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Text of the page (random words):
oil itself in december the first batch of home grown compost was spread on our garden i don t mind sounding ridiculous here it was a great satisfaction to me this compost took two years to accumulate in a purpose made bin behind the garage countless trips with a pail of kitchen scraps not to mention leaves and grass cuttings from many seasons then two years to marinate in its own heat and weight to break down to become a dense rich brown when we lifted the heavy canvas i was thrilled in the most physical sense of the word to see what eight seasons had wrought is two years a long time or a surprisingly short one for such a transformation so often it is our small consistent efforts that gradually so gradually amount to some really worthwhile change all year i feel like i have been making compost of various kinds and sometimes the effort has felt rather futile no doubt i have been nourished all along even if the more obvious effects have been deferred posted by bee at 19 52 38 comments labels january wednesday 9 november 2011 through a glass darkly from the sculpture gallery at chatsworth many bloggers who i greatly admire have explained that their blog is a space for counting blessings for appreciating simple pleasures for capturing moments of beauty i completely understand that this is our chance to show our best side many of us prefer to sing a hymn to happiness most of us prefer to hear that song but i would just like to say that maybe there is also a need for a hint of disquiet just occasionally a murmur of pain or a streak of ugliness would not go amiss i know that i should know better but sometimes a beautiful blog will make me feel that there are those amongst us who live perfect lives i don t mind well not too much that other people s lives are more aesthetically pleasing and creatively engaged but what really causes a pang is when other people s lives seem happier i know realistically that there must be a shadow side to every beautifully lit image but it is so easy to be beguiled a couple of weeks ago i received the sad news that an old schoolmate had died actually he committed suicide when i read the obituary it described a life that seemed perfect in every conceivable way happy marriage healthy children successful business great friends loads of fulfilling hobbies perhaps that was all true but it read like a big whitewash of what was probably a normal human life that had become unendurable for some reason i hadn t seen this man in years but his death has haunted me was he the sort of person who always had to tell you how great everything was was he afraid to fail to be frail last year i read barbara ehrenreich s smile or die how positive thinking fooled america and the world and i remember thinking that always looking on the bright side can be so downright tyrannical surely sadness and struggle are as much a part of life as the brighter lighter side of the spectrum a positive attitude won t necessarily cure cancer calm a surly teenager or lead to a good job offer in a bad economy what a comfort it is to say i feel low i m angry and sad and have someone reply that they feel that way too sometimes i think that there can be an incredible pressure on women especially to focus on the positive and eliminate the negative i often feel like a cross between cheerleader and peacekeeper always ready with the pep talk or soothing word whichever is required i know that many women feel this way if i really want to tell the truth and let it all hang out emotionally speaking then i have to find a female friend as i mentioned in my last blog i m feeling a bit drained of buoyant spirits right now thank you for your supportive comments they helped posted by bee at 19 51 47 comments labels barbara ehrenreich emotional challenges wednesday 2 november 2011 pensive my youngest daughter at chatsworth an entire season of months has ebbed and so many thoughts and experiences have just dried up and blown away rather like the leaves which are being shed with dispatch now that it is november we ve had big things going on in our family life huge transitions in the youngest and oldest generations and i m here in the middle feeling battered by it all my husband has some pressing worries and last night he twitched for hours until just giving up long before dawn on the attempt to sleep that sort of sleepless night is more common than not at the moment i don t feel that the details are necessarily mine to share so unsatisfactorily i offer nothing but a tentative mood an emotional residue even though i ve experienced only the most kind and sympathetic side of blog friendship it s no use pretending that what i share here can be held in confidence stress has made me selfish and solitary certainly the act of blogging is as elastic as you want it to be but for me at least the reciprocity of it is essential over the past couple of months i ve been in this inward looking state that hasn t really lent itself to lots of external exchange i don t feel that it is right to talk if i don t have the time or energy to listen does this make sense hopefully i will tunnel out again and soon chatsworth gardens derbyshire posted by bee at 14 28 34 comments labels emotional challenges friday 29 july 2011 getting my feet wet it seems like about a minute ago that we were plunging into summer and now august is already looming so many important experiences have just been waves on the sand roll on relentless time i ve been on a blog vacation not by any plan or design but just because i haven t had the time space to order my thoughts many years ago i had a dream of becoming a journalist but one of the many flaws of that career plan is that i need time and space to write i don t think well under pressure i ve never been any good at soundbites or punchlines i can t come up with the first and i can t remember the second my youngest daughter graduated from school a few weeks ago not many children change schools at age 13 but there is something wonderfully appropriate about 13 as the age of transition after weeks of farewell dinners and concerts and plays and exhibitions there was a beautiful ceremony designed just for the leavers and their parents the children chose their favourite hymns and scriptures including those true and memorable lines from ecclesiastes to everything there is a season a time for every purpose under the sun a simple powerful truth our move to oxford has been put off for a year and maybe longer all signs have pointed to stay although my youngest daughter will be moving there for school she started digging in her heels at the thought of too much change all at the same time meanwhile we didn t have even a nibble on the house i have a new job close by and sigmund is still looking for the right opportunity it took me a few months to accept this change of plan but i ve come around now i ve started making plans for the garden again it s time to weed and replant there are holes to fill meanwhile summer we ve already done the back to school shopping but the new woolen kilt and leather shoes can be packed away for now it s time to plant our feet in the surf and let the sand run through our fingers i m embracing what s here and now posted by bee at 15 29 33 comments labels cornwall summer friday 17 june 2011 many happy returns today is my oldest daughter s golden birthday she is seventeen on the 17th of june we moved to england when i was 7 months pregnant with