The July Calendar - the Frog Orchid

 

We chose a Frog Orchard from Col's photo gallery for our July calendar this year.  I am already starting to wonder what the theme for our next year's calendar could be.  A Finds Calendar maybe, featuring some of the detected artefacts?

That, of course, is if we make it into 2027...

With that in mind, my day started with a phone call from a young medic at the doctors, outcome of which is a new med and I am back on the blood pressure machine routine - just for 4 days this time, but 6 times a day.

The theme for the first day of our Convention - Friday - was Matthew 5:3: "Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need".

It is a Scripture I knew from my convent schooldays, but we knew it as "Happy are the poor in spirit", so I never understood what it meant.   What it does mean is very simple.  If we feel the need for our Creator, the need for his support and guidance, if we feel the loneliness of being born cut off from Him, in a damaged and dying state (through no fault of our own), we will seek for Him, even if we don't exactly know who it is we are searching for.

And if we seek for our loving Creator, Jehovah, he will let us find him, as He has promised.  And, as Jesus himself assured us, if you keep on seeking, you will find.  I found that to be true.

Here is a question asked by one of the Convention's speakers:  Are some of us so tired of being in constant pain, and life being a constant round of doctor's and hospital visits?

Yes. I think many of us are.  We are grateful, very, for the NHS.  But how we long for perfect health.

While the weekend was warm and sunny, it was not the return of the heatwave. Not yet.  Col was home on Friday - and gave me a consoling hug when he saw my eyes filling with tears during the Convention.  Episode 4 of the video series The Good News According to Jesus included Jesus healing the leper, and it showed how Jesus reached out to him and touched him just before he healed him.

How long since that man had been touched by anyone?  Leprosy is - or was then - so contagious that lepers had to stay isolated.

And I want to remember and treasure this, from Friday morning:

You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence is abundant joy;
There is happiness at your right hand forever.

Psalm 16:11

Happiness forever.  Don't those two words perfectly express what we long for?  And we long for it because that is what Jehovah made us for - to be happy, under the loving care of the happy God.

Eternal Happiness Convention

 

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

By Lewis Carroll

A boat beneath a sunny sky,

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —

Lingering in the golden gleam —

Life, what is it but a dream?

I am sure I have blogged this poem before - in another July. And, as I love it, I may do so again, if I live to see another July.  Because, yes, what are our lives now but a dream, just a moment in time, so quickly gone.

But once paradise is restored, will there be one July to come, maybe hundreds of years from now, when I can talk to the poet, to Alice, and to the other children so lovingly remembered in the poem?   If I can keep on going faithfully to the end - the end of the current wicked system of things on the earth, or of my life, whichever comes first - then it is more than possible.

The young man came to fix our phone on Wednesday morning. He was due at 8:00 and turned up promptly at 8:00!  And, hopefully, he has fixed it- our ancient horse-drawn phone that is, not our mean OutSmartYou ones.

I managed to get myself up and dressed, which is as exhausting as a full day's work these days, made the usual lentil veggie curry soup, and the weekly mushroom curry.  Plus I made a strawberry yoghurt for afters.  Just doing that required a lot of stops for rest. I am reminding myself, somewhat worryingly, of my mother and my granny in their latter years.

I also had my double Zoom with a friend in the afternoon. We both got some work done and a good talk.  It all helps so much.  Col detected on Thursday leaving very early, and I managed to change the beds, wash the sheets, and do my Watchtower study for Sunday. But that was it.  I slept all afternoon, trying to escape from the pain.

And another night of odd dreams followed, punctuated by trips to the loo.   But during my dreams I somehow kept a consciousness that I am due at the ETERNAL HAPPINESS Convention this morning - via pixel, on my computer - and woke myself up in time.  Well, hopefully, given how much it takes to unwind from the pain.

But eternal happiness... who could ask for more? And it is what the Bible promises us - right here on this lovely earth for most of us.

