No Hare-Brainer...

Today, the last day of March, is I would guess the last day on which I can blog on this subject - Mad March Hares...

I love hares - Their vibrant energy and brisk, athleticism, their lanky limbs and beady black-as-coal button eyes... I see them quite often around the country lanes where I live - They're usually bounding at the last minute, in front of my car, then leaping into the verge and galloping away like a young colt. Sometimes they astonish me with their size in comparison to our very common brown rabbits, which are everywhere. I recently etched a small picture in glass of a hare in a cornfield gazing at the moon... I enjoy the myths of moon-gazing hares which transcend our countries and even time... I think I'll mention more about that myth tomorrow, if that's all right with you, mes petits bloggy lapins?

...Et alors, where does the expression 'Mad March Hares' come from? Is it because hares are, as have we been to some degree of late, full of the joys of spring... (and, in their cases at least, mating season?!)



Hares have been living amongst us for many years, and feature in folklore, songs and children's stories...



Hares have long been thought to behave like 'crackerdogs' in March, their mating season. Lewis Carroll is among many authors who have used this in stories, such as his wonderfully surreal, not quite a children's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:


where he introduces us to his wild-eyed March Hare, spouting nonsense at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. "The March Hare ... as this is May, it won't be raving mad - at least not so mad as it was in March."

More recently this behaviour has been brought into question, and it is now thought that hares behave oddly - boxing, jumping, etc. - throughout their breeding season, which extends over several months.


Be that as it may, hares, especially March hares, have a reputation to live up to, and it will surely stay with them for centuries still to come, j'espere...



In literature, the first record of their brainlessness, was circa 1500, in Blowbol's Test reprinted by W. C. Hazlitt in, Remains Early Popular Poetry of England, 1864:

"Thanne [th]ey begyn to swere and to stare, And be as braynles as a Marshe hare."

Of course, the phrase 'hare-brained' refers to the same behaviour. This is also old and is referenced in Edward Hall's Chronicle, 1548:

"My desire is that none of you be so unadvised or harebrained as to be the occasion that ..."



And in 1529, in Sir Thomas More's, The supplycacyon of soulys, we see:

"As mad not as a march hare, but as a madde dogge."

What's that they say about Mad dogs and Englishmen?!



So, the phrase has been in continuous use since the 16th century. It was well-enough established by 1546 for John Heywood to include it in his collection - A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue.

Other phrases from Heywood's collection include, 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth', and 'out of sight, out of mind'...

The precise meaning, of the ancient Three Hares symbol carved into village churches and seen in some of the oldest stained glass images in England, is as elusive and mootable as the myths behind it.

In mythology, it is a goddess symbol, a trickster symbol, a symbol of the Holy Trinity, a symbol of death, redemption and rebirth… All these and so much more.

To conclude then, a 19th Century children’s poem by Walter de la Mare:

In the black furror of a field
I saw an old witch-hare this night;
And she cocked a lissome ear,
And she eyed the moon so bright,
And she nibbled of the green;
And I whispered "Whsst! witch-hare,"
Away like a ghostie o’er the field
She fled, and left the moonlight there.

...Now, you can never say that a visit to Fhina ain't edutainment! "Go on, orf with you, before I call for the guards with their steely-sharp axes to see you off the premises; One, two, three... Guards! Guards! Orf with their heads!"

The Pen Is Mightier...

On another, much-loved, blog, we were asked to tell the tale of a pen that we love to try to win the wonderful prize of a book chock-full of astounding stories on the subject of Valuing Diversity and a nice pen - Within the book's leaves there nestles a piece of valued writing by the wonderfully clever Diane, of Diane's Addled Ramblings... To my mind, Diane is never totally addled, or 'caravanned', as I might term it, (please see comedy clip by up and coming comedian, Michael McIntyre), nor does she ramble without intent, (at least nothing like I can do, but we share a lovely Crown for Rambling - As you can see over there on the right!

...So here goes... I am an English civil servant, have been for twenty-three years later this year. Although I've had the pleasure ~ Can you hear the groans from where you are?! - of working in a variety of different departments and locations; Always moving on before I am caught out, rapped on the shoulder, and uncovered as the sham that I am, all these departments of government work in very similar ways...

