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| Sunflowers |
Planted last week
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| Courgettes |
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| Radishes |
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| Self seeded Poppies...number five to arrive |
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| Self seeded Digitalis |
Thursday 12 June 2014
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, plus
Planted last week
Wednesday 11 June 2014
On track ..
Following the posting Seeing the Beauty, here are train tracks enjoyed in my life time. I know there are more!
The Little Train of the Caipira by Villa-Lobos depicts a train journey... it's a Toccata from the Italian Toccare meaning To touch.
My History
When I was a teacher, I devised an art and music lesson for my 6 to 8 year old children. From an old BBC Radio Schools Radio magazine which we ordered to support the listening of such programmes, I told the story linked to specific bars of music. When I read the score and heard it at the same time I could say... "now the train is ..... " The children always listened intently whenever I played them classical or other music. Most probably because it was alien to their life experience. I loved watching their faces...
For this lesson each child received a piece of coloured 'sugar paper' (was it called this because it used to wrap sugar?) It was almost A2 size... we used to halve the sheets which were usually a pale coloured blue, green, yellow, pink. There were certain colours, like grey and sludgy beige, that teachers didn't want to use...then the tattered and torn sheets that teachers left for someone else to tidy up! Later, manufacturers produced bright colours like magenta!
Whilst the children listened again and again to the cassette tape or vinyl in those days, they would draw using acrylic or oil pastels. I showed them a few techniques on how to use pastels... this I invented!!!! We sealed their drawings with hair spray! The results from the children were fantastic! Creativity flowed through their Brazilian forests and their artwork matched the music perfectly!
Then I remembered that when I was little my sister and I enjoyed listening to Uncle Mac on BBC Radio 2(see Tim's comment below...my memory for facts is not so good), I think it was, as well as the The Runaway Train went over the hill and she blew...
My sister and I always used to giggle when the expletive was deleted! It drew less attention if it was ignored! Didn't grown ups realise we had minds as well as ears!
Then that led me to remember The Ballad of Casey Jones. The Grateful Dead published their version of the song in 1970.
I used to teach 11 to 13 year old at a Middle School ... those fishing port 'kids' were quite unruly but seemed to enjoy singing. Music lessons gave the class teacher 'free time' and reprieve from the children's antics! Most 'kids' didn't much like having music lessons so you could guess the drama!
The secretary printed my handwritten words using a BANDA machine! You had to use special copy paper which had a blue or black backing. I loved the smell. I suppose it was a from of methys that was used! I know that the windows had to be opened every time we used the machine ... the handle had to be turned and you could chat to the secretary at the same time watching the numbers whizz round to 30. Sometimes we had more than 30 kids in a class and at that age they towered above me!
I taught quite a few folk songs because I used my own music books. Mostly in schools was music from fifty years (or so it seemed to me) previous to the 1970s and 1980s! However, there were some radio music booklets available but only contained the words... so I would have to find the piano music. I detested singing with the radio music when it was much more fun for me and the kids for me to play the piano. I used to slow down and speed up so that they had to keep in time and then I would congratulate those that did! call out their names over the music or just ask x or y to sing the next verse and that made the whole class laugh! At that time we had a brilliant Music Adviser, David Ingate. He was great fun when he came to inspect or just drop in... the children loved him to play. He wound them up and then left us with a whirl and in great humour! He was old school but embraced modern methods and I believe he had a lot of respect for the way I was teaching music. I had much respect for him too for he was being forced away from MUSIC to general inspection and who needed that!
I was at the cutting edge of progressive music teaching. Kids as young as six composed in the classroom...my lessons taught us to listen to and respect someone's attempts to play... maybe one hit on an instrument... or a mad crash, wallop and bang to those who displayed rhythm and melody, who were well co-ordinated. There wasn't just singing in the classroom. Each child had an instrument!
It wasn't only about music.. but was about self, others, the world and it embraced all subjects as well language. Music is a language!
Oh my gosh that's probably about the first time I have thought positively or written about teaching in the ten years in which I have been retired. Maybe now I am healed of that trauma when I believe I was treated unfairly. But what goes around, comes around and I probably was due for 'punishment' for my own naive and vulnerable non-mature, non-adult behaviour when I was over-stressed, over-worked and with no one to advise me on the BIG PICTURE of what was happening!
Before the days of accessible internet there was no help if one was largely in isolation from friends and family. That's how it was and this is how it is.........
