Aerogarden

I planted up the aerogarden on January 8th. Along the back row left to right there is mint, basil, dill, thyme. Front row: purple basil, chives, parsley (which so far annoyingly has failed to germinate). Didn't realise until the herbs had germinated that thyme has now been substituted for the coriander (cilantro). Bit of a nuisance as more of the recipes I use regularly call for coriander than thyme.

This morning the sun is beaming out of a clear blue sky and reflecting off the scattering of white. I had planned to go over the allotment but I think it's going to be a cold one! Maybe I should just stay here for the morning and finish the online application I started yesterday for a secretarial job.

Culinary Success!

Tonight's tasty home-cooked meal was Thai Green Chicken curry served with fragrant Thai rice, broccoli and organically home-grown brussel sprouts and mashed swede. The chicken was really tender and delicious. There is still a full row of swede to lift over the allotment before I hand it over to a new tenant.

After dinner I took the digital camera out into the cold night air to try and capture the sight of Mars shining it's brightest alongside the moon. It's possible to just about make out Mars in the photos - maybe my old 35mm SLR camera and telephoto lens could have done better.

Culinary flop!

Not all my culinary efforts are successful. Now you might be forgiven for thinking that the photo shows two respectable Yorkshire puddings. Sadly not. Today is my neighbour's little boy's first birthday so I thought it would be a nice gesture to make him a birthday cake. If you check out the blog entry for 27th December 2009 you'll get the idea. I really don't know why these are such a flop - unless it's because I mixed two types of fat. I didn't have sufficient soft margarine so I made it up with butter. Would that do it?

Anyway, suffice it to say that I abandoned the idea of giving this cake to my neighbour. I had to go into town anyway this afternoon for an interview at the Job Centre so I used the trip as an opportunity to buy the kid a wooden shape-sorting puzzle instead. The present was very well received.

One half of the cake I have used as the basis for a large trifle, the other I gave to a friend for her to do something with. Now I just have to find someone on whom to bestow the trifle. Any takers?

Focusing on the positive

Yesterday's Spiritual Journeying meeting went extremely well, I'm pleased to report. There were 13 attendees and every single one joined in the conversation. It was stimulating and enjoyable (and for me, an answered prayer).

Dinner tonight was also very enjoyable - not to mention colourful and healthy. Salmon cooked in a foil parcel with olive oil, lemon juice, vine-ripened tomatoes and red sweet pepper, served with potatoes and courgettes oven-roasted in olive oil and fresh broccoli. It made up for a wasted afternoon, but I won't go into that. Let's focus on the positive.

Beautiful Sunset

This morning I was getting together the material I need to facilitate tonight's 'Spiritual Journeying' group session on 'Metaphors for Life'. The weather was deceptive, the clear blue sky and sunshine looked lovely through the window from my cosy study. It wasn't until I caught the bus down to my hairdressing appointment I discovered just how cold it was!

I've now taken the first steps towards getting back to work. I've applied for a part-time secretarial job and visited the local Jobcentre.

Meanwhile the diet wandered off track over the weekend but tomorrow is another day - and that glorious red sky holds a lot of promise.

Dog-Sitting

I agreed to look after Rusty for the weekend whilst his family were away. I had an inkling beforehand that I should refuse. On Friday afternoon I took him for a long walk over the common then gave him his dinner. Whilst I was preparing my dinner, he asked to go out so I let him out in the garden. Unfortunately he found a dead bird I had no idea was there, which strangely held more appeal than the dog food supplied - but not for long. Once indoors, he sicked it back up. Not exactly something you want to be dealing with clearing up just before a guest arrives to share a meal, believe me!

Then this morning again I took him for a walk and he did his business so I felt safe leaving him for an hour or so whilst I went to the local church. Mistake. I came home to find a huge puddle, two piles of poo and more vomit. This time he ignored his bowl of dog food in favour of the soil from one of my house plants which evidently disagreed with him.

Sunday lunch doesn't hold much appeal right now!

The Not-So-White Stuff

The snow from Tesco's car park looks more like slag heaps where it has been piled in various places.

