hush

hush hush
do you hear
spring unwinding

sleepy sunshine
the blur of bumble bee
arisen from long slumber

night birds
who sing once more
of summer's promise

while wind blown daffodils
nod somewhat shaggy heads
to greet the indigo carpet




the bluebell harvest
soon to cloak
the woodland floor

spring unwinds
in fits and starts
of energy unleashed

the sound
of summer waiting
while winter wanders off

All materials Copyright © 2004-2009 by Eryll Oellermann

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togetherness and other random stuff

how warm is hot? how cool is cold?
heh!
different for herself than it is for myself ...
that's for sure.

keeping herself warm is a full time job. problem is ... the weather has been pretty mild since the princess arrived. question is ... how would she cope in real wintry weather?

new yorkers are used to their creature comforts. effective heating systems in winter and efficient cooling systems in summer. back home in the good old rsa ...
we are made of tougher stuff. we somehow manage to sweat through our summers and shiver through our winters with very little assistance from cooling and heating systems. the gentle wop, wop of the ceiling fans stir the still evening air and keep those little blood sucking bastards (alias mosquitoes) more or less at bay. when the winter evenings draw in the mosquitoes leave and we make do with a small electric heater whilst we watch tv, come bed time and we run for our bed covers.

hmmmm ...
i remember ...
we once lived in a house in durban north and the main bedroom had an air conditioner ... uber posh! come february ... a particularly hot and humid time of the year on the east coast ...
i would switch that loud, rackety thing on when the kids came home from school and we would spend an hour in the artificial coolth.
used an awful lot of electricity though, not the cheapest way to cool off! quick dip in the pool worked just as well plus washing off the days sweat.

of course, here in scotland, summers are pleasant. oft times pretty wet, all sunshine gratefully appreciated and the chance to sweat.... well!
winters are rather dark, dreary and wet ...
wet is good, it is the reason our hills glow with green health and our cattle are sleek and happy!
yeah well ... that's the story and we need to stick with it.
we do indeed need and use heating. but ... heating is expensive in our part of the world. i find i can afford to make do with the minimum. being of hardy south african stock this works for me!
but the princess ...
oy vay!
how will she survive a wild and windy winter?

my bedroom

my bedroom ...

i have a splendid double bed, it came in a flatpack ... in this country, most every thing comes in a flat pack. my (present in scotland) boys, adam and ian, put it together for me ...
way back when.

my mattress is great, of the goldilocks type ... not too hard, not too soft.

there are two three drawered bedside tables, one on either side of the bed. the drawers contain "things of importance" ... medicines necessary for my continued good health, pocket sized photo albums, full of photos of my family, two lighters which no longer work but which have great sentimental value. face creams, which i should use but ... i don't! the mann's pen knife, it never left his pocket in all the years we were married, i would carry it myself but i fear losing it.
a tape i was given after a visit to a medium ... he could not produce the mann for me but ...
he recognized my healing abilities and told me i was wasting them, which set me on the road to studying reflexology. he was also able to see my horses, those horses of the spirit which surround me and lend me their strength. he gazed into the future and said i would become a person of importance in the place where i lived ... i don't think so... the reef is far too idle to reach for such a future!
i have reading lamps on both bedside tables. the side where i sleep usually has a pile of books ... reading, read or soon to be read. i have a very useful container which holds my glasses whilst i sleep. herself gave it to me, during the day when my glasses spend their time on my face i have a small, soft easter bunny which rests in the spectacle space!
on the far side table is a small clock in the form of a bright pink baseball boot. ms m found it whilst out shopping and it reminded her of me and my beloved pink allstars! i keep american time on that clock.

i have a wardrope and a chest of drawers which i purchased at the thrift shop downstairs, they obviously started off life as a suite. style ... art deco. most folks find them unattractive but for me, they are perfect. there is a solidness to them, they scream history and days of yore! i wonder who bought them ... new and proud, were they just married, did they have to save for their purchase ... a pound a month? was their life peaceful, exciting, joyous? where are they now, those original owners ... tucked away in a home for the elderly, dreaming of times past.
perhaps ... they have long ago departed this mortal coil, leaving children, grandchildren, even great grandchildren to carry their memory and their genes forward into tomorrow.

i have a dressing table with three mirrors, i do not care for it, it is a curvy, feminine piece of furniture and i am a boyish kind of woman. i found this piece at the thrift shop as well, i bought it for herself ... ms sugar being the type of woman who enjoys sitting before a mirrored dresser whilst she primps, preens and prepares!

on the floor under the side window - a wall cabinet, waiting to be attached to the wall above the basin. yep... i have a wash basin in my bedroom! this home of mine was designed and kitted out to be a respite home for the elderly. that did not happen and now i happily occupy the space.
the wall cabinet is my most precious pocession, the mann made it with his own hands during the last few months of his life. we had left the coast due to his increasing ill health and moved to a new abode, closer to the doctors and hospital he had come to need. our new home had two bathrooms and no bathroom cabinet, the pair of us went on a massive shopping expedition to find my perfect bathroom cabinet. we found it but it was way out of our price range! not a problem ... the mann took measurements and set about making an exact replica.
it was not easy for him, by then the cancer was taking it's toll, eating away at his strength, he was starting to lose the use of his legs. he would ask me to drive his car up close to his workbench and then he would prop himself up between them and work on the cabinet. he finished off the sanding, staining and varnishing on our dining room table as he no longer had the strength to stand.
the cabinet is beautiful ... and heavy. it needs special wall plugs and screws to hold it's weight.
one of these days one of my boys will do this job for me.

mistress moon

our village lies on a flat strip of land, surrounded by hills to the north, east and south and the firth of clyde to the west.
a magical enclave.

yesterday evening i watched the moon rise. from behind the hills to the east.

she rose, swift and silent like a glorious golden hot air balloon ... huge, serene and splendid.

who would we be if we had no mistress moon to light our nights?

we had a veggie good time

the scott's of saltcoats visited today. always a fun time, but recently, rather more challenging meal wise, since my daughter became a vegan!

i love recipe books, i love owning them and paging through them. following a recipe though, now that is an entirely different matter.
however, needs must and the whole vegan experience is new territory for me.

for today, i scanned the internet and i decided on vegan chilli. this involved green lentils, kidney beans, tomatoes, spices and chick peas. hubble, bubble...tasted rather good actually! for pud i made baked cinnamon bananas with vegan ice cream and halva.

yep ... vegan ice cream, there is also vegan custard, vegan cream and vegan mayonnaise, vegan margarine. a whole new world. for instance, did you know ... there are two types of glycerine, one animal and one vegetable. did you know ... some flavours of potato crisps have milk in them!

i have a new problem in my life, how come the ingredients listed on a label are set in such small type? indeed, how come are these aging eyes of mine even trying to read ingredients? calories, fat, salt, sugar and now glycerine as well! i must admit that my beloved daughters conversion to veganism is stretching both my eyesight and my mind.

my eldest two grandchildren, joshua, aged twelve and mairin, aged eleven, are both tall and skinny, they have humongous appetites and eat like horses! ah, the appetite of youth, i love heaping their plates full of food and watching them wolf it down, always ready and game for seconds. alaska, aged nine and in the middle, family order wise, has a much more delicate appetite, although she too always finishes her somewhat smaller helping with relish. liam, aged eight and savannah, aged six, have inherited the picky eating habits my own children exhibited. if they like it, it disappears from the plate as if by magic, if they don't care for the dish, well ... they try politely and valiantly, but man oh man, eating is just not that easy for them.

fortunately, vegan chilli, rice and roast veg went down well with everyone and who the hell has a problem with ice cream?