The eleventh of twelve

On the eleventh day of Christmas
Love came yesterday
in the form of a cheerful card from my son and his wife.

with two gifts which made me feel humble and tearful, knowing that despite all the difficulties we do love each other.  There have been too many years of hurt and pain ... Life isn't easy and the mouth soon opens when it is better to keep quiet!  I am hoping we can move to the future!
One gift is a jar of 100 capsules of "green lipped mussels" recommended by my son's wife for arthritis (they knew of my recent temporary lumbar paralysis).

One gift is delicious Chinese teaballs that open into a flower in the teapot ... just as in Wagamama's... mmmmm...
The best gift though was his simple touching sentence about hoping to catch up in 2016.
Ah... yes please.
However, I did phone just before New Years Eve. The post took 12 days to arrive!   Still, I would like us all to meet.  B has never been to France in 12 years to see where I live.  S has been but on each occasion was treated inappropriately and hurt by anger, thoughts of betrayal and my inability to be a go between.
I live in HOPE that we can be Family again!!!   That would be the best gift ever!

A Place I Love: Pity about the door furniture

Times they are a changing

just like the weather...
after the shorts the rain,
after the rain the sun,
this is the way of life
where we had begun
with joy in our hearts
when a baby was born.
As we approach the latter years we strive to reject grey clouds of past errors and judgements,
sadnesses and sorrows, to let in sunshine with memories of good times, hoping that we can grow on whichever path we go.

Glad that I live am I; That the sky is blue;
Glad for the country lanes, And the fall of dew.

After the sun, the rain, After the rain the sun;
This is the way of life, Till the work be done.

All that we need to do, Be we low or high,
Is to see that we grow, Nearer to God on high.

A door closes, a window opens, a scene ends, a scene begins ... Let the sun shine in!   

Let us breathe in the goodness and light that exists in each one of us!   Amen

End of an Era

Today, he sold his house, where once I resided.
I accompanied him to the Notaire as the chief traducteur ....and this time, I was the little bird that said  'bravo'.....
Eleven years ago he asked  me to accompany him to be French resident and give courage! I did that and more and in so doing it drained me of my own courage!!!!!!!!
Now, with self-confidence but considerable emotional pain of which I am not ashamed for it is the essence of who I am, I am able to foster and help further his courage yet again, so that he can master fears of flying and travelling alone to Asia, despite having travelled to Israel and afar when he was in his late teens / early twenties!
Although I have a strong urge to travel, I appreciate that we cannot re-kindle what once we would have liked to do, when we said we would explore the fields of France and Europe.
SO ... I am filled with a deep sadness.

BUT WHEN I ASK MYSELF WHETHER I WANT IT RE-KINDLED I AM AMBIVALENT because of the very lovely generous, warm, caring and once-upon-a-time-fun side of him and then the absence of things I know I need now, which is more humour, laughter, fun whilst doing the hard work as well as assistance on the house and in the garden and in my life ...  I need to be flexible, sometimes planned but sometimes spontaneous and flexible on changing minds.  I need someone to share interests and although we have shared a love of food, walking, cycling, places and people and even music, art and architecture, something has been missing and I know not what. Once upon a time I trusted him implicitly with everything and poured my heart and soul into him... maybe that was the mistake... he could then have a lever on all my failings!  I thought he was my soul mate and yes he was... but .... there we go!

I know that I need security.  Therefore, I could never travel without a base to return to. 
Perhaps now that he has booked his tickets he will start to generate positive thoughts and plans.   We have discussed his opportunities ... he must profit from the opportunity before him .... such a luxury!  And rather than wait in the house going nowhere, now he can go somewhere, wherever his little bird takes him!
I already weep and know not why!!!!!!!!!! LOSS!
I read that SADNESS is a signal that one should be open and begin to trust...
But one should look forward. 
I am trying...
I almost envy him what he has created ... the freedom to go.... not to be shackled by property and French stone property.
I admire what he is about to do and admire the fact that he may get to pick mangoes!
I hope he sends a postcard!

Letting go ... of Lovers ... and Lives...

There are places I remember all my life
Though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments
Of lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I loved them all

And with all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these mem'ries lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new

And I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I loved you more

And I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I loved you more
In my life I loved you more

Songwriters: Paul Mc Cartney; John Lennon

Book Review: Charlotte Gray

The novel Charlotte Gray was written in 1999 by Sebastian Faulks with a film directed by Gillian Armstrong starring Cate Blanchet released in 2001.

I loved this book.   It was profound and emotionally educational unravelling some of the tangled thoughts about my own parental relationship.

page 474:
I was upset when she commented about how her father was emotionally and mentally damaged by his experiences in WWI.
I began to realise that my own parents may have been proud of me but they never ever praised me in all of my life. My mother once did say I was clever so maybe that counts!

