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

Bye Bye Love when Memories are made of THIS

It was an Everly Brothers Music Night last night! 

 and so I quote for all the loves I ever had..........

I bless the day I found you

I want to stay around you

So sad to watch good love go bad! 

Love hurts, love scars, love wounds and mars
Any heart not tough nor strong enough
To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain,
Love is like a cloud, holds a lot of rain .....
Love hurts ......Oooh ...... love hurts.

 And so it always will be! . 

it's all over... I just stopped living when you said Goodbye!

Hey ho ...  and on we go!

A Ticket to Ride???

In my dream of two mornings ago ...
I had been trying to book a bus ticket to visit my maternal grandmother.  In my dream I was an adolescent because I was trying to explain at which STOP to which I needed a ticket for the return journey.  In fact, in the dream I had revisited the actual school route that I used 50 years ago as well as the parade of shops before one reached the school entrance.  The return bus had to stop near the cross roads at traffic lights. I would alight, turn left, walk to the next bus stop to take me home.
In the dream I was wishing to go TO my grandmother's house but hadn't yet got the ticket!
In the dream I was outside 'an office' to buy the ticket... my large handbag with two handles was overflowing with dangling jewellery including beaded, faceted glass crystals as those in a chandelier. Whilst I walked along, I was aware of the brilliant sparkles that they produced and aware not to lose them!

I think the dream was to do with being aware of self-abandonment and how in life I have always tried to please people and be "just the ticket" for everyone... I feel as if I can't carry on like that anymore, even though I love helping others!

However, difficult the challenges continue to be I just mustn't coast,  day by day,  DOING and Retreating from A Sense of Purpose. In the last four years I have been WAITING to find energy, time, etcetera to gather courage to cash in savings and now I think I must not wait any longer as I need to get the kitchen, house, small travel vehicle and dreams sorted.  I have to go it alone. I have to face the fears.
I do so admire the perceived foolishness and madness of my previous partner who has sold up, disposed of most stuff, reverted to how he was when I first met him!!!!!!!!!
Have I become like him when we once lived together in the old stone property by inheriting useful stuff?
I have very recently been thinking that if I were to have an almost maintenance free modern house like I used to have when single parenting, and where I became bored when they left home,  it would perhaps be different and I would escape to travel.....I wonder where a ticket would take me!    :)D    HELP!!!

Weighing scales but not for cookery

A week ago I was feeling self-assured, confident and strong.

Today, reading that sentence, not knowing what I am going to write in the next sentences, I am surprised that when I ask "Is that true?",  I recognize that those sentiments still actually exist, despite wobbles around self-esteem, confidence, inner strengths and weaknesses.
Gosh!
When one is in balance I suppose that is a form of neutrality and would indicate a balanced, grounded, adult! Perhaps it is acceptable to be on either side of the scales which weigh up the personality, oscillating a margin back and forth just a tad! !  It's when either side become too heavy or too light, when one is too depressed or too high that one worries for sanity!

So, I can see that despite decisions made ... or trying to be made about loved ones who are in my family and not in my family, for the sake of my self-preservation, perhaps I can actually say that I AM OK. Another Gosh! Another Revelation! Maybe when one is truly free then one can love and be loved without debt, obligation, expectation, emotion, using anyone and being used .... I am flapping my wings!!!!

One could ask, and I do ask myself, why don't I write this personal kind of stuff in a journal?  Well, sometimes I do... and there are some heavy tomes... but here, I can edit as I write without too many crossings out or wildly, elaborately long sentences. However, typing and handwriting cause the brain to process expression differently.  The brush for the painter, the clay for the potter do the same...  I must... I must... I hear myself think!

[The dog is howling in my back garden. It can be heard through a 60cm stone wall without any windows which abuts my neighbour's garden where the soil is one metre above the floor of my room. It's before 9am! Does that mean loud music that occasionally is played to boost my mood can be heard in their back garden?  Oh dear!  I  must be more respectful! The neighbours used to live abroad!]

Now I must attempt to get control back of and for my life...  which I recently abandoned for helping someone clear, clean and move house when I never knew the extent that my assistance and expertise as a cleaner and de-clutterer * would be required!  Whilst DOING.... as my aunt used to speak of housework... old wounds within have surfaced but new perspectives and vocabulary have entered my brain to be mostly unaffected by them!