Its strange to think that I used to be able to go on the coach. And even stranger to think that one year I drove Maggie, Jean and Ken to Brighton and back for the whole three days! 

The Heatwave

The heatwave continues with more thunderstorms on Saturday night.  But, thankfully, our block has not been hit - yet.  There have been some bad strikes locally though.

We heard from Bob - a friend from our expat years.  We used to see so much of each other in those days.  They are all now in Northern Thailand - a very lovely part of the world, remembering our long ago trip to Chiang Mai.  It was so quiet back then, but now it's apparently like another Bangkok.

So I thought I would look for a photo from one of our Thai trips to head this blog, but then I remembered that the Captain has not yet put any of them in his Gallery.  Our trips to Thailand were so long ago that he would have to digitise them. (Don't ask.)  Or was it so long ago that we had to hire a local painter to portray us there?  Once again, don't ask.  He spent Sunday - a hot Sunday - manning a stall with two other detectorists at a Farmers Fair.  

And he bought his cake and sandwiches home, as the attraction of burgers proved too much. Very good they were too apparently.

Had two anxiety dreams on Sunday night, and woke up relieved to find that I had not left my bag with purse and credit cards outside a London gallery and had it stolen, nor had I forgotten an important commission given to me by an expat friend. That last dilemma took me back many years to Planet Expat when we visited the UK and fellow Brits would give us letters to post, commissions for stuff, etc.  In my dream I had failed to unpack one of my suitcases and forgotten about an important commission involving a large file full of CVs.

As I said, it was a relief to wake up.

We have been sitting out on our balcony of an evening, often talking over the past as befits two old people I guess.  So I used a rather good photo Col took of a recent sunset to head the blog.

We had our usual Zoom sessions on Monday.  And I made an apple crumble in the afternoon, plus did three cards to family and friends who are in hospital - Seppi, Richard and Patricia.  And this morning we saw our Bible student.  

Oh, and Jane gave me some lemon drizzle cake for Col. She is a very good baker, and that is Col's favourite, but not one I usually make as it is not sturdy enough for his packed lunches, which used to have to survive The Dive Boat, but now have to survive The Field.  I plan to surprise him with it when we have our afternoon chocolate.

It ought to be freshly made iced lemon juice in this weather really, but we are such creatures of habit now, and at 3:00 we have hot chocolate.

Freedom at the Boundary

 

I had no time to Hate (763)

I had no time to Hate -
Because
The Grave would hinder me -
And Life was not so
Ample I
Could finish--Enmity -

Nor had I time to Love -
But since
Some Industry must be -
The little Toil of Love -
I thought
Was large enough for Me .

Emily Dickinson

https://allpoetry.com/Emily-Dickinson

I discovered the poems of Emily Dickinson in my first year at Uni - many years ago - and have come to appreciate her more and more over the years.

This is beautiful.  Our lives are so short now, even at best.  I wish I could explain how quickly our threescore years and ten goes by. So why not do something loving with the little time we have?

The divisive spirit of the world, along with our own imperfections, will push us in the opposite direction if we are not careful.  

The photo that heads this blog is of Shadow and his good friend Sophie happy in the Saudi desert. They were very loving animals - a credit to the loving Creator who made them. Alas, alas, that cannot always be said of me, but I am trying to get there...  

"Well, you ARE very trying..."   Was that the Captain's voice rising above the hum of metal detectors, in a distant field?

Not quite so hot on Friday, after a hot and still night. So I felt a bit better - got a tiny bit of energy back. I managed to review the book of poems Captain B just bought me - Freedom at the Boundary, by Mike-Philip Williams.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-at-Boundary-Mike-Philip-Williams-ebook/dp/B0DWHWHG2S

The review is on there.

Mike-Philip writes very well about the landscape of my childhood.  And I find myself thinking quite a lot about my childhood now - the feel of childhood.  Not of school though. I try not to think about that.

The Captain is not into poetry in the least, beyond possibly "There was a young lady of..."  but he knows I love it.   

