I had a late start today after my marathon cleaning around the house yesterday. The rain has arrived but the temperature is still very mild for the end of the first month of winter. A shower has just rolled in and rolled out again, grey skies, blue skies following one another. It is a changeable day.
Today for my brunch I made Bran Muffins, we had been talking about them in the tea room during the week, so this morning I had a desire for them. I chose my Pomegranate and Mint Black tea, a delightful tea with a hint of bright sweetness infusing the Ceylon Black Tea. To contrast the rich mahogany colour of the tea I chose my pure white “Parlour Lace” teacup. The tea paired very well with the sharpness of the marmalade I spread on my muffins. Aurora wanted to eat my muffin, so I gave her a wee bit which she gobbled down, I really don’t think bran is that good foor cat’s digestive system, so she only got the one tiny bit.
So off to a tasty and satisfying start to my day even of almost half the day has gone. I really don’t have any plans for the day. I will take each moment as it comes.
I managed to complete three work outs at Curves this week. I was very pleased with myself for that. The satisfaction I get is that as I get fitter and more toned, my excess weight is coming off and I have more energy and more interest in doing things around the house and yard. Also I am once again effectively using my body, not just my mind and my imagination.
I went to see the dance troupe Black Grace perform “As Night Falls”, I really enjoyed the performance. An energetic, emotive and thought provoking tale told in movement. It was enthralling the way emotions were expressed in the quiver of hand, the shudder of a body, the straining in stillness and facial expression. Going to this performance reminded me I need go to shows and performances to add to the beauty an experience of life.
The poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins expresses much of what was in the performance
'I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day'
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
And on a brighter happier note on this changeable day from someone who has stripped, dappled and pied beings sharing home and life.
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Blessing to all, may your week be filled with beauty.
