‘It is a serious thing/just to be alive/on this fresh morning/in this broken world.’ Mary Oliver
My second of three photo and quote posts begins with another perspective of looking up, this time into the loft canopy of the giant pine trees on the land in Sweden. The sun becomes a beacon through the needles, the sky seeming to stretch into space, into infinity!
‘The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.’ Hazrat Inayat Khan
Meeting friends, picnicking by a lake and exploring a national heritage castle is a perfect way to spend a Saturday! It was wonderful to catch up with university friends at Hever Castle, Kent one warm summer’s day last year. Hever Castle was originally built in 1383. However, it was modernised in the 15th and 16th centuries and became home to powerful families, including the Boleyn’s (Ann Boleyn was the second wife to Henry VIII). The castle provided a stunning foreground to our lazy picnic meal.
‘Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.’ Maya Angelou
The cool mystery of the sunset against the Swedish forest captures one’s imagination, the play of colours tantalising, the dark horizon of the serrated edge of tree tops a stark contrast to the play of blues and pinks!
‘May you arise in the morning, think what precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.’ Marcus Aurelius
Finally, one of my favourite places in Sweden is Fjällbacka and its captivating view from the top of its famous rock. The Vetteberget reaches 74 metres high and the islands of the archipelago stretch out as far as the eye can see. Returning to the small town nestled between the rock and the sea one must first brave and walk beneath the three giant rocks in the King’s Cleft! Read more here!
Thank you for reading this second of three posts featuring photos and quotations as I am away in Sweden for the next few weeks. Although comments are turned off for this post they will be on for the final one in this series. Plenty of time for you to think of one or more of your favourite quotes and I look forward to reading your thoughts upon my return!
Sometimes we all need a new perspective; be it in our lives, our art, our writing or even a photograph.
In the first photo I bobbed down to the ground, keen to look up at the bench in the gravel garden at home. What is it the birds see when I look down at them peeking cautiously up at me? Oh, an oasis of tranquility and I appreciate it more than ever this corner of the morning sun!
‘Being loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.’ Lao-Tzu
There is always a wonderful sense of overwhelming peace and freedom at looking at a beautiful landscape down below. Here it is, a bit of a trek up the site of an old hill fort called Olsborg in Sweden. Initially constructed in 1502 it was re-built several times and now only a few signs of the old settlement are visible. It overlooks the beautiful 28 km / 17 miles long Bullaren Lake.
‘Speak only if it improves upon the silence.’ Mahatma Ghandi
The favourite rose in my garden, The Queen of Sweden, gives me much joy throughout the summer and autumn and one I’ve shared many times including here. This close-up image portrays the duality of its resilience and fragility, all encapsulated upon folds of pink petals upon pink petals!
‘Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.’ Kahlil Gibran
A challenge awaits the walker in the final photo for this post, the gentle rolling walk low down on Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire quickly becomes a steep climb up to the old spa bath of White Wells. The latter was built around 1700 and a single plunge pool still survives to this day (no, I’ve never tried it!). Ilkley Moor and its stunning beauty is famed in the UK and even boasts its own unofficial county anthem ‘On Ilka Moor Baht ‘at’ (Yorkshire dialect for ‘on Ilkley Moor without a hat’). I was lucky enough to grow up in this area and enjoyed a walk on the moors every weekend
Thank you for reading this first of three posts featuring photos and quotations as I am away in Sweden for the next few weeks. Comments are turned off for this post.
‘Most collectors collect tangibles. As a quotation collector, I collect wisdom, life, invisible beauty, souls alive in ink.’ Terri Guillements
What is it about quotations that pull us in?
The snippets of sentences and the sharing of thoughts open a door to our humanity. Upon reading the words, our souls can take flight, lifted high by the wisdom and our hearts lightened. Quotations offer rays of hope in a world that is all too dark. They reflect ourselves, the people we want to be, and the world we long to create.
When it feels increasingly difficult to find direction, quotations nudge us back on track. They are a gentle reminder, an inspiring greeting to one’s inner self.
As the world rushes by they allow us to take a ‘beat’, a pause for that all-important re-set.
