Fallen Leaves

 

The winds at this time of year bring down the leaves, and there are swathes of them in our gardens today, after a windy night. Captain B nobly struggled out to chauffeur me to the meeting at the Kingdom Hall last night after his hard day in the Detecting Field.

That is one of the jobs of the winds of Autumn of course, to bring down the leaves. But, alas, ever since the loss of Eden, the natural harmony is gone and those winds so often do more than they should.  So it is being a violent Autumn in the Caribbean.  Hurricane Melissa hit the Caribbean HARD on Tuesday - landing on Jamaica and doing immense damage. It then headed to Cuba, and is apparently one of the most powerful storms recorded in the region. The pictures of its mass of swirling clouds with the whirlpool eye in the middle is like something out of a disaster movie.

It has brought down not just leaves but massive trees, blown the roof off houses, and flooded the island.

The Kingdom of God, the heavenly government, will perfectly control all the forces of nature.  Remember how Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee?

Today... I was up late... a rather painful and disturbed night... but what I have to do is to de-plane the cake, remove it from its large cake tin and portion it up for the freezer and the Captain's lunches, though I do plan to give each of us a test slice with our mid-afternoon chocolate.  The Great Salt instead of Sugar Apple Crumble Disaster of 2017 (approx) has given me an excuse to test drive all cakes I cook.  And of course I, or rather the Sandwich Fairy, must make his sandwich lunch for tomorrow. Plus there is my studying for the day, and a double Zoom session in the afternoon.  So that session will ensure that I will get some witnessing done.

It was such a lovely meeting last night.  Not only is there no teaching like it in the whole world, but also a young elder took the time out to come over and give me some words of encouragement.  Jehovah looks after every one of his people with such tenderness and He is inviting every one in the world to come to him and be cared for.

Bonfire Night

 

Captain Butterfly took this photo of the bonfire on Saturday night. It was as splendid as ever, and crowds of people came. The firework display - the bits that whizzed past our windows - was spectacular.   It was still blazing away on Sunday morning, as I saddled up the pixels and Zoomed to the meeting. It was an upside down meeting as our speaker was delayed (traffic I think) and so we had the Watchtower study first, followed by the public talk.

It was a very reassuring meeting, reminding us of Jehovah's loyal love for all who love him. It is so important to talk to Jehovah all the time in prayer. I can definitely improve on that - and many other things. I do often ask that, one day, Col and I may be able to thank Him for this beautiful earth from perfect hearts. Something not possible for us yet.

Monday started sunny, with my two Zoom sessions. We had forgotten to tell the Oz Branch that our clocks had gone back! - but he worked it out, and appeared. Apparently just as it is starting to get much colder here, it has suddenly got colder in Oz. Yet they are supposed to be heading into the burning heat of a Sydney Summer - it is us who are heading for winter. And Col had his Zoom session with his siblings in the afternoon, after which I made us our supper: cheese and onion omelette for Himself, hot buttered toast (with seeds) for me.

I feel an urge to write a poem. It would be called Seagulls and Bonfires... but so far the title is all I can manage.

Cats and Dogs

CATS AND DOGS

by me

Sonny bustles

Very busy

On his four short legs

Mats rustle

As Sasha scuttles

Under Mara’s bed

Sonny wants very much

To make friends

And rushes round the bed

Wagging at both ends

A furry face

Peeps out

And Sasha hisses

This Sonny takes to mean

Love and kisses

Sasha miaows for help to come

We all shout

C A T S!

Sonny rushes from the room

With frenzied yaps

“Sorry, Sasha, can’t stop

There are lots of  C A T S to see off.”

Sasha sits a’puzzling

Then the penny drops

You don’t know what a C A T is

You great daft dog.

This little poem - or rather verse - commemorates a moment from Planet Expat when Pat's dog wanted to make friends with Mara's cat. And how long ago it all was. Which reminds me of why I used to write poetry (and verse) back then. I was becoming aware of how short our lives are now, how quickly they go, how the moments just fly past. And I wanted to capture some of those moments as they flew by. And so I did. This is not a moment I remember at all, it was so long ago. But what a lovely dog and cat they were.