rebecca and i remember so vividly that last long week of waiting and how the days seemed to be suspended caught in amber dragged out into long golden twilight i remember feeling really impatient to know what this unknown person was going to be like and the answer was smart strong fierce quick witted opinionated stubborn and charming she looked like her father still does but never more so than the moment she was born she was quick to walk to talk to read she was impatient and bossy but with an endearing giggle and an unexpected tender side i hardly remember life before her and i m amazed at how quickly the years of her childhood have gone by how clichéd is that at this time of year i m always really conscious of the fact that we are climbing ever nearer to the summer solstice does anyone else feel slightly melancholy when we tip over to the other side and the days begin to gradually diminish and now as my oldest daughter nears adulthood i think about how we are nearing some sort of zenith but a kind of falling off point too and unlike the seasons my daughter s childhood won t come around again that funny little person my little beccalou who always had her nose in a book is just a snapshot now in a week my daughter will be going to ghana and who knows how that challenge will change her later on this summer she will experience job internships university applications a trip to cyprus a long weekend at the reading festival solo adventures all not unaccompanied but unaccompanied by me i m happy for her and delighted by her growing confidence and sense of her own powers there is nothing at seventeen but a world of possibility and mothers need to make way and step aside but she knows where to find me happy birthday rebecca and many happy returns posted by bee at 06 17 34 comments labels birthdays daughters thursday 2 june 2011 best of show despite the intermittent rain june is bustin out all over here in our little west berkshire corner of england may is usually my busiest gardening month of the year but this spring i ve been resting on my laurels except for a frequent circuit with the watering can and very occasional weeding i ve let well enough alone and my roses and peonies have rewarded me anyway i spent most of may sowing a different kind of seed and it s kept me so occupied that i ve had little time for gardening blogging or anything else like my generous roses i hope you will excuse my neglect as a brief explanation last september i organised a book club for my youngest daughter and her friends this venture has mushroomed into several new book related projects which started in april another book club for 11 year olds this time and two reading classes all of a sudden i ve been given free rein to develop what amounts to three different reading lists and not just for this spring but for next year too reading for pleasure reading for enrichment reading to encourage more reading these are my only imperatives it s a dream job for me really as one of my best friends said yesterday you get to read all day and justify it as work yes exactly but it s a responsibility too and i really want to get it right i ve always thought of the age of 11 as one of the golden ages of reading it s the age of unconscious delight of really getting lost in a book most readers are outgrowing predictable texts and series books and discovering books with much more emotional and intellectual richness in england at least it s the age before cell phones and social networking and thus maybe the last or at least the best chance of turning a child into an avid reader i ve often talked about book love in this space and it has been gratifying to realise that my blog friends are a bookish bunch i can t resist then asking for some recommendations what books classics or contemporary british or american did you love best when you were 11 12 or 13 what books have your children or students loved best posted by bee at 18 43 36 comments labels books roses wednesday 4 may 2011 war stories the cazalet chronicles next week i am taking a group of students to see the theatrical production of war horse and to visit the classic war stories for children exhibit at the imperial war museum for the past couple of weeks i ve been reading the five children s novels which feature in the exhibit and it feels like the culmination of a year of reading novels which feature war especially world war ii as the backdrop these are war stories but they don t concern themselves with warfare or famous battles rather they focus in on the privations and struggles of the home front i hadn t planned on this reading theme but my interest in persephone novels saplings or the village for instance has landed me squarely in the mid 20th century period which was so dominated by the long years of the war followed by the long fall out economically and emotionally from the war it is a period that still grips the imagination and shapes the national character of great britain for instance at last week s royal wedding the balcony scene was as much about the flyover the raf battle of britain memorial flight which featured a lancaster hurricane and a spitfire as it was about a kiss how many times have you wedding newshounds and i admit to being in your company read about queen elizabeth s austerity wedding in 1947 rather infamously even a royal princess needed ration coupons to buy the material for her wedding dress if the recent wedding between prince william and kate middleton has aroused in your interest in england s finest hour i would thoroughly recommend the cazalet chronicles by elizabeth jane howard the chronicles are actually four novels the light years marking time confusion and casting off and none of them are short but unlike the war they don t drag on although the first novel might feel a little crowded as howard introduces the many voices of her sprawling cast of characters by the time i got to the final novel i was reading with a sort of absorbed frenzy and then suffering from withdrawal symptoms if only there had been another one i could entirely identify with the person as recounted in howard s memoir slipstream who wrote the author and begged her to reveal what was going to happen next in her memoir howard explains that she wanted to write the novels in order to show how england had changed during the war p 434 slipstream the device of a family saga is a perfect one for her purpose because it features three generations of a family neatly encompassing the cultural shifts of each generation the wealthy grandparents whose summer home in sussex becomes the family base are victorian theirs is a world of comfort and order made possible by a vast web of loyal domestic help the next generation that of the parents has been blighted physically and emotionally by world war i they are still dutiful to the old traditions but their lives especially as represented by their relationships are rather frayed at the edges the youngest generation represented by three young female cousins come of age during the war they don t exactly raise themselves but in many senses some of them quite literal their parents are absent by the end of the series it is obvious that they will have to make their own way in a very changed world one of three female leads the character of louise has a life which closely parallels that of the author howard has a fine touch with detail and all through the novels i felt immersed in the complete atmosphere of the world she recreates if you want lots of domestic detail to ...