Recent research on 'the psychology of self-abandonment' has been on-going for several weeks. I recognise a pattern developed in childhood and which now I am beginning to be conscious of! Wow, progress for THAT is without having a counsellor.  I am deeply saddened that she has leukemia.
 
Mortality and the need to keep a zest for life increases as we get older.   It gets scarier as I hear and see suffering.  I am deeply sensitive though know that it is not always evident in my behaviour.   Get active, girl! There is no time to waste! Look at the balance every moment of every day!

[The dog must have gone in as the howling has stopped! Oh Good!]
[*   I am a poor de-clutterer so it is a learning experience on HOW TO DO IT!!!]

Lily of the Valley

May 1st ... Labour Day.... to celebrate workers...
MUGUET.... Lily of the Valley is the symbol and this year it was neither early or late but in bloom on the day in my courtyard pots.

I continue my work ... into the 5th year of owning a French house... Believe me, it is NOT the same as owning ENGLISH property...
Many people in UK know that one should not spend more on a property than the value of the property... and some people / properties do get into negative equity.... yet, in France... unless one can do all the work to a quality standard oneself and not necessarily have UK ideals...one loses an arm and a leg for idealism........and one can quickly become in negative equity or not depending also on currency exchange.

I love the fact that my house requires WORK but it's a slog and much better when I share motivation from someone who can help me!
You see, I chose to stay because I love the space and sense of freedom as well as a reasonable sense of privacy from neighbours that this house gives me ... as well as those circular walks or cycle rides when I see no one for one or two or more hours!!!
I love my house for the space I exist in, though recognize there is more space to accumulate ... and THAT has to be resolved.

Imagine the freedom of being able to play piano at any o'clock!
Imagine the freedom of being able to play rock music / classical music LOUD full volume!!!
Imagine the peace and stillness with hardly any intrusive noise from BIG WIDE WORLD traffic or otherwise.  Nothing awakes me... not even the alarm clock at the moment because I am so shattered!
When the shutters are open I see the light! Haha!
AND SO... those are some of the reasons why I have remained in France despite adversity of a loss of a loving companionship as well as living in isolation!!!
BUT. there is Hope for Clarity and increasing happiness on the horizon. I have friends, young and old, and I have fun! I have started to take responsibility for myself and do not feel abandoned by even me and I don't accept any one blaming me and rejecting me ... for they need to look at their inner self.
I can laugh again! I am grown up! If I need to play and enjoy life then I can! If I need to WORK in my house and garden I can!

Have got to play a new record in 2014... create new stories...let go of the past...creating something from it!  Work towards wherever I might be in 5 years time!

French Home Ownership

Fourth Anniversary of the Signing of the Acte de Vente 
If you scroll down on the above link you can read the story.
Four years later...
I can't quite believe I shed so many tears...
I can't quite believe I had such a lot to learn...
I can't quite believe the journey that I've made...
I can't quite believe that I am still here...
I can't quite believe how strong I am...

The friend,
the one who says he has stood by me despite the traumas of his own making
and those that I made,
and those that we made together,
and whom I too have stood by despite knowing the price I pay...
he, who was the supportive little bird saying 'Bravo" is about to start on his own adventure.

When he signs his Acte de Vente, as a seller, and not as a buyer,
the little bird, the free bird, the one inside me
will say "Bravo" to him for very different reasons.
I shall hope and pray that his wings stay strong on his journey
and that he learns all that he has to learn,
as I have had to learn my lessons then so will he have to learn his
for what goes around, comes around!
I am grateful to him for his contribution to my story in my home.
I couldn't have done it without him!
But...
I would have found a different way!
I shall not be manipulated and controlled by an adult parent of an adult child any longer ... it will not work!
How ironic is life.
I must laugh in order to keep sane with what is happening at the moment!
Who would have thought life would be like this!
I am my own fool, yet, there is room for wisdom to emerge!

Spongy Gingerbread Cake

My recipe was from my favourite Penguin paperback circa 1973, author Margaret Bates.  All the pages are loose from the binding!

