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Much-needed break for me, this weekend. I’ve zipped up to London to spend some time with my sister. Rubin’s with the grandparents, filling himself on biscuits and chocolate muffins, no doubt. And I get some time out, some fresh perspective and a couple of nights in a different bed (a really fucking comfortable one).
It’s one of those lazy saturday mornings that you forgot you used to have before you became a parent. Music up loud and lots of cups of tea, made by the future b-i-l (he’s such a honey). It’s bliss. And after a week or so of not being able to write, I’m full of ideas and ready to flow.
So, a post for Void is underway … in draft. I’m relieved to be back in touch with my writery-self again.
Who knows what inspirations I’ll find today? London always seems to charge me up (and wear me out). And the train journey home gives me two peaceful hours to write and reflect. Bring it on.
So for now, only this:
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Relax your mind, switch off and float downstream …
This is an experience in the beauty of the internet.
Follow the link, answer the questions. Please enjoy.
Oh, and make sure your speakers are turned on.
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Yesterday, the houseboy and I took a little roadtrip round some favourite parts of our corner of this green and pleasant land.
Heavy mist obscured much of the landscape, unfortunately, but it was still a nice day for soaking it up and taking it in.
The fields look particularly bleak at the moment, lined by the rows of skeleton poplars and birches. As we zipped through Dorset and Hampshire, into Wiltshire, there were many more fields lined with drifts of dirty snow that remained unmelted after last week’s big freeze. And as we drove out of Pewsey, we saw a solid layer of ice on the Kennet Canal.
After diverting through some quaint, olde English villages, and a private estate with it’s own country manor, we were heading west on the A4 from Marlborough towards Avebury. The fields along this road contain barrows and stones and tumuli that are filled with the magic and history of a lost civilization. Only myth and conjecture remain, in regards to the origins and purposes of places like Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow.
I looked over at Houseboy and his eyes looked moist. He said it felt like coming home. I’ve already heard his stories about days spent sitting in the long barrow, searching for himself. Today though, the barrow seemed to be hiding from view. I guess she was not taking visitors. When I suggested that we stop there, he said, “Noooo,” with quite some authority.
We drove on and the gentle, rough-carved giants of Avebury Stone Circle emerged from the mist. They are such a strange and soothing sight. Unlike the other famous Wiltshire Henge, these stones are freely accessible to the public, and in fact, their circular construct is bisected by the two roads that run North to South and East to West. Covering a wider area too, exploring this henge and adjoining stone avenue is more of a ramble than a view.
Groups of people in raincoats, hats and boots emerged and returned into the mist. And we took up a spot by the open fire at the Red Lion, for some lunch.
Last stop of the day was Marlborough, a mediaeval charter town – home to a very elite independent school, whose pretty campus dominates one side of town. The old town is said to have connections with Merlin, but I’ve yet to discover the details. Before we left I noticed one sign on a board with an old image of the church tower that said ‘Merle Berg’, which hints at the origin of the town’s modern name and a possible link with Merlin.
I caught this shot of Houseboy, extremely camera-shy, as we walked near the stones in Avebury:
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Fired up and inspired today by this tune.
Don’t know why. It just feels really good.
January blues are running deep now.
But the days are getting longer and Imbolc is on its way.
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Only a little snow has fallen, and now the sun is shining. The world seems beautiful today.
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Today I will take the Christmas tree down. Pack away all the little tinsly bits and bobs. I’m ready for it now. I’ve so enjoyed the tree this year (as I have done every year now since I had Rubin). It’s one thing that makes me feel like a grown-up! I mean, it makes me appreciate having my own home to decorate now. My place.
I’m not really grown-up … I strongly suspect that most of us are just pretending. Trying not to take it too seriously. Sometimes the serious stuff takes over, but the Christmas season has really taken my mind off all that. I didn’t realize how relaxed I’ve been until I sat down at my desk yesterday and noticed the stress start to creep back in.