Today began murky but brightened briefly towards mid-afternoon, the sun slanting through the stained glass window of the church where a special ceremony of remembrance was taking place. Last year one of my close friends lost her grandson in a tragic road traffic accident. Recently her own son's grief was sharply rekindled by a stranger remarking that the boy's spirit couldn't rest because he hadn't been baptised. My friend turned to me and asked if it would be possible for a minister of religion to say some words over a photograph to ensure that her grandson's spirit could be at peace and provide the reassurance her son needed. Thus I was privileged to join with her in a brief but touching memorial service. The person conducting the service drew our attention to how steadily the candle flame was burning. Then a robin caught my friend's attention as it perched at a window stretching its neck to peer in at us - a robin, she explained, holds a special significance for her of another family member's presence. The steady candle flame, the robin, the unexpected sun streaming through the window ... what wonderful testimony or reassurance they gave my friend of a loving God embracing her beloved grandson.

Dancing in the Streets

Just got in from an evening of live entertainment at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking, and when I say 'live', there was so much energy it was electric! This fantastic show features many of the old Motown classics. If you ever enjoyed music from The Four Tops, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes or Stevie Wonder, I can recommend it. Certainly had the audience on our feet dancing in the aisles if not the streets, and brought some 'sunshine on a cloudy day' to my life, after another depressing stint over the allotment clearing up from the arson attack on the sheds.

Glorious Sunshine!

At the Quaker meeting I went to this morning one of the Friends spoke of the difficulty we have when something like the terrible earthquake in Haiti happens, in reconciling such cruel events in Nature with a belief in a kind and loving God. She brought a reading from a Quaker scientist which turned to this difficult topic and spoke of how two irreconcilable truths can become the stepping stone to new knowledge. As I contemplated the words, my thoughts turned to how, if we look in a mirror and see a flaw reflected there, we don't blame the mirror or the mirror's maker, rather we use what we see in the reflection to make a decision or take appropriate action. As I thought on the implications of this, I found the question surfacing: but if the created world - if nature - is merely reflecting the face of the observer, whose is that face: God's or humanity's? Rather than an answer, another question arose in my thoughts: what makes you think the two are different? Various bible verses and doctrine came to mind, such as Jesus saying "I am in the Father and the Father is in me", and that Christians are "One in Christ". As these thoughts were busy in my mind, another Friend stood and spoke about Love, the concept that God is Love, and brought the bible reading from Paul's letter to the Corinithians including the verse I had in mind when I named this blog: now we see in a glass darkly ...


After lunch I decided to make the most of the beautiful weather (mild and gloriously sunny with a clear blue sky) to go and begin the task of clearing up the allotment. Regular readers will remember I wrote last month that vandals have burnt down both of the sheds on my plot. It's dirty work but somebody's got to do it, right? It proved more tiring and dis-spiriting than I had ever imagined, disposing of the metal skeletons of gifts from my loving offspring, etc. I had toyed with the idea of hiring a skip but finally dismissed that idea in favour of using cardboard boxes and rubble sacks to cart the stuff down the dump. The past few weeks of inactivity have impacted my fitness level and I'd had enough after barely an hour's work. Then there was a 20 minute queue at the dump. By the time I got home I was nearly in tears with tiredness and despondency over the sad waste of it all - very unusual for me.

The one bright spot on the horizon is that another allotment-holder approached me. It seems she has also recently separated from her husband, and is thinking that the full plot will be more than she can reasonably manage single-handedly along with working full-time. She knew I was thinking of giving up the allotment and she suggested I'd miss it if I gave up totally - how about I take on a spare corner of her plot? At the moment it sounds like an offer too good to refuse (but I'll sleep on it a while to see if it still sounds good when I'm not feeling so down).

The Thaw Continues

Rain overnight has begun to make a difference, chasing away the white stuff to reveal the greenery underneath. For the first time since the heavy snowfall, I made it down the gym today. Boy, did that feel good, not least because the car started first go, despite having sat out in the cold unused for over a week. From the gym I went on to do some grocery shopping at the supermarket. Not such a good plan as by then the place was heaving at the seams. Might have been better to do the supermarket early, before the gym. Oh well ... live and learn as the saying goes.

The rain continued much of the morning, combining with the melt to flood the roads in places. With the snow gone, the pothole damage to the roads becomes only too apparent, making the drive home something of an obstacle course trying to avoid the worst of the potholes and the floods. It was also noticeable how many trees have shed large branches under the weight of all that snow. The thaw might be well under way but the country will take a little longer to recover from the consequences of the weather ... and the wheelie bins still haven't been emptied.

I had hoped to get over the allotment and start clearing up the debris from the fire but it was far too wet today.