Cake Galore

Tinkle tinkle as a spoon raps a cake stand to bring the newly-gathered around the table crowd to silence.

It is the inaugural meeting of the Loire Valley Clandestine Cake Club. 

The theme is "Favourite Cakes" so we are each invited to introduce our cake to say whatever we wish.

I had made a spongy gingerbread cake.  Often I don't follow the recipe faithfully, as my gingerbread cake is often a mixture of several recipes including Parkin, but this time I measured exactly! My recipe was from my favourite Penguin paperback circa 1973, author Margaret Bates.  All the pages are loose from the binding!

Unfortunately, I could only sample four because I felt full, but at the end of the two hours we took as many slices as we could fit into the containers that we had brought for such purpose. I chose those that I had not sampled and those that I enjoyed.  Next day for morning coffee they were just the ticket!

Before we went home there was pink bubbly to bless the afternoon and to salute Jean for such wonderful organisation.

it was interesting to see a variety of cakes. Many people had chosen walnuts as a main ingredient or as a decorated topping. 

There was a delicious light chocolate sponge and a  Carrot and Cointreau cake with a cheese and walnut topping... a strawberry sponge where the whipped cream had come from England. Yummy! 

There was a savoury cake too ... in France 'cake' is savoury, un gateau is sweet, unless they are referring to English cakes.

In conversation with a friend we discussed the singular and plural of the noun 'cake'.  If there is 'cake' en masse then it is plural without an 's'.... but of course 'cake' is also singular depending on the context and meaning of the sentence. This is to do with countable and non countable nouns.

So let us have more cake on another occasion and eat it!

Numbed not numbered although days are!

My brain is feeling numbed but it is probably exhaustion after five weeks of constantly being on the move, with variable sleep patterns. The sudden Activity and Responsibility after Days of  Leisure...well they weren't without work ... is beginning to edge at Negativity but I am holding it at arm"s length.
I am reminded that when I had to move from England to France I spent six months looking at my stuff, weeping and wondering HOW to dispose of it usefully.....I was also in a state of shock and and bereavement on many counts, plus waiting for a major op, insecure, vulnerable and got at about things that were not of my making!  Eventually, friends came and took music worth probably £100 apx or more to a Dorset Public School who never wrote and thanked me for  it. My friend was furious at their lack of manners.  Friends came and took stuff to the skip including every pay slip I had ever earned including my first job at Woolworth!  Sadly I regret that!!!! Social History!!!!  My daughter took valuable antique clothing etc to sell on eBay with a friend and the friend duped her!

Later, when I moved from there in France to here in France, it was easy peasy to decide what was mine to take, what was mine to leave and what was his to leave. My stuff and now some of his is ready for a team of helpers to declutter! It is true I don't have the energy levels to do it alone!

HE, 'my friend" is having the kind of wobble that I had from January to July 2005. Panic!  which would perhaps explain why he wasn't  so ahead of the sorting as I thought he would be.  Panic of a different kind when one rids oneself of  lock, stock and barrel wanting to disinherit most possessions! People do, do it! Well, we rid ourselves of each other and I know I'm still coming to terms with that but so grateful in many ways for being on my own.

I feel numbed by the viewing of a Car Boot Sale when twice I wandered around and could not see anything I wished to buy... but there were plenty of things that would have held my interest eighteen years ago, when I first became a Francophile! I don't want to collect anything else ... I want to dispose!
My own tat and that inherited on the basis that HE won't me get rid of it sensibly is beginning to impact...

Hot Cross Buns

We walked for ten kilometres which took our group about two hours; there were those who took the lesser distance and others who for legitimate reasons did not walk. We all arrived for the bun feast.  I haven't walked that far for some time so it was a very good Springtime reminder of the benefits of walking, but the possible resistance to wine and refreshments is full of temptation. The problem with social walking is the shared drinks and eats when one is concerned about starting the diet. Probably in UK everyone meets at the pub at the end of the route. Maybe THAT is why I enjoy walking solo, apart from the fact that I can go at my own pace and think thoughts.  HOWEVER, I enjoy the camaraderie in a group because one meets such interesting people.  I try to avoid talking about me but it is inevitable that someone will ask and then the story is begun, but I am getting smarter at shortening the tale!  Unfortunately, mine hosts were busy, busy, but that's always the way for hosts.
It was a brilliant and successful first organised group walk for friends of friends and I do so hope there will be another.  Perhaps, it needs the leadership qualities of G'nT.   I get the impression that several people have offered to organise the next walk.  I also would be happy to do so, having experience off many walks around my village which are a bit more off the beaten track and not the same as the way-marked routes on tourist maps.  Most of the group were from the Touraine region whereas this is Vienne.  Many had travelled a distance. What beautiful weather blessed us all.  Thank you to the hosts and to all who made it very jolly!

