Trees 'r' good... And a giveaway!

I am sitting, nay recumbent, on the sofa on a Sunday morning.   I've been up since half seven, in spite of longing for a lie-in, and I'm trawling my interwebs, filling the dishwasher, feeding the fire its logs, and so on...

Suddenly, (I've never been able to say or write 'all of a sudden', since a belovedly Bohemian English teacher of mine, a throwback to the fabulously hippy Sixties, hell she even had a cigarette holder!), said 'Whenever one hears 'all of a sudden', one always thinks 'a big black puddin' came flying through the air!')...   Suddenly I am startled from my zombie-like reveries by the whirring and whining of a chainsaw.   Peering through the frosty morning, I am not wholly surprised to find two neighbours steadily dismantling a tree in my garden.

Am I alone in wondering, I wonder, whether a partner is supposed to communicate such things to his much beloved other half of thirty (long, long, bloody long) years, when he's taken out a contract on the tree with two of our neighbours who he met at the pub?!

Yes, he's been whining and whinging like the chainsaw for a while about the tree.   About a year, in fact.   Not that I've noticed.   Much.   Yes, it interferes with our otherwise uninterrupted view of the hills.   Yes, it blocks our way up the garden path.   A bit.    And, admittedly, it was growing terribly close to the telephone wires that lead to all 17 houses that form our neighbours in the top half of the terrace (we're in the middle.  -Ish).

But the last straw for the tree came yesterday, when our neighbours' new kitty, Pepper, decided it was an ideal vantage point from which to spy and snare young birds.   We used to have cats as pets.   I grew to love them and now I miss them dearly.   But going all snacky-snacky on young birds was 'Verboten'.   As much as you can ever verbote cats not to trap birds...

Sample bird commonly seen in Fhina's garden.   (NB:   No birds were harmed during the writing of this blog).

So, as much as I liked to see the green leaves blowing gently in light breezes, and as much as I hate to cut down any living thing, the tree's days were numbered.   Its time was up.   It was soon to be an ex-tree.   And as much as I thought I could replicate Owly, a wooden sculpture which I blogged about earlier, within the tree, it was far too skinny to do so, when I looked at it realistically.

And now the chainsaw has ceased its whirr, I have had my lazy bath and have managed not to flash the neighbours cutting down the tree, when I shimmied out of the bath-towel in my bedroom which overlooks the garden.

And here I am once again gazing out of the window.   This time at a patch of blue sky with a frosty, but fluffy, white cloud skimming across it on this golden autumnal morning.   The tree is no more.   It has ceased to be.   But wonders never cease.   The sun is shining, and I am amazed at the symmetry once again restored to the garden's outlook, where once there was only untidy tree in sight.   Now the green-golden-copper beech hedge, split in twain by the garden gate, can yawn without interruption.   The gateway is more clear.   I can see the road and the hills beyond.

I shall eat my words.

I live and breathe.   Sadly, the tree does no longer.   I think the tree was a bit of a metaphor for how stuck I've been.   How hard I find it to let things go.

How good is/are your partner(s) at communicating, I wonder, mes bloggy chums?   Do you take the rough with the smooth.   Is your communication with one another a bit like the tree of life, with lumps and bumps along the way, or does it flow like a river-stream under shady willows?

Do you still experience surprises, sometimes on a daily basis like I do?   What are your expectations of them?   Do they drive you mad?   How do you cope?

Answers in the box below - Oh, and please do follow me, if you don't already.   I have lost a few followers recently and the numbers go up and down like a navvy's breeches, and I have an oh, so fragile ego...

Ramble over - One random answer, or rather answer selected at random, will receive a hastily carefully chosen bijou bit of tat trinket from somewhere about my home, as I strive to de-clutter and free my mindspace for more sane sensible things...

I hope you will like it.   I have a no returns policy.

Loving Molly Anne...

I want to pay a little tribute to a wonderful lady that I never ever had the pleasure of meeting, but I know her darling daughter well, for which fact and whose friendship I am humongously grateful...

