The best time of the day (by Raymond Carver)
Cool summer nights.
Windows open.
Lamps burning.
Fruit in the bowl.
And your head on my shoulder.
These the happiest moments in the day.
Next to the early morning hours,
of course. And the time
just before lunch.
And the afternoon, and
early evening hours.
But I do love
these summer nights.
Even more, I think,
than those other times.
The work finished for the day.
And no one who can reach us now.
Or ever.
… and exhale…
Today is the first day in ages that I have no commitments, no appointments, no email that I must write or the world will stop spinning, no vital phone call to make or places to be…
Feels good to get back to the routine.
(I must be getting old).
Now, don’t you think I’m going to be free to sit on the sofa and knit, for example… don’t be silly… life still goes on, the laundry marathon has just taken two loads backwards since I stripped my bed, I have no vegetables in the house for tonight’s dinner so that means a trip to the shops at some point, and I do need to contact the gate company for a replacement lock and the music guy because last night the system wouldn’t switch off and No 1 and I had climb into the attic and literally pull the plug on the thing.
First world problems.
The rain which hasn’t stopped falling on and off for three days doesn’t even bother me. Today.
Rain rain don’t care.
After all it means cricket matches get cancelled and that can only be a good thing, right? Every year they try to sell me cricket as a dreamy time of sitting on a comfy chair, in the sun, birds chirping in the trees, sipping Pimm’s and eating cucumber sandwiches with not a care in the world.
Ha.
Well it’s not.
I’ve been to rugby matches in November that have been warmer than recent cricket events… the camp chair gives me back ache, you never know when is your kid’s turn because everybody is wearing white and the boys all look the same, it’s full of words that frankly don’t make sense… LBW, ducks, floaters, popping crease, return crease, spinner, cutter, maiden, leg bye… I could go on and on but you get the gist…
And don’t get me started about trying to get grass stains off white trousers and elbows.
Don’t.
Anyway, if I do get a little time to play I might do a little bit of this:
with a cup of tea. Totally non-thinking activity, very calming and soothing, perfect for raining Friday morning.
And now if you’ll excuse me I’ll happily get started on my boring day.
(After I put a cardigan on. It’s bloody freezing).
Invictus (by William Ernest Henley)
Out of the night which covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
There are a few things I don’t like about motherhood… and I’m not talking about the lost nights or the endless driving kids around, or the unavoidable nagging… or the mountains of laundry… no, it’s getting up in the morning and having to hand out punishments wishing 45 seconds from getting out of bed. Thinking about it it’s probably my least favourite thing of all.
It sets this horrible tone for the rest of the day. They all go to school and I’m left with an empty house and lots of time to think what I’m doing wrong that I can’t get through to them a few simple rule.
For example, this morning… I get out of bed groggy and with a stiff neck (must change the pillow) and the first thing I see when I enter one of the boys (I won’t say who)… is an iPad on the bed…. which means he was so tired when he fell asleep that he couldn’t even remember to hide the bloody thing!
We have rule that everything must handed in at bed time, you see. AND the aforementioned device was supposed to be ‘broken’ and ‘unusable’.
Yeah right.
I am furious.
He knows.
Trust me on that.
And if I ever were to meet the person who invented snapchat…
Did I mention my stiff neck? That doesn’t help either, believe me.
So know they’re all off… probably in ten minutes they’ll be on the bus laughing with their friends… moaning about the most unreasonable and overreacting mother in the world (I hold the cup today no doubt) and I’m left here stewing all day with a knotted feeling in my stomach.
You know what I mean? those… stupid thoughts like… ‘what if something happens and the last thing he remembers of me was a telling off?’… that kind of ridiculous thought.
They never tell you about these things at antenatal class. They talk about nappies and burping… but the keep hidden the heart wrenching stuff, the guilt you feel even when you do things or set boundaries for their own good. Not yours. Never yours and yet you’re the one who feel bad because the instinct is to always make them feel good and happy and give them what they want.
Which is bad. And then you feel bad because they feel bad.
Sigh.
The great circle of life.
It’s pants, sometimes.
Speaking of which… who loses pants on the pavement? I mean… seriously…
Anyway, busy day. Stiff neck. Mountain(s) of laundry.
Onwards and upwards, right?
… don’t lose your underwear.
This World (by Mary Oliver)
I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.
Diana Gabaldon, author of ‘Outlander’
It was inevitable.
Not every book can be amazing and perfect, right?
And this one is not awful, I’ve come across far worse, it’s just that I really really struggled to get into the story… so much so that I’d find myself playing sudoku in bed rather than reading and that is just plain wrong.
I love reading in bed!
I had bought this during the holidays and most likely if I were sunbathing lazily on a beach, rather than flapping around like a crazy chicken, this would have been just peachy… but I’m having a really busy month and this book just doesn’t grab me. Not the time travelling, not the history, not the romance.
And it’s not because it’s not highbrow enough… hey I was totally in love with the whole Twilight vampire saga (…Team Edward all the way…) after all.. it’s just that… well I just didn’t like it.
Apparently it’s a good TV series. (Not in the UK? never heard of it)
The next book it’s not a novel… we’ll see how that goes.
So… you might be expecting this post to be about a wonderful jumper/sweater (you pick) designed by a lovely lady and knitted by yours truly with truly wonderful yarn… but no.