‘I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.’ Robert Burns
In school we are flooded with quotations during literature studies, some still remembered to this day. At the time we often think of them merely as supportive evidence for a point, an argument we are making in an essay. Much later we realise how profound they were, etched on our minds still decades later.
Later in life, we come across quotations in books, magazines and yes, online. Blogging has clarified the important role of quotations in our lives.
‘Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings.’ Hazrat Ali
Every year I open a quotations folder and feed the empty pages which are greedy for the latest wisdom. A haphazard, eclectic source of sayings is gradually created, with quotes from the ancient Greek & Roman times to the present day.
It’s often said that home-made Christmas presents are the best and not being blessed with any needlecraft skills, every autumn I instead create a calendar for my mother. This is made from some of my favourite photos along with some special sayings. I cherish the joy it gives my mother, how every month she will message the new pictures and quotations; commenting upon them with her innate sense of wisdom and fun.
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson
As I am away for a while in beautiful Sweden for a long sojourn, it is my joy to share some of these calendar images with you in my next three posts – I hope you find them enjoyable, rewarding and insightful!
Many of you know that during my stay away involves living amid the forest which although it has most mod-cons deliberately has no wifi. Hence my absence from blogging however I look forward to catching up upon my return. Comments are turned off for this post.
‘I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.’ Jorge Luis Borges
Yes, it’s under warranty, only two weeks old but how can I make a claim when it simply disappeared?!
Early 2018 the internet was flooded with posts and tweets about the latest jetpacks for those with means and a wicked sense of adventure. The adverts promised a ride like never before with an added mysterious non-specific dimension. I just had to have one.
I’d tried out some jetpacks at an airfield or two. At £2,000 a time the rides were a bargain yet I longed to possess one of my own.
One spring afternoon I found myself in the library with my father. This was my favourite room, all Elizabethan dark wood panelling, four walls of books, all tucked safely away behind glass doors. On one shelf I spotted my beloved and tatty Jane Austen penguin books — a most wonderful writer and I adored her books so much. So very much that one Christmas my parents surprised me with a first edition set of all her sixteen books dating from the start of the eighteenth century. They got it at a very reasonable price, I was told, at just under £200,000.
My father was on the window seat and looked up at me. Even before I said a word he spoke.
‘No, Katy. I told you last night, no way. It is just too much.’
‘Pa,’ I said. He loved it when I called him this and I repeated. ‘Pa, it is just a bit more than my yearly allowance and rumours are you lost this amount just last month. Ma called it pocket change, I heard!’
Admittedly £300,000 was way past pocket change for me even!
There was a hiccup of silence. Yes!
I had him; the famous hiccup tell — he never could work out why he was always losing at the tables.
Father reached over to me, his glittering card stretched to my eager fingers.
‘Take this and just promise me to be careful, bubbles.’
There it was, the reason I would always get what I wanted — bubbles! The nickname made me smile and groan in equal measure. My delight of bubble baths was infamous. The renowned photos of me as a childsurrounded by bubbles galore by the world famous photographer Georgias Kerragiannis collectors plastered on our walls … and those of many art galleries. How did he manage to turn such a simple idea into a colourific gaudy prints that took the world by storm? Over and over he merely changed one tiny detail at a time and the buyers kept paying ever more.
Bubbles it was and this bubbles always knew the key to her father’s heart.
My delivery from Amazon arrived promptly the next day; a bemused driver was struck with the image of a jetpack man flying over the mountains on the box. Not subtle and I’d be leaving one of my scathing reviews tomorrow.
Up in my room, I rushed to remove the packaging, sending it flying across the bedroom. I grabbed the jetpack and stepped to my balcony. This couldn’t be difficult, I told myself, convinced the two controllers would be similar to my games. After all, I was an ace at Minecraft and Sims!
The instruction booklet lay tossed on my Egyptian cream sheets, unopened at the front cover of a red brash warning of ‘read before you operate — ignore at your peril’. Blah! Generation X are so molly-coddled! As if I couldn’t fly a simple jetpack.
I stood on the balustrade and pushed the red button, with a shout I stepped off. I was flying! There followed a big dip and near mid-air tumble but I made it just above the manicured lawn below, narrowly missing the ballroom.
Another burst of power and I was up and away, heading straight to the stables about half a mile away. Skimming over the lake, my feet took a quick paddle, the giant puffy mouths of the koi popping up to try and nibble my toes.