Molly Anne Fabre, late of The View from this End was a writer and an artist, a lover of dogs, her French husband, JP, her family, her home and her history.   She told stories about her early childhood that made me cry.   She and her siblings were serially abandoned by her mother into the non-care of horrific nuns, and yet (in spite of her name, which I understood as Moany, rather than Mo-Annie(!), until corrected by her loving and dutiful daughter, Sara,), Moannie never seemed to actually moan about her lot in life.   She spoke about things factually, but from the heart, and with real emotion.   And my heart, my rescuer's heart, bled for her.

Moannie wrote in a way that seemed as if it flowed from her like a running river;   It was as if it were vital for her to get everything, every fact of her existence, out there into the world - To be counted, to count as a woman.   ...She adored comments on her stories, often replying to every one, and she was a faithful and loyal supporter of other bloggers.   

Sometimes when I would write about how I missed my own mother, who passed on a week later than Moannie did this year in October of 1996, in fact, Moannie would appear in my comments box with soothing, caring words, making me feel warm, held, appreciated and supported.

I don't think she ever knew what exactly she meant to me in those many moments...   

Sara took this photo of her Mum in the summer.   It became her favourite.  

Moannie had an indomitable spirit, or so it seemed to us in Blogland.   She oozed vitality, fun, feisty wit, and a maybe not so quiet strength.

Hers had been a life of journeys, onwards and upwards.  Of adventure.   Of reaching out to people.   And being reached.   And met.

Finally, the view from this end stories moved indelibly into the present, with Moannie telling us about her battle with cancer (which she called the Fecker).   She dictated her words bravely from her hospice bed when she could no longer use Paco her pc and, when she was too unwell, Sara took up her 'pen' to tell us all how Moannie was faring.   

This was dignified and touchingly beautiful.   And bloody hard.   And fucking brave.   I never find endings easy.   We talk about having a 'good death'.   What can that mean?   Is it even possible?

I have ferreted back in time, and found these words to me from Moannie, which seem to sum up the very essence of how she was to us here in Blogland, those of us fortunate enough to have known her:  

The context here is that I was whingeing and worrying about a forthcoming operation,

"Dear Fhina, you know the fact that you have made me cry shows how much this Blogging phenomena magically bonds us all together; how we all rush to hug away hurt, and strive to find the right words to soothe aching hearts. 

And the truth is that it is not psuedo, pretend, fake caring -  Why would we spend time in false words?  The pain we feel for you is as real as the sun, moon and stars.  We are real friends even though we shall never meet". 

What more can be said?

Well, if we can see ourselves reflected back in the words and eyes and souls of others; when we know we have made an impact, then we can know we have lived life to the full.   Molly Anne will be terribly missed.

I know she was very partial to a handsome Frenchman!

...And, I like these words from the subject, Marcel Proust.   I once spent a week in a big house right on the golden beach-front in Trouville, Normandy, that had been turned into flats.   In the nineteenth century it had been a hotel that Proust himself stayed in and was also painted by Monet.

These words are principally for Sara, and at the same time, I hope they may stand for all of us who continue to miss the faces we loved:

“Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days past when you had her. 

When you are used to this horrible thing that they will forever be cast into the past, then you will gently feel her revive, returning to take her place, her entire place, beside you. 

At the present time, this is not yet possible. 

Let yourself be inert, wait till the incomprehensible power ... that has broken you restores you a little, I say a little, for henceforth you will always keep something broken about you. Tell yourself this, too, for it is a kind of pleasure to know that you will never love less, that you will never be consoled, that you will constantly remember more and more.” 

― Marcel Proust

A propos of nothing much...

I've never waited so long between blog posts.   What has become of me?

Moreover, what have I become?!

I've been to London to see the Queen, as you know.   I even got a specially produced tag - You know, like the one Paddington Bear wears?   It was given to me by my dear friend, Donty, who also accompanied me at the end of May to our Buckingham Palace Garden Party.   One of only two to be held this year, in the back gardens of Buck Palace.   In her Majesty's (no, not Madonna!   FGS...) Jubilee Year 'n' all.