I was in tears towards the end of the book: 

"She strained at the memory of her childhood, at the sense of some rapture lost. Yet it all remained like some frozen sea: great blocks of ice, submerged but static, and beyond the melting capacity of her conscious will."......... "her mother would turn form intimacy"

page 479 and after:
the author writes about a man's need and fears of being a father, a person, a man as a boy and how men can be a prisoner of sensual desire.... so I started to wonder about how people set themselves free from the chains that they have self-imposed.  When I was in my 30s or 40s I doodled many chains and wrote about myself being a prisoner but then I did not know what of!  I still have that INNER CHILD THERAPY JOURNAL.
page 482:
I had a kind of revelation.  I began to sob suddenly and uncontrollably as I realized that possibly I had never ever really thought about MY LIFE from my parents' viewpoint ...  It is what I have been expecting my grown up children to do! I want them to appreciate and understand that I think about their lives from my viewpoint and I think that perhaps one of them hasn't yet understood that and won't until he becomes a parent. 
page 483:
I interpret the author's writings:
The noise of shouting and violence... the sight and sound of torment, grief and horror cause the destruction of the softness of love.

``````````````````

In this novel, Charlotte Gray, a young Scot,  became involved with the French resistance at Vichy, in 1942, during the Second World War.  She'd traveled to London to work as a medical receptionist for a Harley Street doctor but on the train she shared a compartment with two men, one who works for the secret service and he invites her to contact him when the job gets boring. Despite the war, social life was in full swing and she soon meets an accomplished airman, Peter Gregory. The temporary nature of life at wartime brings romance where she loses her virginity and her heart. Peter is sent on a mission over France and becomes missing in action.  She joins a Special Operations Executive (SOE) training course where about one third of the women sent to France never returned. The secret service exploit her talent to speak French fluently and she is happy to return to France where she spent much of her childhood.  She passes interrogation to be a spy,  has her hair and dentistry adapted to look more like a French woman and is parachuted into France to complete a specified mission.  She goes AWOL and sets out to find Gregory.
Wikipedia says:
"The character of Charlotte Gray was based on a New Zealand woman called Nancy Wake who worked with the French Resistance near a village called Verneix in the Auvergne region. Instead of escaping she became a courier for the resistance but had to eventually flee to Spain and then England where she was trained by the SOE. She was parachuted back into France on 29 April 1944 and went on to lead a 7,000 strong resistance group in the Auvergne region. Her husband, Henri Fioca, was tortured and killed by the Gestapo for failing to reveal her whereabouts."

Facing the onset of Spring

Days become lighter mornings and evenings and with that a frosty morning snap has arrived.
My arms have been working, stretching, lifting, carrying, which seems to suit the pain.  It's very odd, because at night, the pain keeps me awake or wakes me so that I lose sleep.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the inflammation has reduced but am reluctant to say that there is improvement, or that the pain is getting better.  Ginger tea is the order of each day as it is a natural anti-inflammatory! And so it is and so.

The media reports about the elderly. Am I becoming thus :)? It is scary!  I loved to hear about Nell on Woman's Hour this week. She is 100 Years old and a true inspiration. She cleans every day and says it's much easier for her  once the lady has giving it 'a do' ... what a marvellous expression!  Keep on moving that's what we've all got to do.  Use it or lose it.  I do my best to keep moving but it has to further improve! When I sit still and cannot peel myself away from technology, I know that if I can dance or 'faire le repassage' / iron the bedlinen whilst David Bowie sings then I will feel better!  But I like to sit and write / type, read the news, research this and that which the internet provides.  It has transformed my life.

Whilst Facing the onset of Spring:
There is a 2 stere stack of logs from 2013, yet I daren't touch them as they are stacked so well.  Therefore,  using the machine, I have started splitting logs from the January 2014 delivery. Really that wood needs to dry out a little more as some will not give to the 400 kilo pressure.  Smaller/thinner oak logs give greater immediate heat.  Although the sun has been shining,  some days or parts of days are still pretty cold, but there are times when one can have morning coffee or afternoon tea in the courtyard or rear garden.  There has been what I call a RAW East Anglian spike to the crisp, cold-blue sky and an edge to the wind. Tonight, 5th March, one can see Orion The Hunter lit by the myriads of stars and single crescent moon.

Whilst Facing the early Spring, pages of Life turn...
I've been walking around my house climbing ladders, sorting and spring cleaning.  I like DIY when part of a team, even though I am mainly the support skivvy. Friendship should have been more than working at home improvement.  It's been a fact that I can't do this work alone. Eventually, with not great effort, I succumbed to accepting an offer of help and I, in turn try to help him.  I've said it before that 'It's not yet finished until it's finished'.  Friendship doesn't just cease. Whilst there is laughter and fun which makes us happy, there is another day to celebrate, another day to live, another day to gather happiness around us!  What is happiness? What is friendship? What is a relationship?

I know that if I truly love someone then that love will go wherever she/he stays and wherever she/he goes. In the case if my friend, I hope that my love will give him courage to find whatever he thinks he is looking for, whatever he thinks he didn't have when he lived with me! I give him my blessings.
