Seeing the beauty

in each day and in each moment is a challenge for the restless mind and Restless in France!

PART ONE
A friend recently reminded me of MINDTRAIN by Yoko Ono,  so I listened again with the instantly accessible internet, the intelligent, electronic encyclopaediac tool most of us have at our fingertips...
I have always liked Yoko's weird avant-garde music!  I don't need to be on drugs or alcohol to understand it! It is artistic and creative whatever one's likes or dislikes might be!

Mindtrain is a series of rhythmic, vocal, melodic ostinati, which are simply described as 'repetitive phrases'!  I love the driving rhythm ... one feels as if one is sitting on the train... just listen to the percussive elements and trumpet vocals that create a mind meditation beneath and behind Yoko's screeches and wailings, which, in my opinion, are exactly like a steam train (onomatopoeia) or how the old electric trains would have sounded as they creaked and groaned on the rails! Such talent and madness are essential!

I have thought the following for a long time: that chatterbox thoughts come into the station of the mind and we let the thoughts get off the train at the station or we don't want to acknowledge the thoughts so we put them back on again and tell them to leave us alone and send them packing!! Often when I have suffered from acute anxiety or depression that is how it has been! I don't have it so much anymore. Got loads sorted!

Looking at dates in history, hearing her few lyrics, those words seem to have a premonition of her possible feelings after Lennon's death!  Mind Train was released in 1972 and John Lennon died 08-12-1980
Not everyone's cup of tea!  I found myself feeling happy as I listened.

Pachelbel's Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo also makes me feel content and at peace!  Pachelbel's Canon combines techniques of canon and groundbass.  Canon is where several voices (polyphony) play the same music, entering in sequence.  Three voices are in canon, whilst the fourth voice, basso continuo, plays an independent part.

Violins play a three-voice canon over the ground bass to provide harmonic structure.

The bass voice keeps repeating the same two-bar line throughout the piece. This is called ostinato, or ground bass.

PART TWO
Yesterday, though not for the first time, I had a realisation that being in my own peace and quietness is very healing.
That I really need to accept the days like that when I can and indeed do need to regenerate energies.
I know I need to be mindful of the pleasure I gain when I am lazy and stop to wander in my garden and house and see the fruits of my life and the fruits of four years living at this house!

• look at the radish seeds that have appeared in less than a week!
• look at the rows where the old haricot seeds have had a chance to germinate or not - maybe they are too old and dead or just slow to appear... I shall give them a little more time!
• look at the shallots soon to keel over and be ready to eat
• look at the different heights of the three potato varieties
• look at the empty vole hole from where CAT hunted her food.  Naughty cat!
• look at my floral courtyard and grey shutters
• look out... look in....be at peace... know i shall soon be on the move again!!!

And so the music and the thoughts were linked and I am still playing her music today, when I should be concentrating on more pressing matters!
I am just going with the flow ... enjoying life, though those spells of rolling thunder in the early hours of this morning and lunchtime today with heavy rain and sheet lightning approaching from the west were very challenging to the MIND!

The Small Room Surfaces

1985 to 2010

Note the brown T&G that later was removed and my son.

Removal of T n G revealed a mess!

And so it landed on the ground

and was replaced by plasterboard

 Storing the oak flooring and becoming a workshop

Lower doors are missing so D made new ones.

Tools

External door has two parts to it, sanded and reglazed before bars were glued onto window,

Likewise for the window

Finished window and oak flooring

A new door where one did not exist

Beautifully finished

Transformation of a horrid room into a peaceful haven

You would not know the lower doors are not original.

One day I'll get some one to bx in the electricity panels.

The external door is in two parts.
Note the travertin tiles as to put oak in the doorway was asking for trouble if it became wet from the rain.

The central ceiling light was removed.  I wonder what is above the low ceiling.

To begin with I wept copiously, trying to sand down the TnG, and paint it witnessing the imperfections in the wood.  Then there was the ceiling from which I could not remove the cracks nor make it flat. Later, I decided it would be easier to remove the TnG wood which it was in some respects,  but new plasterboard, filling and sanding was required so different energies were required. I'm very glad to have suggested the idea. Initially I wept buckets over the removal of the cork effect lino and the paper and the glue... (a song used to some to mind)  ... as on my knees I scraped until my rescuer who came with power tools. The walls and ceiling required repeated sanding and filling until THE BOSS was happy and then painting ... oh my... this showed the imperfections and so painting, sanding and filling continued until eventually the Farrow and Ball Skimming Stone could be used.....oh dear, it was the nearest to a Walnut colour that I had mixed and I knew the effect from someone else's house.
The lighting is not ideal but it does not bad a job. I am extremely pleased and happy with the whole effect and knowing from where the room came from it has been transformed from a hovel into a retreat.
I remember the pain and the events that happened in that room and yet all is so tranquil there today.
I  bought a restored Victorian iron bedstead from Jonathan at "The Princess and The Pea". I can highly recommend this company to anyone who would like such a wonderful sleeping experience or who needs a bespoke mattress.

I have a soft cotton ivory net curtain  but am loathe to drill into the fabric of the building.