It was fab.   More later, I pwomise.   Here's a mere tastette, it's about as much as we saw of the Queen, to be fair - The lure of cucumber and mint sandwiches and delicious cakies was too much, I'm afraid!   We never even saw the rest of the royal party - When the second line formed after Queenie had passed by us, we sauntered off to the tea tent for second helpings, and to find somewhere nice to rest our feet.   I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear my trousers rolled!

What have I been up to else you cry?   Well, perhaps you don't - Perhaps there's fewer of you there than before to care.   Pity me, came the even louder cry.

Whelk, I've been busy.

Busy doing nothing.

No, busy being busy - Working at my voluntary job, applying for jobs (I even applied for security work for the Olympics, getting caught up in the whole G4S fiasco - Do you believe it?   Moi??!);   I've been rounding up bits of my course (ongoing), signing up for next year's Psychotherapy programme.   In addition, I've been wrestling lions of anxiety fighting with the cheetahs of fear and self-doubt, as well as trying to sort out the dregs and pieces of my family's own anxieties.   Perhaps theirs are wolves.   Or tigers.   They're certainly not as fun and bouncy as tiggers, to be sure.

A truly troubling time has been had by all.

I've been in avoidance of having much fun here, to be fair, as life was just getting a bit raw around the edges.

And now?   I'm still waiting for the clouds to clear and the day to become brighter.

Sometimes life is just a little bit hard, is it not?!

I think so.

See you soon, my darlings.

Fika Meme - Wha'?!

MEME: from Sallymandy via Mervat and Moannie and Scriptor Senex...

What is your current obsession?
Blogging, bien sur! Even although I am now back in the full time shackles of the orifice, I wish I were here - laughing and chattering, and carrying on as if I led a life of wilful ease, non?! And, oh I am so afraid to admit to it - Someone young enough to be my son - Robert Pattinson! I love tortured poets... Lord Byron, John Keats, John Clare...



Good fika place? (That would be coffee to us non-Swedes) The Bookhouse, Newcastle, before Central Perk ever existed - Beautiful, spiral staircase leading down from excellent bookshop to cafe hangout - I don't even know what this place is now - But The Bookhouse remains in the mind like a lost lover, whom you never really wanted to let go, and you never properly bid adieu to...

Currently, my favourite place is Coffee Beans, an independent, locally owned, coffee house, near to The Office, very seventies but with WiFi, lime green and teak wood decor and brown suede sofas, and the staff are just fabulous, dahlink!



I met the wonderful Sazfab from never has been Fat, Frumpy or Fifty...there on Wednesday, and it was magical! Magical, I tell you! More of our tale later, sans doute, mes bloggy air biscuits!

Do you nap a lot?


Good goddess yes. Whenever I can, I curl up, whip out the disposable lenses and snooze as if there were no tomorrow... I love my pit, I love warmth and comfort, and my wide, room-divider, boundary-pushing, sofa is my second bed...

Who was the last person you hugged?
My friends at work who have welcomed me back like the prodigal daughter... My last hug was with a stakeholder lady, whom I have known for seven years - I hugged her, kissed her cheeks, and got my lip gloss all over her hair - Embarrassing, non?! But sweet and very, very genuine, nonetheless. I love her.

Rescinded to say that my last wee hug was with the energetic and indomitable Saz! She is more than fabulous, dahlink, and it were such a treat to finally meet!

What’s for dinner?


Chip leftovers with decent German Rye Bread, with a smidgen of Tomato Ketchup - And I'm on a diet, so this is not allowed, mais tant pis!

What are you listening to right now?


The TV is on - Dark Water, a psycho-thriller film... I've seen it before, and yet I cannot remember how the movie pans out!

What is your favourite weather?
Sunny, not too hot, bright and warm. I've my sunnies on, a light blouse and skirt/troos, and I know I'm not going to get wet today! P.s. I'm not in England, apparently...

What’s on your bedside table?
I have a hand painted cupboard, rather than a table - Tables, I just knock things off... Fhina's middle nom de plume is Calamity, as my lovely late mother would say...