Today is really hot again, and it's so still, after a night of thunderstorms and some much needed rain. Armed Forces Day is happening on The Green outside my window and i am typing this to an accompaniment of: Left, Right, Left, Right, as some young trainees march along the sea front.  In this heat!  I hope there is a breeze soon, for all our sakes.

And of course I long for the day promised in Psalms when there will be no more war, but a true and lasting peace earthwide, under the rule of the heavenly government, the Kingdom of God.

Come and witness the activities of Jehovah,
How he has done astonishing things on the earth.
He is bringing an end to wars throughout the earth.
- Psalm 46:8.9

Astonishing things indeed, as what human government, no matter how well-intentioned, has come anywhere near to achieving that?

Sky

 

 

Emily Dickinson

The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —

The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do —

The Brain is just the weight of God —
For — Heft them — Pound for Pound —
And they will differ — if they do —
As Syllable from Sound —

https://allpoetry.com/The-Brain--is-wider-than-the-Sky

Some recent sky shots from our evening balcony.  And what an outstandingly marvelous creation the human brain is.  I think I am right in saying - given I heard it somewhere (so who knows?) - that Charles Darwin acknowledged that the capacity of the human brain was a big problem in his Theory of Evolution - as is human language.

Whether that is true or not, would he actually believe in his theory these days, given how much more we now know about the complexity of the human brain, the complexity of even a single "simple" cell?

I feel sure he would have a big re-think.

The creation is telling us of its Grand Creator as clearly as if it spoke.

We are in the middle of a fierce heatwave here - but after all it is midsummer, the Solstice just having come and gone.  We had a lovely breeze from the sea Monday and Tuesday which made such a difference.  There has been torrential monsoon rain in parts of the country, but not here, yet.  And today is supposed to be the hottest June day ever. Last night was still and stifling, but today there is a small breeze which is making all the difference.  However it is still very very HOT.

We got to our student this morning and she had a good sized fan going for which we were so grateful.  Next week we start learning what the Bible says about the dead - where they are now, and will we see them again. And if so, where. We hope it is going to resonate with her, as she says she has no idea, and never really learnt much about it in religious lessons at school.

As a Catholic Convent schoolgirl, in the 1950s, I learnt about all sorts of terrible - and unBiblical - destinations for the dead.

I have a double Zoom field service this afternoon, which will be about all I do, as the heat is flaring up my arthritis horribly - see my recent blog "The Lamb" - and I am ashamed to say that I would have been more than happy if our student had cancelled this morning. But I am very glad she didn't as we had a good study.  

But my limbs are not only painful but working very badly. I have just managed to drop and smash the butter dish all over the kitchen while making the Captain's sandwiches for tomorrow.

You would think making sandwiches was easy enough - but these days - alas...

A Flower for Victoria Climbie, Maria Colwell, Preston Davey, Zarene Rose Frame, Star Hobson, Elsie Scully Hicks, Sara Sharif and so many others

On yon hill where the cold wind blows

Lies my darling Zarene Rose.

The Welfare said they'd take care of you.

It wasn't very often.

They took you away in a cradle

But brought you back in a coffin.

Geordie Frame, brother of the New Zealand author Janet Frame, wrote this sad little verse for his young daughter Zarene Rose.  The baby is said to have died in her sleep while in foster care, having been taken away from her parents by "the Welfare".

Were her parents competent to look after her?  Not very, going by Janet Frame's own account of her brother and his wife.  But... was The Welfare any more competent?

The verse is quoted in the biography of Janet Frame by Michael King.

And of course a flower for the poet Lemn Sissay and the writer Jenni Fagan, who both survived a childhood in Care, and somehow managed to write about it so powerfully in My Name is Why, and Ootlin.

The torture murder of Preston Davey at the hands of his adoptive parents, and in plain sight of the authorities, is the tragic inspiration for this blog.

Oldham Council - in whose care Preston was - say no staff have been disciplined or sacked following the infant's death but insist an independent child safeguarding practice review is being carried out and will report in due course.

