I am going away to my Mum's for a week!

My Mum is 87 and a very active and lively lady.She lost my Dad a few years ago and found it very hard to live without him.They had been married for just over 60 years.She is quite a nervous and anxious lady even though she always appears the life and soul of the party, so losing her rock was not easy.

As a little girl she was often lonely,an only child who lived in her imagination and it is to her I owe my interest in books,poetry and fantasy.She also taught me to sew  and her artistic way of homemaking was inpirational Of course I was a headstrong little hippy and often we clashed as daughters and Mums do!Now we are older a greater understanding is possible.

This is Mum, Margaret Leonora Moreland,she was such a dear lttle thing!

Here she is 19 and getting married during w.war 2, her dress was made from parachute silk and some bits of brocade.Mum and Dad met on the train to Waterloo when they were both working in London.When Dad was called up she sat and cried and the people on the train comforted her ,they were known to the other regular passengers as "The Young Lovers"

 This is a school photo,she loved poetry and wrote it from an early age and she still writes today when she isn't rushing around at home in the garden or dressing the window in the charity shop she works in two days a week!

A Chidhood Memory of the Early Thirtys

By Margaret Day

I remember a classroom,green painted

A wooden desk with a lift up lid

On the right at the back

A hole with a china inkwell.

Thirtyfive or more children sat in chairs

Hands clasped tight together

Showing white on the knuckles

Praying for something unknown.

A shaft of November's yellow sunshine

Slanted across the blackboard

Dust motes sailed in the gold

As the distant gun sounded.

Everything stopped for the silence

Buses trains ,all traffic

"Bow your heads now" the teacher said

"And think of those who fought and died"

Eyes squeezed tightly shut in reverence

I tried to picture mud filled trenches

Whistles blown and over the top

But then I was an earnest little girl.



She also wrote this next one which I find enchanting ,hope you do too.

Bonfire.

The apple wood is burning

and memories rise

with spiralling smoke

into a violet sky.

Golden grass in the sun

Bare brown legs

Apples like fallen treasure

And children's laughter.

The round whicker basket

The leaning ladder

The strut holder and the climber

Both sadly gone.

Still the sweet scent rises

From the embers

Whisps of curling dreams

 Drift into evening.

Mum loves flowers,her garden, flower arranging and has spent her life making things beautiful .She is a Grandma and Great Grandma and continues to flirt with any lovely young man she comes across !

 Her she is at Christmas having a paddle in the cold Atlantic ocean.

Well I am of for a week to stay with Mum and so this will be my last post for a while, Ihope you enjoyed this one I feel all emotional now!

My greatest weakness unusual clothes !

I have discovered this lovely Japanese style called Mori .It is popular with girls who like individual styles and mixes.A Mori is a woodland girl.

The movement is against the dictates of high street fashion and includes retro.I think that it is a charming idea.
However  I am a little too old to be a woodland girl although I did a bit of tree hugging in my last post!
I am of the opinion that all dress is fancy dress in a way as we are all born naked so clothes should be fun,individual,an expression of self and comfy anything else seems like bondage!

There is a touch of the fairy here !

A Sunday Walk

This Sunday the sun was out and we drove to Trellisick Gardens which are very near us ,a National Trust Property we love to visit it in all seasons. Someone  has had a lovely idea to put a bow on the romantic tower that always reminds me of Rapunzel !

Without their leaves the amazing shape and texture  of the trees we could see was wonderful.This isjust one of many gnarled and twisted examples.

Have you ever read The Secret Garden ? Could this be it? What mystery lies behind the green door? I love doors , it must be pschological ,always searching for what is hidden.

Steve got snapping with his Blackberry and caught me looking at the rusty brown dead heads of this plant.

The Sensory Garden did not have many scents to share at this time of the Year ! Only the Rosemary was fragrant.

The shapes of some of the ancient trees  remind me of Rackham ,I can imagine a willowy fairy hiding here!

