Flight

Flight or falling? Whats the difference?




Neither is possible without letting go.



Coming or going?






Sometimes the only way to see the view is from the air.








And here are some other flying things.

Bats in the South of France - my friends house was right on their flight path.
I think my number one super-power of choice would be teleportation - but flight would come a close second.



Apologies to those of you who have seen this 2nd video before - though it was some time ago. The action starts just after half way through....



Starlings preparing to roost under Eastbourne pier.



a Theme Thursday post

right royal rant

I had such a nice post in mind for this lovely Sunday, but am too mad since reading about our less-than-beloved-by-many royal family in yesterday's newspaper.

These are among the richest people in the world.

They get paid an annual salary/allowance out of the taxes of ordinary people in the UK.

Over recent years that allowance (the "civil list") has been set at £7.9million per annum, on an assumption in the 1970s of an annual 7.5% inflation rate.

The 1970s deal also states that the civil list payment can never be reduced. (WTF??)

Even though inflation has been way lower than this for years now and even though our less than universally admired royals have been building up quite an unspent surplus in the fund.

The newspaper report I read cited an unspent £21 million surplus in the civil list at the moment.


This would be bad enough in times of economic equilibrium and stability.

In our current economic context, it is a right royal scandal.



And the worst of it? they are not asking just ("just") for continued contributions at the existing rate.

They are asking for a raise. You can read the full report here.


I am beyond mad and speechless.
I am more than just a little pissed off.


Thats all.

Wild

Logan, pretending to be wild.


When actually, he's really just pussycat.






A Thursday Theme.

Alice in the Channel Islands

Alice arrived in London from California, and almost immediately was on the move again.

The next stage of her journey began in a South London railway station, and ended in Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands which lie between England and France.




Her adventures there are too numerous to chronicle here, but they included this visit to Gorey castle which made her feel even smaller than ever. She was not the only visitor to the castle, there were also some terrifyingly beautiful birds of prey which had her racing breathlessly back to the safety of her carriage.

She preferred the beach and the sea and gazed longingly at the surfers and wind-surfers and boaters splashing about.



The thought of sogginess kept her firmly on dry land. She'd had previous bad experiences with salty water.

Over the hill

both photos taken in Suffolk, England. March 2009



a Theme Thursday post

Unexpected

I did a bit of beach-combing on Friday - in Greenwich, London.

Here in fact:


photo from here, where there are some other great pictures of the Thames path.

I've heard tell there are fascinating historical finds to be made along the banks of the Thames, (and there was someone there with a metal detector) but despite working right there by the river, I've not found time - before Friday - to go down the steps from the Thames path by the Naval College which you can see in the picture, down onto the pebbles.

It was a thankfully-snatched lunch break in the midst of a gruellingly hectic day, and it did feel a bit like being by the sea... especially when a boat went by, making waves at the rivers edge. I closed my eyes and listened to the swell of the surf washing the edge of the riverbanks.

In places the banks of the Thames are more mud than anything, but by Greenwich there are lots of pebbles and flinty stones, even patches of sand - there were some shells, even riverglass though most of it wasn't caressed and washed smooth quite like seaglass. There were deformed and rusty chunks of metal and a lot of smooth strangely angled pieces which I think were bone.

My inability to leave a beach without one or two "combings" clearly extends to riverbanks as well - I did pick up and pocket a couple of things.


The heart of the larger stone is sparkly quartz.

I went back into the office with heavier pockets and a lighter heart.

rhythm

This post brought to you via Theme Thursday.

socks in Bexhill on sea

I guess he had cold toes....

Beginning

This Thursday's Theme did tax my brain a bit - but this is really a time of endings and beginnings for me, and for M, so I've been thinking in those terms about "beginning".

And so this picture - taken in East London's docklands, just across the Thames from where I live -



which is the ending of the day, but also the beginning of night.

There are all sorts of changes we're going through in my household and some of the endings are sad but many of them are positive - some also a relief. The beginnings are unpredictable - but then, thats life, isn't it? Its always unpredictable, even when we forget thats so.

