The Gourd Pot.

So... I wrote a few weeks ago about the pumpkins that were not!...they were gourds...and very nice ones too.

...daughter, from down south, took quite a few home...

... and the lovely pottery class people took some more.

But I still have a basketful of them....though what to do  except gaze appreciately at them.....

....I'm sure I don't know!

Anyway, the Potter  always gives me a ceramic christmas goody and ...so this year the theme was not the pumpkin...

  

which it has been in the past...

...no, no, it's the gourd!

 

I'm looking forward to filling it with sunflowers later in the year.

Lunch at The Palatine.

We sat in the big brown leather armchairs, looking out the window of the Palatine Bar at the sea and mountains, up in the Bay today...

...our first major outing since the potter came out of the jungle that is known as "The NHS"....not that we aren't thankful...we are...but it's still a place you don't want to get lost in!

...Watched the world ...or at least the people of the Bay, go past. 

Me drinking mulled cider and the potter loyally sticking to his fruity glass of pop...

...then just sat for a long while and enjoyed the luxury of the moment and scanned the newspaper for positive headlines...

...there's something timeless about a scene with people promenading in twos and threes along a sea front ...whether Spain in the sun or the Bay...with the wind caressing the beach flags, while the waters flood and in the distance, those old blue mountains edge the horizon...

...as they have done since the days when the ice melted!

Lunch was no disappointment either...the chef came out and mentioned that fresh turkey pie had just come out of the oven with crushed, buttered potatoes and buttered carrots on the side....well who could resist...?

... we didn't!!...

*

Happy Christmas

 

A very happy Christmas to everyone who reads the posts and poems on the blog and those who take the time to write me a little encouraging message ...thankyou!!
I hope you know blessings and love at this season.

Geraldine 
xxxxxxx

The Aftermath.

The Aftermath 

Passively they wait

On chairs of tubular steel

With worn brown seats of moquette.

…whatever is true…

Minutes slink by in the space

Left silently peopled

By worry.

…whatever is noble…

There, black-uniformed security

Usher restless souls

To relative safety.

…whatever is right…

With frozen smiles

And blank eyes

They size up

The future vacuum.

…whatever is pure…

Hearts beat wildly

The pulse races madly

They breathe…slowly and deliberately.

…whatever is lovely…

There is sky,

And urban normality

Somewhere out there.

But ,

In another past ,

In a different life.

…whatever is admirable…

They think on these things.

Linking this poem to The Mag 148  today.

and also for dVerse 75... this week organised by Joseph Hesch..






...such a scene...the dark day and the lonely road...could belong to a Seamus Heaney anthology!....thankyou Tess! 

What a date and time!

I have just had a phone call at 12.12 on the 12th 0f the 12th 2012 from a dear friend!

Dontcha just love it!

Christmas Angels

Fresh from the kiln and singing their little hearts out!

"Hark the herald angels sing....."

Can't keep the potter out of the studio!!

A Poem for Thursday...dVerse week 73

Broken pottery

Broken pottery

Precious

Beloved pot

Long seen

Carressed and used

Once holding fragrance

Placed

In important spots

Gone

With one careless action

A thousand pieces of beauty

Now.

(Chinese proverb)

I suppose that this is really about the potter!....anyway he is looking much, much better!...glued together with tlc...or tablets maybe!

It's dVerse week 73 and so I'll try and link though the way I am at the moment...anything could happen. 
I've filled my quota of pics and so must make them all smaller so any posts are sans photo!!

Hooray!

The potter got out of hospital today...

....big joy!

He's a bit fragile but back in the chair...wrapped up and snuggled in warm blanket.

Some family arrived with smiles and biscuits!

Very grateful.

Give away at Amelies House Blog...goodies!!

I'm linking up my blog to 

Amelies House post....she has a giveaway that you might be interested in 

if you are a bakey kind of person!

A Poem for Thursday..."The Visitors."

Visitors arrive
with bundles full of home.
house coat
new slippers
bag of apples
favourite newspaper.

Professionals stand
stoically
at their desks.
silently
walk the path
between
the healthy
the sick
the dying.

A grey skull
open mouthed
coughs harshly
alone.
too many beds... to pay attention to one cough.

Drawers are labelled
technical
medical
warfarin
arrest situation
body chart.

All life is here
and..not.
more handwashing takes place
than Pilate
ever thought necessary.
With empty relatives
sitting in
grey cafes
drinking grey tea.
and waiting
for the results of loved ones.

This is Kierkegaard's observation....
that life is a reality to be
experienced
not a problem
to solve
and all existence
is beset
with paradox and riddle.

