Willow Ermines

I don't know if you can see the little silvery creatures on the wall, but the close up is there to show you what they are.  These fragile moths have, I assume, made it across the Channel and are resting on our balcony this week.  They seem happy and content in their new home, moving about during the night, changing places, but I guess they will need to be off about their business in time.  Presumably, as they are Willow Ermine moths,  they need Willow trees for courtship, for egg-laying purposes. And we have no willows on our balcony.

We found more new moths on our balcony on Friday morning - new to our hotel and balcony I mean. If any of them turn out to be new to Science and need naming then I am happy to pull a name out of the ether at random - The Lovely Susan, let's say.  "How about The Lovely Rachel?" (That from the next computer, whose operator is rather fond of Countdown Rachel.)

I am standing firm on The Lovely Susan - though hopefully not literally!  You have to be careful where you step on our balcony these mothy days.

There is some horrifying flooding in Texas - flooding which tragically may have engulfed at least one Summer camp, full of children.

I hope so much that the families who have lost their children to this flood know what Jesus did when he met a widow who had lost her only son.  He resurrected the child and gave him back to his mother.

Isn't that what he will do for all bereaved parents - for all bereaved children - once the Kingdom of God is ruling over the earth?

It is hard to imagine how much joy there will be as parent and child are re-united.  But, as always, I hope we are there to find out.

The Captain is out on the balcony, sorting out our mothy visitors. It is overcast, but warm today.  We did have some rain a couple of days ago - much needed - and we heard a thunderstorm in the distance yesterday.

It is our wedding anniversary today  - which we may celebrate modestly with a glass of wine and some fish and chips if we don't both fall asleep in front of the telly before that can happen.

The Waves

Here is the ending of "The Waves" by John Betjeman, which I have illustrated with two of Captain B's wave photos, one of waves on our pebbly beach, the other of a Riband Wave Moth:

And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves

Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand
As they have done for centuries, as they will
For centuries to come, when not a soul
Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks,
When England is not England, when mankind
Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea,
Consolingly disastrous, will return
While the strange starfish, hugely magnified,
Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool.

https://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-waves.html

The "consolingly" is wonderful. What a writer he was!  And of course given the News, this seems more relevant than ever before.  Isn't it clear that, if left to ourselves and the destructive forces that control us, we will destroy the very planet we live on? 

But we are not left to ourselves. The rescue promised in Eden that has been progressing steadily from the moment it was promised is so close now.

Tuesday was another HOT day - and humid.

Wednesday was a day of moths - Willow Ermine moths in almost Biblical plague proportions all over balcony. and some more new moths - new to our balcony and hotel - in the trap.  The Willow Ermines are exquisite, tiny and clearly much tougher than they look, as they are migrants and having rowed their little boats (or whatever) across the Channel, they are now resting up with us for a day or two. 

I hope to feature a photo of them in my next blogpost.

My exciting plans for today are: to make the soup for tonight, to restock the freezer with some cakes (not too many as I only have 2 eggs in stock), get the washing done - its another hot day, so good for drying the clothes - finish my studying for the meeting tonight, and get to the meeting if my faithful chauffeur will do his stuff.  And, believe me, that will exhaust me...   

Old age.  Anyway, I am very grateful to still be here, and to have the hope of being here forever.  And we had such a help this week in one of our daily Scriptures:

O you who love Jehovah, hate what is bad. He is guarding the lives of his loyal ones; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.​—Ps. 97:10.  

Each of us needs to pray more than ever to remain faithful to Jehovah during these difficult last days. Jehovah wants us to ‘pour out our hearts before him’ in prayer. (Ps. 62:8) Praise Jehovah and thank him for all that he does. Ask him to help you to be courageous in the ministry. Beg him for help to deal with any problems and to resist any temptation that you may be facing. Do not let anything or anyone stop you from regularly praying to Jehovah.

I did my praying on the balcony this morning - surrounded by flowers  - and moths! - and among other things prayed that one day both Col and I will be able to thank Jehovah for all this from perfect hearts.

Crocodiles

It seems to be the summer holidays, schoolwise, as the playground on the The Green was full on Friday and there was a crocodile of young children heading towards the beach with a lot of noise and a couple of brave adults. I am guessing it was one of those summer clubs that kids have to be in these days, with both parents needing to work.

It seems sad somehow - mainly I guess because I would have hated it.  I loved the freedom of the long summer holidays, playing out every day with friends, in the road, in the garden, in the parks, in our various houses if it rained.  We structured ourselves, and had all sorts of games.  We played hopscotch in the middle of the road, drawing lines with stones we broke for the chalk in them.  Of course, you would be squashed flat by passing cars before you even got an inch of line drawn these days, never mind hopping on the squares.

I found two crocodiles in the Captains's photo gallery, as the cafe looks very croc-like to me.   Locally it is known as "The Rusty Hulk".

By Sunday afternoon the promised heat was arriving - and there was no longer any sea breeze, alas.

I pixelled myself to the meeting on Sunday morning - everything hurt too much for me to be able to drive. Also at home I can take a few minutes out halfway through to lie down on the sofa and ease the pain in my back.  I am getting worryingly like my mother and granny in their final years.

This morning Col is checking the moths out of their hotel - loads of them - and it is revving up to be hot hot hot - and, so far, no breeze.  I have two Zoom sessions this morning.

More Poppies

We had quite a drama on Wednesday morning as our student needed us to drive her for some medical attention.  After all was sorted and a health visit arranged for her tomorrow, we went back, had a coffee and a chat, and looked at some reassuring Bible verses.  She makes a lovely cup of coffee, and is very good company.

We all need to think about the coming rescue and the joy of the restored earthly paradise that lies just ahead.

