Life's Little Luxuries

The day is rushing by me. I’m tired, but pleased with myself. I made myself do the cleaning first thing, before anything else, before I had time even to think of putting it off! It’s enough! I’ve cleaned, shopped and done some research for family birthday presents, strolling about armed with pen and paper, making notes, writing down prices and annoying shop assistants by asking questions, comparing prices and buying nothing. Not yet! That will come later when I’ve had time to think.

Thinking – that’s one of life’s little luxuries. It’s so good to stop, to sit idly by the window of ‘Het Konings Huys’, the friendly hotel restaurant in the market square at the heart of town. The King’s House! Well, there’s a fitting place to while away the morning, taking time for a spot of ‘mindfulness’.

Time to reflect, time for me, time to let life drift past taking my thoughts with it and restoring my soul. The music wafts gently over me… “this crazy life…”, “whatever comes our way” – snatches of a song that enhances the moment, slows me down. I didn’t really need the coffee but I needed to stop. If not, I would have hurried straight home and found myself mechanically embarking on the next task on my list. It’s my day off, but there’s still a long to-do list. It’s time to firmly push away all thoughts of what is written on it and drift! So I’m here in this hotel instead.

Living in the present – so hard to do! Enjoying the moment! Last year our annual summer getaway took us to Wales where, totally won over by some clever internet photography, we fell in love with an idyllic, riverside, Welsh holiday cottage and buried ourselves there for a whole week of blissful doing nothing. This year we will return – for two weeks! A bubbling stream burbled on past the kitchen window, stopping me in my tracks time and again, entranced by its simple beauty and making it impossible to continue on my way without slowing down to match its gentle rhythm.

I am learning, slowly, that life is too short to be busy all the time, however pressing the need. As I sit, I soak up the knowledge that there is a flow to life if only I just stop once in a while to acknowledge it. There is a stream that beckons me to jump in and be washed downstream in its gentle, invigorating flow and give up the relentless fight through today’s list of chores. Often enough, I find that, re-energised by these moments of reflection, I have more than enough – later- to see me through the day and accomplish at least enough of the necessary tasks to send me to bed happy.

Mindfulness, meditation, enjoying the moment – there will never be another moment precisely like this, with these people in this place… I think maybe I need to learn this, to practise, to perfect the art. It’s a lot more fun than housework… but maybe, with practice, I can find a way of relishing the moment and enjoying even that for what it is… Maybe…? Maybe I need another cup of coffee while I think about it.

Springboard into Summer!

Spring!
A new beginning.
The dull cold ache of winter disappearing,
Little by little.
A green shoot – of hope:
A vast wilderness of cold and ice and waste –
And a green blade of promise.

How shall I begin?
How avoid the death of the past?
Make this new chance a new breath of life …
Start anew, overcome despair
And enjoy the stirrings of a new beginning.

Cautiously, one step at a time;
Like a small animal, anxiously poking its nose from a hole,
After a winter of hibernation,
Of sleepiness and numbness,
Careful not to spoil this new chance?

No, a thousand times NO!
Let us throw caution to the winds!
Put our trust in goodness and fresh hope
And run with joy and exuberance into the future,
Content to make our mistakes and eager
To enjoy this new Spring
To the full.


I’m not a winter person! You will have gathered that by now. No, I love sunshine and outdoors, springtime and spring flowers. Well, we’ve made it! Once again, spring has sprung – and I know that’s a cliché and good writers are not supposed to use them – but it’s true. It’s such a good metaphor for spring – it’s so alive, vivacious, unpredictable and such a wonderful springboard, out of all those winter blues, into the clear, blue waters of summer. Whether you like to think that March 1st heralds the onset of spring or, like me, you prefer the more cautious option of March 21st, we’ve done it – we’ve arrived and it’s downhill all the way.

Funny how we know, every year, that spring will come, that it’s on the way and yet, like Christmas, it always surprises us. One minute we’re cleaning ice off the car windscreen and grumbling all the way to work and the next the hawthorns are in bud, the birds are scouring the garden for nest-building materials again and the joyful season has arrived. In fact, our optimism may be proved reckless, there may be fresh falls of snow, there may be harsh winter winds, but we’ve turned a corner and spring has once again been unleashed from its hiding place like a tiger from the jungle.

