Contemplation, stillness and beauty in a time of sensory overload

Nostalgia of the Southern Cross

Mark's lingering and hauntingly beautiful rendition of Peter Garland's piano composition.

Christmas plastic madness

This blog has had its fair share of yuletide rants, not about the event itself but the tide of consumerism that submerges any notion of what this festival is actually about.

Our two great recycling emporiums have been trawled for our re-gifted gifts along with various why-would-anyone-want-to-say-goodbye-to-this shetland jumpers/cashmere scarves etc from Vinted. Lovely foodstuffs such as local honey, handmade chocolates and olive oil from someone who has an olive grove in Portugal and brings up regular supplies will make up the other presents, and although I might buy a few oddities in NOZ (a whole other blog post) I'll avoid the bigger shops.

I had to go into Action (terrifying shop full of 95% non essential goods) to look for a loo brush ( I do draw the line on second hand very occasionally) and was transfixed by the festival of festive tat on offer, the most ridiculous of all: special celebration of the the birth of Jesus dog bed, and - this stuff signals the near ending of the human race if ever there was a sign - a hefty plastic pot containing yuletide white candy floss containing flecks of gold. I've seen many of these pots and each time it's a palm to head slapping duh astonishment moment - a one-use plastic pot containing spun sugar . . . what crazies thought of this, and why, money of course, and especially at this cash-it-in time of the year. Well, time to go and wrap some stuff up in old maps of France I found at Emmaus earlier.

Joyeuse Noël.

London wanderings, and our own personal greyhound

Starting with our own personal greyhound. Rather than awake the horrible memories of all of October, I'll just write a quick précis of how our placid and faithful greyhound's life suddenly nearly ended. On a usual walk nearby, a large Staffordshire/boxer? type mutt slipped from one of the nearby houses, streaked over, and proceeded to maul our dog, not letting go despite me and two other people (including the owner) punching and kicking it. (Someone told me later 'you have to go for the eyes' . . .) Eventually, our dog broke loose and streaked home where, luckily, Mark was in. The rest of the sorry tale was of much blood everywhere, a very weird drive to the vets where I was totally in shock, and following, three weeks of vet care - mostly in the vet hospital quite a drive away.

When Bali returned it was our turn to dress the wounds, which became a many times daily scary chore, and awful for dog and us. The bill is huge and we now wait for the owner's insurance cogs and wheels to grind impossibly slowly towards a payment. It gives one a small insight into what it must be like in countries where the health insurance system is mostly broken . . . 

                               Dog before attack, and she's beginning to look like herself again

So poor Mark was left with the last bit of dog-care while I slipped off to the UK on a pre-planned trip to see family, friends and, my home city of London. Amongst the many joys of the trip: spending tome with lovely folks, eating 'foreign food' - fish and chips; walking in the Peak District, observing the calm sea at Bournemouth one stunningly still and sunny day, exploring charity shops, and probably the most poignant moment of all - commissioning and receiving a poem about our dog from a 'poet for hire' on the Southbank. I'd noted the guy in woolly hat sitting at a small folding table on which was perched an old typewriter. The handwritten notice hanging from the table read 'poet for hire - pay what you like.'

I had approached jingling the change in my pocket and wondered if three quid was too ridiculous - seems like most of the UK runs on card only and I'd only got change to hand out coins to the increasingly large amount of street dwellers. The guy had gestured to the sign - 'As it says, pay whatever you like . . . what would you like a poem about?' I thought about the golden leaves of the surrounding silver birch trees, the way the grey-brown Thames just rolls on despite world chaos, or the fact that 80% of London appeared to be composed of heading-towards-landfill shops. 'Hm . . . dogs.'

'Any particular dog?'

'Our dog.' I described briefly the recent happenings and how our world had shrunk to mainly peering at a two inch square of possibly necrotic tissue and trying to deal with it as the vets had instructed. 

'I like greyhounds' he had said, and after a brief moment of fingers poised above the old keys, he typed at speed, stopping to reflect a couple of times, and then pulling the paper, with that satisfying scrriit sound that only comes with using vintage typewriters, from the machine and handing it to me. 

When I looked up from the paper the Thames view was hazy from my tears. What incredible skill to be able to sum up the soul of a dog, and so much, our dog. We chatted about London, and how we had preferred it in its grimy days, as he put it. Later I went back after finding some more cash as three quid did seem paltry for such a life-affirming piece of art.

The poet(s) WORD TRADE are available for hire. I have included a link here.

https://wordtrade.co.uk/pay-what-you-like

The poem

                                        A few snapshots from my London wanderings this time.

15 century greyhound at the National Gallery

                My one purchase: tea and mug from favourite shop - Martyns of Muswell Hill.

One of five people I saw reading a book during all my eight or so train journeys - and he had a dog

View from Monument tower - first visit and well worth the climb.

Euston road fire station, a wonderment of 30s (?) architecture