Looking at my right controller I noticed a dial by the thumb. I’d never seen this on my previous jetpack rides. I reached over with my left hand and turned it.
Suddenly the usual quiet of the landscape and stables turned to a maelstrom of people and horses, the shouts, chatter and neighing reaching crescendo levels, each trying to outdo the other above the din and clatter of the horse drawn-carriages on the cobblestones. The men wore the strangest costumes; tall black top hats and colourful ornate suits. What was the cause of this hub of activity? Had a film company unit hired it? It looked a set fit to film the next big Jane Austen blockbuster.
I was drifting down and right underneath me a man, my age, early 20s, looked up with a startled expression. He promptly turned white and fell backwards as I stepped into a neat landing next to him.
Suddenly he woke up and grabbed my arm.
‘What are you? A flying ghost?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I replied. ‘I’m Katy and you are …’
I left the pregnant pause, waiting for an answer as to his identity. His face was set in a priceless expression of utter bewilderment in the silence.
‘What is your name?’ I asked clearly.
This time he understood, stood up quickly, wiping his hands on his trousers before reaching out.
‘Darcy at your service, ma’am!’
I laughed out loud. As if! Who had put on this elaborate joke for me? My very own Darcy, even if dressed in worker garb in rough white shirt, leather brown vest and dainty long black socks and shoes with a buckle. A small black hat flopped over his head. Of course, my Darcy would turn out to be a stable hand but his manners were to be applauded.
‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Katy. From whence do you hail?’ He stopped abruptly and realised his question. His hands waved vaguely in the direction of the air, which is in fact where I arrived from and in the process his hands, trying to reach for my arm, touched the dial instead.
That was two weeks ago and since then Darcy has enjoyed his sudden introduction to the end of the twenty-first century once he recovered from his many fainting fits. I had immediately grasped the ‘other’ dimension of the new jetpack — time travel!
How could I not fall for my own Darcy, the genuine article from 1797, so he proclaimed.
There was one small issue; Darcy longed to return home for just a while. He just wouldn’t listen, after all, he was home, here at Streaton Manor with me, just a couple of centuries out. Why was he making all this fuss?
Darcy hadn’t declared his love for me yet; that would come, I was sure. But I just couldn’t take the chance though, could I? These past days he was always on about my flying jacket, wanting to borrow it. How could I risk this most amazing change in my life? Pa already approved of Darcy although Ma muttered he was rather too dishy. For whom, I wondered?
I couldn’t risk it! I just couldn’t. This way was better for us both. A new start.
Standing from behind the jetpack, I reached over and touched the dial before stepping backwards just as the jetpack disappeared.
Whoosh! Not quite the sound rather more of a pfft but the mesmerising disappearance warranted a fanfare, I thought.
Gasping, I laughed and laughed! I’d done it! Sent the jetpack back in time and Darcy and I would be united forever. All I need was some cash for our new life— £300,000 should do it.
Now, where did I put the warranty for the notorious defective disappearing jetpack?
The winter sun streams through her mother’s living room windows, the diffused light shining golden upon the January daffodils, a reflection of inner warmth below the star, the Christmas beacon’s final moments for the year, a click and its glow vanishes but not its significance; the yearly ritual practiced with precision and love, actions set deep within her mother’s being, the red star box battered by the years, one side telling its story through the varying coloured sellotape, her children’s eager hands to set up the Christmas Star all those years, a squelch of a step upon the cardboard, the squeal of sadness, now here the brown packing tape and scissors lay prepared for this year’s enshrining, a clean cloth ready to swaddle the bulbs, a bag to encompass the precious ornament, a Christmas light that witnessed her grandson’s first word ‘tar’, a star of light and hope, there it goes, eased from its resting place on the hook, over the curtain railing, lowered with solemnity to the table, the Christmas cloth adorning the surface, the brightness regaling the room, advent candles sparkling in the vast wall mirror, the cascade of light brightening the task at hand, the satisfying pull of tape, the snap of scissors and a brown strip is affixed with consideration upon the red box, just so, there and here, what about another on this side, finally they sit back and admire the handicraft, pause to absorb the memories, the love across generations.