I / he / we haven't always been kind to each other and that fact hurts me beyond belief in my darkest moments... and...then I wake up!!!!!
I / he/we have been quite frustrated with each other for all sorts of reasons.  
It's a shame and a waste of friendship! 
I don't understand how people have successful friendships let alone relationships or marriage!

He jokingly but seriously says I must take advantage. The Wheels of Life are moving and we face further future LOSS.  On my return from a long drive to buy a matching curtain pole to the first, I sobbed most of the 50 minute journey home!!!!!!!  Why do I cry? I know why!!!!!!!  But as I cry, I think, and thinking whilst I drive helps to unravel emotion, though it's not quite safe to do all this at the same time!  I absolutely know how I feel and it won't go away and by Jove I have tried, even not connecting with him for 5 months!  Its feels like a form of madness, illogical, worse when he have made contact and then are apart.  Unrequited Love, I suppose that is what it is.... 
How are people able to care so much for each other after 15, 30, 50 or more years of marriage? 
What made us so co-dependently close and then what made us fail to keep tolerant and patient with our foibles?  I/he/we made so many mistakes!

Why is it that the smallest of jobs and most final of tasks when titivating interior decoration seem to take for ever?  However,  those 6 French doors of the barn part of the house are at last painted internally.  Now wooden battens fixed to polystyrene backed plaster-boarded walls take curtain poles to receive beautiful Laura Ashley cream damask curtains from a house I left in 2002. They have emerged from the suitcase, visited the dry-cleaners at huge expense, but the lovely lady halved the price as there were 4 curtains, and at last they now provide ambience.  However, I must sit and lower the hem which means using needle, thread and patience.

I'm trying to consider having a chambre d'hôte in the high season.  This week and last we've been working through small jobs where broken door-knobs have been repaired, plumbing to the exterior toilet and sink has been repaired, and there has been much drilling, sawing, sanding, painting.
It has been a pleasure!

Film Review: I used to be darker

I chose this film at the new FANTASTIC LOFT cinema because it was at a convenient time. There was 'Yves St Laurent' but Version Originale Sous-Titres (VOST) won!  I was the only one in Screen 6!  The title of the film is from the lyrics of one of the songs.  Matthew Porterfield: Director.  Released: September 2013.
A young Irish teenager has fled from her job in Wales. In fear, not knowing how to solve her problem, she has gone to seek refuge and shelter with her cousin, without realising that her aunt and uncle are experiencing a marital separation (love and loss). She's pregnant but takes a while to tell everyone (love and loss). Her friend has come home from college because of family crisis (love and loss).  She gets angry but is letting off steam for her own frustrations, inner hurt and quandary of how does one help anyone in crisis, let alone one's parents! There was anger from the father as he broke his guitar (love and loss).  There is release of love, everyone tried to be kind in their loss. There is obvious depression and frustration. There is redemption when lives are built up, then broken down. Life changes.  It brings the unexpected.  Nothing stands still.  It can be cruel and unkind.  The stories of the characters unfold.  There is an end to every beginning.  There is a beginning to every end. There was a sense of profundity to this film-story without an end as in everyday Life!
At first I wondered what I was doing watching such a movie about youngsters, but I sat through the glaringly, appallingly not-my-style-music.  At the end I discovered myself tapping a foot to a beautiful melody.  I wondered why the cinema lights had gone on!  It was the final song.
It was a film about letting go...but to go where?  As in real life, people wondered about their  experiences and were uncertain of how to solve emotional and pragmatic difficulties!  As in real life we go to the next experiences either of our own making or that have been circumstantially imposed upon us
It was a good film, one that I would recommend, for being gentle, even with the drama of anger and pain.  One could reflect. Occasionally the pace was a little slow, bringing a minor point of boredom when I fidgeted in my seat!

A Song for my Soul

Tracy Chapman singing in my head:

I want to wake up 
I want to know where I'm going
I want to go where the rivers are over-flowing 
and I'll be ready.
I'm ready to let the rivers wash over me
If it's love flowing freely
If the waters can redeem me
I'm ready.
Save a place for me
Save a space for me  
in your heart
'Cause if you wait 
I will come for you.

I'm not waiting for anyone but my inner self to listen to my heart, to be more grown up, to have a kind of re-invention, to start a new journey now that the last 4 years have passed, and all those before that.   I'm open to receive further wisdom from whatever higher power or energy there is to guide me on my journey. 'This is This' a friend once said. It is true that I am more ready to live in the now rather than the past, but occasionally the past overflows into my mind!!!!!!!

A Full Moon - A Rosie Moon

02.30 ish
I awoke disturbed  ...  I snuggled down beneath the duvets, but unusually these days, I wished for a cup of tea.  Then memory set in!  I told myself that as there was no 'servant for the princess', I COULD get up, get cold, get a cup of tea, get a hot water bottle ... and then I saw the moon ... my Cancerian sign... A full moon with a star / planet nearby. Was it Jupiter planet or star Regulus?   It was quite warm in my courtyard ... about 9C ...
I wanted to sit outside with someone and chat, hold hands!
"Come outside ... it's a lovely moon out 'ere"...
so I took my camera and tried to shoot the moon!
It had a whole circle of light around it, but distant from it.  I've not seen the circle that far away before. Although I have seen full moons with smaller nearer circles. I think the circles are to do with refracted light and ice crystals.  By 5h30am the circle around the moon had decreased to a small halo.