As for pens, once the tools of our trade, before the advent of computers, cheap, (not even as wonderful as French Bic), tawdry ballpoint pens are the order of the day, and are kept under sturdy lock and key by stealthy, Jobsworth store clerks for the precious commodities that they are...

In fact, it got to a point in some offices I toiled in, where you practically had to prove that the pen was empty of blood before you could be granted the unadulterated pleasure of a new pen!

I kid you not... When it comes to the 'public purse', they abhor waste...

One day, I espied the pen of my dreams... It was clenched firmly, but gently in the left hand of a colleague from a Partnership Against Drugs... The dappled high-noon sun glinted sparks off its silvery titanium torso... It had a chunky top consisting of red and orange rubber, highlighted with silver markings... To me, it was full of desire, akin to the Aston Martin of pens, with red and orange rubber 'Go-Faster!' stripes hugging its powerful midriff... Talk about a six-pack!

I held my breath...startled by its allure. The pen whispered of so much promise. When I had it in my possession, I too would be enchanted, transformed, changed into an other-WORDly being... Bright and Beautiful...



I wandered carelessly into The Pen Shop, eyes darting back and forth in the harsh strip lights. I eschewed cheaper versions of my prize, handing over crisp, cold, hard cash to the 'Dealer in Pens'... And then ink flowed from the smooth rollerball like fragrant water from a cool mountain stream, and I penned succinct meeting notes and neglected To-Do Lists more fluidly, more intelligently, as if I were borne to it... My writing right hand felt more comfortable than it had ever done, cushioned by the rubberized coat... I tend to press down heavily when I write (I do nothing by halves...), so you can often read my writing on another page, as if it were braille... This pen freed my spirit and my aching hand.

I cherished this instrument of beauty for two long years, caressing its mild steel and feeding it black and blue refills as its mood took it. It travelled with me, securely nestled in an assortment of functional seasonal handbags... This pen was my other self, and others in turn coveted its smooth and sexy grace, its promise. It escaped from my too-large handbag on one occasion, on a day when my boss was giving me a lift, and it travelled home with him. His bright teenage daughter almost stole it away from me - It was love at first sight for her, she had gasped with excitement, he told me, and the pen's siren song wove its bitter-sweet web around her too... This is what the company website says about my pen...



"Still based in Hamburg, the company imprints each piece with a red ring, which in German means "Rotring". Rotring has always been the choice of free-thinkers everywhere. Unique people have unique ideas, and want to express them in unique ways. With clean elegance and unsurpassable quality, Rotring's new writing instruments are part of their world. Their subtle contours and clear lines combine functionality, writing comfort and style. Rotring writing instruments are designed for individuals who play an active part in life. Rotring writing instruments are part of the fun! Rotring pens are sought out by those who understand the power of the written word and who have the sheer grit and determination to bring their goals to fruition..." ...That speaks to me, I am entranced by the smart and sleekly seductive marketing elf.

Are you?

And so... Recently, while I was still working, the last refill gulped to an end, and I dragged myself up the moving staircase to the original Dealer to re-ignite the pen's bright flame, to restore its energy and vitality... In hushed tones, echoing from the clear crystal counter, the assistant leaned towards me and told me a tale that would halt my wild heart...



"I'm sorry, but Rotring have been subsumed into a bigger - Inferior, but really well known, American Global Corporation... They have stopped making the pens... I know, they were really popular; They are lovely pens, they write beautifully, don't they? But they only want us to buy and stock their already established merchandise... These are their refills. Let me see if one will fit... They tell us that they do."

She could not have toyed with less mercy with my sword, my implement, my love... The refill implanted in it, like a rogue seed, I left the shop almost in tears...

I have not been the same since that moment... I found that the ink did not flow nicely, and the rolling nib now scratched across paper as if it were a too-old feather quill that needed sharpening. The ink was thinner, cheaper meaner, less vibrant...

...Now, I am considering ink therapy... What th-Ink you, mes dahlinks?! Can you satisfy my cravings, my addiction to ink?

