Poppies

 

Captain B took this photograph of the poppies in our gardens on Monday.  My morning was taken up with trying to contact the doctors trying to find out why the telephone appointment for Friday didn't happen, and to re-make it, as it has become more urgent since I booked it.

After some immense efforts, I now seem to have a face to face appointment for Friday.  Col is embroiled in the same system now, trying to book a health check appointment as they have requested.

The systems are getting worryingly overloaded. We have both just been told we have missed appointments, which neither of us has. Col was told he had missed an appointment he had no knowledge of and which clearly was meant for someone else as it involved a symptom - quite a worrying one too - that, thank God, he does not have.

I was told I had missed my Friday appointment. I assured them I had not, but had been at home near the phone all day and in fact was ringing them up to find what had happened.  They said that it had been a face to face appointment.  So I can only suppose what happened was that after they had given me the telephone appointment the doctor had decided he needed to see me face to face, but the message was never conveyed to me...  I now have another appointment - face to face - as this has become more urgent in the weeks that I first made the phone appointment.

You really need to be in good health and lots of energy to cope with it all.

We - my siblings and I - had our usual Zoom session on Monday morning, which was great.  But now I am so old, its hard not to wonder how much longer... but my thoughts are taking a gloomy turn.  I do feel a bit sad at the moment, but then we were never meant to go through any of this.  And for sure we were never meant to lose the people we love.

Our daily Scripture was very encouraging:

Rejoice in the hope.​—Rom. 12:12.

Every day, we make decisions that require strong faith. For example, we make decisions involving our associations, entertainment, education, marriage, children, and secular work. We do well to ask ourselves: ‘Do my choices show that I am certain that this system is temporary and will soon be replaced by God’s new world? Or are my choices influenced by people who live as if death were the end of everything?’ (Matt. 6:19, 20; Luke 12:16-21) We will make the best decisions if we strengthen our faith that the new world is close at hand. We also face trials that require strong faith. We may face persecution, chronic illness, or other things that can cause us to become discouraged. At first, we might meet our trial with determination. But if it drags on​—as trials often do—​we will need strong faith in order to endure and to continue serving Jehovah with joy.​—1 Pet. 1:6, 7.

Red Fox - The Pity of It

Haiku

Summer moon over
mountains is white as the tip
of a fox's tail

Matsuo Basho

A Haiku about foxes by the great Basho. I wonder if Col's photos of our current garden foxes can inspire the rather less great MatSue to another Haiku?

Against all odds
the valiant fox
patrols our garden.

The thought behind that is how brave they are - existing, bringing up their children in this difficult world, this ruined paradise.  Though completely blameless, they have to live with the consequences of the rebellion in Eden and the subsequent refusal of most of us to listen to our Creator.  Apparently the great Matsuo himself found the fox a difficult subject and was not over thrilled by his Haiku above.  It is better than mine though.

My new regime of eye drops every hour is getting established and hopefully will do the trick. They have given me another appointment in a month's time, so clearly they are hopeful it will. Its all worrying - and I feel so tired.

This blog should be about the war that seems to have started with Israel attacking Iran and them retaliating... piling tragedy upon tragedy.  And presumably with the possibility of turning the Middle East into a nuclear wasteland!

But in a way the valiant fox, bringing up her children somehow, amidst the violence, the chaos, the habitat loss, and her cubs playing together on the lawn, as cubs have done since cubs (and greensward) began does speak of it, the sadness of it.

And it shows that we, the human family, have learnt nothing from our tragic past  - not even from two wars so terrible they are called World Wars.  Thomas Hardy wrote this brave poem just after the first world war broke out and great hatred was being fomented between the English and the Germans.

THE PITY OF IT

April 1915

Thomas Hardy

I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar

From rail-track and from highway, and I heard

In field and farmstead many an ancient word

Of local lineage like “Thu bist”, “Er war”,

“Ich woll”, “Er scholl”, and by-talk similar,

Nigh as they speak who in this month’s moon gird

At England’s very loins, thereunto spurred

By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.

Then seemed a Heart cyring: “Whosever they be

At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame

Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,

“Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;

May their familiars grow to shun their name,

And their brood perish everlastingly.”

Hardy was not able to believe in a Creator, but he certainly perceived the malevolent forces that pull the strings of the current world system. And they are not human hands by the way. Ephesians 6:12 spells it out for us so clearly when it tells us that: "we have a struggle, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places."

And isn't the aim of "the wicked spirit forces" to get brother hating and killing brother?  We must not let them, and isn't a very important part of our spiritual fight not to let "the world" divide us and make us hate each other?

The Sea Front in June

Col took a walk along the seafront on Sunday among the flowers of June and these above are a couple of the photos he took - Poppy and Sea Kale. (Memo to Self:  Had we had children, and been in Showbiz, should we have called our children Poppy and Sea Kale?)  He also chauffered me to the Hall, so I was able to attend the Sunday meeting in person rather than in pixel.