When looking for "dogs" and "cats" in Col's Photo Gallery, I came across the sign of one of our favourite Sheffield pubs. I thought it might well do to head this blog. They used to serve the best apple crumble and custard ever, have a lovely veggie option on for the main, and there was no music, no noisy machines. Suited us (and Ken) down to the ground.

Storm Benjamin has been and gone, on Thursday. It blew a few leaves about here and there was a bit of rain, but apparently other parts of the UK got a much stronger version of it. Its a good thing it was not fierce down here as the big bonfire and its attendant fairground have already arrived on The Green, and it could have blown them all to bits.

I managed to get a bit of energy back - probably from the meeting at the Kingdom Hall on Thursday - and got some much needed housework done. However, the result was I was up in the early hours, with severe pain in my "good" shoulder, trying to organise some painkillers and some food to take with them.

Col is at home today which is lovely, so if my shoulder continues to be bad he will help me get what I need off the shelves, etc. T'he soup for lunch is made - and I now have to make his packed lunch for tomorrow and do my Watchtower study - also for tomorrow. The article for tomorrow is "Accept Jehovah's Love" - which is very comforting.

We all feel how imperfect we are and may feel we are not deserving of love. But what Jehovah is holding out to us is "undeserved kindness" - and when He reads our hearts, he sees the wonderful potential that every one of us has. Jehovah IS love, and his love is the force that created and sustains the universe.

A Rainy Sunday

This is a photo Captain B took on the rainy Sunday of our balcony geraniums blossoming away.  They are both beautiful and tough.

I was thankful for a rainy Sunday as Captain B decided it was not the weather to go a'detectoring in and so was available to chauffeur me to the Kingdom Hall - and he had got lunch ready too! It rained on Monday as well, and there was flooding in Brighton, so I looked up some rain poems and this one kind of stopped me in my tracks:

Rain
Raymond Carver

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgiveable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

https://readalittlepoetry.com/2012/12/13/rain-by-raymond-carver/


How much the poet wants more life, wants to live, not die - in spite of the tragedy we are living in.  He knows how wonderful the gift of life is.

My own poem, were I able to write it, would express the same longing to live, not die - to go on living - with one important exception.  I can truthfully say that if someone was able to offer me a magic pill that would make me young again, return me to my twenties. I would only take it on the assurance that I could go back knowing then what I know now. Otherwise, I will stay here, balanced precariously at the crumbling edge of what Philip Larkin called a "huge and birdless silence". 

I do not want to make the same mistakes over again. And what i have learnt in the last seventy plus years is so valuable. I do not want to have missed out on meeting Captain Butterfly, and above all to have found my Creator and to have been taught by his congregation for the last 30 years are things I never want to lose.  So I want to become young again, be full of life again, but knowing all I know now, and having so much more to learn.

Which, in fact, is what the Bible promises us.

Sheffield Squirrels

I asked Captain B for one of the photos he took of the squirrels who still haunt the bungalow garden and bird feeders as they did when our parents were alive. It is also a chance for me to blog my October poem, which I may have blogged before:

OCTOBER IN SHEFFIELD

by me

Leaves so lately green lie on greener grass
On mossy stones the squirrels pass
To deeper shades of grey and green
Into woods where Winter waits
And breathing nearer shakes the trees
Now we start to feed the birds
The squirrel wears her Winter furs.

I spoke to the Flower Lady on Friday and have arranged to see her next week.  We need to pray about this.

What to say about the News?  It does at least continue to demonstrate the truth of everything the Bible warns us about "the world", the current wicked system of things on the earth, and how corrupt and violent it is.

The recent revelations from the posthumous autobiography of Virginia Giuffre reveal just how corrupt the whole system is.

Anyway, I have been doing some Not Home letters this week, telling people about the Kingdom of God, and have some more territory to write to, and hope to start that tomorrow.  I need to pray that more and more people will start to wake up, in the spiritual sense.  And Himself has been out with the lads on another day detectoring. Nothing found, but a nice day out in the fresh air.  

And he is at home today, so will chauffeur me to the Hall - very kindly.  My new eyes do now pass the License plate test - I have tested them - but I don't know if I will ever drive again.  One of the decisions to be made at my age, is this: to decide to stop driving before you have the crash that tells you you should have stopped.

Have I reached that stage?   Something else I need to pray about.   At the moment my car has a problem - a slow puncture, in the tyre we just replaced! - that means I can't drive it anyway.