I’m too traumatised.
This whole taking picture of yourself thing? Much harder than you think. Take it from me.
I’m in the house alone so first I had to track down the tripod which should have been in its rightful place in my study but wasn’t, of course. First stop No 1’s room where I found the box… empty of course. No 2 had the tripod – and I don’t want to know why.
First attempt:
I wasn’t ready. And I realised it looks posed but I swear that’s the face I pulled whilst recounting something to my friend Helen. Stop reading now if you wish. I won’t be offended.
Take 2:
Slightly better although it’s obvious that I was trying to suck up my double chin. And the whole matching hair/sweater/radiator cover? A truly amazing fluke. (I was being sarcastic when I said ‘amazing’, I look like an advert for ‘burnt sienna’)
This is my favourite:
It’s all … fuzzy, moody…. out of focus (on purpose of course… ahem)… very cool…
Still here? Well, well aren’t we gluttons for punishment…
This one was sooooo bad I had to chop it in half. (Who else can manage out-of-focus on an automatic setting… geesh).
And here…
well, in this photo I look quite fed up with the whole thing and I’m thinking of getting a hanger or do a flat lay instead. And if it looks like the cuffs are of different length? it’s because they truly are. I’ve only just noticed it and I’m really annoyed about it.
No I’m not going to do anything about it.
But forget about my failing modelling career, or my ineptitude at counting rows…let’s talk more seriously about this pattern.
It’s fabulous. Easy, perfect to watch TV and knit at the same time and with enough details to make it interesting when the miles and miles of stockinette stitch begin to wear you down or when season six of Homeland is finished (what??).
Look at that shoulder… how lovely is that?
It’s the perfect ‘throw it one’ and go sweater and I’m very pleased with how it turned out.
The yarn? by Uncommon Thread is just divine. It feels amazing on (no sarcasm this time), the only thing is I wasn’t ready for how much ‘relaxed’ it became after washing. I would have knitted the body about 4 inches shorter than what I did. But that’s entirely my fault for not swatching.
I know, I know… rookie mistake…
There is a strong possibility that I’ll knit another one. After all we’ve just started ‘Breaking bad’. We’ve been hit by the curse of Netflix.
… this one took a while…
I really enjoyed it, loved it even for like 75% of the time, (non sequitur: it took me about 43 seconds to find the % key… sigh) for the other 25% of the time I could have thrown it out of the window.
On the Penguin’s website the summary is like this:
But i’s so much more. It’s intense and loud, and beautiful and ugly and poetic and cruel and you want to reach out into the books and grab the two character by the throat and give them a good shake and inject them with a super dose of reality.
Exhausting at times, which is probably why I could only read a little at a time.
And the END? I did not expect that. Although the more I think about it the more it’s like
I loved the way this edition look too. Perfect for its content.
Next up ‘G’… and I’m afraid it’ll be a holiday book that I’ve had on my kindle for a while… not quite so highbrow… but hey… my reading my rules…
I feel like I need to begin this post with a picture of bluebells spotted on my walk last Saturday because everybody is posting about bluebells and I hate feeling left out. There, you’ve seen them, now let’s move on because if there is one thing I hate more than feeling left out is following the crowd.
I’m a gemini, that’s my excuse.
Oh and yesterday? this happened…
No, seriously, I was left with a handle in my hand. And no cup. And lots of tea on the floor. What are the chances of that? (Annoyingly that was the gorgeous cup from Tokyo… sigh… handmade of course. Never happens to the cheap stuff).
So… first day back to school for the boys today, when the alarm went off this morning I was still deep deep in this weird dream where Mr M and I were watching some sort of government sponsored show in a church, waiting for his father and trying to convince this girl that I really Italian and therefore not qualified to get on stage and crack a whip around. Don’t ask. I think it had something to do with watching the first two episode of House of Cards last night. Sightly sinister show, don’t you think? And with the current world political scenario… it’s kind of scary, frankly.
The boys have been working on Mr M for a while and whilst I was in Italy last week the wore him down and now we have Netflix and nothing NOTHING will ever be accomplished ever again around here because all I want to do is watch the Gilmore Girls.
I had heard of the show before… but never really watch it… and then my sister kept going on and on about it and I thought she was way too obsessed about it… and then… I started watching it and now I’m totally obsessed about it too.
It’s a disaster. A runaway train to nowhere. So far this morning I have resisted. I told myself that I must go through my list first and if I’m a good productive girl I can reward myself with one episode whilst having lunch.
And then… check this out… I thought of this.
One good thing of following the list to the letter is that I did laundry… lots and lots of laundry.. which in turn has produced lots and lots of ironing… and you know what’s the best thing to do whilst ironing… watching TV….
The great circle of life.
I’m a genius.
Over and out.
I know my soul (by Claude McKay)
I plucked my soul out of its secret place,
And held it to the mirror of my eye,
To see it like a star against the sky,
A twitching body quivering in space,
A spark of passion shining on my face.
And I explored it to determine why
This awful key to my infinity
Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace.
And if the sign may not be fully read,
If I can comprehend but not control,
I need not gloom my days with futile dread,
Because I see a part and not the whole.
Contemplating the strange, I’m comforted
By this narcotic thought: I know my soul.
while you're ahead... 