We saw a couple of fox cubs in our gardens on Monday night. Well done mother Fox!   Some photos of them should appear in my next blog, along with a Haiku in their honour, if MatSue is up to it.

Our "outing" to the Clinic in Brighton Wednesday morning was pointless in one sense in that having done the first set of tests on me they found that my eyes are too dry for the operation. So I have been sent away with instructions to up my eye-drop routine - actioned - and to see my GP.  Having been asked by my dentist to see the GP re my dry mouth some weeks ago, the appointment, the first I could get, is on Friday. So I now have some more information for him, and hopefully he will give me some ideas of how to improve the situation.

It was a very early get-up too, as we had to arrive in Brighton at 8:45, which we did.

It was cold and overcast in the morning, with some light rain on the way back - but the afternoon was sunny (and cold), and the balcony plants really shone in in the blowy sunshine.  They are looking so wonderful as I write this blog that I must stop and thank Jehovah for them.  We have a lovely display of poppies in the front garden too.

What a month June is for flowers!  Our seafront dresses itself exquisitely this time of year.  And what is - to quote the poet (Dylan Thomas) - "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower"?

It took me nearly 4 decades to find out. It is the spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, the Almighty God, the Creator of both this immense universe and the delicate perfection of every flower.

From the Train

From The Train

by David Sutton

From the train at dawn, on ploughland, frost
Blue-white in the shadow of a wood.
Oh, you again, of all moods soonest lost
And most elusive and least understood.
What should I call you? Vision? Empathy?
Elation’s tunnel? Worm-hole of rejoicing?
Some bliss of childhood, reasonless and free,
The secret microcosms… What a thing
To have no name for, yet to live for, these
Curious contentments under all,
These moments of a planet: weathers, trees –
What dreams, what intimations, fern-seed small,
Are buried in my days, that I must find,
And recognise, and lose, and leave behind?

https://davidsuttonpoetry.com/mypoems/

This is a poem that I have loved for many years.

Another farewell for me is goodbye to travelling on trains, which is something I have always enjoyed. But I can no longer cope. If I have the undeserved kindness of being in the earthly paradise, and we do reinstate a railway system and travel by train, then, yes, surely I will be able to take a train journey again. But if not, then my last day trip to London was my last train experience.

This poem, one of my favourites for many years, seems to combine both thoughts, trains and paradise - the glimpse of paradise we can still see everywhere.  And how it touches our heart.

I could have called this blog "From the Car Park", as the immense walk on Friday, from the hospital disabled car park to Rheumatology (pretty much the first stop en route), followed by a very short shop which involved me walking from the Waitrose carpark to Waitrose and to the Post Office (almost next door), seems to have crippled me.

I feel like the poor little mermaid who, when she got her legs instead of her tail, felt like she was walking on knives.  So I guess I could also have called this blog "The Not-so Little Mermaid" (to save Captain B pointing that out).

The hospital wants me to have another blood test, and as I already have a blood test booked at the Clinic on Monday, I am hoping they can do it at the same time.  They did, this morning, and while I now have a hideously bruised arm, at least its done.

The train in the photo above is the little train that runs along our seafront in the Summer season. I found it in Col's photo gallery when I put "train" into the Search Engine.

Moth City

 

The Moth Year  is starting out well - these are just two of our recent balcony visitors, the Light Emerald and The Delicate.   They are exquisite, so beautiful and fragile, yet sturdy enough.  They speak clearly of their Grand Creator - and he knows them too, every one.

Jehovah must long for the day when he can restore paradise for all his precious earthly creation.

So, with that in mind, I do need to get on with the Kingdom preaching work as best I can. We went to our study Wednesday morning. The Flower lady was somewhat distracted by a family problem, but was very welcoming and wants to see us next week.  And I had a double Zoom witnessing session in the afternoon. Which was a good thing, as I was so tired that I would have simply slept the afternoon away otherwise.

I would love to write a poem about our moths and their balcony hotel, but nothing much is coming to me... anyway, here goes:  

They check in every night, for b and b,

and a refuge from the monsters of the sea.

Memo to self, do fish eat moths, flies, bees?

Well, yes, I guess they do so snack,

and our lovely hotel, or moth trap,

provides a refuge, safe and warm

and a photo op for Colin, come the morn.

Stand aside William Shakespeare!!  (Though I think that is more of a verse than a poem.)

The mothy visitors are all carefully taken out of their little egg cup rooms and photographed by the Captain, whereupon they can choose to fly off, or stay.  If they want to stay, Col puts them among the balcony flowers, to hide them from the visiting birds, all feeding young at the moment.  There have been no predatory fish prowling on our balcony as yet, but I needed "the sea" above for the rhyme.  

I like to anchor my poems with some rhyme, or at least half rhyme.

It is being a stormy June so far - on Thursday the Channel was raging, and the balcony flowers were dancing in the wind.  But Captain B left early as usual, a metal detector at every corner, for his day out with the lads in The Field.