The Eyes Have It

These are some Purple-eye daisies I found in the Captain's Photo Gallery, as I had my eye check yesterday - at Specsavers - and they came up when I put "eye" into Search.

They had to run one test twice, on my "lazy eye", but once that was done pronounced themselves very happy with the Cataract operations.

So thank you Optegra in Brighton for doing a good job, and for the kindness of your staff. And a thank you to Specsavers for referring me there.

I also have a prescription for new specs, which I may take them up on.  I am seeing how it goes with the cheap ones I bought from the Pharmacy.

The only downside - and it is inevitable - is that a certain merciful blurring when I looked at myself in the mirror has gone.  "Who is that dreadful old hag in my bathroom mirror?" I thought, then "Oh no!" as I realised who it must be.

Clearly she is related to the lady who has the wrinkled hand clutching a walking stick that sometimes appears in the reflective doors of the lift when I am using it.

We slept in on Wednesday morning - unusually for us, so I guess we needed it.  So I missed the field service group, which I usually try to Zoom to.   I did try on Tuesday, but could not get in.  I hope to get to the meeting in person, not in pixel, tonight.

The News is awful, despite all these cries of peace in the Middle East. The Israeli hostages - the ones still alive - have been returned under the new peace agreement. With I assume wounds - both physical and emotional - that will only be healed in the restored earthly paradise.  And while it would be lovely if peace does break out... it hardly seems possible.  The people of Gaza are returning to rubble - and not just rubble, but rubble filled with the bodies of their family and their friends.  

They too have physical and emotional wounds that only our loving Creator can and will heal.  How urgently people need to turn away from "the world" and towards Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael.  Because it is only the heavenly government, the Kingdom of God, that will bring true peace and security to the earth. And it will do so very soon.

Tuesday was a day of painkillers.  My knees were very very painful.  I creaked around doing little - Specsavers in the morning, and in the afternoon using up two tins of chick peas to make a curry - an OK, if not brilliant, curry.  And this morning I am catching up on my studying, preparing some Not Home letters to give the pioneers tonight, doing the washing, and I already have an apple crumble in the oven.

Our supper tonight will be a sort of chicken,veggie and chick pea stew, followed by the crumble (for himself, not good for diabetics such as me, alas).

I am hoping that I will start doing my bit for our yearly tax returns this afternoon, along with finishing up my studying.  But that will require staying awake...

Walter de la Mare

 

Fare Well

When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?

Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller's Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.

Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days.


by Walter de la Mare


https://allpoetry.com/Fare-Well


This de la Mare poem feels so right. I have been looking out on a lovely Autumn - the trees as we drove back from the North on Thursday were a symphony of colour. And I was thinking two things. Firstly, will this be my last Autumn? And, secondly, or will we have unnumbered Autumns in the restored earthly paradise? I try to think of us being there, as it does put everything into its true perspective.

I imagine the Captain and me strolling through Autumn woods with a trug, picking various mushrooms for supper. It is not something I would dare to do now as even experts can make mistakes. And mushroom mistakes can be lethal.

We unpacked on Thursday evening and then I Zoomed to the meeting. Friday morning was our flu and covid jabs - so we shopped for the basics afterwards. I pretty much did nothing after that beyond making the soup and heating up the pizza for supper. Saturday Col was back to his detecting routine, so a very early start, and the Sandwich Fairy got herself together to do her stuff and provide the packed lunches. So I suppose I did do that... er... at least, she did. 

And given we had yet another trip over the Snake, to visit Bea and Co, I thought I would take the opportunity to reblog my Epic Poem, see below:

The Snake Pass (by me)

How beautifully
it winds and wends
the way to Bea's
and back again.

The Memorial for Shirley

It gave me a strange feeling stepping into a Catholic Church again, the smell of incense and polish and stone and candles and flowers taking me right back to my childhood.  It was an odd mixture of feelings - some of them happy of course, memories of my parents and siblings when we were all young.

And thinking about Shirley took me back to our shared Nabbs childhood - see photo above - and also to weekends I spent with her and her family when I was a student in my first year at Newcastle Uni, and Uncle Freddy worked for the Forestry in Northumberland.  I think I talked about that in a previous blog.