The lovely pics above were taken by Col on his detecting day on Tuesday.   He hurtled straight off there after chauffering me for my hospital trip. He also picked up my latest med en route.

I have probably said this before, but I seem to be reaching the stage where, when they ask you what medicines you are on, it will be quicker to tell them what meds I am NOT on.  Alas.

However, I must be very grateful indeed that I am being provided with all the medicine I need - and that I am still here.  And I am.  Life is so precious, such a wonderful gift.

And on our Monday morning Zoom session my siblings and I were talking about the amazing chain of happenstance down the centuries that led to us being here at all.  To start at the end of the chain, what was the chance of my father, born into a poor family in Belarus, and my mother, born into a middle class Catholic family in a small village outside Manchester, ever meeting in the first place?

It makes me feel quite dizzy to think about it.  And puts me in mind of this haunting poem by Houseman.  

From Far, from Eve   From far, from eve and morning      And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me      Blew hither: here am I.   Now—for a breath I tarry      Nor yet disperse apart— Take my hand quick and tell me,      What have you in your heart.   Speak now, and I will answer;      How shall I help you, say; Ere to the wind's twelve quarters      I take my endless way.   A.E. Housman https://www.poemtree.com/poems/FromFar.htm

Planet Expat

FRANGIPANI BLOSSOM

by me

Frangipani blossom in a plastic cup
And the sprinklers singing
In the cool morning air
As the sun revs up.

Memories... I wrote this many many years ago on one of our trips to Thailand to see friends. I can't find any photos to go with it in the Captain's picture gallery though, so I thought I would find one from our expat years in the desert instead.   These are the spray fields where we used to walk Shadow.  They were paradise for him.

It sometimes puzzles me that the 25 years we spent in Arabia - years for which I am very grateful - have vanished seemingly leaving so little impression.  I think it's the travelling we did during those years that has stayed with me.  And what travellers some of us still are!  Two of our three visitors are in the middle of a tour of much of Europe, it seems, visiting friends. And the third is planning a trip to Antarctica with her husband.

The closest we have ever been was Tasmania where the next stop was the emptiness and shimmering ice of the Antarctic.  The night skies were such that if I had not already realised there was a Creator - a Grand Creator - surely that sky would have told me, as clearly as if it had spoken.

We were treated to fish and chips in the local pub - which is an excellent place for lunch and river watching.  I noted that none of us managed to finish, delicious though it was.

Is that because we are all older now - with me - gulp - the oldest of all - or just that portions are so big now?  Or a bit of both?

We talked rather a lot about our medical conditions and our medications. And in harmony with the topic, I had another trip to the hospital this morning. One I had been dreading and had been waiting a long time for. I prayed to Jehovah to help, I was so anxious, and asked that there might be a simple medical solution.

It turns out that there may be. And I start on a new medication tonight.  I am very grateful for some hope here.

It's not easy, old age.  But I am so happy to still be here.

Visitors

The Summer Season must have started, as suddenly we have visitors. We have an Aramco reunion booked for this week - meeting up with 3 old friends (2 of them over from the States) at the local pub for lunch - and then back here for coffee and ice-cream.

We were hoping Roger might be able to join us, but going by his recent email, he won't be around for a month or so yet.   I only wish Jacks could be with us as in the old days.

And then we have the usual family visitors booked for August, in what has become something of a tradition.  I hope that the little girls will have some wonderful seaside memories from this, as I do from distant Cornish holidays.  Our flat beach, pebbled - but sandy when the tide is out - is so different from the rocky Cornish coves with their splendid rockpools, but the children seem to love it nonetheless.

I wonder if I can find something in the family photo album to go on this blog.  So I had a browse and the above is from Roger's leaving party on Planet Expat, which must be a good 18 years ago now.  Captain Butterfly is the one on the end with the colourful shirt.

Our Expat life - 25 years of it - seems like a dream.  Hard to believe it, and all that travelling, happened.  And our retirement years are flying by, faster and faster.  

Jehovah tells us that to him a thousand years are but a day.  And I do realise now that, if we have the undeserved kindness to be on the earth in the Thousand Years during which paradise and perfection are restored, it will go so quickly. And so joyfully!

And then our real lives on this splendid planet can begin, never to end.

Friday morning was a doctor's appointment, and next week I have a date with the hospital.  On the doubleplusgood side, I got to the meeting Thursday night in Pixel form, and it was so refreshing. As was the meeting this morning. It is always a great comfort when the teaching really gets to me, in spite of all my faults and failings - and there are one or two.  "AND then some" I seem to  hear Captain Butterfly chiming in from the next computer where he is researching today's finds.,

We woke up this morning to headlines saying that America has "obliterated" Iran's nuclear sites...  

What horrors will follow I do not know.  But we will find out soon enough.  The poet Tony Harrison has a line in one of his poems which says "Your crimes abroad brought home as civil wars"...  

Do I want Iran to have nuclear weapons? NO, NO and NO again!  But then I don't want anyone to have them. No-one can be trusted with them. We are still living in the tragic times following the loss of Eden during which "man has dominated man to his harm".  

But I do think that Iran is entitled to nuclear power, given we have it. And also, once Israel got nuclear weapons, every other state in the locality was going to want them.

And indeed if we live in the Darwinian world of "kill or be kill, eat or be eaten" that the world's Movers and Shakers would have us believe, of course we should all be armed to the teeth, as then wouldn't the only be rule be "might is right"?

But, thank God, we do not live in that world - and we are not abandoned to this.  A rescue is not only on the way, but imminent now. And how much we, the damaged children of disobedient Adam, need it!

What a tragic mess it all is.

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.