Found

Picture from the Design Factory website. Click to enlarge.

We found this tiny cafe/art gallery with exhibits by three different artists: paintings, pottery and - the ones that caught my eye - textile art by Laura McCafferty.

At first you smile because the subject matter is often tongue-in-cheek, the figures well-drawn (from life), and the artist's skill with textiles and embroidery and the use of colour and pattern make them a sensory treat.

Then you look more closely. Groups of middle aged ladies chatting or playing bingo, a weary woman on the Tube, a solitary man in a downmarket cafe.

In other words, the human condition. These are works of pathos as well as humour and - as often is the case - each emphasises the other. Ordinary people talking, dancing, staring into space. Getting by. Laura McCafferty's affection for her subjects is unexpectedly moving, and much as I'm attracted to them I'm not sure whether I could cope with one of these collages on my wall. Her observational skills cut too close to the bone for comfort.

I can't get the link to the artist's website to work on my laptop, but I tried on the work computer during the lunch hour and it was just fine. Browser problems no doubt so I will leave it up. Better anyway to see textile art in real life - the texture and substance of the cloths used are so vital to the finished work - but the links do give a flavour.

Imagination

There are other areas, other towns, that would have better fitted the bill if it were a purely logical choice. I could have bought something cheaper in the north of England or found somewhere nearer my family further south.

Forty something years ago I first came to this place. I was twelve, maybe thirteen, very shy, but oddly attracted to horse-riding. I wasn't a good rider - too nervous - but my nights and days were often soaked in dreams of galloping bareback across the prairies, long black hair streaming behind me. I was probably more Thelwell than Pocahontas but imagination is a wonderful thing.

In pursuit of my dream I persuaded my parents to let me go on a pony trekking holiday in the Welsh border country. My father deposited me at the collection point and us girls, all strangers, piled into a mini-van to be driven south towards a series of long, bare mountain ridges that straddle the border. I was by now having serious misgivings.

And then, I remember that the sun came out and the van started to climb. We rounded a bend and I stared across a narrow valley at rounded slopes, green dappled with russet bracken, tinged with gold in the late afternoon light. Apprehension and reserve were momentarily knocked out of me by wonder. I couldn't believe how beautiful and other this land was. I was a child of the flatlands with little experience of geography above 300 feet, and this was fairytale country. All that week - it was a wet one - astride Cocoa the mountain pony, I silently absorbed the mountains and the deep, misty valleys.

These mountains have haunted me ever since.

****

And now I live a dozen miles away, in a market town on the river plain. When I walk in the nearby fields I can see the ancient granite ridges, blue silhouettes in the west against the setting sun. That's Wales, people tell you as a visitor. A different place.

Today the terrible border battles are long gone. On the local high street you hear sing-song Welsh accents mixed with the rounded English vowels (and the occasional conversation in Polish). My local supermarket sells bottles labelled Llaeth Cymraeg. These days in (because of?) the consumer society, for all the rise in regional nationalism, we blend and merge.

I've always been fascinated by borderlands, duality. I love Montreal, and to a lesser extent, Brussels, for the same reason. I wanted to live somewhere where there was flux, where two realities merge to form a third.

Now I'm here it's dawning on me that I have no idea of what the future holds. Really, none at all. It feels a little like being high though not necessarily ecstatic. Success. Failure. Who will judge?

I breathe. I do the next thing to be done. I feel. I wait. And as Dale puts it - beautifully - I listen.

Heart of a Rose

My camera makes me so happy sometimes. I wish I could convey the perfume.

Click to enlarge.

Return

I have time to think. That is the great, the greatest luxury. I have time to be. Therefore my responsibility is huge. To use time well and to be all that I can be in the years left to me. This does not dismay. The dismay comes when I lose the sense of my life as connected (as if by an aerial) to many, many other lives that I do not even know. The signals go out and come in all the time.

May Sarton
Journal of a Solitude

Written in pre-cyberspace days, the paragraph above seems all the more relevant now in the era of blogs when we are connected to many, many lives that we don't know, and some that - in a way - we do. May Sarton sums up the challenge and opportunity of growing older as a woman alone so well that I'm tempted to stop writing and just post the photograph and the quotation.

It's my birthday today but a difficult phone call earlier this week has left me pensive rather than celebratory. This morning there are cards and presents, and a special lunch is planned for Saturday. Though very grateful, right now I feel a little detached from it all.

I've jotted down a Wish List for the coming year. In reality everything on it could be reduced to the yearning for a generous, unbarricaded heart.

The rest follows. Minute by minute.