Anyhoo, my glazed placard is black with violet vines and flowers - In it there are books, some of my favourite novels, a couple of jew-jaws, my specs, (Prada, dahlink!), a Georgian map I bought for my husband in an antiques warehouse, some juice, a pillow, and the erstwhile remnants of my life... Can you tell what it is yet?!

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?
Paris, always Paris! Probably La Porte Doree if we could not afford a garden and cat in Montmartre, where the vinyards once were...

Favourite vacation spot?
After Paris, Nice in the south of France, where I long for a second home...
Trouville in Normandy, with its mists and literary electricity and eccentricity, as well as the Dominican Republic, for its greenness that reminds me of England, and its wonderful people...

~The things you can’t live without. .
My family, my good friends here, my new-ish laptop, my music, animals, books, coffee, wine, and now bloggering.

What were the happiest two years of your life?
My third year at college, and the first year I had my beloved son, Grizz...

What would you like to get rid of?
Despair.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Where my sadly-passed mum and dad are, to smell their scents, and hug their warmth and deep love to me... Failing that, c'est toujours Paris - Non?!

What did you want to become as a child?
A singer, (Sandy Shaw - I remember, I must have been about four, wanting to be called Sandy...and even writing the name, playfully, in my reading book...), then an English or Modern Languages teacher, then a mother, then a Registrar, then a shopkeeper, then a famous writer...in that order...

What do you miss?
My mum and my dad, ca va sans dire! Friends who live a long way away - Then and now, including vous, mes bloggeristas!

The orifice is sadly interfering with my Mojo and my blogging life - Visiting y'all... I am so sad and so sorry... : (

I also miss my youth and my thin-ness!

What are you reading right now?
The Twilight Saga, again ;0 Wonderful Blogs, and I have a backlog of fabulous contemporary novels to dig into ...Graduellement!

What do you fear the most?
Losing everything, as do we all, eventuellement, no?!

Which designer piece of clothing would you most like to own (new or vintage)?


It would have to be a Louis Vuitton handbag above all, or something from Biba in my super-size!

What did you last watch on television? A programme about David Bowie, made over 10 years ago!


If you’d like to do the meme, here’s how it works.

1. Answer the questions on your blog, replace one question you dislike with a question of your own invention; add a question of your own.

2. You may tag others or leave it open to anyone who feels like giving it a go.


This Meme was posted by the darling and talented, John, Scriptor Senex at 4/19...

And I snatched it there, mes bloggy Cat-Burglars!

Please clock, mes petits chamois-leathers, that I am not around this weekend, non...

I am visiting the bold city of York with my family for two and a bit days... So I might not be around in Bloggusland, but know once more that I am, always, thinking of you, and I shall catch up with you a toute a l'heure, mes checkered lives... Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!

Seamless Meanderings, Looking forward to a Wedding, and Fifteen Awards!

I have been completely discombobulated over the past 24 hours as, according to one who knows (i.e. the Other Half, GJ - Technical Glitterati Geek!), we had lost the DSL connection for our internet link... A green light was winking weakly at me, and nothing we could do - Switching it swiftly off and on again, moving the box to loftier positions in the house, sighing deeply, turning on the laptop 'just in case', helped or changed the situation...



We live in a very rural area, so it is not unusual, as I have mentioned previously, to have power outages, water cuts, and so on...



We do not have as speedy an Internet connection as my friends nearer to the city, and sometimes I can imagine wires being pulled slowly together by a pair of particularly tardy snails...





So that's me, over there, the one with a paper bag over my head, as I am hyperventilating, mes chums, because I wasn't able to get around as many of you as I normally would have yesterday, to leave my little whispers and wishes, so please accept my apologies and most genuine and humble excuses...

I have made a little Voodoo Doll of the Internet Service Provider... Please help yourself to a pin from that blue glass dish over there, if you fancy a stab?!

So, today's post is a hodge-podge/hotchpotch of trivia, an award, a couple of shout-outs, and a Meme - In fact, little change from normal, really! You won't even see the seams, I pwomise...