There are always beginnings, at least potential beginnings, embedded in what we do from day to day, like secret seeds. Some of them might grow unseen into something lovely.

So my rather taxed brain thinks that beginnings often - normally? - include endings. But also that endings go with beginnings. "Segue into" beginnings. Segue is a good word.

I saw a conker today on the pavement. If you don't know what conkers are, click here for an old post I did about them. Way back when.... when I couldn't possibly have foreseen our current situation. A lot has ended and begun since then.

I was a little shocked to see that this conker was already ripe - like the elderberries I picked at the weekend. Autumn begins earlier these days than it used to, I'm not quite sure I'm ready for it.

But wearing cosy slippers again will be nice, theres nothing like a good pair of slippers, and open fires and that crisp chilly bright October air... Oh and autumn leaves....

And the seeds being shed now


will be there, dormant and waiting, ready for the beginning of Spring.



The cycle of life. Endings and beginnings. Commonplace and amazing, innit?



Oh, and as most of my work at the moment is to do with the beginning of our University term in 3 weeks time, eeek only 2 and a half weeks, I'm ultra-busy and apologise for not being "around" much in your comments at the moment. I hope to find more time soon...

Wordless weekend

Le Hocq, Jersey, Channel Islands

Not a limo...

... but it provided a less conspicuous mode of transport for Alice, stowing away in search of sunshine. She'd have been shaken to bits and flung about and entirely lost in a limo. And besides, south London is not overwhelmed with such luxury transportation.

A suitcase would have to do. A suitcase, a train, and - if she'd picked well - maybe even a plane.

The blank suburban windows gazed at her as she slipped into the suitcase pocket's darkness and heard the rush of the approaching train...




...to be continued, either here or there.


Not a limousine.
Not quite a proper Theme Thursday - do you think this counts?

I'm not sure I do, but I'm hoping to get away with it.

P.S.

My back-from-holiday post is just below this, but this is a brief P.S. about made4aid, to thank Wendy who has been looking after things while I've been away.

And we have a number of lovely items on sale at the moment - most of the auctions ending in the next week, so why not pop over and have a look?

seaside treasures

Blogging about the contents of my suitcase would have been such a good way to tell you about my holiday.

Such a shame I unpacked right after getting home yesterday (well, after a cup of tea of course...) and that I only had this great idea this morning.

Ah well.

I guess you may be relieved to know you wont be seeing photos of my dirty laundry after all.

The contents of my suitcase included these treasures from the beach - I am a compulsive beach-comber and I love how each beach has its own character. Some have pebbles with holes worn right through (these are among my favourite beach-treasures); some have shells; some have lots of sea glass (also very have-able).

I only discovered this year - after holidaying in Jersey for 25 years - that the beaches there have treasure like this.

Little fragments of china worn so satiny smooth by the sea's constant caressing, their patterns sometimes quite worn but still delicately decorative.

Tiny remnants, I wonder about their histories and their stories... Wouldn't it be fascinating to know?

kiss

Thankyou Theme Thursday, what a good theme.

The main kind of kiss that comes to my mind is a goodbye kiss

as I am off away on holiday today

So

lovely bloggers

back towards the end of August...

postcard from Brighton

M and I took a brief 3 day break in Brighton (English south coast) 2 weeks ago, while LG was in France with a school trip.

As we unwound a bit from work pressures, some worries about the future surfaced and we experienced and talked through anxieties about the changes our life is going through in relation to employment, income...

Big grown up stuff.

Being grown up sucks sometimes.

Our first afternoon in Brighton was rainy. But our mood brightened despite the damp.

And after the rain, came the sunshine.

and the summer evening sea was wonderful

As we returned home, on the train back from London Bridge to south London, the sky was just extraordinary.

The dramatically dark cloud threatened storm and worse, it truly glowered.

But beneath that was the promise of a clear evening and fair weather ahead.

wordless weekend

London, North bank of the Thames near St. Paul's.

