What am I reading - What am I listening to.....

While looking for something entirely different I came across a small leather bound Bible that belonged to my Mother, - so finely scripted on delicate gold edged paper and inscribed 'To my dear wife, Easter 1931'.

As you can imagine it is a book I treasure, and  am concerned about the condition of the cover, which is badly worn.  It came to me that on the bookshelves beside our bed there was a small handmade cloth case to hold such a book, and so I went to find it.

I was surprised to open it and find within Muriel Spark's first novel, The Comforters, published in 1957 (the year my mother died).  I cannot remember ever having the book, or reading it - but then that is not unusual.  When Charles and I were first married he had his uniforms and the clothes he left behind when he joined the Airforce, - I had my trousseau and some other old clothes, and we had our wedding presents!

Today!!  Oh, today we have accumulated so much STUFF.  With six children and 65 years of marriage it is no wonder I come across things that are a total surprise to me, - things that I can never remember having seen before, and have no idea how they were acquired or spirited into the place where they were deposited, found comfort and settled down to stay for the duration.

I like the Muriel Spark novels I have read, and The Comforters is a small book, a paperback, easily handled in bed (not like John Fowles Wormholes) and so I tucked my Mother's bible in the cloth case and have just started The Comforters.

And what am I listening to?

I have had to take myself in hand, so to speak, regarding the socks I am knitting for Christmas presents - thirteen pair!  The summer was so desultary, - I was not in the least inspired to knit, and told myself that I could soon catch up my knitting schedule in the fall, and easily be finished by Christmas.  However, my old nemesis, procrastination, has sprung unbidden into September and I find myself sitting with idle hands in any number of places where I could be clicking the needles and getting on with the job.

I hit upon the clever (I thought) idea of multi-tasking in the evenings, and listening to an absorbing e-book while my hands unconsciously turned heels and cast off toes.  I downloaded Wallace Stegner, whose writing I am enamoured of but whose book "All the little live ones" I have somehow missed reading.

And just as soon as I am finished in the kitchen tonight I am going to put it to the test.  Unfortunately I have been known to fall asleep while listening to e-books, but I am hoping the combination of gripping the knitting needles, and finding the book gripping my imagination, will be enough to make the venture successful.

Do think of me now and then and send encouraging thoughts this way....

The Last Day of Summer

Only a few more hours to go before Autumn officially arrives to set up house.

She has sent a few preliminary reminders of her intentions

to visit, but overnight we will watch the season change from

a glorious summery day to the first day of an equally glorious fall.

Singing day for Charles, and my plans for the morning

involved a lot of rather distasteful chores, like vacuuming and making order out of chaos 

in the linen closet.  No picture, - you really wouldn't want to see it!

But what is one to do on the last day of summer when it dawns clear and bright

with nary a cloud in the sky, and an early morning survey

finds the sunflowers heavy with little birds feeding,

the apples hanging ripe on the trees in the orchard,

the sky so deep and rich a blue

and a dozen or so things crying out for attention in the garden.

A perfect day for transplanting the barn flowers and the yellow daisies

into the bed where the poppy bloomed in July

before the coutch grass invasion.

I spent an hour digging out the grass, searching for every small prolific inch of it that just itches to

 re-establish itself and spring up to greet me in March, and then replaced the grass with the plants, which should have lots of time to put down roots before the serious frost arrives.

Although Charles and Sid both tell me that it is going to be a long cold winter, judging by the width of the stripe on the woolly caterpillars - this way of judging the coming season passed
on to them both from Charles' father, 

and though unique probably quite a dependable sign.

When the planting was done I went and got the camera and a cup of coffee, wandering around in the garden, tidying the iris and pulling out the little mint plants that foiled me in the spring.

The asters and sedum glow in the sunshine, and the white of a shasta that I had cut down earlier when it got unruly provides a lovely contrast.

I spent the last half hour of a wonderfully contented morning  gathering some windfalls
from the Mac tree just across the fence.  So many people love
this old variety, - it is sweet and crisp at this time of year,
a joy to bite into and marvelous for apple sauce.

As I finish this post there is just six minutes to go before summer turns to
wave her last farewell, - I imagine her going west, with the moon just coming up behind her
over the Cawston hills.

The forecast is for rain tomorrow, but today was a warm and well loved treasure.

ABC Wednesday

The VIP letter today is J

J is for Jingo

And here is Hugh Laurie together with Stephen Fry and others to entertain you in a less irascible manner than he does on House, with the song Oh By JINGO



For more J's -  by Jingo, ABC Wednesday is the place to go - here.

And for more entertainment by Laurie and Fry visit some of the fun Videos posted on Youtube featuring them as JEEVES and Wooster........