And if you're wondering what with all the bridal and wedding images - Simples! - My friend, whom I had mentioned way back when, who I had helped to see the light in his long term relationship, when he was about to leave, for fear of getting too hurt himself, is getting married this Saturday... GJ and I have been invited to the wedding.

A cause for some celebration these days, methinks, and we are proud to have been asked to attend their ceremony, which I have always felt is the most important part of a wedding... Getting invited to the party afterwards is never quite the same, in my humble opinion. So this week shall no doubt pass in a blur of me trying to find something half-decent to wear, including shoes (I think the last wedding I attended was my cousin's, about twelve years ago!), getting GJ's suit dry-cleaned, ensuring I do not break the beautifully wrapped parcel containing a pair of crystal wine glasses I managed to procure for them on Saturday in a local family-run department store, and generally panicking about the state of my hair, since I haven't been to a hair salon since August!



A kind of Meme (apparently pronounced 'meem', but I can't say I'm keen on that one... (What's wrong with Mee Mee? After all, you are spilling the beans on you-you?!)...... has been doing the rounds, not sure where it originated, but you input your name to Google, with the words, "Fhina (your name) needs...?"

Of course, Fhina being my nom de plume, and appropriated from a vague, (but highly original source, je vous assure!) Google responded with, "Do you mean China needs...?"

No, I did not mean that! What would I have to do with China, as wondrous as that multifaceted country is? So, I used my real monicker, given to me by loving parents, a name which dates me firmly (I think...) as a child born in the fifties or sixties, and no later mind. It has dated very badly, in the circumstances!

Get on with it, Fhina! The result, you ask?

1. Fhina Needs Assessment - What kind of assessment? Mental health?! Too late, came the cry!

2. Fhina Needs our help - I need all the help I can get, me lovies...

3. Fhina Needs to change - Why, what have you heard?! Change in what way exactly? Could you be more specific?

4. Fhina Needs another at the process of remembering - The rumours of my early onset Alzheimer's have been vastly exaggerated, I can assure you... Who did you say you were again?!

5. Fhina Needs more busts - Ahem, I don't think so... Do you mean plaster busts? Like this one? I don't think I've got the room in my cottage, really, although it is very nice of you to offer...

6. Fhina Needs to learn POP3 - Fhina has always leant more towards folk and rock - Pop, you say?! You'll never get me disco dancing, je vous assure!

7. Fhina Needs to get back to study - I think that is a cheeky remark - I need to get back to my Stained Glass Class - Does that count as study...

8. Fhina Needs to go - I'll just get me coat!

9. Fhina needs a 1995 a retired Tony Carter teapot of a chaise lounge with the gramaphone on a small table-hmmm. Mmmmmm... Sounds very interesting! ... Note the spelling of gramophone - Not that I am in any way a pedant!

10. Fhina needs a muck-over - I beg your pardon - That sounds like something you would do to a horse, and not to a Fhina!

11. Fhina Needs a forever family - It is true, there are children and babes who need loving, caring forever families, and certainly in the UK there is a shortage of people willing to become Foster Parents, which is such a shame... However, Fhina was fortunate enough to have great, if a bit mad, parents, and does have a loving, albeit occasionally disfunctional, family of her own now...

12. Fhina Needs you - This much is true, my bloggeros and bloggeristas! See yesterday for evidence.

13. Fhina Needs your prayers - Whatever works, loves! I won't turn them down... Although there are far more worthy causes, as we know.

14. Fhina Does not need that money any more than most in there... Now, hang on there, if you please, can I just check your pockets for any loose change before you leave the portal of Crawford Mansions? We've been losing a lot of the silver lately, you 'know!

15. Fhina Needs new knees... Please Goddess Wiki, no. I have only just started on me back repairs, me knees can't go yet!


Finalement, my head is swelling of late, and not only from consumption of dust. I was mentioned in despatches in David McMahon's wonderful Post Of The Day blogspot the other day - This is always incredible and flattering!

And, I have received this award from the delightful and delovely, Carma, there it is, on the right sidebar, at the top, for which I shall be eternally grateful, bless you, dahlink!


This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his/her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary and personal values every day.

