Westcliff-on-Sea Haiku

Grey wet estuary,
Grey matter challenge,
Promise of well-dressed nights !

Westcliff's Hamlet Court Road has clothes shops of intriguing style and elegance! I didn't get the shot of the Man's Hat Shop, but these were two portmanteaus of colour last night, as we made our way back to our lodgings - serious Permaculture Association work about standards & training. Graham says the blue-lit building below was the swimming pool where Ian Dury contracted polio - it's now a casino. 

This blog's not saying as much as I had anticipated about my retirement, apart from the fact that I now do have two days to give over for this voluntary work! It feels good to be flexible about when I work for people, when I can take a day to enjoy the sunshine, and to note how much I am fitting in from my original list: music, french language, seeing friends, helping out... not much decluttering going on!

Lugh

was 15 and in not very good health. Today we said goodbye and he was put to sleep in a gentle fashion. He was born on Lammas / Lughnasagh Eve, a shining golden bundle, so he was called after the Irish god of light. Mighty, and a bit of a tearaway he strode the garden fences, glowed orange in the sun, slept in people's sheds (often got locked in for a few days), and in his later years found some nice green places in our garden to bask in warm nests of fern and under the leaves of squashes! He had spent the last six weeks in the darkest corner of the basement storeroom and only came out for a nibble, a pee and occasionally to sit near the radiator.... no longer the galloping boy, not a life for anyone.

Hearts...

Happy Valentine's Day 2010

Tokens of affection from Mosset cemetery (top)       A loving leaf (below)

Lucienne Day

This is a fabric design called Calyx that was the beginning of a fabulous design career for Lucienne Day, who died this week aged 93. As a textiles-lover it's sad news for me, especially as her death will probably be overshadowed by Alexander McQueen's untimely demise. Arguably Lucienne's work will have had a greater effect on the lives and wellbeing of ordinary British people.  A significant designer in the post-WW2  revival of homes and family life through the Homes for People movement, she became the first female Master of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry in 1987 (paving the way for Jean Muir). The Guardian obituary said it was the Festival of Britain pattern hung in every 'contemporary' living room in 1951's Britain, and that "she made the link between mass production and fine art". This sort of pattern evokes a strong memory of my childhood; I love the spidery and light nature of the marks, and the glorious, offbeat colours. While I was looking for links for this blog I came across Verity Freebern's Pattern of the Day website, where she acknowledges Lucienne's work as her influence, in her daily blog about her own pattern designs. 

It's been a very busy week...

 This lovely sunset is at Barcombe, a small village in the Sussex countryside, and although purples & blues don't tend to come out particularly well on camera sometimes, I think the gradation of the sky here is lovely. No cloud of course! Barcombe was where I got into French dancing first in about 1987. Rosbif rehearsed in the Royal Oak there every month, and we danced to the most fantastic music I'd ever heard. 

And it's still happening, the dancers below are doing a bourrée, at the music session we now run in Brighton, which sort-of replicates the rehearsals... any musician can come along to learn tunes, and we get to practise dances too. The musicians include Mel, a founder member of Rosbif, here seen playing a Gascon instrument he's made...

The rest of my week has been spent working!! I can't believe it, it was a bit of a relief to get back behind the computer, and to be involved in meetings... but it must not become a big habit again, otherwise, why bother to have retired?
I spent over four hours finding the right mobile phone to replace the work one, and am getting my head around working it...
Still, the clouds have been good, because we have had snow again... this one in London's Trafalgar Square is spectacular Stratocumulus I think, because of the grey underneath. We had received a good dousing of snow in Sussex, but nothing in London - 80 km north - and also it was quite warm there. A contrast with the little fossil on my garden table earlier that day...

Happy Memories, in memoriam

4th February is our family memorial day. Today my brother Chris will have gone to Cardiff to put flowers on the memorial stone for our parents, and also cleaning away the moss from our Gran's stone too. Because I was not able to go this year, I lit a couple of candles for them here at home.
The photo of my Dad (Norman) was taken in about 1946, and is dedicated to his Mum & Dad. The photo of my Mum (Megan) is at my christening, so spring 1950. Norman died 4th Feb 1982 and Megan 1st October 2001. We chose 4 Feb to put her ashes with his, so that the books with their names are open on the same day, in the memorial chapel. It's become a lovely day - we usually have a very nice lunch in Cardiff afterwards, sometimes at one of the new places in Cardiff Bay, now very fashionable, but close to dereliction when we lived there; also close to where they both worked in the steelworks. Other times we seek out places that are still tucked away in the side streets of Cardiff town centre, where we spent our youth!

31st January 2010- a month already!

... ain't it funny how time slips away? I gave myself the month off, and celebrated it with doing some things that were not possible when working. Going to Perpignan by train was one adventure, described below - coming back was another! The weather map here shows what France looked like -  partout et toujours il pleut, rain streaking past the TGV window at 200kmph.

Still, here's another lovely ECM CD cover in the making, it's l'Etang de Thau, a waterfowl nature park on the Med near Agde. The cloud is Altostratus.
When we got back to UK we found that people here had continued to battle with snow. After a weekend with the Permaculture Association Board of Trustees, (during which I was introduced to the Clock of the Long Now: this is officially 02010, if you think in 10,000 year chunks of future history, which sort-of puts my next 20 years into perspective!) that left only a few days to really experience the "not-having-to.." of retirement.  I am glad to report that I am learning to play the concertina (a smaller instrument, as previously discussed...) and have mastered a two-octave scale across both sides, as well as playing The Marianne Waltz very slowly (another example of a long now!).

And this weekend went to see the last gig in the Imagined Village tour on London's South Bank... Chris Wood, Eliza and Martin Carthy fronting a 'big band' consisting of Dhol drums, Sitar, fiddles, mandolin, double bass, an applemac computer, and the lovely voices of guests Jackie Oates and the Young Coppers... O how we all enjoyed shouting "bollox" to Nick Griffin! (Part of the BNP agenda is to try & hijack English Folk Music for its own ends... this multicultural group show England as it really can be!) Guardian review by Robin Denselow

The last photo, taken from Hungerford Bridge, is for Eileen and my friends from ILEA days - crossing the river at Waterloo, say "hello London"and it says hello back :-). See also Micalet's slideshow

So, I should be starting to do some work again soon - well, sometime this week  - as long as the sun doesn't shine, because there are masses of country walks here in Sussex, just waiting for us OAPs!