And thank you, in the meantime, to the wonderfully prescient Saz, from never Fat, Frumpy and Fifty, who kindly parcelled to me a pen of golden crystal mirrors accompanied by am amber sequinned notebook which helped to brighten my day, and loosened my frantic grip on the pen that can now never be... Thank you so, Saz - Sara - 'You're the poet in my heart, never change, never stop...', as La Nicks tells it... and lo it was so.

Meaningful Sunday Poetry Fragment...

The Bait by John Donne

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.














John Donne (1572 - 1631)

John Donne's standing as a great English poet, and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured. However, it has been confirmed only in this century. ...No other body of great poetry has fallen so far from favour for so long and been generally condemned as inept and crude. In Donne's own day his poetry was highly prized among the small circle of his admirers, who read it as it was circulated in manuscript, and in later years he gained wide fame as a preacher. For thirty years after his death successive editions of his verse stamped his powerful influence upon English poets. During the Restoration his writing went out of fashion and remained so for several centuries. Throughout the eighteenth century, and for much of the nineteenth century, he was little read. Commentators followed Samuel Johnson, dismissing his work as frigidly ingenious and metrically uncouth. Some scribbled notes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Charles Lamb's copy of Donne's poems make a testimony of admiration rare in the early nineteenth century. Robert Browning became a known (and wondered-at) enthusiast of Donne, but it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that Donne's poetry was eagerly taken up by a growing band of avant-garde readers and writers. His prose remained largely unnoticed until 1919. (Source)

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

Times are tough, right? Many of us are wondering about our jobs, our dwindling health, and our children's futures... It's all doom and gloom, non? Disaster and devastation wherever you turn your head...

But there is one place you can go, where it is always sunny, and where you can travel without leaving your sofa... It's where the music is always cool, because you choose it, and you never have to switch the channel to avoid an advert that is really getting on your nips!

"...Know what it is yet?"

(Rolf Harris TM Catchphrase!)

YOUTUBE! The wonderfully clever and energy-filled Rosaria also known as Lakeviewer, recently commented that she thought I was channelling a variety of personalities during my postings...

Rosaria is a frighteningly insightful soul... and such an interesting and intelligent writer at on her blog at Sixty-Five What Now? She has noticed my penchant for poignant pictures of la belle Marilyn, my header starring the lovely Scarlett (...now beautifully brunette, and I can never mimic that, lifelong blonde that I am...). My son, Grizz, thinks I channel Stevie Nicks sometimes, and there are probably many others...

Rosaria said: "Fhina, I think you channel different personalities, including the marvelous Marilyn Monroe as a gipsy queen. We are all fortune tellers for others whom we know well.

We project what we wish for them and what is inevitably written in their temperament".

Fascinating, non... There are many competing voices inside my head, I will admit to it...

Perhaps the most dominant within, however, is one who is a bona fide Hippy, a Flower Child, in fact a Wild Child of the Sixties... I was born in the Sixties, but perhaps a little too late to partake of the actual scene, man...

Did you know me at that time, I wonder? I lived for a while up in The Haight district of San Francisco, working in a Second-Hand bookstore there. ...I might have been channelling Janis Joplin, all bells and whistles, and I was planning a trip down to Monterey with some friends, just to hang out and feel the music whispering in the air...

...In another incarnation, I lived in Swinging London, and wandered thoughtlessly through the fashion-filled rooms of Biba on Carnaby Street on Abingdon Road in Kensington... I wore hand-picked flowers in my hair, was cut by Vidal Sassoon himself into a shinyblondebob just like Twiggy's, and I had procured a selection of scarily mad petal-printed polyester mini-dresses with knee-high black patent boots a la Shrimpton...
but often I would sneak in to my wardrobe cotton and muslin shifts that reeked of hemp and Patchouli, and mais bien sur I would go barefoot in the streets then...



'I don't want to know about evil, I only want to know about love...'



~ I have always loved the music of this era, and it calls to me its siren-song of love and longing, peace and enchantment, fun and freedom...

Here are Crosby, Stills & Nash singing Stephen Stills' song, Love The One You're With from 1970, and I'm travelling in a car on the Pacific Coast Highway, driving from Santa Monica to Malibu.

I want to make this road trip next year.

I want to listen to classic Californian Adult Oriented Rock while I'm doing it.

I want to channel my Inner Wild Child, and feel the warm breeze in my hair...