The Space

I’ve been thinking a lot about space lately and here I go again…!

The ideal space, for me, is a big one – but not too big. Big enough to have room to stretch; big enough to get up and walk around a little while I gaze out of the window; big enough to feel the sun on my back and the fresh, salty breeze wafting through the open window – and yes, it has to be salty – my ideal space is close to the sea.

My space needs blue sky and soft, white clouds. My space needs green grass and a tall tree with blossoms cascading down. My space is a surreal space. It can be indoors, cosy and welcoming, but also outdoors, with a huge expanse of sky overhead and a blackbird singing from the top of the tree. I need freedom in my space.

Sometimes I need emptiness. I need to be alone to think, to rest easy and come to a place of peaceful contemplation. But I need people in my space too; people that love me, people that encourage me, people that fire my imagination and spur me on to enjoy new things.

The Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, near the end of his life, was asked a question. If you had to choose – would you choose books or people? He said a wise thing (in fact, he said a lot of wise things). Buber admitted that as a young man he would have chosen books. Books would have been what he preferred to accompany him in his own private space. But as he grew older he learned to value the human race so much more and said that he had come to believe that books were a wonderful accompaniment in life, so long as when he came out of his room he could gaze on a human face.

So I too like my space empty some times but, in the end, I need a human face or two to keep me company in my space. My space must be big enough for that.

Pies Are Squared - A Formula for Success

“Here – wrap yourself around that” my dad would say. I liked that expression – so much more picturesque than “Here it is – eat it”. A number of strange expressions filtered into our conversation from my dad. Coming from the midland city of Nottingham, he brought with him a range of words and pronunciations that puzzled us Londoners. “Twitchel” for instance, which turned out to be the little alleyway I walked down every day between the main road and my primary school. The grăss needed mowing, glăsses needed polishing and căstles could be visited on holiday – all with a short ‘ă’ instead of the posh London ‘ar’ sound.

Eventually, after years in the south of England, married to a West-country girl and with two mocking London kids in tow, he lost the short ‘ă’ and reluctantly espoused the Queen’s superior English. But ‘twitchels’ remained (to the confusion of my school friends) and we continued to wrap ourselves around our beans on toast. We ‘knew our onions’ and, when dressed up in our best for a night out, were used to being complimented as ‘bobby dazzlers’. All these phrases stay with you as an adult and continue to bring a sentimental smile of recognition to your lips when occasionally in later life you chance across them.

One of my mum’s puzzlers was her habit, in rare moments of affectionate emotional expression, of referring to her children as ‘chicken skin’. Where that one came from I will never know! Maybe from her Somerset country roots. Her other contribution to the family vocabulary came in the form of ‘square meals’. Meals, in tangible form, were mum’s province. Dad, on occasion, cooked a fine omelette, with almost scientific precision, but in general meals were mum’s department. However, as in many families of that generation, for some reason, meals were always ‘square’. No-one could survive, it seemed, without three square meals a day. Now, when in the 1950’s did you ever see a square dinner plate? So why, oh why, were meals square?

As teenagers in the 60’s we soon learned to refer to our parents, in fact to anyone over 30, as ‘square’ – but never meals! Isn’t language strange? There must be a reason for this, as for all quirks of language, if you dig deep enough, but somehow the idea of a square meal conjured up something wholesome and nutritious that Mrs. Beeton herself would have been proud of. No junk food or hasty snacks earned the name ‘square’ – but a good solid, nourishing plateful (round) that you could wrap yourself around with the certain knowledge that it would do you good (‘looks good, tastes good and by golly, it does you good’!), that was a square meal.

As for the ‘chicken skin’ well, I guess I shall have to hold on to the opinion that it was some kind of a delicacy that she meant – maybe not ‘square’ but tasty and appealing, nevertheless, - a rare and prized morsel. Anyway, ‘sweetheart’ or ‘sweety-pie’ never passed her lips so ‘chicken skin’ – as my fond remembrance of warm parental approval - will just have to do.