The rules to follow are:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to another 15 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I would like to pass on this award to:

Aleksandra, at New Times Arrived, for being quirky and wonderful, and arty and working very hard at everything she does to bring art and music into the world;

Bee at Bee Drunken for her insight, intelligence, store of memories and photography;

Jaywalker at Belgian Waffling, for her European chic, her sharp blogging style and for ladybird and parrot-cake-making extraordinaire;

Brit' Gal in the USA for her sterling efforts in improving Brit/USA relations and for her all round life adventurousness;

Carolina at Brinkbeestinenglish for her blogging style in English and in Dutch, and her beautiful pigs;

C. Beth Blog for her love, creativity, parenting, strength and faith in humanity;

Chairman Bill - I know he probably doesn't 'do' awards, but he deserves one for blogging intelligently for a number of years in the wilderness of experience;

Comedy Goddess, for being a comedy genius!

Cynthia for her beautiful life, as well as her great review of the film of Sue Monk Kidd's book, The Secret Life of Bees;

Dumdad at The Other Side of Paris for his love of music, raising of wonderfully bright children, and being blogging fantastic! Oh, that and his future in wine importing!


La Belette Rouge who has more awards than Hollywood, but deserves this one for her tenacity towards life, the universe and writing, and her love of her fair dog-aughter, Lily;


Leatherdykeuk for her quirky and intelligent art, wicked photography and cunning creativity!

Suburbia at Moments from Suburbia for always hitting the mark with her writing in some very challenging times;

Ruby Isabella Jones for her dogged determination, and beautiful blog;

The Irascible Fairy for his writing on Chairman Bill's blogs - Always entertaining, considerate and thought-provoking;

~Quoting Carma, "I thoroughly enjoy reading your blogs. I've been enlightened and entertained, met so many inspirational people and shared lots of laughs!"


Merci beaucoup, mes amis!

Camille Claudel, Muse and Legend - An Heroic Life?

Once again, mes braves, I am staying with the heroes and heroines in our lives thematic approach... This is Hera above.

The theme of what constitutes heroes and heroines, and who are our heroes, might be something I choose to return to from time to time... Hope you're okay with that? And my apologies in advance as this is a little long today, so I have decided to save half until tomorrow - The pictures, I think, make it appear longer, in any case...

It seems to me that in our history, we had some everyday heroes, such as Nelson, and perhaps Churchill - because the media and press weren't so much 'in our face' as they are today. It was easier to control the media then when there was less of it... When news and information, gossip and rumour, could not be found at the click of a mousie! At those points in history, it might have been easier to have held people closer to our hearts, to have plucked their image from a news sheet, and pasted it into an album, their thoughts and deeds keeping us warm on wintry evenings, simply because we didn't know all that there was to know about them...

Once we know their flaws, their Achilles' Heels - That they bite their toenails, for example, how easy is it then to hold their better deeds close to our hearts?

In this vein, I do not include those personal heroes, those who are known and much loved to us - The people I am loving you telling us about - Your mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, courageous friends and wonderful acquaintances...

Back to the ramble - and wasn't it the proud and imperious Mr Darcy, channelled by Jane Austen, who said:

"My good opinion once lost, is lost forever... "

I quoted from Protege's comments yesterday, and do so once again today. She said, "Those who maintain...who can achieve what they wanted, whatever it is, just by keeping at it...it's so rare".

This could sum up my artistic heroine, Camille Claudel, almost entirely...


You may, or may not be aware, but Camille's story has been more or less hidden in the clay-spattered aprons of time... Perhaps her family wanted it that way... Camille was born, close to my own birthday in fact - I hadn't recalled that before now, on 8 December 1864, and was the older sister of the French poet and diplomat, Paul Claudel.

Camille was said to be entranced by stone and soil as a child... At this point, I'm dipping my head and entering the low stone portal of the Goddess Wiki, where else??! "as a young woman she studied with sculptor, Alfred Boucher. (At the time, the École des Beaux-Arts barred women from enrolling to study.)" Aah, did it now..., why am I not suprised?

