A happy reunion.....

A short sweet visit from an old friend today.

I met Norma when we started a business course at the McTavish Business School in Edmonton, where we both learned to be avid secretary material.

We were immediate friends - kindred spirits who spent many happy hours together,  walking, shopping, biking, - lunch hours spent poring over cards and linens and china, all part of our romantic dreams..... holidays at the lake, carefree times, a

perfect friendship, on the cusp of being young wives and mothers.

We were on one of our famous pork chop-fried potatoes-niblets-and-a-quart-of-milk hikes the day we met Charles, down by the river.

So many endearing and enduring memories of those few short years before we both got married and our lives took different paths.

Norma was one of my bridesmaids, and was married just a few months after when Bud,

her fiancé, was released from a prisoner of war camp

 where he had been held after his plane went down.

Bud stayed in the Airforce and their life was one of travel and adventure,

while we stayed home and farmed,

but we always kept in touch -

 saw each other when we could and stayed close in heart.

And here we are - near to ninety, still friends, still young at heart.

 still with some traces of awe and wonder.

Once again (poignantly) waiting to be re-united with our men.

(if that is the way things are...)

ABC Wednesday

The letter is I

The word is Idleness

The internet abounds with quotations of famous people who deride the very idea of Idleness, presenting it as the work of the Devil and a sure road to Hell on a Handcart.

 

I quote excerpts from Isaac Watts "Against Idleness and Mischief"

 

"How doth the little busy Bee improve each shining Hour and gather Honey all the day from every opening flower!

....................

 

In Works of Labour or of Skill I would be busy too: For Satan finds some Mischief still

for idle hands to do."

But I, thinking of the pleasure and values of meditation, and delightful hours spent in the shade of a rustling tree reading a good book; of an empty mind, open to receive inspiration, I was on the

lookout for words of Praise for Idleness.

 

 

 

Here is what I found from Sir John Lubbock

 

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes

on the grass, under the trees, on a summer's day

listening to the murmur of water

or watching the clouds float across the sky

is by no means a waste of time"

 

And Robert Louis Stevenson, as well, came to the defense of Idleness

 

"Extreme busyness is a symptom of deficient vitality,

and a faculty for idleness implies an appetite

and a strong sense of personal identity"

 

Virginia Woolf supports my theory that the empty mind  is fertile ground

for whatever grand ideas may be floating around, ethereally

 

"It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top".

 

and from more ancient times....

 

"Besides the noble art of getting things done there is the noble art of leaving things undone.

The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials".

 

Lin Yutang, with a suggestion of Occam's Razor

 

For more I Interpretations visit here, at ABC Wednesday

with thanks to Denise, Roger and all non-idle helpers.....

Monday morning

Monday morning, and I was awake very early. planning the day.  It was in my mind to go and survey the hill garden, - maybe to cut back the roses and tame the sweet peas, and see what was left in the trailer cum studio that I could store or give away.  I packed up my garden gloves, the small shovel Charles bought me, a long sleeved shirt, my clippers and my boots.....

 

But first I had to put some pictures of yesterday's all day moving event on a thumb  (getting the garden shed down from Dot and Frank's to the garden across the alley) and take it to my daughter.

Last week was shaded with portents of autumn - cloudy days, stormy nights and deliciously cool air.

 

So yesterday I made a large batch of soup. The comforting kind on fresh fall days....

 

Today the thermometer registered 30 degrees centigrade at eight o'clock in the morning!

By the time I had visited with my daughter and inspected all the things that she has to move, but more importantly all the things that came out of the garden shed that have to go back in to it, it just made me so weary......and hot!  I turned to town when I left, - stopped at the store for milk and Callie's treats and came home to find refuge from the sun and this last great outburst of SUMMER!

"Lord, it is time.  The summer was very big. 

Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose. 

Command the last fruits that they shall be full;  give them another two more southerly days,

press them on to fulfillment

 and drive the last sweetness into the heavenly wine."

 

Rainer Maria Rilke

 

All my gardening paraphernalia is still in the back of the SUV - perhaps this evening will be cooler.

 

If not, there is always tomorrow.....

 

In the orchards the apples are ripe for harvesting

 

Arthur John Elsley

 

and the memories are sweet.

 

Time for a bowl of that warm comforting soup!!