Autumn

We go for a lovely drive today, taking the camera along

I am not expecting to see so many colourful signs of fall until October, but through a rain spattered windshield and the occasional bit of sunshine Charles and I drive along the Cawston Bench, and then down the back roads around by Ginty's Pond, and he is so patient about stopping and so sharp-eyed about seeing things that I miss, that we ended up snapping almost two hundred pictures.

Here are a few........ other pictures of a wild unsettled sky I have posted 

at Similkameen Skies.

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained

With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit

Beneath my shady roof;  there thou may'st rest,

And tune they jully voice to my fresh pipe;

And all the daughters of the year shall dance!

Sing now the lust song of fruit and flowers.

William Blake, To Autumn, 1783

Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun'

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run'

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more;

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease;

For Summer has o'er brimm'd their clammy cells.

John Keats, To Autumn

Death by Silk

Not for the faint hearted....

Caspar and I are just returning from a little stroll down the lane and as we approach the steps we notice (well, I notice, - Caspar is blind) that there is some rather nefarious activity going on around the rain spout at the bottom of the steps.

I slip Caspar into the house, grab the camera and come back out to watch the action.

Here is the villain, - a big orange spider who I think might be a Kittalog, or some kind of

 an Orb spider.

You will note that he is busy at his work, - blowing out silk and  reeling out a line with which he intends to secure his victim.  He has already caught one of the frightened grasshopper's front feet making it difficult for him to do anything except squirm and pull, trying to escape.

The spider beats his chest a bit and does a kind of war dance that closely resembles a Haka, I think.

The battles begins in earnest.....terribly one-sided I must admit

My sympathies are with the poor carefree grasshopper who never in a million minutes while he rubbed his legs together, making merry music, dreamed that such a fate awaited him.  Things have reached a stage where even if I were to deprive the spider of lunch 

the grasshopper will not live to sing again.

I leave the big orange spider victorious, and go in to make lunch.  When I look again there is only the husk of the erstwhile idler to remind me of the carefree summer days he whiled away the hours, all the time thinking it was the ant that was putting him to shame when really it was the big orange spider that was planning his downfall.

A sad tale, but there, it's only Nature, red in tooth and claw.

Here endeth the biology lesson for the day, with a Requiem for the Grasshopper.

O thou that swing'st upon the waving ear

of some well-filled oaten beard,

Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear

Dropped thee from heav'n, where now th' art reared,

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,

That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;

And, when the poppy works, thou dost retire

To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the sun thou welcom'st then,

Sport'st in the gilt plats of his beams,

And all these merry days mak'st merry men,

Thyself, and melancholy streams.

The Grasshopper - an excerpt

by Richard Lovelace

ABC Wednesday

I is for Istanbul

I am listening to Istanbul

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed

At first there is a gentle breeze

and the leaves on the trees

Softly sway,

Out there, far away,

The bells of the water carriers unceasingly ring,

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent,  my eyes closed.

Then suddenly birds fly,

Flocks of birds, high up, with a hue and cry,

While the nets are drawn in the fishing grounds

And a woman's feet begin to dabble in the water.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

Orhan Veli Kanik

For more interesting I's visit here, at ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbit and her helpers.

September 13th, 2010

Just some pretty pictures....

Not much to post about tonight, but despite the showery weather and cloudy skies here are some nice pictures of the sky, the garden, the hills...and some gorgeous Nectarines that Sid, our #3 son, brought up the hill for us to enjoy.  We had some at dinner and they were yummy......I am thinking pie! As I pass by them on my way to the kitchen the peachy fragrance is beautiful and mouth watering!

The sky tonight was quite interesting - talking to us about showery weather tomorrow, probably.

 

Not nearly as spectacular as the two lovely rainbows that have sprung from dark skies to show us where the pot of gold lies on the Cawston Bench.

Wednesday evening's rainbow, which I have already posted to my new blog 'Similkameen Skies' (see sidebar)

And another vivid shaft on Sunday evening.

Sunday morning at breakfast we spotted what we first thought were mountain goats on the toe of K mountain, but with the spy glass turned out to be three large bouquets of helium balloons tied with scarlet ribbon, escaped from some gay celebration and floating to and fro amongst the rocks and trees and meadow.  Unfortunately I was not successful in getting a clear picture, but here is where they were frolicking....

The little white blobs are really the balloons.  We left them partying and went to church.

By the time we got home none of them were as exuberant as they had been,

and they wafted lower and lower, some of them eventually

ending up entwined around the power lines. 

 I am sure they did have a story to tell.

In the garden a few summer flowers mix with the asters and yellow daisies. 

but the peony leaves are showing their fall colours along with the scarlet maple.

Welcome to Autumn.