Hell, I'm only thirty years out of date!

And Chris Farlowe is singing, "My poor old fashioned baby... I said baby, baby, baby, you're out of time."

Two Fortune Cookies for the Price of One!

Ah, and so you're back... From Outer Space... I just walked in to find you here, with that sad look upon your face...

Et alors, mes petits Fortune Cookies, where were we, when we were so rudely interrupted by that power outage?

What do you mean, with all this paraphernalia I should have seen it coming??! You cheeky monkeys! ...I saw none of my darker experiences in the future I once had in mind for me...

How can we? If I had seen the visions, had it played out in front of me like the last reel in an old-time picture show, would I have walked down a different curved stone path to the cottage to hide out of the way of any of them?

Possibly...



And maybe not after all...

And, as I wibbled on about yesterday, I want to ask you something... but you don't need to comment or tell me the answer. I'd just like you to mull on it, my little Ossenpfeffers...
I'm setting some homework, if you like.

Well, it's been a while since you had any assignments, and I'm not just here for the good of my health, you know! ...Well, I am actually - for you all do me good, really you do. And, on that lovefest, voici la grande question I promised I would put to you yesterday:

When you were growing up, when you were knee high to a grass-hopper, envisioning the future for yourself, playing those, now childish, games that we play -- Truth or Dare, Counting the Prune-Stones and calling out 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy...' to predict where we might end up.



- What did you see in your future? And what made you veer from that path you commenced on?

Was it a sixth sense, some chicken bones, or just good old common sense kicking in, that made you conjure a different future for yourself?

And please try to focus more on those tough decisions which have brought you to more positive outcomes for your life, on the path that you have chosen? The things which have made you into the warm, witty, wonder that you are...

Spookily, blognut was talking about this only yesterday... ...Cue Twilight Zone intro music, Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo... In a writing prompt, she focused on what might you go back to childhood for and how might it have changed in your life. Here is the writing prompt question:

You can go back to your childhood for one day. What day and age do you choose?

I'll leave you to explore blognut's very wise conclusion on that question on your own two feet mes choux... Bloggus Nuttus's blog is always a great space to spend some time in - Thought-provoking questions, life-stories, dilemmas, tales, and lots of tinkling laughter shared among good friends.



There you are... Now, that wasn't so bad after all, was it? What did you expect when you came in to see me here in my Fortune Telling Booth at the wrong end of Foney-Fhi Island?!

Just leave that grey silk curtain drawn back as you leave, will you?

Thanks ever so much... I'm expecting my twelve o'clock now, is all...

Byeee, dahlink! See you again sometime, perhaps! I am certain our paths shall cross... After all, I've seen it in the tea-leaves.

Fortune Cookie...

Come on in, come in, the door's open...

Take a seat. Please? Don't be afraid, now... I'm not THAT kind of Fortune Teller... No dark forces at work here... No cards, no tarot, only the crystalline visions, and you... That's all I need. See the glass?


Now cross my palm with silver... There, that's right, thank'ee kindly.

May I? Ooh, your hand is icy cold! Where have you been to make it that cold?! You're not worried about this, are you? There's no need, there's no harm, it's only fun, after all... Here, let me...

My, what a clear palm you have, such soft skin... Just look at those lines... Let me see...



What is it about the future, do you think, that makes us want to see into it, before we've even got there? People have been reading rune stones, tossing chicken bones into the air, looking into dark mirrors, clear pools and crystals, even cold-reading faces and palms for centuries now...



I'll be totally honest here, I don't really believe that anyone can tell your fortune... I haven't had it proved to me that someone you meet has the gift to see the future, or read your past...

And yet I have once or twice been dragged along to see someone alleged to have the gift... A Seer... A card-reader. I hid this from GJ, total sceptic that he is about things such as this... I think I said it was a Costume Jewellery Party with the people from work, and I even brought home a pair of enamelled earrings I'd procured - To cover my tracks as it were... There, go on, confess it. You didn't think Fhina had it in her to be that cunning, so sly did you?



I have mentioned before that I never lie... I don't. I have told half-truths when it was in my power to try to protect someone, or simply when I just don't want to come to the 'phone... But then we all do that, don't we?