home

HOMEhomeHOME is where the heart remains!

7,777

viewings .....is coming up today ... as this morning at 09.40 French time, it is at 7,770 as I write.   Fun!

A new day

A new time.
A new journey.
A door closes.
A window opens.
My blog heading.
It is what I learned when I lost my career path.
It is what I learned when I lost so many things.
It is what I learned when I bought my house.
it is what I learned when I lost the love from my partner.
It is what I have learned as I gain positive elements and insights and what makes people who we are.
I think people are intrinsically good...everyone has blocked patterns of  behaviour.
I am learning to be as free as a bird.
I can fly.
I may be melodramatic at times.
I may have emotional outpourings.
I am exploring.
I am learning.
I can't stand still.
I am Restless in France, restless generally to discover and make the most of life, whatever it is, wherever it takes me.
I am happy to meet whoever I can and engage in them and their lives.
I like traveling and having conversations with people I meet...this morning a little girl with flowers in her crocs.
I am sitting in a very nice organic coffee bar listening to conversations, watching people.  It's a wonderful gentle buzz ... my kind of place.
Again, I say that I thanks to all who say such very nice kind words, because when I was trapped in the four walls of a classroom and school, bizaare as it may seem I never knew about people, about LIFE and LIVING.
I am beginning to enjoy life now but I don't want to be stuck in the four walls of my French home for any length of time... itchy feet syndrome!
A rendezvous with a friend has been cancelled due to other complications which is why I indulge in y own company for coffee.
My journey chooses a new path through the forest.   I feel grounded.

No postcards

Roman votives were so small and interesting that I kept returning to that particular cabinet. BUT in my opinion the exhibition room lighting was inadequate ... whoops ... oh dear, i was informed that THE British Museum dictate the exhibition at each museum with disregard to the lighting! They also had not realised that my shadow falls on tiny objects in the glass case,  masking detail in the metalwork. Also, I needed a magnifying glass to see the intricate markings amidst the artefacts of animals, rings and brooches. It was an exhibition of the Roman Empire displaying more than 160 pieces from the British Museum. There were no postcards of these magnificent miniatures that interested me! A sales opportunity missed!

We visited 'the Egyptians' where Little Miss Muffet wished to show me the mummified woman ... below were scarab artefacts which reminded of scarab jewellery I own... I have always loved the eye of Horus in its variant designs.. I love turquoise and those who have auras of that hue.
Proceeding on: the famous  teapot collection seems to be reduced.
The taxidermy, not a favourite, is a bit stuffy, but I AM always fascinated by beetles (although I prefer them to be moving) ... and fossils always stand the test of time!  Lowry was on display... and textiles ... Roman knitwear was fascinating.  Wow ... it is not exactly concessionary to go to museums in UK!  Educational ... yes! Enjoyable... certainly! It was a privilege to do what I very often do not do!

Disorder of Sundays

People thought to be close can become so distant!
The demise of social order and a day of rest!
Bring back Social Sundays and the closure of commercial and capitalist premises!
A sense of loss today and the need to be where I belong!
FRANCE!