Buttons

yay! I'm so delighted with this Thursday's Theme of buttons.



I love buttons. Its a bit of a fetish if I'm honest. Old buttons are most favoured and count as the best possible "find" for me at a car boot fair - a jar of old buttons with just glimpses of little treasures inside, and the prospect of coming home and sitting with a cup of tea and a tray, sorting through them all....

Some of my fondest childhood memories are being occupied whilst a bit poorly with my mum's button box - sorting through them, tying them into little bundles. She had buttons in that box from her mother and grandmother. And now I have them in my collection. Plus... um.... a few more ...



I do have a rather ridiculous amount of buttons. The 3 pictures here are just the medium sized buttons, medium-small, and buttons on cards. I have other receptacles of small/tiny buttons, large and extra large buttons, mother of pearl buttons, glass buttons, wooden buttons, metal ....

But I can't stop myself.

I am willing to share - I've done a couple of button swaps with other bloggers, now thats good fun and great to discovered kindred souls and be reassured that I'm not just weird. Or, if I am, that I'm not alone in my weirdness.

There are people who are button-phobic. My sister-in-law has a mild form of this. She does wear clothes with buttons and thats not a problem for her, but she would NEVER voluntarily put her hand into a box full of buttons, it freaks her out.

So whats weirder, having way more buttons than I could ever use, or finding buttons freaky?



I'd have enjoyed taking more photos of my buttons, particularly of individual and favourite buttons (I have faith that some (few?) of you will understand...) but I'm afraid I ran out of time, plus I have a lovely niece sleeping in the spare room where the buttons live... Maybe another time.

Some of my button collection are now finding a further vocation as I'm making and finishing projects for made4aid - in fact, before I knew that this was today's theme, I had some buttons out selecting fastenings for bags - so, here are previews - and they'll be on auction at made4aid later in the summer/autumn....

stuff

I just carried all this shopping home on the bus. Plus my swimming stuff.

Which was a bit silly as we now (after 25 years.....) have a car to carry heavy shopping. Albeit only an old mini which has not too much room, even if you take out the spare tyre.

(I make no comment on the silliness or otherwise of taking photos of my shopping. Blogger has a lot to answer for).

And some of the tension which swimming had dissolved away out of my shoulders returned as I walked from the bus stop to our house.

But I'm a sucker for all the cheap fruit and veg in the market (3 melons for £1! 2 pineapples for £1!! 8 avocados for £1!!! lots of other heavy stuff for £1!!!!) and I couldn't resist the sunflowers even though they were nearly the last straw.

On the upside, we will be eating healthily and drinking delicious and nutritious fruit smoothies over the next few days. And the sunflowers make me smile.

Suffolk

Some pictures from a visit to Suffolk in March. This is the East coast of England, on the big bulgy bit above London and the Thames estuary - beautiful countryside where I take long long walks with my friend Lucy and her crazy bouncy dog.

I wish I could have taken photos inside this cafe, it felt like stepping back into my childhood ...

Shoe

These are the shoes my daughter has been wearing to school since last September.

Come rain, shine, frost, snow...

I can't say that I'm happy about her choice but she has strenuously resisted any suggestion that more weatherproof shoes would be a good idea. Almost all other schoolgirls of her generation are wearing these slippery and insubstantial bits of tat and we gave in on this one rather than fight.

We took sensible shoes very seriously when she was little, and here is the first pair she ever wore for walking in, when she was about a year old:

Its ironic that she seems to be conforming to peer behaviour in relation to her school shoes, when her other clothing choices are far less conformist.

Her new rock boots were a combined birthday (or possibly Christmas) present about 18 months ago, when she was 13:

This picture of them is consistently one of my most viewed photos on flickr.

How times change.

If I could stop myself wittering on and writing too many words then I might find the time to post here more frequently.

I shall experiment with posting photos and no words for a while...

wish me luck.

from my friend Lucy's house in Ipswich.