Today, I hope to visit Goethe's house in Frankfurt, Germany.

I visited it first over ten years ago.

Although it was bombed by the British during the war, and only the first step of the impressively elegant stone staircase remained, it has been lovingly rebuilt as it once looked.

There is a calm and a stillness about the place that speaks to my soul...

And these words by Goethe, tweeted incidentally by the actor, John Cusack, also gave me some energy recently when I was waivering in my direction...

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffective, concerning all acts of initiative (and creation).

There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself - then providence moves too.

All sort of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manners of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it!

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.


BEGIN IT NOW"

Spaces, Places, Faces...

 
I'm being lazy, plus I have College work to do...   Time, and counselling wait for no man...

And I have plenty of jobsearch to do.   The world is just waiting for me to pounce upon it.

How I wish I could just sit here and write.


Don't we all??!

Anyhoo, if you didn't already know, sometimes I'm over here PLEASE CLICK FOR LINK.

Mad, Manic Mamas...   I'm one of those too, in more than my spare time!

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!

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...

Miniscule Meanderings Through The Windmills Of My Mind

Did I say miniscule meanderings, please forgive me - I've never been one for the old adage, 'Less is more...' A favourite French teacher of mine once said that my French essay sentences went on and on and that my writing style reminded her of Hemingway's - Although flattered, I think she meant that I wrote a lot and used loads of commas! I could never do the bullfighting thing 'though, in spite of all that drama and fab colour, I could never condone cruelty to any beast, so I guess I'll never be a great writer - Sigh!

So, having introduced you to the Audrey side of my personality, I ought probably to introduce you to the other members of my coterie - My menage a trois, in the best possible sense:

There is me, the career civil servant - with the word 'career' echoing into a deep, deep cavern here... Teetering over mid forty, still trying to find out who I am in this world, still feeling like a gauche teenager at a wedding, while trying to appear all grown up and sophisticated - Who am I kidding? I rather resemble a mid-life version of The Honey Monster: I drink too much wine, spend too much time with my friends, Ben & Jerry, and probably spend far too long on the Internet!


My OH is Gibberjonathan, GJ, for short - This was the name my late mum gave to him when I was still in my teens and he had just turned 21, and I spent much of my time when not studying, gibbering! Seems such a long time ago now, eons away in fact...

GJ is a computer buff, who treats me like one of his customers, i.e. with scorn and in a patronising manner. It hasn't put me off, and thanks to those of you so far who have supported my start in blogging, and things like how to do an umlaut! It's nice to be among friends, rather than feeling as if I'm always on the losing team on University Challenge! I think that's rather the winning team... Anyhow, GJ has been tremendously loyal and supportive to me over the years, particularly through two family bereavements, and has become in many ways, my rock - To quote the late Lady Di. More of his tales and adventures later, I guess.

Our final close family member is Grizzler: Male, Caucasian, on the edge of 17, student, slacker, social whirlygig, lanky spawny get! I love him more than life itself, as only loving parents can do, and in return he eats his own weight daily from our groaning fridge, demands money with feigned menaces, and plays the drums (like Dave Grohl - loudly) in what once passed for my hallowed dining room - Now it's his music room and I dare not overstep its portal...

Grizzler earned his name while still in nappies. He was born prematurely in Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, while snow lay on the ground, and suffered from colic and a little bit of jaundice for several, several months. None could soothe his grizzling, and we all walked the floors for months to calm and quiet his wails. So Grizzler stuck; Grizzles or Griz for short!