Rich music breathes in summer's every sound,
And in her harmonies of varied greens -
Woods, meadows, hedgerows, cornfields,all around,
                              
       Much beauty intervenes
Filling with harmony the ear and eye,
        While o'er the mingling scenes
         Far spreads the laughing sky.

             from Summer Images by John Clare

Days of warmth and sunshine are scarce in my neck of the woods.  We have a large amount of rain and grey skies, so it's been glorious to wake up to sunshine and roses.  We've had hot weather for around a fortnight and everywhere you look there are flowers, blossoms and green green fronds, which is certainly a tonic.  The North of England is no longer a mass of belching chimneys, dirty smoke grimed buildings or clattering clogs.  We might now be described as vibrant, cosmopolitans with a unique character, peopling our metropolis with  truly contemporary style-  well that's my story anyway!  We've recently been treated on TV to new opening scenes at the start of, 'Coronation Street'. Now we see rooftops glistening with rain, pigeons fly up from chimney-pots and you just catch a glimpse of the famous cobbles and the public-house sign, Rovers Return.  It's only a matter of time before Betty's hotpot is replaced with Braised Goat Ragout and Crayfish Sushie puts Pork Scratchings out of the picture!

Almost a week has gone by since my lovely friend Georgie died.  I've felt wretched to say the least.  He had been suffering kidney problems for some time but all of a sudden he deteriorated rapidly and in the past month we had two mad dashes to see our Vet.  In the end we decided it was kinder to let him go, a heart wrenching decision.   He was my best pal, arriving out of the blue one day when I was sitting in our garden because I felt  poorly.  We discovered to whom he belonged when a young woman came knocking on the door asking had we seen a ginger cat, she'd been going up and down the avenue's calling for him for days.  So she took him back home with her, but within days there he was again strolling up our our garden path and straight in at our cat-flap.  We telephoned her to say he was back with us again, each time he'd crossed several busy roads and travelled miles.  But this time when she came to our door she selflessly decided to leave him with us as she said he so obviously wanted to stay. Afterwards for a good few years there would be a knock at the door heralding her two small children politely asking if they could visit George.  Whenever we went out somewhere on our return there would be my Georgie, strolling down the driveway to welcome us home, rain snow or shine.  He was such a star as well, in that he would assist me up our steep drive by letting me hold on to his tail!
Sorry to go on a little.... it's just that I felt chosen by my lovely ginger friend and I really miss him.
Don't let anyone tell you that cats are stand-offish or can't show you affection....they obviously hadn't met up with my pal.

Blossoms are scattered by the wind and the wind cares nothing, but the blossoms of the heart no wind can touch. 

- Yoshida Kenko-

The cherry trees are pregnant with blossom, and as our met' office is predicting temperatures to reach 70 degrees this week, no doubt there will be masses of divine pink froth for our souls to feast upon!

  I've been thinking about our time spent in Abu Dhabi, UAE., this morning... We had dusty, tiny balcony's outside the lounge and bedrooms.  They were so narrow, one could open the sliding door and take just a single step to reach the railings.  It was stifling hot.  Too hot up there, and anyway too dusty and humid, not to mention noisy, with the traffic of a dual carriageway only a few floors beneath our feet.  The taxies went by honking their horns to say, 'I'm free for hire.'.  I've a photo of my eldest daughter crouched-up on one of the balcony's, alongside her stands the little girl from the next-door apartment.  The child who got her hands stuck as the lift went down.  The apartment-blocks elevator's had those metal doors that remain closed on the floor you get on at but a concertina metal gate to the actual lift compartment.  She'd put her hands against the metal door through the gate and as the lift went down her hands became trapped - awful!!  Luckily she kept those little hands, but she'll probably still have scars, she must be in her mid-thirties now,  around thirty-five years have gone by since those times.  So.... there they both are in the photograph, my eldest squinting because the glare of the sun against the marble and concrete is so bright.  Her skin is so light - transparent almost.  She has on a deep cobalt-blue dress with little bead tassels and her hair is in plaits.

It's one of those days when I think if only I felt well enough to sling on a pair of jeans, tee-shirt and jacket, jump in the car and together with my husband zoom off to somewhere like....  Harrogate.  Handsome Harrogate with Aunt Betty's Tea shop and fairy-lights twinkling in the twilight of the evening after a lovely sunny day amongst the stone buildings and the cherry-blossom!  Aunt Betty's with it's mile-long queues for a table, it's waitresses in little black dresses with white aprons and white caps.  It's gentle music and conversation, mirrors and delightful fare.  Heaven!

Ruth St. Denis in The Cobras, once more!

Ruth St. Denis in The Cobras.
Originally uploaded by New York Public Library

Sorry to have been away so very long....it takes a good old while to recover from Christmas and New Year celebrations and then Spring time/climate changes when you have M.E.

How mysterious and yet strangely 'modern' is Ruth?  She's definitely not ordinary...and I love that quote below, by Nietzsche.

Ruth St. Denis in The Cobras.

Ruth St. Denis in The Cobras.
Originally uploaded by New York Public Library

'And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane
by those who could not hear the music.'

-Friedrich Nietzsche-

Armstrong Siddley

That's me and my mother in the photo on the blog-header, with Dad's car, back in 1963 or thereabouts. Dad  brought home the lovely old 'jalopy' one evening right out of the blue, I remember my mum wasn't too pleased and she refused to  ride in it for a couple of days.  I don't even recall how he came by it...it just arrived, in spite of us being impoverished at the time, hence mum's disapproval.  My brother and I went out with him that evening for a drive and I nearly wet myself laughing because not yet being used-to the clutch and gears Dad did 'kangaroo petrol' down the road.   He was embarrassed I think, because he shouted and looked stern which only made me want to laugh more, you know how it is?  Like when you're in the library right beneath the sign that says, 'Silence' and your mate cracks a joke about the librarians stuffiness.

I think I'm about fourteen in this photo...get a load of those jeans!!  You can just about see a little of the lovely old car.  Winding windows and a real wooden steering-wheel, no winking indicators either, they were the original little pointy-amber-hands clunking out like ears from the side behind the rear doors.  I loved that old car.  We felt 'posh' whenever we went out in it, in spite of a few mishaps we had in it.  Like the front wheel bowling off down the road on it's own, leaving Mum and Dad unharmed, though she never got over having to come home on the bus in her fluffy house-slippers!  She'd gone out quickly without a coat and hadn't changed into outdoor shoes.  Then the exhaust fell off completely on a trip to Yorkshire when were carrying an esteemed visitor from France and we had to drive home with the car sounding like a World War Two tank that certainly made an impression we didn't wish to repeat!