My Cat

 

is such a naughty one!  This morning from a high vantage point on logs, she nonchalantly watches a wood-pigeon pecking crumbs in my courtyard, possibly from yesterday's last Workawayer alfresco luncheon which was mighty fine using the last of the never-ending cous-cous!

Me thinks ah.... pigeon pie! ***

A week ago, as reported earlier, she caught and killed a swallow!
Now, every creature has its place but ...

I'm training the cat to live outside at night in the atelier where she has cat-flap entrance! His Lordship has left and Madame insists!  I love our cat/his cat/my cat but she can be a nuisance and if I don't put cushions around the end of my settee where she and her sister used to scratch,  AND I catch her in the act, then I have to create a loud shouty 'NO' and I don't like doing that for mine own ears to hear!  It's the one place they scratched... and Big Feet has remembered all this time!

*** When I was nineteen I lived in board and lodgings in Winchester ... a rented room, with meals shared in the owner's kitchen.  She was French, bereaved, with a ten year old son. There were two other French student girls paying rent. One day, a pigeon appeared in the courtyard.  It was fed with grain ... this continued for several days! One day, the broom swathed through the air and French Madame waved her trophy in the air. I was horrified at the slaughter. Even more horrified that night or next day when Pigeon Pie was presented for the evening meal!  Being of a squeamish disposition in those delicate days, knowing nothing about people or life other than my narrow towny-eyed vision, I was keen to return to London at the end of the academic year!

Grey gives a breath of fresh air

My Workawayers were the most loveliest of people...I have been so lucky!
I had already met A in my daughter's home town when I visited UK in March/April. Such a small world! We had already agreed an exchange of labour for accommodation and food, so to meet beforehand was re-assuring.  I planned various smaller tasks but in actual fact PRIORITY A absorbed the week, however, when wet, cold weather on Wednesday prevented painting, PRIORITY B was achieved sufficiently to secure broken posts and holes in a wired fence on PLOT 13!  Bravo S and A for removing the dead tree and sawing it for logs! PRIORITY C was to move the piano and filing cabinets, to sand and paint the skirting board behind.  GREAT! Three jobs done!
It is absolutely amazing to have beautiful grey linen-fold shutters (see comments) rather than nasty brown, badly varnished, ingrained with dirt, blotting the view on my lovely house shutters.  The cream on the cake was to see grey from the inside when looking out.   So uplifting!
I had no idea it would take so long.  I worked too at sanding and using the special expensive undercoat that seals and prevents resin and varnish permeating through the paint!  I knew how difficult it was!
When I was at work in my career I would often join the persons working according to 'my instructions' to see if it should take that long! ... or to see if there was a better way of doing things.  I love it when people have initiative, as S & A did ... I love being open to being wrong (hard as that is) and that someone else has a better or quicker approach because of their own experience or knowledge.
S & A were unimaginably energetic and proactive. I can see how being younger makes a difference! They started work at eight and continued for five hours each day.  A was so lovely that she painted the third top coat on the outer leaves of the shutters on the Saturday morning which was more than she was required to do.  I need to paint one or two more coats on the inside!  They have pride in their work. They were fantastic company and yet we did our best to respect personal space. We shared the love of good food, music, wine and quiet moments to rest. They used the bikes and explored the village.  We went to La Place but after 5 hours work each day, with inclement weather as the week progressed, it was not conducive to sit and watch the world go by.
They were very motivating and encouraging and so I have promised to take certain action!
Thank you to Susan for telling me about WORKAWAYERS.

Spring 2010 - old single glazed windows with brown shutters folded back

Summer 2013 - change tp double glazed windows without battens

Summer 2014 - grey shutters closed

Summer 2014 - double glazed windows with battens and grey shutters

Summer 2014 inside to outside

I have another young lady coming from Ohio who will arrive in several weeks time and the PRIORITY will be sorting STUFF!

POSTNOTE:
Maybe the correct terminology is 'folding wooden shutters' ... or maybe they are bi-fold...

However, despite advice from builders, painters and decorators that the correct method would be to remove and paint flat, as in 'horizontal' ... we ignored advice on account of the peculiar flexibility and size of the doors.  In our opinion it was easier to open, close, fold in different arrangements to paint on both sides.  Initially, I was going to leave hinges unpainted but I did local research by wandering through the village on an bservational walk!  Hinges were left un-painted with nasty brown varnish but painted when les volets / the shutters were painted!

For those who are interested: we sanded the doors by hand as machines just jumped about...( maybe being on a flat surface would have helped but we didn't want the problem of not being able to get the doors back in situ!).  That took us 15 hours!  We removed all the shiny varnish and lumpy blackened dribbles. We did NOT sand to bare wood. Then we painted the doors and hinges with a product called Zinnsters B.I.N. which keeps the resin and varnish where it is!  It was recommended by Farrow & Ball for brand new pine skirting board.  After that S & A used modern vinyl brushes especially for water-based products and rollers but the brushes worked best.
The paint I used was being sold at a 40% on the last promotional day at LeRoyMerlin:
RIPOLIN EXPRO 3 for exterior wood and extreme weather.  I have enough for the gates but wish I'd bought more for the other type of shutters. The OUCH factor on my bank account nearly caused a heart attack!   THANK HEAVEN for WORKAWAYERS! I am now in Paradise when I look out of my bedroom and living room!

Silly old bag!

Who me?
This is 32 or 42 years old...resurfaced when relinquished...OMG.. memory lane!
I wanted to release it again, as it is worse for wear and not been used in over four years...
then history seemed to require a photo...