"In 1882, Claudel rented a workshop with other young women, who were mostly English, including Jessie Lipscomb. In 1883, Camille met Auguste Rodin, who taught sculpture" to developing young talents in his studio in Paris.

In or around 1884, Camille began to work alongside Rodin, learning from him and perhaps teaching him some things. ~ For years she merited his attentions, she was his muse, his confidante and his lover. Rodin, of course, was all this time married to Rose Beuret, mother of his son.



There are all kinds of rumours about Camille - That she had two children with Rodin. She had an accident in which she lost his child... She had to terminate a pregnancy of his child...


No-one can be certain, and records have been misted over with cobwebs and probably sources have been tampered with by well-meaning friends and relatives - Who among us really knows what passes between two lovers?



And wasn't it Charlotte Bronte herself who threw sister Emily's second novel into the flames of the fire in the parlour in Haworth?!

Camille's family never came to terms with her indiscretion, nor her love of a profession which was not entirely deemed seemly for one of her station in life... In 1892, Claudel ended her relationship with Rodin, although they saw one another regularly until 1898.

In 1903, she merited a headline exhibition at one of the famed Parisian salons... She was Rodin's muse, and influenced, to my mind, softened elements of his art and sculpture... She was a very talented sculptress in her own right; The famous art critic Octave Mirbeau wrote she was "A revolt against nature: a woman genius".


"Her early work is similar to Rodin's in spirit, but shows an imagination and lyricism quite her own, particularly in the famous Bronze Waltz (1893). The Age of Maturity (1900), whilst interpreted by her brother as a powerful allegory of her break with Rodin, with one figure The Implorer that was produced as an edition of its own, has also been interpreted in a less purely autobiographical" way, as a powerful testament to pain, suffering and longing. The lone figure outstretches her arms, beseeching someone out of vision to enfold her, to love her...

Camille came to Rodin's studio when he was working on the famous, Gates of Hell and The Burghers of Calais. She is probably the model used for the three female forms at the top of the gates. "The two artists had a mutual influence on one another; her Jeune Fille à la Gerbe of 1887 was a precursor of Rodin’s Galatea, and the Three Female Fauns are the inspiration for the female figures Claudel’s La Vague".

Write on! Respect the Blog!

I'm on a bit of a soapbox today, and it's a very valid one that you might like to get on too!

Firstly, however, I'd like to acknowledge the very lovely, sparkly crown I have been fortunate enough to be given by the wonderful Diane over at Diane's Addled Ramblings. Diane is a gifted writer, warm and truthful, vulnerable and extraordinary, and she is to be treasured; I love her with the bits of my heart that Saz over at Fat, frumpy and fifty doesn't have! (And not to forget Braja, for if you have not experienced her vivid tales of living in India, then you have not lived!)

Diane received this unique crown from the inimitable Braja, and in turn has asked to share it with me, which is just so darling, I am about to gush!

It’s the Queen of All Rambling Award, and I am allowed to timeshare it with Diane, and am as pink as my page, as I type, or more usually, ramble!

I feel like a princess, and I have so rarely felt that!



Please go visit with this denizen of beauties if you have not already. If not, you might find me leaning over you in bed one night, asking you exactly why...... You'll recognise me because I'll be the one in the beautiful crown!

And now wiping my proud tears, I shall move on to the reasoning behind the Write on! Respect the Blog! button on my sidebar to your right.


The groundswell of support behind this online movement stems from this dodgy article: "Danger online: Perils of revealing every intimate moment in the Times On-Line," which had many bloggers' venom up, to say the least!

Canadian, Don Mills Diva, was named in the article, and writing in her blog was misappropriated and twisted in a shamefully lazy piece of journalism, more worthy of the tabloids. The journalists involved aimed to disparage the Blogging Community, purely to 'puff' a new book on 'Cyburbia'!

I sense professional rivalry, and hissy fits from an editor more concerned at losing revenue to Cyberland, rather than any real dangers posed by the more sensible and sensitive blogger, which I think accounts for all of you whose blogs I have the pleasure of reading...