 Trellisick is on the banks of the Fal which in the words of Dylan Thomas often has "a heron priested shore"

I couldn't resist a bit of tree hugging,no one was looking!

We found that someone had decorated  the little summer house with seasonal paintings , leaves and crafts.It was very charming!

The shapes are incredible!

This is a really lovely picture taken by Steve , he is pleased with this one!

The trees,the river shining in the afternoon sun  and a kind of peace that only winter brings is very good for the soul!

The ivy is still green and the mosses that cling simbiotically to the resting trees.

I love this,who lives here? My imagination returns to childhood and I see the entrance to a magic world maybe?
It was a great walk and then we had a pot of Earl Grey tea at exactly 3pm how English is that and ginger cake too! Thanks to Steve for the photos,I left my camera behind that day!

A Little Moment of Magic

We are going to Majorca in the Spring,it has long been on my list for a Literary Pilgrimage and now at last I shall follow in the footsteps of George Sand and Chopin!

With this in mind I searched Amazon for some suitable reading to take with me.I found the two books shown above.Both lovely little paperback volumes used as they are described but in good condition.George Sand and Chopin stayed in the Cartuja of Valldemosa,he composed some of his most beautiful works and she wrote A Winter in Majorca while her children Maurice ,the adored son and the headstrong daughter Solange ran free in the corridors.George hoped the stay would cement their love and cure Chopin whose health was failing.

They arrived by boat and Chopin had his Pleyel piano shipped over.The corridors of Valledamosa echoed with the sound of his playing while George wrote and the children ran wild.

So many people have followed in their footsteps and I believe there is always a red rose on the piano which is kept in the Cartuja.

Imagine how lovely it was to open the book A Winter in Majorca and find pressed between the pages petals from the bouganvielia plant.This grows in abundance at Valldemosa and I imagine the previous owner of this book having it in his or her hand while touring the Cartuja.Then so as to remember the visit tucking a few petals between the pages.The book was probably put away and not opened again until I held it! Well that is my romantic fancy anyway! However I will take this book back to visit Valldemosa  again.I can't help wishing I knew who pressed those flowers, perhaps two music lovers had a tryst and wandered in the grounds together.

Well  I shall never know but  I am so glad this book came to me ! I am a hopeless romantic sometimes but Hey! Ho!

New Years's Resolutions!

Last night was the last day of a year that had many wonderful moments and some truly scary ones too.My husband Steve had a serious illness and I thought I might loose him, thankfully he fully recovered . Work was good with many events and exciting stuff going on a  the library where I work and facilitate a poetry group and reading group.Our poets have just published a small collection of their work over the last year and will soon have a launch and perform some of thier varied poetry for the  public.It has been a special joy to work with them all.The readers group is inspiring and much "book crossing" takes place .  We are all anxious about the fate of our public library system here  as the government is making swinging cuts to our public services however I live in hope!

A special highlight this last year was taking my Mum who is a glamorous 87 year old  to Hampton Court Palace where she attempted to be Henry the 8Th's 7th wife.Not a good idea Mum if you value your head!!!

We enjoyed  Christmas and now it is time to make plans for this empty canvas of a New Year. So I resolve to  to live ,love learn and hopefully be happy! I quote a poem sent to me by my Dear friend Karen a talented potter and renaissance woman if ever there was one.

"Departure"

Plans have to be conjured,

Magicians consulted,

escape to green leaves and willowing forests a priority,

Stealing away in pink dawn lights.

before the metal madness and fume filled streets erupt with maggot cars.

 New destinations ,more literary pilgrimages,I am excited!! Majorca in the spring to follow in the footsteps of George Sand and Chopin and Robert Graves!  That is the first  adventure. New books to read old books to savour and new and old friends to cherish ,how's that for a few attainable New Years resolutions?

A Happy, peaceful and creative New year to everyone who drops in on Bright Star, I was given Keat's biography by Andrew Motion for a Christmas present,how good is that?