Yesterday, I had to attend the meeting in Zoom. I was not well at all - I will recuse details under the heading: Too Much Information.

And this morning starts with a trip to the hospital - my 6 months Rheumatology appointment.  So I guess I will finally find out the results of that scan I had back in February.   Not looking forward to any of it.

But I am so looking forward to one day being on the earth when "No resident will say 'I am sick'".  And then I hope that both the Captain and I and those we love will be there and we will be able to thank our Creator, Jehovah, from a perfect heart.

June

 

Adlestrop

By Edward Thomas

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53744/adlestrop

A poem that makes me want to cry for the beauty of the world, the English summer moment that it evokes.

What to say about June so far.  It began for me with a day of Bible teaching, by Zoom, at our Circuit Assembly.  I seem to have picked up a format here, which I  might keep for this blog, it looks quite neat.

The theme of the Circuit Assembly was: Behave in a Manner Worthy of the Good News, and the theme Scripture was Philippians 1:27: Only behave in a manner worthy of the good news about the Christ, so that whether I come and see you or I am absent, I may hear about you and learn that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one soul, striving side by side for the faith of the good news.

Once you hear the good news of the Kingdom of God, of all it will do for us here on the earth, it changes us. We must try, and keep trying, to live as citizens of that heavenly government, to live by its perfect and loving standards (as best us damaged children of Adam can at the moment).  And we feel the urgent need to tell all who will listen about it.

One idea I have gleaned from the Assembly is to regularly study the brochure: LOVE PEOPLE, MAKE DISCIPLES.  And I have been given a good idea by one of the young pioneers, to work on one of the qualities for a month, then go on to the next chapter and the next quality.

Therefore, I should be starting with: Interest in Others. Not something I am very good at, as mainly I am nervous of others and wish to avoid them.  Obviously I have learnt a lot better during my years being taught by Jehovah, but there is still a long way to go, so who knows...

Col was home at the next computer, and he chose a programme about dinosaurs to watch with lunch.  

My cataract treatment is beginning to loom on the near horizon and is making me very nervous.  I have a lot of medical stuff this month, none of which I am looking forward to.   Anyway, if the cataracts work, maybe I will be able to go back to posting my blogs in smaller print.

The photos above are by Captain Butterfly of course - and are of Willowherb and Meadowsweet.  And there is a storm on the Channel this morning - wonderful waves, and the trees in our garden are waving madly in the wind.

Visiting Finds

Woke up this morning - very early - pain - need to take stomach buffer, then pain killers - to find the English Channel is not yet back from wherever it goes at night.

That  - or it may be  that a sea fret is hiding it. I am looking across the Green into a wonderful misty whiteness, no separation of sky and sea.

We went to Tangmere to see the display of artefacts from the archeological site on Wednesday afternoon - visiting some of Col's finds.  The pic is of one of them.  He can't keep it of course, it stays with the Archies.

Col chauffered me to the study in the morning, picked us both up afterwards and dropped my partner off at the Clinic where she had an appointment.  She is close enough to walk to the Flower lady.

Talking of appointments, it was my annual eye check on Friday morning, and a double zoom session with a friend on Friday afternoon.

No meetings at the Kingdom Hall this week, as it is the Assembly at Haysbridge on Sunday.  But I will not be there, as I don't think I can now cope with a full day out.  This morning I am back on my trusty Zimmer, slowly and painfully trying to get round the flat.  I am hoping to get a video link and join in via Zoom.

We had a cousin reunion planned for Sunday - meeting in a nice country pub for lunch, sort of halfway for all of us.  But it had to be cancelled as one of us is not well. We will re-arrange though as soon as she is recovered from a small procedure she had to have.

When the mothers (the identical twins) were alive, we used to see the cousins a lot, but we all have to make an effort these days. It does not just happen any more.

The air got another pummelling Friday morning as the Captain pumped his fists in yet another victory dance having beaten me at the Ordles - again.

The Friday test went OK, in that my eyes have not really deteriorated, but the cataracts, which I knew were developing, have now reached the stage where I need to have them fixed.  I should hear from a local hospital within the next three months.  I can't say I am looking forward to it, but I knew it was coming.

The young Optometrist showed me the scan they had done of my eyes. We both noted the amazing engineering.  But then they were made by the Grand Creator himself, Jehovah. And originally they were made to last forever.  I feel bad I didn't say that, though I did draw attention to how wonderfully the eye is made - beating any camera we have developed so far.

I say "we", but it ought to be "they" as I can take no credit for it whatsoever.  I don't have an inventive mind, nor any of the necessary maths skills.

And talking of inventive minds, I couldn't sleep the other night - pain - and got up and watched some telly.  I saw Implosion, the Titanic Sub Disaster.  It was very sad, and I can only hope that all who died in that strange far from safe machine will be woken from the dreamless sleep of death when the time comes, and sing with joy to be alive again, in the paradise earth.

And I hope the same for those who died on The Titanic of course.