So, when yesterday, I trotted out what I could of my past, roughly in chronological order - So that those of you who traipse through this portal from time to time might better understand that when I proffer general life advice, it's done from compassion, borne of experience... That these are learned and studied bons mots, and that I'm not pontificating, not looking down on any lesser mortals than I. To be honest, I always get the sense that la Goddess Wiki does that with me, every time I have to duck my head in at the hallowed Temple... Like she's just toying with me, in fact... Sometimes giving me duff advice, as she does!

So when I put pen to paper for the list, all the while I was thinking, 'It's really not enough, this doesn't amount to much, Fhina!' 'There are people who go through life with far greater burdens than you have...' As indeed there are.

But you, mes bloggy dahlinks, have brought me back myself once again. With your words, and your charms, your magic philters... You have made me see that I have in fact been through quite a bit... That I have surmounted, survived even, what the cards have dealt to me; And have grown more battle-scarred, bashed around the edges, and I'm often weary, but I recognise that I have a strong spirit...

And I want to thank you... I desire to warmly hug you to my ample, jewel-encrusted bosom, (some artistic licence here, please?), and to pass on some of my love and light and some healing energies to you in return today... Thank you for your ongoing goodness, kindness and patience with me.



...Ah, but first I want to pose a question to you, as only Gypsy Fhina Lee can... Please be patient...because I'm going to hold it over and put it to you in the morning.

What Doesn't Kill You?

What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger...

Doesn't that sound matter of fact? Pat? Trite, even...

For when we're down in the dumps, it sometimes seems that nothing will ever drag us from that bottomless pit... Yes, that one.



I apologise here and now if anyone felt I might be overstepping any marks yesterday... I cannot stop myself, you see, de temps en temps, offering unsolicited advice... Even when I sense that no-one is going to take it, despite the fact that it's well considered and decent advice... Stand up close family relation, who has exhausted every bit of patience Fhina once had, and I'm a naturally pretty patient person, so that is saying something.

I am sorry if I seemed a little 'worthy' in the most derogatory sense of that word...


I don't know why I do it, and I tell myself I will stop, and then I find myself wading on in there again, positing ideas and advice like some 21st Century Gypsy Rose... Scrying into the sphere of crystal, and not seeing tall, dark strangers in anyone's future.


I might never let you into my own personal cabinet of secrets, mes bloggy chums. Mais non, the hoary ancient skeletons that lie within might not ever see the light of day again, mes dahlinks... And yet I wouldn't ever want you to think that I have led a charmed life... no. One with no scents or stains, without Sturm und Drang, as our German cousins say.



So I thought I'd offer a checklist, a resume if you like of my bon voyage through life, that puts me in a place where I think I am qualified, (no certificate implied), to offer billets doux - Soft words...
Just so that you know, mes amis, that if I offer my bons mots again, mes petits choux - If I deign to proffer solutions or study aids to the counter the doom and gloom of our universe, that they come from someplace near my still-beating heart, where there might be some scars that are not yet healed, and where there are lots of other little nightmares that I have had to push back into the deep, dark pot-holes of my ever-rambling mind. So as to keep this side of the Insanity Clause...

NB: This list is not comprehensive:

Having had an abusive, bullying partner
Having a partner break into and steal from parents' house
Mother dying tragically, well before her time
Ditto mother-in-law, one week before you get married to her much-loved son Committal to a mental health facility of a close family member
Committal to a mental health facility of best friend since childhood
Said best friend almost dying through anorexia - Twice, 2o years apart
Finding out your father-in-law had an earlier, secret family life and two further children. All this tumbling out of the mouth of a close family friend, in the month after F-I-L's OH died. He's never admitted to it, even when confronted with it.
Father-in-law commencing a short-lived affair with the heavily pregnant wife of your OH's best friend's father
Heavy drinking of close family member
Bad home accident caused by father-in-law's stupidity and ignorance, resulting in your baby being briefly hospitalised, and which you can never forgive him for...
Almost losing your Significant Other in an apalling car crash
Ten years later, almost losing your Significant Other to sudden health problems, which required weeks in hospital, where staff from the first ward he was admitted to kept on coming back to see him, because they did not believe he could still be alive...
Your Significant Other losing his livelihood three times for economic reasons
Dealing with resulting times of understandable depression and low mood, penury, poverty, and contemplating suicide on more than one occasion to avoid creditors...
Dealing with bullying in the workplace, and changing jobs and locations to avoid it - Twice
Almost losing your only child in a car crash (you know about that one, mes dahlinks, and he is still a love...