(this is written with Louis MacNiece in mind...I love his thoughts and was taught and studied him when living in Belfast....he lived close to the city... The one especially in mind .."I am not yet born"...) I hope I've managed the link this time Brian!!

dVerse

~ Poets Pub

 

 

The sleepy garden...

 

I've been taking pics of the garden and back field for the potter  as he is still in hospital

 just to let him see the way the garden is going to sleep for the winter this year.

I think it gets more beautiful every year. 

It was an unofficial local tip when we took it over more than 30 years ago.

But Alan has used the wood available to make the fences and arches around the site.

... the summer house at the far right...

...the old barrow just about holding together...

 

...the herb garden...

and

...the little sun spot at the bottom of the herb garden...

 

...autumn colours  ...

 

...autumn leaves...

 

...the gingko tree of eternity...

 ...canary creeper seeds falling for the show next year...

 ...another viewing spot for the roses...

... winter food for us and...

 
 ...winter food for the little field mice who live in the compost heap...

...a goodly crop of leaks this year means great soups...

 beautiful end of year colour.

A Poem for Thursday

The Midlanders

..a man was killed on the tracks, today.

I waited on platform two

for the train coming down from Glasgow.

Today... damp,cold,misty day in the north.

This middle England...

(Trains with no drivers)

of semis and trees...

(Drivers with no trains.)

ponies,cows and sheep.

A reassuring voice

reminds us

to take care when stepping down onto the platform.

Patient passengers

gaze silently

through

steamed up carriage windows .

Travelling in timelessness

each cocooned in their own dramas.

Business men,young mothers,grandparents.

Wheels turn almost without noise

over tracks...

and

in the trees

crows await rich pickings.

Going home
this is England
at it's most crowded.
Middle and everything.
All languages, all sizes, all ages.
All trying to get home.
Some get on the train.
Some  abandon the try....
Far from home...
Far from the destination.

Now I believe what they tell me...
...everything in everyway
ends in chaos.

Open Link Night ~ Week 70

Linking up to dVerse this week...it's been a while since I had the time to do it and ....miss it!!!

"There is only one thing that one can do when one is happy...and that is become unhappy"....

(from... Waiting for Goddo)

But you only really discover how happy you were when you become unhappy!

Is that the truth of life!

A Poem for Thursday.

We have a broadcaster who can be heard regularly on BBC radio 4...Melvyn Bragg...

... an academic and an intellectual...but very interesting and often not so difficult that I don't  get the gist of the meaning of his subject!...well almost anyway!

Recently we listened to a discussion about Aristotle....this great word was used...

...Aristotilian Theology...!

I think that the joy was just the sound of this intellectual term!

It inspired me to write this little bit of verse.

Aristotilian Theology

I 

had not thought

 of you 

as a theologian.

But 

I was assured

by Melvyn

on radio 4 of course.

That even

Arabian writers

would credit you

with that.

So,

numbers

maths

mount Olympia

and theology.

What 

do we have 

to boast about?

I'm linking as usual with dVerse Open Link Night ~ Week 55 thankyou once again for the opportunity to put some verse out there!http://dversepoets.com/2012/07/31/open-link-night-week-55/

just around the corner!!!...

The potter is in hospital...never really ill in our lives together and out of the blue....this!!
So in the Poetry Review post today this poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson came up from Ulysses and seemed to touch me very deeply in a situation that I had never been in before...


There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought
               with me - 
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all:but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes:the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans around with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; 
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to find, and not to yield.


I love the lines...Though much is taken.... down to the last line...to strive, to find, and not to yield.
That says it all!

The Pumpkin Party.

It's sort of an annual affair here at The Potters House.

Not really Halloween...nor 5th November...and all that.

It's The Pumpkin Party.

 It starts with the pumpkins....normally grown by the potter...

...but this year...failure....bah!...

Never mind ...we bought one each for the grandgirls and as they were all together this week...

...let the carving begin.

 

It's hard for the grown-ups to stay out of this ...we want to get involved...always!

                    "Just look what a big head I have"

"That's nothing ...look at mine!"

 

Serious stuff this...seeds in one bowl and flesh in the other.

Seeds in the oven with olive oil and sea salt...

and the flesh for a pumpkin pie! 

 Lanterns glowing...

 

...bonfire crackling...care of the potter...

...old friends from Marseille join us...

 

...fireworks sparkling...

...then let the fun begin...

"Nevie-pie cakes"...has a go for a swinging dohnut!!

...a grandgirl takes it all in her stride...

...I can't let myself down...gotcha!!