Welcome Healing Rain

As is the custom on this blog, I say welcome to the 25th follower - a quarter of a century of readers: Hello to Darron who describes himself as a Christian, a father, book & movie buff from the people's republic of South Yorkshire. His blog is here.

The rose I showed you last Thursday is now out and looks gorgeous and has the most delicate and delicious smell. We had a few hours of welcome rain overnight last Saturday into Sunday morning which seems to have freshened things up a bit although we definitely need more - even now the ground is dry, having sucked up all the moisture and the grass seems to have recovered to a more green rather than straw colour. Natures method of healing?

In fact since then (and as I speak,) there have been heavy showers, with occasional thunder and lightening.

It's been the first day back at work today after 9 relaxing, rewarding and chilled days off. I only had 58 e-mails which is a bit of a record for the number of fewest e-mails until I realised that a lot of people like me were also off!  We always think about not really wanting to go back to work - I enjoy my work, I like the people and the organisation and the place, but I have so much else I want to do in my life that I have decided that I'm going to work towards going part-time or job-share in June 2012.

 Of course finances have to be worked out,  standard of living sorted, savings made, but then feint heart never won fair lady, so with a back wind, I think I may well go for it - it's one of many things I want to work toward. Although I don't consider myself particularly ambitious, this is a great time to reassess. No doubt working for a public service, they would be pleased to save some money from me going part time. The problem is that I currently do two people's jobs (my colleague you may remember took voluntary redundancy). I need to 'lean out' the processes I use to make things slicker, quicker and smarter.

Regular longer term readers will know I do Reiki healing as a practitioner which seems to be going very well. A friend contacted me the other day who was clearly not a happy bunny with some personal issues that she needed to get sorted and asked for some healing. Reiki allows (after some preparation) to do distance healing with the permission of the person who requests it. Distance healing can be quite powerful and so it turned out on this occasion, which is important that the person who requests it knows you are doing it because it can affect how you feel.

It would be no good, for example, doing distance healing on someone who is up a ladder because if it makes them dozy or too relaxed, it could do some damage, not through healing but in this case falling off a ladder! But it is so pleasing that checking back with the person after an agreed time that the healing was performed, all was well and it worked nicely. On this occasion she was laid down which is just as well because she said she felt quite light headed for a while after the healing was finished. She is now happy and well.

I hope you enjoy your week.

Chat soon

Ta-ra

Looking Rosy

The constant and annoying easterly wind has gone and although it's cloudy in East Yorkshire this morning, it is warm. A trip to the civic amenities site ('tip' to you and me) sees deposited a few old pans and old electrical kitchen things that haven't been used for donkey's years. Indeed, the cupboard in the kitchen is now accessible without everything falling out every time you open the door. Glass bottles and jars as well as cardboard was also recycled.

The greenhouse heater has been on for a few days to protect the plants because we've had frosty conditions and windscreens have been white over for a couple of mornings. Just as well that frosts are no longer forecast because I've run out of paraffin and the local DIY supermarket has none left even though their records say they have eight gallons.  A search of the warehouse for a delivery of paraffin that came yesterday has proved fruitless!

When we moved into this house 15 years ago, there were dozens of rose bushes. There were twenty alone in the front garden which is relatively small. Those that survived in the back garden had been neglected for years, were old, gnarled (just like me) and unpruned. Some of the bushes were eight foot tall. They all went. Every single one of them. I love roses, but I had to consider my children's safety and some of those roses had thorns that would have ripped flesh to pieces as it did mine when it came to taking them out.

Now I have three rose bushes in pots and they are full of bud. The smaller bush has a bud just showing a preview of the lovely colour of the flower to come pictured above.

It's the local elections here for councillors and we had the opportunity to vote whether or not we want to move away from the 'first past the post' system of (national) elections and move to the alternative voting system (AV). I put my ballot papers in the box exercising my right to vote, something I've always done, then I have a right to moan! Seriously, although I won't say which way I voted in the voting referendum, it is an important choice to make for this country.

I always fancied getting into local politics once I retired from my vocation, but although I retain a keen interest, I have been disillusioned by politics in general and perhaps more importantly by politicians.

I ordered a Kindle from Amazon which arrived on Tuesday last. I am a book lover and have hundreds of books, and that's after a clear out, but I thought it was time to think about reducing costs, saving a few forests and using an e-reader. There are plenty of e-readers available in the market, but I have to say I am mightily impressed with the Kindle. It's light (about the same weight as a paperback) and the screen is one of those that you can read easily even in the glare of full sunlight. There are lots of free kindle books to choose from and the cost of an e-book that you pay for is about half for that of an ordinary book.

The Kindle holds about 3,500 books give or take a few bob and charges up only about once a month which is brilliant. Buying Kindle books is exactly the same as buying ordinary books and once ordered they download to your Kindle in a flash either wirelessly or via your computer USB cable. A reluctant convert.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, the weekend is just around the corner and for once, rain is forecast and I'm not complaining.

Chat soon

Ta-ra

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose

The first rose of the year greeted me in the drive today when I arrived home on a plant my mother gave me in a pot last year. The delicate mauve/blue 'Rhapsody in Blue' is the most fragrant bloom and evocative of childhood memories of standard roses in the tiny front garden of my Victorian home in Cottingham, East Yorkshire.

When I moved into my current house, the front garden had about twenty uncared for rose bushes and there were dozens in the back garden, tall, straggled and diseased from years of neglect. I took them all out because we had kids and I didn't want them to be hurt. Today, I just have three roses, two small climbers and the rose in the pot.

The rose is important to me because I was brought up with fragrant roses around the garden and even today, I often try to imagine the unique smell when I meditate and walk through imaginary gardens in my mind.

Of course closer to home, being a Yorkshireman, the white rose of the county (from the House of York) represents my roots in the same way a red rose represents someone from our friendly rival county, Lancashire (the House of Lancaster). Hence why, when the Yorkies thrashed the Lancashire lads in the fifteenth century civil war, it was called the War of the Roses. Henry the Seventh, clever lad who stopped the civil war joined the two roses together to form the Tudor Rose. Wikipedia has a very interesting article on it.

Roses have important symbolic significance for others, it's the national flower of the UK and the USA and a red rose is often used for socialism.

Shakespeare wrote prose about roses, Romeo and Juliet of course:

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

A line from Robert Burns poem A Red, Red Rose:

O, my love's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June

Sacred Emily, the Gertrude Stein poem carries the well known phrase (the original first Rose is the name of a person):

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.

You can be a rose between two thorns, (a nice person in between two rogues), or perhaps part of a Valentines Day poem, Roses are red, violets are blue... (put your own ending).

A rose of course makes lovely perfume and I found this limerick to stick with the theme today:

The bottle of perfume that Willie sent,
Was highly displeasing to Millicent.
Her thanks were so cold
They quarrelled, I'm told,
Through that silly scent Willie sent Millicent!

Chat soon

Ta-ra.