The format of the above piece was inspired by a flash fiction winning entry in Mslexia magazine which was written in its entirety of 250 words in one single sentence.
The above story celebrates some of the 80 books I read in 2023 and it’s fun to create a short narrative featuring a few of the titles. The book titles included are in the list below.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
At The Seaside Nobody Hears You Scream by Janet Gogerty
The Shadows We Breathe by Sarah Brentyn
A Winding Road by Miriam Hurdle
Happy Place by Emily Henry
The Sheltering by Khaya Ronkainen
Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries by Sally Cronin
The Lilac Notebook by Carol Notebook
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
The Lies We Told by Diana Chamberlain
A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
More than Coffee by Lauren Scott
The Vanishing of Margaret Small by Neil Alexander
In Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes
Where The Story Starts by Imogen Clark
The Family Tree by Sairish Hussain
In The Five Years by Rebecca Serle
There is Light the Never Goes out by David M Barnett
This Beautiful Life by Katie Marsh
Below are images of all the books I’ve had the joy of reading last year! I just made it over the finishing line of the Goodreads Reading Challenge in 2023 and this year I am reducing my sights to 52 books!
Wishing you all a New Year blessed with good health, happiness and light – may 2024 be filled with creativity!
Sadly cancer is a disease that touches nearly all of us. Either by being personally afflicted or knowing family and friends with the illness or even worse, losing or tragically lost their lives to it.
It was during a planned operation that Miriam Hurdle’s cancer was discovered by chance, and just in time to possibly give her some chance of survival. In The Winding Road: A Journey of Survival Miriam Hurdle chronicles her battle with a particularly aggressive and dangerous form of cancer, melanoma on the inner organs. Specialists doctors were consulted and a gruelling ‘treatment’ plan was drawn up, and yet her chance of survival was slim – 10-20%.
Although one might expect a book about cancer to be grim, Miriam Hurdle’s is anything but this. There are two streams of narrative throughout the book and both are perfectly interwoven.
The factual details of her life before, during and after the cancer is full of clarity, as well as being exceedingly informative and explanatory. Interspersed are sections in italic which capture her thoughts, emotions and above all her love for her family and friends.
This enduring love for her husband and her daughter as well as the loving care from her friends is paramount and one feels that they helped boost this courageous woman through some of the toughest imaginable treatments. I imagine she lost count of the loving emails and cards she received as well as the meals cooked and delivered with such thought and kindness.
Although I am not a person with outspoken faith I can understand how Faith gave much support and comfort to the author, particularly during the challenging year of treatment; one feels it almost carried her through.
Throughout the writing is fluid and an extra sense of immediacy is achieved by the use of direct speech; the ones between Miriam and her daughter, Mercy, are incredibly emotive.
I am in awe of Miriam’s strength and perseverance during her cancer battle but also in her courage to revisit the year by writing this book. Her title could not be more apt as it was indeed a long and at times torturous ‘winding road’.
I highly recommend this moving, powerful and inspirational book to all interested in both personal cancer experiences as well as to those wishing to clearly understand what cancer patients are going through or perhaps, sadly if one is personally struggling with the disease.
Miriam Hurdle’s memoir about her cancer ordeal, The Winding Road: A Journey of Survival is one-year-old today July 30th. For two days from Sunday, 12:00 am, July 30 to Monday, 11:59 pm, July 31, 2023, the book will be available for free on Amazon.
ABOUT MIRIAM HURDLE
Miriam Hurdle is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She published four children’s books at twenty-six years old. Her poetry collection received the Solo “Medalist Winner” for the New Apple Summer eBook Award and achieved bestseller status on Amazon. Miriam writes poetry, short stories, memoir, and children’s books. She earned a Doctor of Education from the University of La Verne in California. After two years of rehabilitation counseling, fifteen years of public-school teaching and ten years in school district administration, she retired and enjoys life with her husband in southern California, and the visits to her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughters in Oregon. When not writing, she engages in blogging, gardening, photography, and traveling.
Please connect further with Miriam Hurdle on the following links:
Beneath God’s arches resides the travelling table, Its glistening onyx boards a contradiction.
After all, it should not be here, how is it possible after its 5000-year journey?
One fair day as the Stone Age drew to a close an acorn took root amongst the giant oak forests in the East Anglian Fenlands.
