A long long day

Sat 11 Feb

The wind is still tonight.  The sky is low and no stars shine.  Through dark silence the tide echoes around the hills as it crosses the rapids from the sea into the smaller confines of the loch.


A day for checking whether the rabbits had eaten the crocuses, for clearing a few weeds, for making a greetings card, for discouraging digging by our visitor and deciding against beginning anything that might need finishing in over a weeks time.
It has been an empty sort of day, perhaps because not only did it dry up by the afternoon but the wind has stopped; not just dropped but stopped and that feels weird after such a long time.  The day has echoed with non-sound and compounded an underlying lack of energy.

Friday 10th Feb

Flattened to the ground, crocuses lie pale;  their royal purples leached by wind and rain.  Misled by unseasonal warmth they have struggled into flower too early.

Moss-covered roots spread wide but only scratch the surface of the ground;  clinging to the sodden peat they brace the fir for blasts from wind and rain.





(Above:- a couple of small pebbles today.  For yesterday I completely ran out of steam and the only stones I might have had anything to do with would have been more a disconnection from, rather  than a connection to  life in general and my bit of it in particular.)



Dog-sitting a beardie ( a bearded collie - like the border collie but hairier).  She smiles! Rather scary if you didn't know it is friendly, as she lifts her top lip and shows her front teeth including canines but it is a smile.  In order to get a grin, with mouth full open, all that is needed is a short game of fetch the tennis ball and then the joy is huge, until you hide the ball away so she can't find it and insist you throw again, and again, and again…ad infinitum. Our companion animals so often have distinct personalities, it is no wonder that we miss those with whom we have spent many years.

To de-clutter (a continuous and continuing process) or to clutter… I ought to do the first but think I'll go and add to the mass of paper I posses by trying some drawing exercises about perspective and geometry.  Fortunately  the chances that any of these doodles will warrant any kind of keeping should mean not too much clutter,  just more paper to be recycled.

Feb 8th

Wind
a)
It hasn't stopped all day.  It began in the darkness of night,  The wind has been driving against car doors, in danger of breaking their locks. Hedge rows have been a frenzy of whipping twigs, buffeting small birds that shelter there.  Sheep shelter under rocks, the lea of hills, behind stone walls, even beside old frail fence posts.  The devil's spume is raised to force the water from the rains back up the hills from where they came.  Seared grasses and grey heathers pulse like waves upon the moors.  The waters on the shores smash down and fresh or salt the surface of the lochs is white with spume of breakers large and small.
The sound assaults the ears from chimney, windows' edge and door frame.  It sings, hums, whistles and screams.
And, when it will stop, we shall wake at the silence.
Small birds fly low, if fly they do.  The rabbits venture out but are soon forced back forlorn and wet into earthen tunnels.
The eagle will not be seen today.

b)
It has the power to pick up trees, to bend and break them too. As I turn a corner, I must lean upon it, if I am to venture forward, but know its breath is fickle and could let me fall.  The gale-force demands respect and caution.

In matters of rest: -  ( WOHW prompt)
I would rest upon my laurels only I never won any.  I have often wondered if laurel does in fact make for a comfortable bed and whether the winning of accolades makes sleeping any easier.
  After all as Shakespeare pointed out "Uneasy lies the head…etc"  Anyway these days what constitutes  laurels?  Patently not a knighthood,  at least in the current climate.  Being a celebrity?  Much denigrated for being all froth and no substance.  What then of substance? Wealth and money?  Certainly a route to power,  but then Power is well known as a corrupter.
So maybe accolades and fame are not the way.
Well, it is back to the hot drink and good book for me (and you can interpret that in anyway you like!) and, if I wake in the witching hours, I'll not worry about a lack of sleep or rest but amuse myself by enumerating the "laurels"  that life may yet bring, none of which can make me more or less.

Feb 7th I spy...and Water

Feb 7th (none on 6th)
I spy...
through a chink in the stone walls of the brooch
the whole of the landscape surrounding this hill
and the reason this structure stands in this spot.

I spy…
through the wind and the waves
they are launching the lifeboat
volunteering to save yet more lives

Wondering about and words on -------Water

A warm shower in wintry day, courtesy of the wonders of plumbing;
A cold shock as you take to the sea for the first swim of the spring;
A luxury wallow in a deep bath or the bubbles of a jacuzzi;
A swim in the fresh water of a river can be hard work.

We don't just drink it, we wallow in it.
It is us…or at least a huge part of us.
Without it we perish, life perishes
Our world perishes.

