Year out, year in; begin again?

Have you ever tried to sum up your blogging year

in a photo?

Like this ~

2017 ~ Flowers and Friends, Wabi Sabi, and slightly out of focus!

Or in  a poem?

Like this ~where I play upon the titles from this year’s blog posts, plus the title from my first blog post in 2012.

 

T.i.c.k. t.o.c.k.

at my desk ~  on the road,

delving
into past and present:
Gandhi Jayanti;
chelonian tales with a difference;
t.i.c.k. t.o.c.k.

floral interlude

t.o.c.k.t.i.c.k.t.i.c.k.t.o.c.k.

from my desk
the great debate,
year out, year in,
begin again?

gallivanting and roses,

on the road, at my desk,

t.i.c.k.t.o.c.k.t.o.c.k.t.i.c.k

t.o.c.k….

 

Do any of the titles stand out for you? Or prompt you to remember a post of mine which you particularly enjoyed?

And, without researching, can you guess which title/words belong to 2012?

Would you like to have a go at a blog title poem?  Feel free to add it in the comments. I would love to read it.

As this year ends, and as I prepare for the next, I want to thank you for your wonderful  readership, support, and comments (and emails and visit ) in 2017.   As usual, and as is the case for most of us, this year has had its share of the good and not so good times; you’ve been with me every step of the way, and I love you for it.  Blessings and bon courage for whatever 2018 holds for you.

Aroha nui

Amanda Anne aka Gallivanta.

#loveyourshell

© silkannthreades

Meads and Posies and Life

This post comes to you,

just because it’s spring,

A Spring ‘Blue’ for outstanding performance, to the sweet peas, hebes, phacelia, borage, forget-me-nots, alyssum, campanula, and clematis.

and flowers demand attention, with winning ways,

Clover, sweet peas, and roses have seductively winning wiles.

and because I promised Tish Farrell , Writer on the Edge, I would  photograph my mini-meadows when they flowered.

‘Oh may I squire you round the meads
And pick you posies gay?’ A E Housman

‘Ah, life, what is it but a flower?’ A E Housman, A Shropshire Lad

© silkannthreades

Preserving the sweetness of things

Our previous minister,  Rev. John Hunt, (now retired), would sometimes  offer the congregation ‘a sweetie for the sermon’. His sermons didn’t ever need any sweetening but he said a ‘sweetie for the sermon’ was an ancient Scottish tradition, and we, believers all, were more than happy to help preserve the ways of the old Kirk.  So the baskets of sweeties were passed from one pew to another and we, smiling and laughing like young ones at a birthday party, selected our sweetie and, then, spent the rest of the sermon, trying to dislodge sticky toffee from our gums and teeth. ( Perhaps we were not as young as our hearts imagined 🙂 ) Gummed up or not, they were sweet moments, and, although, I remember not a word of the sermons, I do remember feeling content and treasured and loved. Sugar it seems is a powerful  preservative of well-being.

In the spirit of ‘a sweetie for the sermon’, I  am spending time trying to capture and preserve  the sweetness of the current season. For there is much sweetness to savour.

There is the sweet fragrance and delicate tones of my dwarf sweet peas both outside

Sweetly fragrant Sweet Pea

and indoors, mingled with scented rose.

Rose and Sweet Peas

Then there is the sweetness suspended in the flowers and leaves I  am drying for my home-made potpourri.

Summer Medley with Tracy’s  butterflies

Potpourri translates as ‘rotten pot/stew’, which, hopefully, mine will not be, if I have dried everything sufficiently well.

Petals and Leaves

Clematis and Bay with Tracy’s butterfly

Miscellaneous Mixture

Additional sweetness comes in a friend’s seasonal gift of  home-made  Christmas mince pies; so delicious they are impossible to preserve except on camera.

Stars of Wonder

They are a scrumptious-sumptuous combination of melt-in-your-mouth sugary buttery pastry and ‘ barely there tartness’ of rich, fruity mince meat;   made, I am told, with the addition of apple and green tomato to the dried fruit.