So... let's get back on track with SLOW TRAIN COMING by BOB DYLAN. I have the vinyl LP..., loved him and his music... and still do!
and one always loves Joni Mitchell
I could be here all day thinking of and playing train music!
The Little Train of the Caipira by Villa-Lobos depicts a train journey... it's a Toccata from the Italian Toccare meaning To touch.
My History
When I was a teacher, I devised an art and music lesson for my 6 to 8 year old children. From an old BBC Radio Schools Radio magazine which we ordered to support the listening of such programmes, I told the story linked to specific bars of music. When I read the score and heard it at the same time I could say... "now the train is ..... " The children always listened intently whenever I played them classical or other music. Most probably because it was alien to their life experience. I loved watching their faces...
For this lesson each child received a piece of coloured 'sugar paper' (was it called this because it used to wrap sugar?) It was almost A2 size... we used to halve the sheets which were usually a pale coloured blue, green, yellow, pink. There were certain colours, like grey and sludgy beige, that teachers didn't want to use...then the tattered and torn sheets that teachers left for someone else to tidy up! Later, manufacturers produced bright colours like magenta!
Whilst the children listened again and again to the cassette tape or vinyl in those days, they would draw using acrylic or oil pastels. I showed them a few techniques on how to use pastels... this I invented!!!! We sealed their drawings with hair spray! The results from the children were fantastic! Creativity flowed through their Brazilian forests and their artwork matched the music perfectly!
Then I remembered that when I was little my sister and I enjoyed listening to Uncle Mac on BBC Radio 2(see Tim's comment below...my memory for facts is not so good), I think it was, as well as the The Runaway Train went over the hill and she blew...
My sister and I always used to giggle when the expletive was deleted! It drew less attention if it was ignored! Didn't grown ups realise we had minds as well as ears!
Then that led me to remember The Ballad of Casey Jones. The Grateful Dead published their version of the song in 1970.
I used to teach 11 to 13 year old at a Middle School ... those fishing port 'kids' were quite unruly but seemed to enjoy singing. Music lessons gave the class teacher 'free time' and reprieve from the children's antics! Most 'kids' didn't much like having music lessons so you could guess the drama!
The secretary printed my handwritten words using a BANDA machine! You had to use special copy paper which had a blue or black backing. I loved the smell. I suppose it was a from of methys that was used! I know that the windows had to be opened every time we used the machine ... the handle had to be turned and you could chat to the secretary at the same time watching the numbers whizz round to 30. Sometimes we had more than 30 kids in a class and at that age they towered above me!
I taught quite a few folk songs because I used my own music books. Mostly in schools was music from fifty years (or so it seemed to me) previous to the 1970s and 1980s! However, there were some radio music booklets available but only contained the words... so I would have to find the piano music. I detested singing with the radio music when it was much more fun for me and the kids for me to play the piano. I used to slow down and speed up so that they had to keep in time and then I would congratulate those that did! call out their names over the music or just ask x or y to sing the next verse and that made the whole class laugh! At that time we had a brilliant Music Adviser, David Ingate. He was great fun when he came to inspect or just drop in... the children loved him to play. He wound them up and then left us with a whirl and in great humour! He was old school but embraced modern methods and I believe he had a lot of respect for the way I was teaching music. I had much respect for him too for he was being forced away from MUSIC to general inspection and who needed that!
I was at the cutting edge of progressive music teaching. Kids as young as six composed in the classroom...my lessons taught us to listen to and respect someone's attempts to play... maybe one hit on an instrument... or a mad crash, wallop and bang to those who displayed rhythm and melody, who were well co-ordinated. There wasn't just singing in the classroom. Each child had an instrument!
It wasn't only about music.. but was about self, others, the world and it embraced all subjects as well language. Music is a language!
Oh my gosh that's probably about the first time I have thought positively or written about teaching in the ten years in which I have been retired. Maybe now I am healed of that trauma when I believe I was treated unfairly. But what goes around, comes around and I probably was due for 'punishment' for my own naive and vulnerable non-mature, non-adult behaviour when I was over-stressed, over-worked and with no one to advise me on the BIG PICTURE of what was happening!
Before the days of accessible internet there was no help if one was largely in isolation from friends and family. That's how it was and this is how it is.........
So... let's get back on track with SLOW TRAIN COMING by BOB DYLAN. I have the vinyl LP..., loved him and his music... and still do!
and one always loves Joni Mitchell
I could be here all day thinking of and playing train music!