I have a grand niece born a few weeks or months ago... she has been called Rosie Moon.
I don't know whether I will ever see her because her grandmother, who is my sister, stopped seeing me 20 years ago!!!!!!! This may be a celebration of having a grand-niece that I will never know.  I was deprived of being an aunt, likewise my niece and nephew were deprived of knowing me!    Nevertheless, I bought this little French Esprit number, 100% cotton, to send to the new person!  It's aged 9 months so it will fit eventually! When I visited Sri Lanka the moon rabbit was mentioned: it's Asian folklore. 

I was interrupted from my sleep by various thoughts and dreams about love and lovers and my children and grandchild!  Then the need for tea prompted:  the futile words "I miss him". These entered my head. I sobbed for only a few seconds before laughing out aloud!  A speedy recovery! It was an acknowledgement to accept that I DO miss all the lovely things we had together...but not the anger. Maybe Anger was part of the Passion and I didn't know! but no one should have had to listen to what I did.  I chose to stay despite desperation many times to escape from it, knowing not where I could go whilst all my possessions were in his house!  Maybe, being the difficult woman that I am, (isn't everyone difficult?), I pressed some triggers / buttons ... but I know I was not the cause, for I never asked for it and I was not to blame!
My father's anger towards my mother was more than enough in my life and I never expected to see that level of uncontrollable rage again! It was outright mental, emotional, physical abuse to my mother and indirectly very damaging to us kids. At least my dear friend didn't throw all and sundry through the air as did my father. As children, when saucepans came flying through the kitchen, we would scamper up to our rooms.  I would read. We would wait a long time or to the next day before it was time to venture downstairs to see the damage or to know if the storm was over.  One day I had to help collect cacti spines that had been embedded in the carpet...whhooosssh swiped from the window-sill with his wild moon madness!

I am thinking positively.  It is OK to miss someone. It is OK to mourn the loss of love. And indeed all that loss of friendship and support IS what I mourn!  He was a bestest friend.  It's OK to feel that!  It's OK to mourn the loss of Passion and Earthly, bodily functions that occur between people.  By feeling it, maybe it, the emotion deep within me, will heal!  BUT I THINK NOT. I accept it. I accept who I am!
I thought in the course of finding new passion and new friends, male and female, platonic and otherwise, going out into society, being busy with my life, it would decrease and so it has ... but here, alone though never lonely, tucked away in a village space that I love, there is a deep-down-hollow-place.
I am not ashamed to express this publicly.  It is not to shame anyone. I have thought hard and long about that. But I do believe in truth and so I have a vow to tell a truth when questioned or when the situation arises.  I'm not going to cause any level of deception. To avoid REALITY is a lie. It is not even attention seeking. I should really be writing the book ... The first words of the first pages always different, have often recently come to me when I am in the bath or lying horizontal. Then I arise and they disappear... so several starts have been finished! In the past many years I have often wondered why I can think whilst horizontal and then when I arise the words disappear.

LOSS ..... there it is..... in NEON lettering in my dream in March 2010 about 4 to 6 weeks before I bought my house, before he, I suspect, fearing that I was going to leave him, pushed me away first, to save his own fears of being rejected and abandoned, because I suppose that is what he had felt... history had bought us there... to that place in time...
I never ever meant to hurt him with my own anger about the world...
and I never wish to receive such anger ever again in my life! 
I remembered times when living together...times when he would regularly wake in the middle of the morning...   For some years it was because I thrashed about...but after he started to sleep by himself and when he lived solo again, I realised that I had been blamed for something that was not my fault despite the grains of truth.  Yes, I might have disturbed his quietude but as he had a pattern of waking early and still has, then it wasn't only me!

and so ... I REMEMBERED that on a few occasions when I couldn't sleep or we'd got something to talk about he would bring me tea in bed... and we would sit and hold hands together .. and for the first time in over 4 years I was thinking about the togetherness that tea and passion can bring... it was the last thing that really woke me up.
Before that, were other thoughts ... about being a surrogate grandma (rentagranny), about being a grandma that is not there with my own granddaughter, about the lack of communication she gives towards me when I am there though I have tried,  about how I try to support my own children when they don't seem to do what I need them to do to help themselves especially if I've stepped into help them.      So many thoughts... and many a moon madness... but I know that it is purely my struggle to make sense of my life... the past, present and the future, to make sense of who I am and why I need my friends around me and why I want to keep friends with my former lovers who have been truly worthy mentors and the bestest of friends who know me so well!  And yes, I have done my share of mooning over the men I have loved and still love!!!!!!!!!  It's my journey!

The Times they are a changing

I haven't posted for a while as I've been reeling under realisations.  I haven't run out of words, thoughts, feelings, but maybe I have been overwhelmed.  I think I got worn out and a return of M.E. hit me at the weekend!

Although there is the feeling that I've wasted several years, being dragged down (not only by myself but also my previous soulmate friend) .... I AM beginning to look positively at that negativity and understand that it was a period of TIME, when many positive events happened as well.