As the moon cast its ethereal light upon the monumental 60-metre trees the sapling flourished.
It joined the canopies of the other oaks Shrouding the people beneath Protecting, becoming part of their landscape.
This, the Jubilee Oak, was indestructible. Until the world altered. Until the sea levels rose. Roots loosened, it crashed To its airless grave.
Untouched for five millennia Resting in the pitch black of peat A preserver. Untouched until the 21st Century, When at last Unearthed!
Fourteen metres of black oak released from its shroud of earth Fourteen metres of jet-black oak trunk Survived, intact.
The magical fusion of the ground’s iron and the tree’s tannins creating the black in the oak ensuring this holy grail of wood.
Experts consulted, advised and directed, a sawmill from Canada flew to help To saw on site Ten perfect consecutive boards.
With the craft of carpentry the combination of skill and passion the unity of artistry and knowledge ALL paid HOMAGE to the beloved Oak Tree
A table designed, boards planed and dried. The Table for the Nation completed.
In majesty, it resides beneath God’s arches.
Now it is time to pay OUR respects.
In reverential silence, visitors gaze upon the table, making a pilgrimage along its length Then back up on the other side.
Fingers caressing the boards, eyes admiring the sheen of darkness. A play of light and dark, An incongruous anomaly in reality.
Now and then people bend down, Admiring the copper sheath below, Then up they appear, once again walking along tracing the winding mysterious curves of the boards
Sweeping curves mirroring the expansive Fenland Landscape, as sweeping as the sea that failed to devour it.
Note: The above post was inspired by a visit to view the Jubilee Oak tree while it was in residency at Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, UK. (It is currently at Rochester Cathedral, Kent.) The table was unveiled in honour of HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, the year of the Platinum Jubilee and hence its name.
The ancient oak trees grew to a height of 60 metres (197 feet) and dwarf oaks of today whose average height is about 20 metres (65 feet).
Read more about The Fenland Black Oak Project here.
He didn’t know if he had a name. The very concept of names did not exist. Rather a memory fluttered at the edges of his emotions, the fuzziness of fun, a memory of rolling on the ground, play fighting with the other brown bear cubs. Overall an undefinable affection for others existed within this bear.
Then two years of isolation had wrapped itself around him like a winter duvet and through it Bruno (let you and I give him a name!) revelled in each and every season.
Through the colourful Spring, flowers erupted with dazzling displays and wildlife awoke around him. In Summer Bruno feasted on berries and odd morsels of elk meat however the midges became as bothersome as a thorn in his pad and the heat baked his fur. He sought shelter under the towers of spruce, a humming retreat of whispering shade and cooling plush moss. Autumn felt like the twilight of his life, a brightness remained yet the welcome bite of cold taunted his senses. Winter was Bruno’s favourite season, a time to strike out across the snow, sinking into it with a slightly satisfying scrunch, a caress.
Yet this second winter a loneliness gathered upon him just as the snow rested upon the fir tree branches, layer upon layer of inexplicable malaise.
The wolf, shall we say, Lobo, had been tracking Bruno for days. Rather ineptly Bruno felt, the wolf’s scent drifting across the landscape, his noisy traverse audible for all able to hear subsonically.
There he was across the frozen lake, a dusting of snow upon the icy tundra. Bruno stood still in the safety of the trees before stepping cautiously forward. Lobo mirrored Bruno’s stillness across the lake, and then he suddenly appeared from the camouflage of the dark trucks. Halfway across they were nearly nose to nose; Bruno and Lobo paused.
Bizarrely Lobo lowered his head into a subservient pose in front of the bear and meekly he inched forward to Bruno, his neck twisting away and with one final step rested his head upon Bruno’s neck and buried it into his thick brown pelt. Bruno reciprocated by bending his head forward and together the two wild beasts hugged in camaraderie.
The unique moment captured in a photo, their unity and togetherness preserved beyond the few seconds.
In a perfect synchronistic motion, they pulled away, as if on a general’s command to part ways, each stepping back a few steps, the longing yawning aching arch of friendship collapsing into the opening chasm. With a barely discernible nod between them, the bear and wolf returned to their lonely existence deep in the forest.
Annika Perry 