Water, which we sometimes take for granted,


That stream falling over the stones,
The drops tumbling out of the clouds,
The thrashing of the seas,
The depths of the lochs,
Tsunamis, storms and monsoons
bringing water.
Destructive and damaging sometimes
Water's our  essential supporter,  a cradle of life.

There is a smell of salt lifted from the sea,
 it is filtered through grey cloud,

till falling now in cold drops
to patter on the roof
it's taste support all life

Water in a stream may take the meandering easiest route around stones but can hurtle in falls over boulders and cliffs.

A sunday in Feb. -5th

I spy…
sometimes it used to be car types.  I always lost.  I've never been able to tell one make from another!
 On those long journeys to get to the seaside, once we had risen to the dizzy heights of car-ownership, there arose the problem of keeping us children entertained.  Trains were different. Lots of ways to write, read, play cards or board games.  Once we travelled by car there was the problem of car sickness.  Just not possible to read; so I spy in any form was a great  entertainer.  Of course there was also singing and those wonderful books where you watched out for everything from road signs to animals to makes of car!

Just thinking
Coal for the fire.  Black  and very ancient.  I watch the flame brightly burning.   I wonder what kind of tree had grown and been compressed.  Perhaps it was the time of the dinosaurs.   Maybe it was earlier when only flora flourished.  The warmth surrounds me.  The coal turns into ash.  Tomorrow I will return this dust  to  earth in which it once grew.

Tree

Plants sometimes move.  Under fences perhaps, like lily of the valley.  Trees may also move.  Maybe  it is just that over time roots and weather pull it one way or another.  Certainly each tree has character.  This one certainly has and it looks as if it is on the move.

For today-Feb 4th

While on the mainland there is snow forecast, here was a.m.full of rain , then hail, then high cold sun.
Today there is a struggle between winter and the coming spring.  Crocuses are appearing but they may yet be struck by the cold of continental Europe spreading out.  The sun now rises behind the eastern corner of the front of the house and sets a little way round to the west.  It is time to think of coming out of hibernation, but not to rush.  It may yet be wise to sleep a little longer.

I spy...
a black balloon:-
surrounds the space and, though translucent, effectively holds back the smell, the touch of all beyond;  though seen and known, the outside light is distorted as are the sounds of life out there; all taste is dull; all savour dulled.
who holds the pin to puncture this cocoon?


Small Stone

a tunnel of last year's grasses makes a safe route for the rabbit as it runs for its burrow beneath the gaze of a floating eagle

Feb 3rd...witterings

I spy… (around the bird feeder)    -      (light-hearted rhyme based on real sightings)
I spy… a rabbit sitting in my garden
Trying to be a bird.
I wonder where he heard
There were peanuts for the taking.

I spy…a bird clinging to the feeder:
Rather strange it is
With that tail of his:-
That field mouse must be hungry.

I spy…a raptor just behind the feeder
All the birds are waiting
Hope they are in hiding
Till the falcon's done.


Anger   (from serious consideration to …………..    well, you decide!)
Anger is, I think a difficult emotion.  It has its uses if we channel it towards changing a bad situation for the future. It is often not one that is easily handled within relationships and is difficult for children. 
Too often perhaps it is turned inward and causes self-negating, self-destructive behaviours and thoughts.  Sometimes it becomes other directed and results in violence and aggression.  At the very least if it has nowhere to go it somehow makes a little hole in the fabric that is life and saps a little of the vibrancy of existence.
Today I stamped my foot.  I do not believe I have done that since I was a child.  In fact I may not have been allowed to do that as a child or I may just never have done it.
I was a presented with the problem of how to dispose of those air-bags that surround items delivered in over-large boxes.  There is only so much recycling of them for the purpose for which they were intended that the average household can do.  I needed to reduce their volume and then I could just recycle the plastic!
I would stamp on them.
Looking at them I was reminded of a story, perhaps apocryphal, that in a pottery factory in Bornholm the employees were allowed to throw the reject plates etc. at cut-outs/pictures of the boss or management.  I decided a to make use of my stamping to "let off some steam." 
What was I angry at?  What did I have to be angry at? Nothing really, except for things that truly cannot be changed.  But, so what!
I stamped away, creating satisfying pops as each air bag burst.
I felt better.  Well less tense anyway.
So let me add to the primal scream, to the massage, to the popping of bubble wrap and others tricks, this particular method of giving vent to frustration and anger -
Become a child again but use your stamping hissy fit to reduce not only your tensions but your clutter too!