****

This morning is humid and slightly overcast. It's very warm even at this early hour. The cat rubs his furry face against my shins and purrs. I need to feed him then get ready for work. Normally I dress in neutral colours but today I plan to wear favourite deep fuschia blouse with the grey fleck trousers. I've lived another year, a turbulent one, and there is value in acknowledging the fact.

Rituals matter, even ones as trivial as a fuchsia blouse.

Today is shared as a birthday with Tamar, my blogging "twin". Many Happy Returns to both of us.

Carwash

Stopping at the service station for petrol.

Waiting in the passenger seat, hypnotised by the colour and power and wetness of the carwash in action a few yards away.

Suddenly wanting to be sucked in and soaked and sudsed and rinsed and scrubbed and buffed and ejected onto the forecourt.

Gleaming.

Mute

Silence:
something is lacking:
a skillful generosity,
a freedom from constraints,
a dyslexia - or
perhaps even
a tourette's - of the imagination,

these last, after all,
being rule-breakers.

I wonder:
will the words escape
early one morning
to play games of hide-and-seek
around the flinty rocks
beside the stream,
in the long grass of summer?

On that day,
(if it comes)
oh how they will tumble and laugh,
shout and fight and turn cartwheels -
these children
my words.

Neighbours

See, how straight and square they stand on their legs.
See, what fine sagacious eyes.

- The Ox-Tamer, Walt Whitman

It is the time of year for things Taurean and anyway my four-legged neighbours fascinate me. They are a mixed bunch, some a beautiful shade of toffee fudge, a few black, the majority brown and white. The colouring of this last group is so subtle you need to see them in real life to appreciate the tones: cappucino blending into a smokey, grey-brown around the head and neck.

No raging bulls here. Who could be afraid of such peaceable beasts? They turn and watch me approach. A couple of them start to wander over in my direction then stop and stare. No threat, just a slow, incurious curiosity.

Oh, and I've learned something I didn't know. When cows, or bullocks in this case, get up they do so hindquarters first.

I've obviously been a townie for too long.

The rest of Whitman's visual, almost mythic, poem is here.

Kiva

I have Kate from one of my favourite blogs, Dating God , to thank for putting me onto Kiva.

What is it? In the words of the website:

We let you loan to the working poor. Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

I've just chipped in with my first loan to a partner. You don't have to pledge a large amount, you can start small, and if, like me, you live permanently with a queasy sense of financial insecurity, then participating in something like this is a pretty good reminder that some problems are relative.

There's more at these links about microfinance or microcredit. Kiva certainly doesn't solve the problem of world poverty but perhaps it might be a small part of the answer. It is an internet-based outfit, so imagine what might happen if even 1 blogger in 100 (or 1,000) loaned a small amount.

A human connection is made as well. Go on the Kiva website and you'll see what I mean.

Practicalities and Realities

I’ve got a job, four days a week for a nine-month contract. After several months of living off savings this has to be A Good Thing.

- It is no longer sunny. I’m still glad to be here.

- Almost cried with frustration today as I tried to get the photocopier function of my printer to work. Five months of having the damn thing in storage is enough time for me to forget about such details and my tolerance of computer equipment snafus is very low. I thought I’d found a local computer support person but he has stopped answering emails or telephone calls. Perhaps he’s fled the country. And I can't find the printer instruction book. Lost in transit no doubt.

- I used to think if ever I sold my soul it would be to a plumber or anyone who can make sense of flatpack furniture assembly instructions. I am adding computer support person to the list.

- As of today I’m still getting my photocopies done at the library at 20p a sheet.

- On a different, and very basic topic, does anyone who has travelled or moved home with a cat have any tips on how to persuade their lord and master to return to using the bosom of Mother Earth for, um, elimination purposes after several months of litter tray luxury?

Beltane Moon

The air was still warm at 8.00pm. I took a walk by the river as the Beltane Full Moon floated up from the folds of the wooded hills on the far side of the railway line. The chorus of birdsong - blackbird, thrush and others that I could not identify - already loud, seemed to reach a crescendo but maybe this was my imagination ....

The countryside hereabouts is soft, feminine, with the curves of its rounded hills, the meandering river and green fields dotted with grazing cattle. It luxuriates with life: animals, birds, insects, trees, plants. So extraordinary, to watch the moon rise in the midst of it all.

I'm totally bewitched by the beauty of this place. Yes, the sun is shining, it's May, and yes I know it isn't like this in January because I've been here. It's often grey and damp and you can't see the tops of the hills because they're enveloped in mist. And of course the excitement of new love, for places and people, has to give way to something else eventually and I don't know what that will look or feel like. But today it doesn't matter.