Tuesday 10 June 2014
Le brioche
I laughed.
My log delivery man was cycling home at 21h30 in his dungarees, arms revealed, sweat exuding and puffing a little... so I made comment about how wonderful to be on the velo! He wheeled around remembering his French manners to stop and shake hands. I repeated as he listened carefully for he is deaf: "J'ai dit que c'est tres bien que vous faisez le velo!" Probably incorrect but he understood... patted his belly and spoke about removing le brioche!
Ah.. I thought.....
I must get on my bike after all the winter eating and recent social eating with guests has left a deposit I am not pleased with! I never have been one to exercise!
That evening I'd had an hour and a half walk toute seule out into the countryside and back into town, taking pics on the way.
Under the mustard seed plants by the wayside I heard grunting sounds as if from piglets and a mother nesting. At first thought, it was the same sound as I hear in my attic on occasions... were they loirets? But as I stood, camera at the ready, I considered that they might be baby pigs of wild boar, so I thought not to loiter looking at nature any longer and increased the speed of step... then thought further about whether it would be better to run or to turn and face them and charge if they should threaten me! Either way it was scary and there were no dead tree branches at hand to wave in my defence!
Oh my... the joys of the French landscape.
I came across a solitary wild cherry tree at the margin of the same field, branches hanging heavily with fruit that no one had harvested... some needed a few more days to ripen. Nevertheless, after squeezing the red jewels in my mouth for an evening dessert, I broke off one branch to enjoy fresh cherries in abundance as I walked, for it was approaching 'le crépuscule', spitting out stones along the way, imagining a line of cherry trees in future years! Green walnuts are forming on the trees. Honeysuckle fragrance hung heavily in the air tempting large bottomed bumble bees.
The next day I wrote a poem!
But this is a different impromptu one!
In twenty four hours there have been
seen from the west approaching,
three huge thunderous storms rolling,
sheet lightning, mumbling, rumbling,
disturbing my day tasks and sleep.
I closed grey shutters to keep the light show smashing
through the window into my darkness
as I lay with a friend on the telephone speaking!
My grey shutters protect me and help me feel less scared
as the CRASH was immediately overhead!
Big Feet and I - we were comforted!
My log delivery man was cycling home at 21h30 in his dungarees, arms revealed, sweat exuding and puffing a little... so I made comment about how wonderful to be on the velo! He wheeled around remembering his French manners to stop and shake hands. I repeated as he listened carefully for he is deaf: "J'ai dit que c'est tres bien que vous faisez le velo!" Probably incorrect but he understood... patted his belly and spoke about removing le brioche!
Ah.. I thought.....
I must get on my bike after all the winter eating and recent social eating with guests has left a deposit I am not pleased with! I never have been one to exercise!
That evening I'd had an hour and a half walk toute seule out into the countryside and back into town, taking pics on the way.
Under the mustard seed plants by the wayside I heard grunting sounds as if from piglets and a mother nesting. At first thought, it was the same sound as I hear in my attic on occasions... were they loirets? But as I stood, camera at the ready, I considered that they might be baby pigs of wild boar, so I thought not to loiter looking at nature any longer and increased the speed of step... then thought further about whether it would be better to run or to turn and face them and charge if they should threaten me! Either way it was scary and there were no dead tree branches at hand to wave in my defence!
Oh my... the joys of the French landscape.
I came across a solitary wild cherry tree at the margin of the same field, branches hanging heavily with fruit that no one had harvested... some needed a few more days to ripen. Nevertheless, after squeezing the red jewels in my mouth for an evening dessert, I broke off one branch to enjoy fresh cherries in abundance as I walked, for it was approaching 'le crépuscule', spitting out stones along the way, imagining a line of cherry trees in future years! Green walnuts are forming on the trees. Honeysuckle fragrance hung heavily in the air tempting large bottomed bumble bees.
The next day I wrote a poem!
But this is a different impromptu one!
In twenty four hours there have been
seen from the west approaching,
three huge thunderous storms rolling,
sheet lightning, mumbling, rumbling,
disturbing my day tasks and sleep.
I closed grey shutters to keep the light show smashing
through the window into my darkness
as I lay with a friend on the telephone speaking!
My grey shutters protect me and help me feel less scared
as the CRASH was immediately overhead!
Big Feet and I - we were comforted!
Monday 9 June 2014
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!!!
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!
Sunday 8 June 2014
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!
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