I AM beginning to look at the patterns of behaviour based on his childhood and my childhood that brought us to love and then dislike each other and yet he still wanted to be my friend and I his. Why was that? Probably to meet own needs.
Maybe I DID have to be carried after I lost my job but I KNOW THAT I acted as a child, NEEDING parental love and support!  So he became my father and mother figure. He was as he said my Physical Fitness Trainer.  Then (I know I am on repeat!) marital problems magnified after the physical repair of a psychologically damaging op which occurred within a few years of JOB CRASH. We moved house and country within a few weeks of that op and then I was told, not in quite these words, but that he didn't want me!!!!  In the last two weeks I've found my writings that establish the truth of that!
It's a pity we could not work through his jealousies about my son, his fears, my fears, our needs. 
BUT it was also a period of time when I carried him. Before we moved to France I employed him full time to work on my house that he also had some investment in by contributing to the mortgage to pay his part for living in my house! When we came to France he became ill ... he said it was because of me but I also believe it was because of the anxiety of renovation work and probably the future without much income as well his physical ageing.
We carried each other.
Now he has found someone else to carry for a while. Maybe she has found someone to carry HER.

HOWEVER, I DEFINITELY KNOW that I don't want anyone to carry me, nor do I need anyone else to carry.  BUT to support and be supported would be a different issue. Of course it will be lovely to have help from a friend in any capacity but NOT TO CONTROL or undermine my dignity, integrity and independence.  I don't want to be in a co-dependent relationship ever again.  I don't ever want to be made to feel afraid of someone's anger ever again.
I wish to keep my independence and that means learning to be grown up which I have been learning in the last three years. I now understand and accept that my friend was kind to make me go, kind to say we are not a couple anymore...even though at the time I was shocked, stunned, numbed, in total disbelief that he could make that choice and not try harder to save our souls!!!!!
I also realise that maybe I never indiated sufficiently how much I appreciated all that he did for me!

Of course I would like to be with a significant someone...but firstly if I can, (now that I am learning more about looking after my own needs),  I would like to meet lots of people, male and female, and begin to appreciate Life and Living.... It is time not for selfishness, nor self-centredness but certainly it is Time for looking after my inner selves... and I do mean plural.  I am more than one part. 

Well... I lasted at least 7 years after it all started to slide downhill with my friend,  having my heart tugged and shunned and nothing will take away the fact that I think I still love him and always will.  So that is that!  I know I can love again and hope that one day someone will be attracted enough to love in return.

I shifted sands this week as Cancerians do... going to see the sea has been very restorative.  I must go more often.  It's a drag, the 3 to 4 hour journey in my little Clio, but never in a hurry, I look about me as I go and learn about landscape and locations.  Of course the warm breeze, soft sweet salty sea, soft sand and golden warm sunshine in a clear blue sky, as I cycle hither and thither slowly, leisurely, or gaining momentum, marvel at little things that I see on my travels has left my skin soft like a baby!

Inside me, I am in love...in love with an island.... the golden isle of  Île de Rhé (with / without the h). It was surprisingly unchallenging camping alone. Tired after the afternoon drive I probably went to bed about 8 ish after erecting my small tent, eating oatcakes and cheese and refamiliarising myself with the beach.  With no plan other than to cycle, I relaxed.  It's fun alone because one doesn't have to keep up with anyone nor have anyone dragging one behind!!!!  I can do what I like, when I like.  Benefits.

I spent three full days revisiting places that I saw in June with a very good friend, taking different routes, visiting markets, talking to people, keeping my silence, laughing and crying as I cycled alone, stopping to eat the not ripe wild grapes and blackberries and a lunchtime treat of moules marinières and on Sunday large prawns at the oyster bar because I'd prefer to share oysters with someone!

Feeling the pain and rising above it........

I felt the breeze change last night. Autumn cometh.
The weather has changed: temperatures  in / out  for day / night have been similar for some time BUT NOW a 10C degree difference between outdoors / indoors accompanies the rain, scuppering an idea to clear the wood pile! Sabotage!

I feel Life's tempest brewing ......

I haven't posted because living alone allows too much opportunity for introspective thinking on making sense of this world and I am fast coming to the conclusion there is NO SENSE:  it is all NON SENSE!
LIFE is short.  Perhaps it has to be enjoyed no matter how hedonistic.  I've invested too much time and energy in the man that I thought I loved. I know I did love him even back in 1998 when first we became unstable.  Why has it lasted so long? Why does it take so long to heal? 

MY STRUGGLE IS THAT I HAVE deeply rooted PRINCIPLES of prudishness, pride, honesty, loyalty, integrity, decency and dignity and feel that I should be honoured and cherished for my womanhood and that THAT is also what I should offer for any man who wants to be with me!
BUT IT AINT ALWAYS LIKE THAT!!!!!!
I've made errors of judgement with my principles / behaviour but I don't have to punish who I am. 
One tries to go with the flow of life... tries to keep busy... tries to keep calm and reflect, consider motives for what I WANT TO DO IN MY LIFE, now that someone says I am a liberated woman with a thousand voices and says I rock his boat !
How nice! How flattering but it can't last!