No surprise there then.  Another review,  another "enquiry", and things will go on much the same - well, will likely get worse alas, as broken families, chaos and violence increase everywhere.

I hope those who did not survive being cared for in this way sleep safe in "the everlasting arms", held close in the memory of the most loving Father, Jehovah, and that they have such a joyful awakening ahead of them when the time comes  to wake the dead from their dreamless sleep.  They will wake up from a nightmare into the peace and joy of the restored earthly paradise.  We are promised that "distress will not rise up a second time", so all nightmares will be gone for good.

And it seems a horrendously perfect ending to this sad blog to have just heard that the man who threw a toddler into the crocodile enclosure in Cambridge has been released on bail.

HE HAS BEEN RELEASED ON BAIL.   The toddler is in hospital, seriously injured.   Whether the child will survive is not clear. But God bless the owners of the crocs who risked their lives going into the enclosure to save him.  At least that has given the child a chance.

The Police have told us we are "to refrain from speculation".  But its hard not to speculate about just how many toddlers this man will be allowed to attack until he is safely locked up somewhere.

Well, as our speaker at the Kingdom Hall reminded us today, "it does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step".  (Jeremiah 10:23)   And surely surely there is no excuse for not seeing the truth of those words, after the ongoing tragedies that human rulership is causing on the earth. 

We need God's will to be done on the earth, not that of imperfect humans.  

The Speaker today brought back another memory from the past. He was African, from the Congo I believe.  One of our last holidays in our travelling days was to South Africa for a friend's wedding.  It was my first and only time in Africa - and we fell in love with the beautiful Cape.  At that time - 20 years or so ago - there were a lot of Congolese immigrants living there, selling things at the roadside.  We stopped and bought some wooden carvings and found that they all seemed to speak English well - as did our brother today.

He spoke from the heart too.

The Dreams of Old Age

 

Are these the dreams of old age? Or just dreams?  I recently dreamt about my childhood home, which appears as 5 Disraeli Crescent in my books. And on Tuesday night my dreams ended with me sorting out breakfast for my mum-in-law Eileen, who was staying in a kind of B&B that did remind me of somewhere but the dream faded too quickly for me to work it out.

I know I was heading back to the dining room/kitchens as she wanted more butter on the strange collection of things on her plate, although they already had loads of butter on them. And she wanted more banana bread.  I remember being surprised that she liked banana bread and woke up wondering why I hadn't made her some.  I have two very good recipes.

Its too late now by the way, as Eileen died many years ago. I only meet her in the occasional dream.

So I put "banana" into the search engine of Col's photo gallery, and it came up with a lot of rather dazzling photos of Banana Reef in the Maldives (from our travelling years), so I thought, why not?

Last night my dreams were about the past too, but they have faded away so quickly I can't remember even a glimpse of which bit of the past turned up.  It surprises me how little I think and dream about our 25 years in the Middle East, years which gave us so much. But clearly what happens when we are young impresses itself much more deeply into our memory.

We are sitting out regularly on our balcony at night now, with a glass of Captain B's homemade wine for him and decaff coffee for me. Though lately I have been having a glass of wine too - but try to ration that to twice a week. The weather has stayed coldish overall and this morning it is grey and cloudy.  I love it all. The beauty of Green and Sea never fails.  And our balcony flowers are splendid.

Could we ever get tired of the creation?  It changes constantly and can be so heartbreakingly lovely.  Well, I hope that the Captain and I will be enjoying our evening glass of wine/cup of coffee/ together a thousand years from now, a million years from now.  I hope we will all "inherit the earth" as Jesus promised, and live forever upon it.

When I think of all I have already learnt in just... well... a lot more than 39 years lets say... in fact, double it, and...  it's hard to believe given the Captain and I were a young married couple just yesterday... to get back to my point, when I think of all I have learnt in my 70 plus plus plus years, I wonder what it will be like to look back from the vantage point of 1,000 years and think of what I have learnt then!