"So, please forgive me if I act a little strange, for I know not what I do..."*** But I know I will never stop doing it, that is, offering friends unsolicited advice. I cannot help myself.

A toute a l'heures mes pretty cornflakes!




*** David Gray Youtube

Always Take The Weather With You... Everywhere You Go

I find, in life that there are songs and music that 'sing' to us... That call our name, and some even give us shivers when we hear them, touching as they do some raw part of ourselves...

A fragment, a whisper carried on the wind, a good memory, a reflex...

Weather With You, from Crowded House, "a rock group formed in Sydney, Australia and led by New Zealand musician and singer-songwriter Neil Finn", has been rolling around my head for the past few days, like the veritable ear-worm that it is... It and a title from another of the band's better-known songs, Four Seasons In One Day - For the weather has been just like that here lately...spring and all!

Skip this paragraph if you're not really interested in the incarnation of the band (Info. care of La Wiki), which achieved big successes from the mid-Eighties to the mid-Nineties...



"Though the band owes its original success to the Australian live music scene, references to New Zealand people and places in songs pay homage to their roots ("Kare Kare" is written about Karekare Beach, "Mean to Me" refers to Finn's hometown of Te Awamutu). The success of the group's third album Woodface and the general success of Crowded House and Split Enz prompted the Queen in June 1993 to bestow the Order of the British Empire on both Tim and Neil Finn for their contribution to the music of New Zealand".

I hadn't realised that, for I didn't know much about these musicians, I just enjoyed so much of their song-writing and easy-listening pop/rock music in the radio and in the car during those years...

For me, Weather With You, conjures up feelings of nostalgia, of childhood...

Dredging, as we do, peculiar memories from our subconscious from time to time, triggered by smells or sounds. We are drawn back into a time when we were mainly safe... In our family home, with its familiar trinkets and jew-jaws, and we wondered what our future might bring, as we toy with the idea of becoming adult, grown-up...

Here are the lyrics:

Walking 'round the room singing
Stormy Weather
At 57 Mount Pleasant Street.
Now it's the same room but everything's different
You can fight the sleep but not the dream

Things ain't cooking in my kitchen
Strange affliction wash over me
Julius Caesar and the roman empire
Couldn't conquer the blue sky...

There's a small boat made of china
That's going nowhere on the mantlepiece
Do I lie like a Lounge Room Lizard
Or do I sing like a bird released

CHORUS
Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you

Written By N. Finn & T. Finn


But for me, this song isn't just about looking backwards, it's about looking to the future, and deciding for ourselves where our paths shall take us... These are two thoughts that I often trot out to others, snippets, morceau d'avis... Take them or leave them, mes dahlinks, I shall not be hurt if you do not... Know yourself, above all, my bloggy treasures. You know that, and don't need me to tell you anything.

Be realistic in your expectations: Many people believe they can make themselves happy through the love of another person. Don't expect others to be responsible for your happiness. You are the only person accountable for creating your own happiness.



Take charge of your feelings: Notice how powerful it is to work towards your own happiness, and be mindful of your actions and feelings. Do not waste your energies being a victim. Take charge of your destiny, and focus on practical ways through your problems.





The Truth According to Lady Wiki - so you don't have to read it - Ssshhhhh! I won't tell if you don't...: "As the central songwriter for the band, Neil Finn's music has always been the driving force for the band's song catalogue. Finn has often cited artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and folk rock artists such as John Denver and Joan Baez. Finn has said that his mother has always been a huge musical influence to him, encouraging him from a young age to listen to a variety of different musical styles, including Irish folk singers and Maori music. Maori influences can be heard particularly in Together Alone and also in the Finn Brothers release Finn.

Finn often writes lyrics in sonnet form with rhymes, similes and metaphors combined with literal descriptions. Some songs he has written have random lines, notably "Pineapple Head" from Together Alone, based on lines murmured by his younger son Elroy when he was sick and delirious with a fever as a young child".