BUT then the dream and reality of unreality crashes on the rocks! The rock is on a stormy sea. I clearly contributed to The Previous One's behaviour.  it wasn't all my fault even though he blamed and criticised me for my imperfections, failings, weaknesses. THAT is exactly what he worked upon to keep me down whenever I got strong.

Why is it that my rebellious teenager or my playtime seeking child won't listen to my adult? 
 
How much can anyone ever believe anyone?
How much can anyone trust others ... or is it all to be interpreted as a pack of lies as each one of us in the world seeks to meet our own individual needs in a selfish world?
Have I become too cynical?
Have I too much time to think?
Is it because I've been down on the floor so many times, picked myself up, dusted myself down and started all over again that I will keep doing that until I learn what it is I need to learn?
Someone please shout at me the blindingly obvious!
How can anyone ever protect themselves from the pain that is bound to come when one has had pleasure or feels bliss when it all disintegrates?
I get blissful whilst on my bike, whilst looking out with wonder across stubbled fields, clover, fields where millet ripens, huge leaved crops that must be the Nicotiana family ... tobacco,  yellow and green sunflowers in serried ranks, praising the SUN, which I do too ...... I bow my head as I eat my apple and praise God for the fact that I am alive and mobile and my happiness pours forth into the world.
I need to be emotionally inert.  That's a laugh a minute ... it'll happen when I am dead!
One tries to see good in everyone ... and know that as human beings we all feel the same ...
One tries to be compassionate and caring. I do try to love who I am and what I am so that I can share that love with others. It all sounds so trite.
One tries to know purpose in life and to what degree of fulfilment one could achieve for Self and to give to others.
I wish to meet new people, go to new places, hear new stories, do new things, see culture, so that I can learn more about REALITY.
I want to go travelling, be a hobo, but the time is not yet here.
There is a roof to be re-roofed, a kitchen to be gutted,  a bunion to be lanced, logs to be collected / delivered / stacked and how to do this with a hobbly foot will be interesting and then the rest....
This the former professional, a sometimes feisty woman who used to juggle two kids as a single parent with a full-time teaching commitment working all hours that God sent in order to prove my worth (the failing school grew from a roll of 30 ish children to 120 on roll when I was Acting Head [for my sins]). I studied for my degree status  at the same time. Before that the three of us lived in a house with subsidence where inside temperatures were below zero! Was I too busy with my job to take care of me and my kids. On reflection it did not seem to be enough but it has to be because it cannot be redone!

Mindful in solitude, I try to do the following but make little headway because of self-sabotage. 
1. Wake up ... go to sleep.
2. Eat and drink a balanced diet to lose weight before the foot incapacitates me for 3 to 6 months.
3. Exercise - I spent too long on my bottom last winter.  This Summer into Autumn I am proud of activity. I can easily walk fast for an hour in the morning and cycle for an hour or two each afternoon / evening.  It is not enough. BUT is enough for someone who had M.E., who could not walk between two groynes on a beach without a helping hand, who had to crawl up the stairs and shuffle down on her bottom, who fell asleep whilst the kettle boiled!
4. TRY to tick off jobs and tasks...e.g. currently having to make a decision on MUTUELLE payments as this is a task that has been shelved for 7 years and the recent enquiry with quotes is one year old... I have to pay out for my health costs because I have chosen to live in France. Only a percentage is picked up by the NHS... (what is that these days?)  Other goals must be to decide how to purchase a new vehicle so I pray that my little Clio keeps on moving....
5. TRY to Sort & Clear out STUFF I have not used, do not use, will never use again... Whew that is such a challenge!!!!!!  There in my attic are family photos ... newspaper cuttings, memorabilia, treasured items of monetary and emotional value...  There on my computer are photographic memories and a muddled collection of writings....and the whole story needs strategic thinking and a million ways of threshing to dump or keep in an honoured way. It's pretty scary to open sealed boxes from the past, when memories good and bad arrive to hit one in the head and heart. Currently the floor is littered with books not sold at the Books Festival ... not the same as a UK Literary Festival! but that is what this village needs to do.  It is stuck in old ways and is not keeping up with modernity... One can't keep presenting the same format... We did that at school for sports day and barbecue nights and then someone came and shook it all up!!!!! It needed a revamp and so did we, the staff!
6. TRY to think clearly, proactively. logically. No thinking would be good too.
7. TRY to formulate ideas for a plan for the future!
8. Laugh A Minute!    It keeps a level of sanity in the why of why this has happened in my life.

It's my blog... I can write about what I choose.

Angles sur L'Anglin

This is a link to a previous but existing blog 

that was created to my design with the skills of my former partner about 

Angles sur L'Anglin.

I am publicly publishing this information because the blog contains personal, creative writings about previous Feu d'Artifice (firework) events at this beautiful village.

It explains how he / I / we found this beautiful village and recently people have been asking how I came to live here.  It's hard to find the short story! This explains!

I had intended to expand that particular Blog,  but, within my inner psyche,  I was locked, blocked, stuck, ashamed. in regret, in remorse, in bereavement. It was and has been and IS difficult to accept and acknowledge all the good that there was In a Previous Life!  