It was bought in 1982 or maybe even in 1972 or between those ten years for carrying teaching resources and lesson plans for in those far off heady days, when I travelled to work on the bus and later in the car.
It was before the days of sporting a heavy computer bag with a heavier Sony laptop... and before the days when any class computer was allowed to travel between home and school! Data Protection wasn't an issue on any of the binary formats as far as I recall!
What  a laugh LIFE is when one reflects ... and how so very glad I am not to be a teacher anymore despite the totally committed one that I was !

Onwards!

The ACT and Scenes of THAT PARTICULAR movie has ended ... just for a while, so onwards to Workawayers, who arrive today!

Chastisement:
I returned home yesterday to the cat who greeted me (she speaks cat language) but the bird was definitely not by the door when I unlocked it and in the space of seconds, there it was! When younger she was a great hunter of moles and rabbits and would negotiate busy roads to get to the common and return with her booty. Then aged about 4 or 5 she used to leap two metres or so into the air and catch bats!  Is this how the warm, limp swallow was captured? A funeral was necessary of a bird that symbolises spiritual freedom!  Was it her way of knowing that the other owner had departed?

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

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

I quote from Gilda Radner who died of Ovarian Cancer.

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”

and 
I quote from Robert Frost from 'In the home stretch' who died as a result of prostate surgery.

“I don’t want to find out what can’t be known. But who first said the word to come?”
“My dear, It’s who first thought the thought. You’re searching, Joe, For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings––there are no such things. There are only middles.
"What is this?" “This life? Our sitting here by lantern-light together Amid the wreckage of a former home? You won’t deny the lantern isn’t new. The stove is not, and you are not to me, Nor I to you.”
“Perhaps you never were?”   “It would take me forever to recite All that’s not new in where we find ourselves.
New is a word for fools in towns who think
Style upon style in dress and thought at last
Must get somewhere. I’ve heard you say as much.
No, this is no beginning.”
“Then an end?”
“End is a gloomy word.”

Restless in France is sure she doesn't like endings, nor does she like ONLY beginnings. Middles are vitally important!
Chinese philosophy foretells that when we close an opportunity, we open another... just like opening and closing doors and windows. THUS THERE IS the heading of my blog created three years ago, whilst grappling with trauma I felt was sprinkled upon me!

Lets' get Fruity!

... was the theme for the second Clandestine Cake Club event where a colourful spread enticed cooks and guests to eat! There were, I think, 12 cakes, 16 adults plus two children.
My contribution was based on a recipe from a calendar for a Jewelled Box cake but I did not have a square cake tin.  Round it was! I soaked the biscuity cake sponge with creme de framboise overnight. Then the white chocolate ribbon making was a disaster! Abandoning that idea I melted the last of the white chocolate bar and spread it on the top, then a layer of raspberry jam and placed raspberries pointed end up in circles starting on the outer edge!  Eventually, I put a wide band of silver wired ribbon around the edge!  The raspberries were 10 euros a kilo and I used 750g plus the four eggs, flour, sugar, butter, vanilla essence and white chocolate. One pays a price for quality and beauty!
It's lovely to make a cake as well as if it is a gift for a birthday!
There was a beautifully presented Strawberry swiss roll, which was gluten free and made with fresh eggs so the sponge was very yellow.
There was a green poppy seed cake with citrus icing.
There was a Dorset apple cake, a shrunken drunken dried fruits cake, and a banana, date and walnut cake which was an excellent brown, moist and crumbly.
All the cakes were excellent and those that could be transported home tasted even better the following day... but I have been caked out!

Less than a month to Midsummer

and I wore shorts to mow the lawn with two lawnmowers... one electric and the other petrol... each have different wear and tear upon my arms! BUT hey ho it was done before a clear and Starry Van Gogh night!

In the middle of the night - a poem!

I think
that living a life alone
makes the chattering mind think too much and groan.
I  think
that after one walks and works all day
another day is done. Gone.  And muscles moan.

Deep sleep is welcomed, but it feels such a waste
of the precious jewel of time; then haste
to fill all non-sleepy-time moments
that are part of living life
for all that one really wants, is to never have strife
'tween friends,
especially those who one thought one knew...
Hearts and minds have folly too!

Everyone needs to be touched or hugged,
love is a gift and a gift is loved.
Blissfulness from a power above
in the guise of carnal or spiritual love.
Hugs are lifestyle gifts divine.
But it doesn't mean to say they can be his or mine!

Hoping good health keep us on the treadmill
of moving,
of ageing,
of completing
days,
until they are no longer.
PLEASE don't let my mind and muscles moan and groan!

Purpose

A Sense of Meaningful Purpose, however temporary, is important because it helps us to feel that whatever we are doing is of value. It helps us to to not feel self-abandoned or abandoned by others. It prevents a feeling of loss and being lost.  It helps us to feel in control of destiny!
Does 'not settling down' with someone mean we don't have purpose?
I can find Purpose without living with A.N. OTHER. 
Keeping busy is a strategy for maintaining PURPOSE.
Helping others is a strategy too. We are social creatures who need other human beings.
We might look after our health, or work productively... but being a workaholic might mean we are avoiding Purpose!
Projects and Passions with intended actions and decision making supports Purpose.

I've read that retreating into a fantasy world or a dream-like state means that Purpose is not being met!  I've read that underlying issues, such as feeling inadequate or feeling low self-esteem may prevent a sense of Purpose so that one looks in others for what one cannot find and support in Self.