Film Review: Under The Skin

Weird is a word that described moments in my mind, disorientated but with eyes wide open.
I've seen enough art house cinema not to feel that movies can be radicalised but this WAS a bit extreme.  All the way I kept wondering what would come next yet couldn't imagine, although I had clocked the word ALIEN in my head.  I inwardly praised myself once I had become rather spooked to see the evidence of what WAS Under The Skin... the film seemed to suggest that none of us are what we appear to be...
The light at the end of the tunnel...when the circle of light transforms into an eye that enables light in our lives, helps us to see whilst we hear the sound of the train.
She had beautiful eyes and these were referred to in the film.
The van is being driven but we hear the train on the tracks.
The seductress and temptress.
She could seduce but not be seduced for if her skin was 'pricked' by a rose thorn or any other sharp or pointed thing her skin would split.  She would implode.
The stalker and the killer.
The biker and the walker.
The rapist.
Every woman's nightmare.
A male protector turns to seduce.
A female enjoys the attention.
Why is it always thus?
Transmogrification 
is a word in my mind as final scenes are enacted.
Black skin, white skin.
Red top, red lips,
Blood and Roses.
Fire.
Flames to Ashes... red to black.
Burnt.
Destruction.
Grey.
Up in smoke.
The skin of the dead will pop if allowed to fester.
Beneath the oil slick this is what happens.
I thought those images where she leads the victim to death, demise, a day of reckoning, were brilliantly clever and inventive: how men sank into oblivion was mesemerising....  
Wonderful photography.
Scenic landscapes.
Silence.
Evil.
As in the eye of a camera there is a juxtaposition of views that are given to US whilst we look at the movie against what is seen from the eyes of the actors and actress and of course the camera man and the director, not to mention the author of the book. 
Evidently, don't expect to match the novel and the film!
Intriguing, full of suspense...weird but wonderful.
I exited.
I looked at the 2014 world.
I became disorientated, uncertain of my next direction and my direction in life and kept thinking as I walked... Weird... Isn't life weird!

THE WHITE COMPANY cotton bedlinen after ironing!

Brand new unused-on-any-bed, 200 thread count Egyptian cotton bed-linen, after 8 washes with a Bosch machine that is hardly used plus Persil powder, water softener and fabric softener and Bosch steam ironed whilst wet... on at least four occasions!
I would not even put this on my own bed let alone that of guests!
I took them to a professional laundry service following others' advice, before I consider THE return to THE WHITE COMPANY... but this stupid laundry company have made black blotches on them and folded them differently ... even the original creases can still be seen...
It is at a cost of £14 in addition to the £133 that they cost me.
I WILL RETURN THEM in the original delivery box with all the original packaging,  once I get them back ( hopefully washed again! ) on MONDAY!!!!
I am an unhappy bunny!

Ten Years

It is ten years since losing my career path, the resulting depression on depression of fibromyalgia, a major debilitating op with the loss and recovery of a working bladder,  selling my beautiful 400 year old inn which was the accolade of my life,  moving lock, stock and barrel to France to not my own house, then suffering what I was told was abuse, becoming single again four years ago and buying my very own French maison which had no bathroom. Now it has, with much gratitude to a friend. I am learning to stop the tears, start LIVING and in fact I think I could say that the tears have stopped and laughter has returned!

The story became stuck in a rut on occasions whilst all the while there has been progress.
LIVING never stands still but mountains have to be moved to make it enjoyable and fun.
When I have fun, my younger, inner child laughs and skips with joy.

I recently wrote in my JOURNAL that:-

I feel alive and who I am... comfortable in my skin.
It has taken me longer than ten years to achieve a self- reliant happiness...
and oh how happy I mostly am.

Thank you to everyone who has crossed my path and travelled alongside me on my journey...
Thank you to HIM who made me go from his house , and put me in the position I am in today.. .
maybe it was all meant to be!  I
The door closed and others opened!
Thank you to everyone for their patience, tolerance and understanding, their love and empathy and willingness to see the good in me.  I am in awe and in appreciation of how you have all stood by me!

I love you all.

Metallic steel blue anemone

Steal the blue of purple anemones - one of my favourite flowers

So tired...

would sing Eric Clapton,  but this is a different tiredness. Fatigue has been stacking up. I should have been asleep earlier but  succumbed to a novel privilege of television!!!

Had a fantastic walk in sandland whilst the vestiges of the Sahara filled the sky.

A ghostly presence disturbed my sleep this morning.  It appeared to be a woman with a navy blue pinched waist-long skirt, a gentle soul....others are convinced it was my imagination.  When I asked was it time to wake up ,  she said " yes it was".  I am waking up!