Indeed, I might add to that blog  for which I have paid the domain name,  but for the Now, I have other objectives.  I enjoy self-publishing my photos and scripts as part of being Restless in France.

Perhaps it is time to publicly celebrate MY STORY and not to hide the past.

I'm wishing to remember and celebrate my past, my life, my long friendship with my former soulmate. I'm wishing to celebrate who I am and where I've been to get to where I am, despite the LOSSES experienced and despite an emotional HELL that I seem to have allowed myself to go through, for whatever reason. Agreed, it is nothing compared to what others bear in their lives.   It is just who I am. I seem to feel things very deeply and wish I didn't.
Nevertheless that does not diminish the love I have for my inner core and the love I have for other people and things.  Most of the thoughts that are truly in my head are linked to emotions. To stop them or put them into a box may mean to become mentally and emotionally inert.  I don't know about that! I am told that I have to put the past to bed in order to heal, to prevent the inner torture.

It is ironic that I come to live on a street called the Road to Hell and another plot is number 13.  I never knew these facts when I signed for the property. If I did, I would not have completed the purchase.  This actually makes me laugh... because what else can one do but see the humour in the twists and turns of life... otherwise one would go completely barmy and need the institutional nuthouse!

It is impossible to believe that once I was a person of social standing with more responsibilities for others than I could manage!

However,  here I am, mostly extremely happy to live in this most beautiful of villages despite that sometimes perhaps I do not make as much of my life every day as that which I could!  I miss many things. The clock is ticking as I search for the next adventure!

 

Removal day two years ago today

My house did not have a bath, shower or indoor toilet but it did have some heating.  I could go it alone to start a new phase of my life.  I remember sitting on the window sill after the removal chaps had left with the thought "I must do some knitting!"  I still haven't yet made those needles work although on a few occasions I started crochet only to not continue!

Two weeks after moving two years ago,  he, whom I'd considered my best and eternal friend, gave me a digital copy of a photo he took with my camera when we were courting in the Auvergne mountains.  I must find the original in my collection somewhere.

I was determined to climb that mountain whilst recuperating from Fibromyalgia (CFS). It must be 15 years ago ish!!! The found stick which had broken several times helped get a grip on the steep descent. There were places where I had to crawl down backwards!!!! I'm thinking that those last two sentences are descriptive of the last 2 to 7 years but this last month after the accident I am aware of describing life as if I am hauling myself up the mountain again.  Well, I'm a lot more grey but essentially not much different, in body and in mind!  I still have determination to survive the struggle but it's rare I get such muddy knees!

I remember OUR achievement and wonderment at the carpets of wildflowers in the basin of the volcanic bowl.   That mountain had ski chair lifts abandoned in August!

Very fond, positive memories.

Those boots were the comfiest ever.... and I know that top and those shorts are in my summer DIY clothing box. Very frugal!

It's Saturday and I peel myself out of my warm, warm, bed.

I peel myself out of my warm, warm, bed.
Some may think it terrible but I think it was necessary to go to bed with clothes on, apart from my denim workday jeans and coat.  My hat soon fell off as I lay in bed with my head on the pillow reading horizontally and sideways, reading glasses being pushed off by the pillow.  Hunkered down with an ikea soft muslin-type shawl around my shoulders (the shawl is probably for a baby or child).  I am like that now as I need to be warm and loved in the cold and yet I can love myself when I am warm.  I laugh out loud. I am happy even though conditions are extreme.

This morning I peel myself out of my warm, warm bed.
Not so much shiver but feel the BLAST of cold air as I lift up the edges of the three duvets... I shall go and check these out for tog ratings ...normally the two is sufficient!   
{I think that the use of is, is better than the use of are but I am ready to stand corrected}
I feel the blast and snuggle down, check the clock of which the alarm rang 45 minutes ago.
Now to get up, for a friend is coming to help make a bathroom!
I stand at the side of my bed and an expletive emanates forth from my person.
I jump.  Star jumps.

I have peeled myself from the warm warm bed.
Get the coat on first, and light the fire. I chuckle.  How ridiculous is life!
A huge log has not even burnt in half.  Maybe I left the dampers open and yet one would have thought the log would have burnt through. The glass is relatively clean but I clean it anyway with newspaper and white vinegar, rake the ashes and leave most on the waffle bed, sprinkle with waste paper and kindling wood in a teepee fashion, replace the huge oak log which I temporarily and dangerously removed ..it was cold to the finger touch.. but as the air reached the underneath up-turned,  it was becoming to gently breathe in air and exhale smoke.  Now, all is in place as I push the door to, and whoosh the flames go, for the draft of the air has caused combustion from the heat in the cinders to the paper to the kindling sticks and to the oaken wood.

I need to attend to ablutions (from the Middle French/Late Latin abluere = to wash away) and put on the outer lower garments. I'm looking in the mirror and laughing, to see my face wrinkling and so I laugh more because now I can laugh when before I would have just grumbled.
Better to see amusement in life, better to get through it!

You see, it is 10C in my room and I am not in my warm, warm bed. 