Star of Wonder

Gooseberries and Blackcurrants for fun

Sweet delight of pastry and fruit mince

Merry Christmas

So those are the sweeties. Now for the sermon. Sermon? What sermon?  My mouth is too full of goodness to speak.

© silkannthreades

The Tendrils of the Sweet Pea

The other day, I wrote a post which featured some clip art from Dover Publications https://silkannthreades.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/from-oostburg-to-christchurch-we-are-connected/.  This beautiful painting of sweet peas was also included in my free clip art sampler. The painting is by the Belgian Painter and Botanist, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, (1759-1840) who was nick named the “Raphael of flowers”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Redout%C3%A9

Sweet Peas by Pierre-Joseph Redouté

In floriography, or the language of flowers, the sweet pea represents ‘delicate pleasures’.  I am not sure what constitutes ‘delicate pleasures’, especially in Victorian terms when floriography was at its peak, but, as this interpretation comes from Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers, I shall assume it has an innocent and sweet meaning. Like a light kiss a mother might bestow on her child’s cheek, or a gentle, hand in hand, stroll with a loved one.

For me, the sweet peas are the sweetest of flowers. Some years I grow them in my garden.

Sweet Peas in my Garden

They remind me of my grandfather, for the sweet pea was his favourite flower.

They remind me of my wedding day, when all I could find  for a bouquet, in the arid setting of Botswana, was a handful of sweet peas; surprisingly, and almost miraculously, brought forth, rich in colour and scent, from a monochrome, dry earth. On that day, they were, indeed, a delicate pleasure, and a precious connection to loved ones far away.

Whilst pleasing my eye with the delicate, sweet pea painting, I wondered if I could find a poem to accompany it. And, of course, I could, with some help from Mr Google.  Alfred Noyes wrote A Child’s Vision, which begins

“Under the sweet-peas I stood

And drew deep breaths, they smelt so good….”

Sweet peas this way

and that way

The poem is a delightful view of sweet peas from a child’s perspective. It  takes me back to my own childhood  fascination with  sweet peas (and snapdragons, too 🙂

Alfred Noyes  was an English poet.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Noyes   Two of his better known poems are “The Highwayman” and “Daddy Fell into the Pond”. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/daddy-fell-into-the-pond/ He was  born in 1880, on 16th September. Yes, that’s right, 16th September. Today is his birthday, or would be, if he were still alive.

Happy Birthday Alfred

Isn’t that a pleasurable and fortuitous discovery :)?  Alfred Noyes lived for some of his life, in Ventnor, Isle of Wight, and died there in 1958. His final resting place was Freshwater, Isle of Wight. And that little piece of information, that Alfred Noyes’s  home was on the Isle of Wight, afforded me a gentle, crinkle-cornered smile. Because, for some weeks, I have been on a voyage of discovery into my ancestry.  I  have been reaching out through the  past and  learning, little by little,  about my great, great, great grandparents  and their life on the Isle of Wight. It’s a fascinating journey, and, helping me to understand my ancestral  home in its modern context, is my lovely, full of spirit,  blogger friend, Bethan, at http://thehouseofbethan.com/.  We have  fun planning my imaginary trip “home”, and, now, thanks to my love of sweet peas, I can add Alfred Noyes’s home, Lisle Combe, to my list of places to visit.  And, since I will be near Ventnor, I will also consider taking  a peek at Keith Brewster’s prize-winning sweet peas,  http://www.iwcp.co.uk/news/gardening/sign-of-sweet-success-50269.aspx

All fun and fantasy aside, it has been a sweetly, delicate pleasure, today, to have one, sweet pea painting lead me, by its virtual tendrils, from my kitchen bench, in Christchurch, to the Isle of Wight;  in which place I know there is a spot, a portion of soil,  that is uniquely mine ; a piece of ground that knows my heart, and my footprint, because of those who have gone before me.

Now, if only I had been a Victorian, with an abundant supply of sweet peas, I could have reduced all these  words in to a small posy . How much easier and sweeter for all of you, my kind, patient readers 🙂

© silkannthreades