So I am resolute to have more FUN in 2010.
And I have a great little teacher for this.
He has just started drawing recognizable faces, and I can’t believe how much his little pieces of artwork make my heart soar.
This one was on the blackboard in his room this morning:
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What’s going on at the moment? I’m really starting to wonder if there’s something I’m supposed to figure out ~ like a message. If things really do come in threes, I hope I’m done for now. Here’s the current round of 3 disasters:
We’re still living in mouse-fallout-chaos. No more sign of Mickey above board (the pest lady assures me he’s staying down low and munching happily on the poison), but all my food is in plastic crates in the living room, and I’m getting pretty fed up with it. There are kitchen bits and bobs all over the counters because I don’t want to put them away in the cupboard yet until I have the ‘all clear’ on mousey. It’s way too hectic in there.
Week before last, I crashed my car. It’s an old car, and it didn’t fare well from the incident. The bumper of the car in front was hardly damaged. Mine is officially an uneconomic repair. I should be glad it was just a minor bang and no-one got hurt. But, mea culpa, so there goes the £250 excess on my insurance, and the loss of my no-claims bonus, and whatever I’ve got to spend on getting it roadworthy again.
Mum had a heart attack last week. She’s home and well, but tired. Recovery can take a while. And there are life changes to be made, which I’m signing up for in solidarity, and because I’ve become too unfit and just too heavy again. I don’t want to be heading the same way. But the cheese and cake addiction is having a full-on frenzied party with me at the moment. I don’t know what came first, the stress or the bad eating. The cycle is feeding itself nicely though.
There isn’t a lot of inspiration happening here, and I feel like I should apologize for that. I feel like I need to retreat into a little cubby hole and have a think about what I want to be creating with my energies next year. Or just ‘not think’ for a while. Wait, and feel.
I’m getting pissed off with the uni art course too. I’m so bogged down with documenting my learning and the processes that I’m hardly creating any art. Or I’m having to spend way more time than I have available to me preparing briefs that I’m just not interested in doing. And everything is squeezed into such a compact amount of time, that I don’t get to research or flow or develop my ideas. Some weeks it feels like I’m on one of those gameshows, where you’ve got 30 minutes to create a tower out of stockings, or a boat out of eggboxes. I’m bored with it, and uninspired.
Art Brief ~ The Box As Identity or something ...
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It’s the start of Water Week for Soul Cleanse ~ I haven’t even written the post for Void yet, but I think my inner self knows, and today I’m all weepy at the drop of a woolly hat. And the weather is trying to encourage me into my cups. The rain woke me again in the early hours, lashing on my window and my slopy cottage roof (it’s like trying to sleep through a drum solo at a gig). I drove Rubin to nursery through vast puddles in the lane through the village, and hailstones hitting the car.
It’s calmer now, as I sit here with my first cup of coffee, trying to get in the mood to write. I haven’t felt like writing much at all recently. I just gave up trying at the end of last week; the last few tasks for Earth Week still sitting incomplete on my ToDo List. I’ll come back to them later. Maybe they’ll be a nice way to ground and complete the whole cleanse. There’s no point pushing myself, especially when my soul is just feeling soooo tired and longing to rest.
I spent the weekend with houseboy, and catching up on coursework assignments for uni, which I have been very slow to complete this term. I shall head off to the library this afternoon to research the last couple of bits of project, in preparation for my uni day tomorrow.
There have been no more sign of mousey in the kitchen, though I doubt he’s consumed enough poison yet to be dead. I’m living with boxes of food in the living room, and cutlery in biscuit tins, and crockery permanently in the dishwasher (which I’m fairly sure Mickey can’t get into). It’s all a bit claustrophobic. Add to that the Christmas tree, and boxes of decorations we got out of the loft on Thursday, and the great stack of logs by the fireplace. Neat little Virgos don’t like all this fuss in their space.
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