The article refers to issues when people have been too candid in their blogs, thereby potentially surrendering their privacy up to others, and where writers are spending more time blogging, rather devoting more time to face-to-face interaction... It talks about the dangers of being tempted by a baying audience to reveal more and more about yourself, in order to gain popularity and readership... The article implies, as many anti-blogging journos do, that we are unprofessional, with the capacity to dilute journalism proper...

Oh, grow up and put your dummy (pacifier) back in!

One thing I found of particular interest was set out in this paragraph: "But how authentic are blogs anyway? Are we totally truthful in them or partly acting? In an article in Psychology magazine entitled “The Decline and Fall of the Private Self”, Jamie Pennebaker, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas in Austin, believes that blogging has elements of theatre with people, say, blunting the edges of ugly revelation with humorous comment, always with an eye on self-presentation. “If you're writing and you know lots of people are going to be looking at it you're going to change things to make yourself look good.”

For heaven's sake, these people are more deluded than I think they are if they believe for one instant that the majority of people we rub shoulders with in la vie quotidienne are not acting and dissembling!!! Sorry for the over-punctuation, it's that which marks me out as a non-journalist, I guess!

I have oft worked with colleagues who have admitted to me that they are not honest about themselves; They never let on to a boss, for example, that they are struggling with something, or that they don't understand him or her - They are not true to themselves, and in doing so, they only allow the best parts of themselves to be seen - This means of course that the more naive or absent boss believes them to be 'holier than thou', and they want to keep it that way...Thank you very much!

I think that is the case with the majority of folk in our throw-away, shallow and vacuous, fame-obsessed, 'Zelebrity Ruled' society.

Here in Blogland, Cyburbia, or whatever you want to call it, I am:

able to be thrilled by images and sounds from continents and towns I might never be fortunate enough to visit;


heartened by listening to others' experience of life, and boldened by feedback, which in turn helps me to become more self-aware and sociable, (when I am restricted pretty much to the home at the moment...);

I enjoy sharing parenting tips with younger parents, and more experienced parents, who are struggling (albeit often very comically) with life's stresses, and who might just benefit from my own lessons learned; 'There by the grace of goddess Wiki go I', and all that... and I may learn much from them!

I enjoy light-hearted banter across generations - This experience is priceless to me now that my own access to more mature and more wise folk has been cut off by the sad departures of my own loved ones;

I enjoy sharing similarities, lives, loves and some madness (mine!) with kindred spirits - These are often people who are not 'ten-a-penny' in my experience, and whom I might never have had the great good fortune to encounter in 'real life' because of the distances that separate us;

And above all, I am here because you make me ponder and muse, smile and cry;


I enjoy the fellow-feeling of a circle of excellent writers and raconteurs; Above all you people make my day!



I did mention I was getting on my soapbox today, didn't I? Don't be overly alarmed, it doesn't happen often, and I won't be burning any bras, for fear of creating a public hazard!



As Don Mills Diva said in her blog on Friday 30 January, "I want you to speak up and tell the world that you and your writing and your blog deserve respect; from the Times On-Line, from the mainstream media and from every one of the millions of so-called "professional" journalists out there who have mused about whether blogs ruin journalism.

Here's the button and the code:



Throw it in your sidebar and then maybe write a post. Write from your heart about what makes you and your writing and your blog worthy of respect".

Incidentally, in the right to comment box on the article, Mary Ellen from Richmond, USA wrote:

"Don't you understand? We people are tired of being numbers in a society that could care less about who we are! We are stating that we are HUMAN - with lives, and thoughts and feelings! We are MORE THAN A NUMBER and MORE than a statistic! This is a type of HUMAN REVOLUTION & it's necessary".

And,

Steve from Essex wrote:

"Silver linings-
- Typing has revived from its 1970s nadir.
- Putting thoughts into words is more stimulating than vacuous TV viewing that drained time in the 1980s
- Posterity will know more of the pre-war generation (from letters), nothing of the 1960-80s (communications by 'phone) and more about the present (via e-mail and blogs)'" More perhaps than ever before... And why not?


Blogging is shared treasure...