Things for which I give thanks this week…
1. – We managed a day out to Hebden Bridge where we stopped at our regular coffee shop and managed to fill in all the obvious words in the Daily Mail Saturday mega crossword whic h required ongoing coaxing and focus to achieve. the Daily Mail is an obnoxious tabloid rag but we buy it only for the crossword – the rest goes straight to the outside lavatory for toilet paper ) or would if we had one…)
I didn’t take any pictures except this one to illustrate how steep the town is at its fringes – follow that road up – it must reach 1:3…
2.- I have been preparing for two new hobbies bookbinding – I have some volumes that are precious but in need of some repairs – and cyanotrope print making – as always, as soon a s you watch one video of something on Facebook, your feed is flooded with them! I sent for a book on bookbinding and as my friend Akua is running a Mini-book exchange of Speculative Poetry books, my first attempt is a concertina fold miniature book containing a single poem…
3.- Cyanotropes prints are made by coating paper or fabric with special chemicals (which I have now ordered) – placing plants, feathers, stencils or negatives onto the prepared sheet and exposing it to sunlight (ultra-violet) and once washed, the exposed areas turn dark blue. As a young teen, our neighbour’s son, who was doing a PhD in chemistry, made up a chemistry set although he didn’t follow through with any experiments to do! I managed to spill on e clear liquid on my bedroom carpet and to my horror, it turned into an ever darkening stain – I have reason to believe that this was one and the same chemical…
I used to have a large flower press when we lived in Ireland but abandonded the wooden bits when we moved back, but kept the threaded rods and so to furnish materials for the cyanotrope prints, I have cut some new pieces of wood and on the way back from Hebden Bridge, picked some bits and pieces to press – watch this space…
4.- In one of the living room (upstairs) windows, is a Yucca plant which has grown evermore contorted as it fills the available space and last year, I had to remove a branch which was growing into the room, spindily from lack of light. I cut it up and planted the lengths in pots from which I got two successful takes.
The two babies are shown below, however, growing in the foreground pot, is a vigorous “weed” called Creeping Wood Sorrel. I showed you some of my windowsill gardens before and in one of them, which my late sister planted, was this self same plant. It has trefoil leaves like clover and whilst the plants in the office are spindly from lack of water (the rest of the garden are drought tolerant succulents) nevertheless, it not only returns each year but displays an astonishing trick. Once the minute seed pods are ready. the fling out their seeds – explosively – and we find them not only coating the windowsill but stuck to the paintwork 2 and a half feet above.
The wonders of Nature know no bounds…
5.- Evidence of our English eccentricity, below is a scooter belonging to a neighbour just around the corner. If you are English, you will recognise this pimped up scooter as as the preferred mode of transport of the “Mods” – “celebrated” in the film Quadrophenia which features the music of The Who…
6.- Our run of rainy weather has been replaced with another heatwave – it will reach 30°C on Wednesday…
7. My beloved New Jersey based writing group is taking its Summer break after tomorrow but that will let me type up some of the pieces before the Autumn as well as have time to do the Poetry Postcard Festival in August – if you are interested in sending 31 spontaneous postcard poems to strangers (and receiving 31 back) you can sign up here.
8.- Glad to see the numbers at this here TToT are rising and enjoying the new contributors of gratitude…
9.- Glad for my health…
10.- Glad to feel, as my friend Akua says by way of a signature expression “Joy in the Making”…
Have a wonderful week y’all…