(Repeat)

Spring Board!

A propos of nothing, I thought I might post something today on the things (6 - One third of the Number of the Beast!) that make me go zing about the season of spring...

We had a lovely entree to spring last week - Azure blue skies, fluffy white clouds, perfumes of blossom on the breeze and the annual appearance of wondrous lambs. This was elbowed mercilessly out of the way on Sunday with winds that threatened to carry off me wig, and squally rainstorms... Such is spring, c'est la vie, oop here in't north!

(Except it's mainly the Yorkshire lot that say 'oop' and do away with some vowel sounds, so instead of saying 'Up in the north', they might say, 'Oop in't north'... So there.... At least I'm being honest, but I do write this patter that passes for a blog, so tant pis, as they say in the Weatherby Whaler!

1. Lovely, Leggy Lambs: I love their little calls and bleats, and how playful and full of the joys of spring they appear to be. Seeing them play King of the Castle, when they run up and leap from little hummocks of grass, or onto and off the backs of their mothers, gives me immense joy, which I cannot be apologetic about.

The OH and I take regular forays out into the countryside at this time of year, when I am not hampered by my healing time, and our journeys are regularly punctuated by me exclaiming with joy at seeing their tiny white forms huddled together in twos and threes in a distant field... I especially like to see baby black sheep, which are not as common in the fields hereabouts...

'Black Sheep of the Family' - That's supposed to be a bit of an insult, isn't it? Not to me, it's not.

2. I just typed in to Photobucket, the term, 'Cherry blossom', and the site's response said something about them being totally agin anything that might have sexual content... Eh?

Have they taken leave of their spring senses? Okay then, Spring Blossom!



Those little shoots of life, where there have been only dry and spindly, brown, lifeless branches, can fill me with joy. Signs of life. A portent of earth's pleasures to come later in the year, when the gardens go mad in early summer... And the fact that the spring blossom is then cascaded on gentle breezes down onto ever-grey British pavements, and looks for all the world like confetti thrown at blushful brides and primping grooms...

Yes, I am a bit of a romantic, and a little soppy. Yes, I have been known to cry at sentimental films, soppy news articles, love where you least expect it, and public spectacles... Shoot me now!

3.

The quality of light in spring-time: I appreciate that the mornings, when I wake up are lighter... Much of the year, when it is dark, I have a tendency to hibernate... To want to wallow in my warm pit longer than absolutely necessary for wellbeing; Curled with bell, book and candle, well 'kay not always the bell!

When it dawns earlier, and when thin, tender fingers of spring-filtered, dappled light reach through my bedroom window, softly to stroke my cheek and ruffle my pineappled head, I feel as if I can face the day...

4.

Getting nyekkid... (Way to boost the readership, Fhina! - Chortle...)

Seriously, just being able to cast off some of the winter clothing, the layers and the rigmarole, leaves me feeling lighter and more in touch with the world... I never go sky-clad***, nor am I of the generation that thinks less is more, when it comes to what you wear; Those who might bravely expose pale, interesting midriffs, and 'Tango-tanned' flesh, but I do like to have bare arms, so you can feel the ripply breezes blow across the little hairs...

I don't like wearing tights much either, so baring my legs to the light is more pleasurable to me than being shod in 40 Denier Black Opaque Wolford Tights for half the year...

5.

The possibility of doing more outdoors... I get cabin-fever, stir-crazy, whatever it is that they call it... And I feel the call of the wild, the lure of the great outdoors, and I want to walk along a breezy beach, paddling my feet in the lapping waves, or dipping my toes in a chilly moorland stream, fresh from the Cheviots. People are wont to look at me like a loon if I attempt this outside of a British summer, but you can just about get away with it on a warm spring day, or so I've found...

6. And finally the fact that, as so many of you said yesterday, this is the season of renewal, of earth's boundless possibilities, and of affirming that we are still alive and still filled with some promise yet to come...

I want to wish you full of the joys of spring, and I am thankful for that opportunity...



***Sky-clad: The Goddess Wiki told me, " In Wicca-based Neopaganism, skyclad is used to refer to ritual nudity. Many Wiccan groups perform some or all of their rituals skyclad". Believe that, and you'll believe anything!