I proceed to the kitchen where an icier blast hits me whilst I pour icy water into the kettle and return to put on a purple-soft, muslin scarf and my Nepalese red hat.  How I remember the "123 learning to read" books about The Red hat, Yellow hat and Blue hat families!!!!   Oh dear, I've disturbed the  blackbird as I peer out of the kitchen window. Bird seeds in a tin are taken outside and put onto the temporary, flat, terracotta tile, balanced on the snow. The soft, soft snow has a hard crust.  Break it and find the flurry of snowflakes sticking together. It's not the snow for making snow sculptures!
I came to the computer to find the correct time... I come to my blog and write... I like writing... I am beginning to like jotting about the moments of a real life....and thoughts, random as they come.
I have just opened the steel, cold gates, having heaved and shoved the wooden ones into an open position, the wooden ones hanging heavy on their hinges dropped on their hinges, scraping the drive heavily.  If I don't get them open I won't be able to get out!   Though I have a back gate.  The daily alarm has already occurred.
A telephone call rings twice to let me know he's leaving: "Get out of your warm, warm bed".
(I am not an early riser, unlike he who has been awake since 3,4,5 or 6 o'clock in the morning)
It'll take him 20 minutes or so in my car.  
He's coming to work on my bathroom.  How I love him for his kindness.  Imagine the dedication and commitment to helping me as his friend despite all our failings, errors, human weaknesses, ability to share joy and security, to annoy and irritate, to create aggression and anger,  passivity and passing of war and peace and all the memories.
An angry person cannot rationalise.  He or she has to be left to recover their inner harmony because it is their anger and their pain, their projection, their difficulty that they cannot say what is wrong and cannot meet their own internal needs without the storm. The angry person needs space... maybe a moment, an hour, a day, 3 months, a lifetime even.  Meanwhile everyone and everything in their path is ruined, even themselves with the anger or frustration turned in against their Self. 
I have been uncontrollably angry.  It was when I did not love myself and had poor self-esteem. My kids made me angry. Work made me angry. I tried to deal with it and then became passive and am now dealing with the consequences of passive-aggressive behaviour.  I am not blaming anyone or criticising anyone. I am facing up to what IS.
My dad was regularly a very angry, hostile man and yet you would never have thought that by his social demeanour.  Some people would never have known the ugliness of my past behaviour and for that I am deeply sorry. Anger is fear, frustration, needs not met and requires an honest, painful telling of the truth even though it may hurt.  It needs strategy for coping with.
Whatever the colour of anger and how it is transmitted I never wish to be angry again. I never want to receive anger from those who have purported to have loved.  Anger is not Love.  I never want to see Anger and Castigation being given to me nor someone else and I never want to hear it being projected onto me or anyone else.  If it starts I have to laugh or just walk away.
Too much thinking.
Stop now whilst I get my tea and toast.
Get on with living. The past cannot be undone but it can be learned from, in my warm, warm bed.

Peace and Understanding

Peace is essential for living. Not only do we try to remember those who without dignity died fighting in the most dire conditions that you would not even expect an animal to endure but also we try to remember that they died struggling for peace, understanding and acceptance of the differences between different lands, cultures and peoples.  Sometimes perhaps we should try and forget past aggressions and wars so that inner peace within us has an opportunity to develop and bring harmony to the world as well as to our inner soul, our family and friends. 
For many years I upheld the Catholic faith to the best of my ability which was never good enough and I knew that.  But what is perfect? Before that I had my own beliefs which I continued to believe with modification and despite loving much of the Catholic faith especially the songs and hymns which I used to play every day on the piano, I never became a Catholic in the 23 years that I worked within the Catholic environment.  Two more years and I would have been eligible for a Papal medal if the secretary was awarded one after 25 years service to the establishment!   I made mistakes but I did my best not to be hypocritical (yet I think I probably was) and I did my best to keep the peace and to teach children that respect between people is a gift and is something to be valued in our attempt to acknowledge that people are very much the same despite differences in appearance, faiths, beliefs and much more.
When my father died this is the song that came spontaneously and which I sang all alone in a Church in Spain where there was no other family member except my daughter.  He saw terrible atrocities in the war and told me about some on the very last day I ever met him. It was as if a burden had been lifted for him because he said he had never ever told anyone this part of his story.  His only sibling sister was dying and he knew he would never see her again.  Tragically, he died soon after from a traffic accident and lost the power of speech.  He made his own decision not to burden anyone. 
This is the song I sang spontaneously today just after 11am on 11th day of the 11th month of the year 2011 as I sat in my garden listening to the clock strike the hour, as I sat and with my own reflections with hands covered in dirt and imagined those who fought in trenches, those who fought for the Fair Winds of France and England to bring freedom from fighting, to give those who came after Peace.  Each verse is repeated but Peace is replaced with Love, Joy, Hope.

Peace is flowing like a river,
Flowing out through you and me,
Spreading out into the desert,
Setting all the captives free.

On another note:
Today I was speaking to a friend about the larger pansies which compared to the diminutive ones seem to have a disappointed attitude as they bow their heads. 

Zaidi Zaidi - a Macedonian Song

Exquisite Sevdah sung by Amira Medunjanin from Bosnia and music from Sidonia, Romania, Estonia.
Listen to the delayed acoustics and the beautiful duduk, a variety of shawm.