Cats in the Kitchen, Flora in the Garden

I was sitting at my kitchen table this morning drinking a cup of coffee, feeling low and blue, as I was worrying about my mother, when I heard a thud through the letterbox. I got up and went to investigate in time to hear a delightfully clear tinkling laugh, the flapping of wings and a shimmer of colour as the letterbox closed again. A lovely large maroon envelope decorated with stickers of autumn leaves lay on the mat as glitter dispersed on the carpet around it. A secret fairy had struck. This was so unexpected that a smile started to curve the corners of my mouth. I returned to the kitchen to open it. It was a halloween surprise. A halloween card filled with beautiful pressed autumn leaves, stickers and a lovely postcard. A pumpkin shaped notebook and some cute little magnets with halloween symbols on and best of all, some tiny brown envelopes wrapped together with twine, each with hand written instructions how to plant the lovely herb seeds within, these were from the secret fairy's wonderful garden and picked by her. Such small things that have given me great pleasure. The herb seeds will be planted later this week and they will spend the winter getting to know their English brothers and sisters.

From a dark day suddenly the sun came out shining, both in my mind and in reality. Thank you secret fairy. Can you guess who she is? Clues are silver apples and moon.



We don't really go to town over Halloween here, yes the kids go around for sweets, but most of our decorations are scary masks, dracula teeth, plastic pumpkins etc, the adults don't bother at all except to hover near to young children knocking on doors. I always have a big basket of sweets for trick or treaters, but Halloween is usually over by nine at night. People don't decorate their homes for it over here, although I always carve a pumpkin and I have a broomstick flying, warty witch to hang in my window. I would love to make a big celebration of it, but we have Guy Fawkes [firework night on the 5th November]. Personally, I would prefer to do Halloween and use bonfire and fireworks on Halloween night.

Tara recently had two memes on her website, one which I am not going to do today but sometime in the future because it really needs deep thought. The other I'm posting now. In the first meme you are supposed to choose three songs that describe you, I suppose, as a person, your personality or your interests. This sounds deceptively easy, but once you start racking your brains I think it is quite difficult. I'm going to mull it over a day or two and see what I come up with.

The second meme is much easier and all you have to do is list seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, and they don't have to even have words. You are supposed to tag seven people to do this, but as usual take it and do it if you want to.



My seven tunes -right here, right now.

1. The Old Laughing Woman - Neil Young [a real spooky mystic feel to this one, sparks off stories in my mind]
2. Madam George - Van Morrison [ a multi layered and multi meaning song that entrances me as much now as when I first heard it]
3. The Lark Ascending - R Vaughan Williams [pure unadulterated bliss, the most exquisite bijou summing up of the English countryside you could ever hear, brings to mind Thomas Hardy, Mary Webb and any rural novel you have ever read]
4. Carey - Joni Mitchell [a cajoling song, come on you know you want to go out and who can resist a line like 'you're a mean old daddy but I love you']
5. From a Distance - Nanci Griffiths [ a hymn to hope and it always deeply affects me]
6. Verdi Cries - June Tabor [those lyrics that deep jazz voice, I loved the 10.000Maniacs version until I heard June's recording of it, late night music]
7. All that Jazz - Chicago Sountrack [ a song to sing at the top of your voice when at home alone and really let it rip, get the growl and put your jazz voice on yay!]

Come on who's going to try this. I promise I will get back to the more difficult meme in a day or two.

After a horrendous weekend rushing backward and forewards to my mother's, late this afternoon she has gone for a week to a residental care home to be accessed. She says she is in terrible pain, she can't walk hardly at all now, and she is befuddled by pain killings drugs. I fear that her hip could be crumbling away, and with her other ailments she is not a candidate for hip replacements. At the moment she needs 24/7 care and is too tired and weak to protest, so we will see what happens after a week. I will continue blogging through this, although, I am rushing around sorting all sorts of things out for her, but if it takes me a long time to get round all your sites, please don't abandon me, I'll get back to normal as soon as possible.

I have taken photos of my secret fairy surprise and my new artroom, and will get them developed and posted as soon as I have time for normal things again. By the way has anyone heard anything about this ultra violet beam which is radiating from space onto earth tomorrow, the 17th October and bringing intensity to feelings good and bad and will put one of your chakras out of sync. I googled about it and got a surprising amount of varied information.

Don’t forget to join in Daisy Lupins’
Halloween Ghost Story Posting
Post a ghost story, something strange that happened
To you or a tale you want to tell
On 31st October, or as near to before
As possible.
Let’s have a Giant Story Circle