank sheet to work with opens up more possibilities and feels right, but also leaves us vulnerable and temporarily without any specific direction...


Our final guests ever arrived into the chalet this afternoon, fitting that they were also one of the first ever guests here back in 1982 when the people who built the chalets still owned them...they brought photos too...
it is the end of an era...

and we're out tonight, to a moulin rouge themed party and need to liven myself up a little before getting into my red petticoated number for what is likely to be a trip down memory lane...

Time to dust off the cobwebs and see if perhaps I can do more than just the Can-Can!!

Tagged again...

this time by Dana about my reading habits... which vary hugely depending on what else is going on at any one time....

My Reading - Reading is a pleasure and sadly has become one of life's luxuries... a luxury because I disappear into my own world, and the times when I can do that now without causing disruption to the family are limited.
Holidays are precious, in part because I am free to read guilt free, and can read fiction as opposed to books relating to work. Over the years I have read in fits and starts, and as a student, my reading apart from the text books was fairly limited to the Nursing Times and Cosmopolitan magazine.... I was far too busy having fun most of the time to read and too exhausted the rest of the time...
That said, I think if you love reading it never leaves you.
I often have a list of books I want to read and more than one book in progress at any one time.




Total Number of Books Owned - I honestly haven't a clue - we have bookshelves full around the house and boxes of books in the garage and loft that have never been unpacked...
I keep hold of some that are important to me and others I give to charity in an attempt to keep on top of the space issue. I like the idea of books travelling to various places and being shared...I think I'd like that if I were a writer...

Last Book Bought - Beauty The invisible embrace by John O'Donohue

Last Book Read - Mother's milk by Edward St Aubyn

Currently reading - Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A perfect life by Raffaella Barker, and Anna and the black knight by Fynn

Five Meaningful Books - It's hard because the more I think the more spring to mind, so first thoughts will have to do.... The magic faraway tree was a favourite when I was young and then I remember being especially enthralled by The secret garden

Skallagrigg by William Horwood made an impression somewhere in between the text books and nursing times and is one book I wish I had never lent to anyone...

Rosie Thomas and Maeve Binchy were comforting easy to read fiction authors I would retreat to when life was stressful and I returned home to the safe haven of my childhood bedroom when I was at college.

Then as a parent, so many books have been meaningful - Dr Seuss stands out and is well loved - again several of his have wandered off and had to be reordered... any books that can inspire and nurture the desire for children to read just have to be classed as meaningful...

The Mercy of thin air By Ronlyn Domingue, The lovely bones by Alice Sebold and The five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom are books I haven't been able to put down once I picked them up, though I detect a theme running through them there...

Recently I discovered Mister God this is Anna and wish I had picked it off the shelf earlier.
I have also enjoyed reading Anne Lamott for the first time, sometimes touching raw nerves and stopping me in my tracks... tears can catch you unawares at the most unexpected moments...

Interspersed with the informative and meaningful I like to have the light hearted and easy to read, a rest from thinking and an escape. I think they are valuable too.


I'm not sure who I'm tagging..... it's late and I'm off to bed... if I can make a decision tomorrow I will, but if you'd like to be tagged please consider yourself 'it' :)

Better late than never... it's been a busy few days...
I'm finally tagging

Still one pedestrian Caroline
Journey through grace Jayne
Jeff at Sharp yellow pencil
and Niki

though of course it's only voluntary but I'd love to read your thoughts

Bedtime earlier tonight...

It made my heart beat slower and deeper, and my soul want to reach out and hold him ~ hold them both ~ close to me...

an overwhelming knowing, a rare glimpse of the unquestionable love that just is, total and complete for ever, a moment of transparency, of luminescence....
sat cuddling my son, draped, long limbed, over my lap, even though he is now as tall as me and his feet are way bigger than mine, just before bedtime, on the sofa... the same sofa I would sit and nurse him as a baby in my arms...

sometimes in the chaos there are perfect moments that are beyond my comprehension, I can only wonder at them and where they come from, and be thankful....

The middle name game

I've been tagged by Jayne at Journey Through Grace to play the middle name game. The name of the game is to:

List one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use the name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.


I couldn't find anything fancy to decorate my letters with like Jayne, so it'll stay plain and simple...

J could be for jewellery, the girly side of me who likes to make and create and decorate myself, or it could be for juggling everything that needs to be done or attended to every day.

A for Africa, a dream I have had since I was about six to work there, and the reason I wanted to nurse in the first place, or for animals that seem to find us, or that I get roped into looking after whether or not I want to...

N for nosey, curious, always wanting to know more... a quest to fill gaps in my knowledge... or it could be for Nurse... a nosey nurse :)

E for energy, without it I am hopeless, and of which I now have greater reserves thanks to the summer, or extraordinary, ordinary events...the unexpected little things that make every day interesting or exciting and that make me sit up and take notice of the beauty that is around me every day




Ok, so now I'll tag:

Beth at Grace every day

The lovely Mr Tumnus

Rollercoaster Caroline

and Shaz at dare to dream

my wicked side...

dark, dingy, smoky, buzzing, noisy bars, loud music, snakebite, cider and black, ale... whisky and beer, real, earthy, let it all out, life is for living atmosphere....

pubs and bars I remember from a few years ago now...
real "what if my mother could see me now" moments.... yet being so far away she couldn't - and thank god for that.... but hey, life was fun.

it still is, it's just different...

At the gym tonight I scrolled through music to really work out to...

as I turned up the volume on some old guns n' roses I was taken back to those times - it was a tough work out... and it felt good.

tuned into my slightly wicked side... and with R on board too, I am now sporting newly dyed and highlighted hair (helped by R as I couldn't manage the highlights alone) and a temporary painted tattoo... :) if I hit on a design I like then maybe it'll become permanent ~ till then, which is the far more likely option, I'll keep on experimenting.

sometimes I miss those days.. and nights...

oh and I always wonder what other people are listening to on their ipods at the gym... and what their wicked side is...

Hope you like the new decor - just fancied a change...

bit busy here, will return soon, x