What’s the Story in Dalamory

The nights are drawing in.

It is now almost dark by eleven pm.

….with a laugh in the bath…..
(Thanks to alpha benn)
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef1Id9o-HKU]

This poem echoes something of the Christian experience of resurrection and the hope of renewal, but I am not sure how much darkness is a necessary requisite for spiritual growth. The best I can say of the hard experiences in life, is that everything passes in time.

Help us to be the always hopeful
Gardeners of the spirit
Who know that without darkness
Nothing comes to birth
As without light
Nothing flowers.

May Sarton

Excellent news – a brace of plumbers arrived at shortly after eight o’clock this morning, necessitating very quick showers before they got started. All is going well, but one of them is off to play Shinty this afternoon.

Let’s hope the plumber works over the weekend.  Otherwise the building project gets held up even further. One would think that it would be easy to be patient when it has taken a year from quote to work being done….

Take it from me. Patience has long since flown out the uninstalled window. Only resignation is left.

The insulation and polythene wrapping is now being inserted into the extension. I had no idea that there were going to be so many layers to the sandwich. The main problem is keeping Misty away. She has taken a great liking to the joiner doing the work, but I doubt that fibreglass would be good for her paws. You are doing well if you sort that last sentence out. It is the dog who likes the joiner and it is the dog who is female. We have a male joiner……(carpenter if you are from the south or overseas.)

Misty’s latest entertainment is to wait until Fox (ginger cat) is lying peacefully asleep in a chair. The little dog then launches herself right on top of him. There is then a degree of rolling around, until the dog retreats and watches the cat’s twitching tail. All of this in silence. Then…..if the dog is distracted and goes off somewhere, the cat follows in a taunting manner, and lies right in her path. A visitor this week, was rather alarmed when treated to one such performance. I had to explain that it was all quite normal – yes, even the cat sinking his teeth into the dog’s leg. She has plenty of hair after all, and there is nary a squeal from either of them.

Oh life is never all that quiet here in Dalamory.

An abundance of meadowsweet in the riverside meadow today. It is one of the prettiest and most fragrant of our wildflowers.

Not so nice on the nature front: the sparrow-hawk is making regular trips over the garden for his/her dinner. Life is hard, but at least nature, in the main, is fairer than people often are. How does one cope with the thought of highly educated medical people being indoctrinated into suicide bombings. No question mark there – because there isn’t really an answer.

Wonderful that Alan Johnston is realeased. It was lovely to see the expressions of joy on his parents’ faces.

In between the showers. It is helpful to remember that the green comes from all the rain we have had of late!

The bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev Graham Dow is reported as saying

The floods that have devastated swathes of the country are God’s judgment on the immorality and greed of modern society,

At least, so says an article in the Daily Telegraph. The bishop’s spokesperson has been trying to carry out damage limitation. How unfortunate that his name is the Rev Dr Richard Pratt.

Sometimes…..words don’t seem enough.
Sometimes…..anger rises up fast.
Sometimes…..depression follows on its heels.
Sometimes…..hope springs up eternal.

Thank you God for sometimes….