Monday 17 January 2011

The Wonders of Modern Technology



OH I do like to be beside the seaside... a dull day, and I was feeling lazy, sitting watching a craft TV shopping channel ( I didn't buy anything, I hasten to add) whilst rescuing a two-thirds knitted cardigan, when a friend called round to see me.

She showed me her newly created website at http://www.anamcaraspirituality.org/ which is a work in progress (just like my cardigan, but much cleverer), but is well worth a visit, with poems,reflections and photographs. She is aiming to explore a wide range of spirituality, art, poetry, and stories from the Christian tradition, and plans to include visits to places of pilgrimage.

In case you're wondering, the name 'anam cara' is a Gaelic phrase meaning 'beloved', 'soul friend'. It was used by Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue in his book Anam Cara about friendship and spirituality.

Anyway, my friend has turned many of her pictures into video clips, with music, and I was so impressed I just had to have a go, so here is my first effort, using some of the snaps I took when we visited Chichester at the end of last year.

It brought back memories of a happy weekend, and I was delighted with my efforts(although I'm not sure about the musical accompaniment) so now I'm searching for suitable music for some of my other pictures.... I had such fun, and by the time she left a dull suddenly seemed much brighter.

Anyway, here is the link to my 30-second 'video': www.animoto.com/play/rmEvs924Z7VT7sYsn47dJw

Sunday 2 January 2011

Food for the Soul

EAT, drink and be merry, for tomorrow I diet. So far the New Year diet has not gone well - and it is only January 2. Yesterday can only be described as a disaster on the food front, although I did take take a gentle stroll to the shops round the corner, which must surely counct as exercise, and exercise is good for you.

Today started well, with home-made vegetable soup for lunch, followed by baked potato and grated cheese this evening. I felt quite virtuous, especially as I woke with a headache and sore throat and have been feeling shivery and off-colour all day.

Fearing I might have caught Elder Daughter's cold, and feeling sorry myself, I bought some Lucozade, which always makes feel better, although I suspect this may be psychological, since it always conjures up memories of childhood illnesses, when my mother administered chicken noodle soup (this was long ago, in the days before I became a vegetarian), Ryvita and Marmite, and Lucozade. Food for the soul, as well as the body!

I once asked her about this sick-bed diet, and she insisted the choice was mine - it was all I would eat and drink when ill.

Anyway, I digress. Having spent the day eating sensibly I then read the label on the bottle and was shocked to discover just how many calories there are in Lucozade(175 in 250mls in case you are interested, presumably from the whopping amount of sugar it contains).

And I appear to have consumed the better part of a bottle of the stuff: not one of those piddling little bottles, but the decent 1-litre size. Now my maths may be wobbly, but if there are 1,000mls in a litre, that works out at 700 calories a bottle (tell me if I am wrong), which is horrendous.

I think I shall stick to water in future!

Saturday 1 January 2011

Happy New Year

IT is January 1, the New Year: a time to reflect on the past, and to look ahead to the future – and what is a diary, if not a reflection on one’s life, past, present and future?

So what better way to mark the occasion than by considering what some of our greatest diarists have to say about the day (bearing in mind that until Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, New Year was officially on March 25).

The incomparable Samuel Pepys penned his first diary entry on January 1, 1660, telling us: “This morning (we lying lately in the garret) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other clothes but them. Went to Mr Gunnings church at Exeter house, where he made a very good sermon… Dined at home in the garret, where my wife dressed the remains of a turkey, and in the doing of it she burned her hand.”

During the afternoon he stayed at home looking through his accounts, then he and his wife went to his father’s for supper, observing the ‘great posts’ set up by the city council at the Conduit in Fleet Street.

Dorothy Wordsworth described a quieter life in her journal for January 1, 1802. “We walked Wm and I towards Martindale,” she wrote.

In 1871 the Rev Francis Kilvert saw the New Year in with his mother and brother. They heard the sound of bells ‘faintly and muf fled’ over the snow. “We opened the dining room window to ‘loose in’ the sound of the chimes and the ‘new year’ as they say in Wales,” explained Kilvert.

It was bitterly cold, but they went to the door to hear better, and he adds: “I was carrying my travelling clock in my hand and as we stood on the terrace just outside the front door, the little clock struck midnight with its tinkling silvery bell in the keen frost. We thought we could hear three peals of Church bells, Chippenham, St Paul’s and very faintly Kington.”

He and his family were not so very different to modern families checking their digital watches as they watch the television and wait for the sound of Big Ben to be relayed across the country, thanks to the wonders of modern technology.

One of my favourite diarists is Barrow housewife and mother Nella Last, who wrote for the Mass-Observation project during and after the Second World War. On January 1, 1941 describes how she heard a boy singing on the doorstep, and as her husband searched for coppers for the wassailer, she realised the dog was behaving strangely.

‘Then all was laughter and confusion and tin hats, as my Cliff rushed in and said, “Happy New Year, folks – I’m glad I managed to get here tonight!’ He had got 14days leave and was lucky enough to get a lift to Preston and catch a train by minutes! He looked so well and gay – says he feels well too.’

It was a moment of happiness during the dark days of the war, when families up and down the country must have hoped and prayed for the safety of loved ones fighting far away.

Finally, a diary entry from actor Alec Guinness for January 1, 1995 (quoted in, My Name Escapes Me, the third volume of his autobiography), will strike a chord with all those who over-indulged last night – or with anyone who just hates mornings.

He said: "Through a chink in the bedroom curtains my unenthusiastic eye caught an early-morning glimpse of the New Year; it looked battleship grey... I never liked New Year's Day anyway."