And it was great meeting up with the cousins and some of their children after a long time...   but how quickly time goes and how short our lives are now.

Shirley and George had a long and happy marriage, which is wonderful.  Yet, of course, it means that when one partner goes, the other loses, as George said their best friend.

That hits close to home for the Captain and me, given our age.

There was no mass, which was a relief (for me), it was a Memorial.  The older of her two brothers gave us a small overview of her life, and somehow managed to get through it with only the minimal of faltering.  Bravely done.

The picture George chose for the Order of Service was Shirley on her wedding day, looking so lovely.  I think she would have been very happy with his choice.

And Scarborough still looks like a prosperous little seaside town.  

What else did we do while 'oop North?  We met up with the York contingent midway for lunch at a nice pub - a carvery.  We saw Jen and Kathryn for coffee - they came to us. We drove over the Snake to visit the family at Marple - young Anna - looking lovelier than ever - was there which was a nice surprise.  And on our last day we had a veggie feast round at Jen's - great way to end our visit.  

Broomhill now has a green wall - which seems an excellent idea.

The hope for Shirley is that she now sleeps safe in "the everlasting arms", safe in Jehovah's memory, every hair of her head numbered, and that she has such a wonderful awakening ahead of her when the time comes for the resurrection.  She will see this lovely earth and those she loves once again. But this time it will be with the prospect of living on it forever.

Here is a beautiful promise from Revelation, the last book of the Bible:

With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” -  Revelation 21:3,4

All the sadness we live with now will be gone when Shirley next open her eyes - gone for good, never to return.

Weather - courtesy of Storm Amy

 

A Drop fell on the Apple Tree

A Drop fell on the Apple Tree -
Another - on the Roof -
A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves -
And made the Gables laugh -

A few went out to help the Brook
That went to help the Sea -
Myself Conjectured were they Pearls -
What Necklaces could be -

The Dust replaced, in Hoisted Roads -
The Birds jocoser sung -
The Sunshine threw his Hat away -
The Bushes - spangles flung -

The Breezes brought dejected Lutes -
And bathed them in the Glee -
The Orient showed a single Flag,
And signed the fête away.

Emily Dickinson

https://allpoetry.com/poem/13566782-A-Drop-fell-on-the-Apple-Tree--by-Emily-Dickinson

Following on from Emily B on the weather, here is Emily D - this one about the power of raindrops, all a part of Jehovah's wonderful water cycle.  It is so perfect in its operation that you and I today can be drinking some of the water that Noah, his family and his animals drank on the Ark - all here on the earth, kept in circulation till this day - as it will be for days unnumbered.

I have found a rainyday photo in the Captain's gallery to head this blog, one I think I have posted before.

Appropriately it was stormy on Friday - leaves blowing everywhere and quite heavy rain.  Apparently Storm Amy is on the way and will presumably have arrived before I finish this blog.  It caught us on Saturday as we did the shopping, early in the morning. Quite exhilarating.

But what a contrast - the power of the weather and the feebleness of me.  There is a likely a poem in that, but I feel I am well advised to leave it to the two Emilys.

Every Leaf Speaks Bliss

 Fall, leaves, fall

By Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52330/fall-leaves-fall

At last, someone else who loves Autumn and Winter.  Hurray for Emily!

The Brontes must have been on my mind as I had just posted a blog about my long ago series of Wuthering Frights frivolities, about three Yorkshire-Polish (and Irish, as the Brontes were too) sisters trying (and failing) to write their best sellers.  

We fail, but to our amazement our brother Branston succeeds and has a Hollywood blockbuster.  Only I never got to write it as far as that.

And I must note that one of us, Nute, has gone on to have a lot of success with her books - and both Penny and I are published in a smaller way.  Our brother, NotBranston, has some academic publications to his name too, as have Nute and Pen.

I picked up an interesting format from this poem and have decided to keep it.

And how lovely all the seasons are.  But I do love weather, and wild weather, and the silence of a snow-fallen morning, and even the bleakness of November, with its stalks, its skeletal pods, and mists. And if I was up to a poem at the moment I am sure there is one to be written - not as good as Emily's of course.

Maybe, when God wakes Emily from the dreamless sleep of death, it will be to a wild and wuthering day in the restored earthly Paradise.  Who knows? But, as always, I hope we are all there to find out.