Luck and life...

Isn't it funny how we can be taken in and held by others in life?


Isn't it amazing, how if we put out those tender tendrils of love and care, sometimes they come back to us, manifest and fourfold...

I spent quality time with an elderly couple this week.   Inspirational, they are to me, the pair of them.

I was on the Leek Hunt again.

Yes, it's that time of year, when I get my Leeka Mundi out and travel the country roads in search of leeklets, baby leeks, I call them - I don't mind that others laugh when I say that - And, in September, all this hunting may mean I can join in our rural community's bit of jollity - The Annual Leek Show!

It's a bit of fun.

Some people take it very, very seriously...

I'm not kidding you.

People have been known to poison a rival's leeks, or to turf them from their beds as they grow at night.

In some parts of the country, men (for they're usually men who grow leeks with such fervour) used to sleep with their leeks, torches ready, to prevent any malfaisance. 

Revenge... a dish best served cold - Not like leeks, best in soups!

Anyhoo, mine get shoved out in large pots at the front of the house to 'let them hing as they grow', (make the 'ow' sound, as in now, and you have our accent!), as my old Mum used to say - Albeit they get watered and fed like kings.

So, I tootled off in my old jalopy to visit Elspeth and Joseph.   (Not their real names...)

Elspeth and Joseph are my Leek Dealers.  

Legends they are, hereabouts.   Sweet and decent folk, hard-working, wonderful.   Funny.   They laugh their way through life, and there's nothing you could tell them about plants, or this area, that they don't already know.

There is a magic about them.

So, I sat in their parlour with its old range of a fire, cordially invited in for strong coffee, while the wind whipped about the nineteenth century house that they've lived in for half a century or more, while Joe filled my car-boot with baby leeks, and afterwards they spun such stories that wove around me, cloaking me in love and light.

Life.

...And I am exactly the age their son would have lived to be, had he not fallen from his motorcycle at the tender age of seventeen.

Now breathe...

I think this image will be far too big for the blog - Ever so sorry! I am getting used once more to my own laptop, since it has had its 'heat sink' removed and re-soldered and it stopped 'eating and destroying disks'...

Of course, tippy-tappying away on this little shiny thing compared to using my son's new Vaio, it's rather like using a toy typewriter. But, as they say, mustn't grumble!

I hope you like the technical nature of my foray here... This is as far as it goes!

As for the picture, this is Rhein Maidens by Arthur Rackham - I've always liked his faery and fairtale drawings. Click into it, please, to see its full beauty, if you can only see part of it today.

Well, I heard back from the job interview I went for last week. As I thought, I didn't get the job. Too bad. Or 'tant pis' as les Francais say...

I felt I'd really handled it badly. I was nervous, probably unprepared. This is the first 'outside' interview I'd had in years of working in the Civil Service. The panel of 3 women were all younger than me. I don't think that's a good thing, really. I worked with women older than me when I first started out and they didn't make the going easy, if that makes sense. I was viewed as a threat and they down-played my ability and wondered how I could possibly be doing the job, when I didn't have their years of experience, etc...

Now the boot's on the other foot, and I can see things from another perspective, if you were young would you feel confident about having a 'subordinate' who had more experience than you?

Like I say, the worst of it was that I was distinctly unprepared for what came up, and waffled some questions and examples... I went on about never having missed a deadline. (I never have). And then they gave me a suite of tests - Half an hour, ten minutes per test, 3 tests, and I only fully completed the first one, which was to compose and save a letter in Word. The second test concerned creating two spreadsheets - I managed one and three quarters... The third test was another letter, compiled from a policy document... FAIL.

So, I'll live and learn another day, folks. At least I got an interview in these challenging economic times...

I was also up for another job that I really fancied. My friend who works there found out I got into the top 7 to be interviewed, but only 6 were selected... Of those 6, 3 went on to decline the interview... Hey ho.

Sometimes I do wonder whether I am merely trying to exchange one institution for another. Maybe I need to take time out to fathom that one, mes bloggy buds?
Earlier this week, I stopped in the street on a busy road to feel the silky velveteen softness of an unfurled spring leaf.

I commend it to the house as an exercise in just being...