The Thaw Begins

There's still snow lying around, plus a lot of slush and ice. The local roads haven't received any attention from gritters or snowploughs, and have deep ruts of slush. If anything today the local pavements seem more slippy than ever with the thaw in progress and ankle-deep puddles to catch the unwary. I had planned on celebrating the thaw with a walk into town but discovering how treacherous the pavements were, I settled on catching the bus down. Went to the library and took out a couple of DVDs and had a general wander round - it felt good to be out and about.

Living in hope, I'd put the wheelie bins out but they remain unemptied.

FlashForward - What Did YOU See?

Last year I was an avid follower of FlashForward, the TV series based on a novel by Robert J Sawyer. We had a 'mid-season finale' back before Christmas and sf fans all over the UK eagerly await the resumption of the story.

There was a little coincidence I enjoyed at one point - before the series commenced I bought a 5 disc DVD set of What The Bleep Do We Know, and got around to watching the first disc which happens to describe the 'Two Slits Experiment', so I got a good feeling akin to having done my homework when the experiment was mentioned in FlashForward and I understood the reference.

Meanwhile struggling with impatience to know how the story goes, I got the novel out of the library and read it. I was surprised on different levels - one being that the book was written as long ago as 1999; another that the novel and the TV show are so different. Aspects of the TV series that had grated on me and irritated just weren't there at all in the original novel. The characters in the novel seemed much more sympathetically drawn to me than the key characters invented for the purpose of the TV series. Anyway, some very interesting stuff (although I think I'd need an extended course in quantum physics to be able to fully appreciate the science).

How expectations can lead to disappointment

As the icicles dangling from the gutter get longer, more snow arrives - another inch or so joining the snow still lying around from last week's blizzard conditions.

Lately I've been thinking about how my own expectations sometimes lead to disappointment. Here's a f'rinstance: when a friend came out of hospital and was open to receiving some practical help, I took round a couple of meals from my freezer. These were home-cooked meals catering to the different dietary requirements of the family, in containers suitable for microwaving, and in addition I supplied baking potatoes (raw). Now normally, when I've supplied meals for friends in need in the past, I've driven round and delivered them at dinner-time already hot and ready to eat. On this occasion with the roads in the condition they are and the fact that I was going out for the evening, it was more convenient to me to walk round whilst it was still light and leave it to my friend and her family to bake the potatoes and reheat the meals. It didn't occur to me until later that this might have disappointed my friend's expectations, and only then because I realised that I had anticipated a text or email thanking me for the meal and complimenting me on my cooking, and been disappointed when no such message arrived. It was interesting observing the way my thoughts went, thinking about the idea of 'non-attachment' and wondering if a gift is given in expectation of receiving gratitude, can it really be considered a gift, or does it become a trade?

PS The message of grateful thanks arrived later, after I'd written this post.

Brave blackbird

Today a blackbird challenged my report that only a robin was brave enough to come close to the patio window - he hopped to within a few inches, cocking his head at me questioningly then hopping under the garden table and regarding me steadily through the glass as though drawing my attention to the lack of sustenance there. Meanwhile the tray of food I put on the wall has become covered with a layer of snow.

Day 3 of the Big Snow

Yesterday I put out for the birds this smorgasbord of seeds, etc. I placed it under the garden table so it wouldn't become covered in snow, but only the robin was brave enough to visit with it being right next to the patio window.

At the other end of the garden in front of the shed there is a low brick wall with domed coping stones on which I've laid a bag of compost and on that perched a flat receptacle of water which the birds use as a watering hole or bath according to their preference. Here it is covered in snow.

Now I've cleared off the snow and put some fresh water in there, and on top of that balanced the tray of birdfood. Already the robin has approved the new location.

The brilliant sunshine reflecting from the snow gives a fantastic sparkling quality to the light and to the landscape. As I sat looking out of the window I was thinking about how snow transforms the landscape totally - and so quickly! From there my thoughts turned to prayers, turning to God and inviting Him to totally transform the landscape of my life so that it's purity will reflect His glory.

Awwww!

Some hoodies came and mugged my snowman - he is no more!

Frosty the snowman comes to town

Next morning and it's still snowing so I went out and did the sensible thing ... had fun building a snowman!

Hey ho, yet more snow!

It's been falling steadily since around 6 pm this evening and is already around 5 inches deep or more. The world in muffled silence is a very different place indeed to the sparkling sunshine of yesterday's bitter frost.

At the moment it's looking unlikely I'll make it to the gym tomorrow.