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?

sun powered

too much prozac, too balanced
there are words in my misery
strangely absent in times of content
an interesting phenomenon
but tiresome, in a way
my empty mind will search ... somewhat ...


two days ago, the sun shone
warmth wove through ballantrae
the surrounding sounds changed
the natural world spoke of spring

in the village flower beds
an occasional crocus, buds and blossoms
the daffodil bud dips and sways
full of pale yellow promise

the crystal rainbow maker
stuck with a suction cup and spit
to the tall window which faces south
and overlooks the church spire

where the tower clock, stopped in time
waits, patient as the old, for repair
the sun powered rainbow maker whirs
light hearted rainbows dance along the stairwell

i was fooled, i turned off the heating
others were fooled as well
the large, empty, green field
which lies across the infamous a77...

echos winter's emptiness no more
yesterday he brought them
the new born and their lactating mamas
fresh from the warm birthing byre

and mother nature chuckled ...
the breeze grew chill and clouds rolled
eager over that sunlit landscape
the drifting showers uncomfortable and cold

today, the chill green field lies vacant
the lambs and their lactating mamas
returned to the home farm warmth
the precious newborn too tender to survive

the open fields and gloating winds
which terminate my spring thought glee
the birds still trill their summer chorus
soon ... perhaps ... the sun will shine







All written materials Copyright © 2004-2009 by Eryll Oellermann

to lurk or not to lurk

nine o'clock this morning and i was lurking in my door way. why was i lurking?

well ... i never get dressed before i shower. i never shower in cold or even luke warm water.

my hot water comes via the same amazing, energy saving, underground heating source as does my heating.
for some reason this very green, supposedly energy saving, underground heating source ... whilst working most efficiently (if left running at all times) uses an incredible amount of electricity to actually pump previously mentioned hot water into my home.

result ... unless i need a shower or i am in danger of freezing to death ...
i switch the whole damn system off.
when i wake up of a morning, i switch the pump back on and voila! two or three hours later i have hot water. if i wake up late, my life is delayed!
my neighbours are up and about.
now i am really very fond of my mulberry coloured pyjamas, with the cute penguins in snow hats and snow flakes falling, but ...

quite frankly, i have seen one of my neighbours scrubbing her front step at six thirty in the morning! the scots are a hard working folk. i have no real need for my pyjama clad self to be seen, unwashed and unkempt, smoking on my verandah at nine o'clock in the morning.
so ... i lurk!

the long dark

i awoke this morning to a fine ayrshire mizzle. drifting on the breeze, soft as the touch of a butterfly's wing.

i do believe the long dark is fading, there is more light, earlier and later. another winter, winding down.

driving back from saltcoats yesterday i noticed freshly ploughed fields, tractors aplenty and the men who work the land preparing the fields for the spring planting. soon enough... ayrshire tatties will sprout and grow and the first tender green shoots of wheat will break through the crusty brown earth.

wild flowers will colour the countryside, a thousand different greens will ooze across the hills, in contrast, the gorse will sneeze a yellow brightness.

the long dark ... a winter experience. a time of waiting and learning.
the long dark ...
the place, the time where spring waits and grows.

why are we born?

are we born to work and scheme and ensure an ever upward career path?

are we born to pursue an ever larger tv screen, a really huge fridge with an ice dispenser, a car which can exceed, by far, the legal speed limit?

are we born to reside in a home too large, in the best neighbourhood?

are we born to dine in the very best restaurants and savour the most expensive wines?

are we born to exercise and diet in an effort to maintain our perfect body?

are we born to slave away to pay for face lifts and botox treatments in our mature years?

are we born to grow old and die with the perfect pension plan in place?

this is the reason for our existence??
...you think?

we are born to work and spend and pay taxes when we have to??


give me a break! there has to be more to life!

true enough ... some of us will live a sumptuous life and die with the perfect pension plan. we might well be nipped and tucked and exercised into our most desirable shape. we might grow older without frown lines and daily thank Clostridium botulinum for our serene visage.
how wonderful if this is your desire and your life path provides ...

but ...
life is a lot less complicated than we might ever imagine.
we need a lot less than we think we do!

we may stride through our life or we may merely muddle through.
does it matter? i believe not!
we each have our destiny, we have many paths to chose from. each choice we make offers us a new life experience, a new lesson offered.
will we take the time to notice, to contemplate, to learn?
or ...
will we curse the fates and grasp bitterness and negativity to our hearts?




if we craved a little less, if we were a little more easily satisfied ...
we might well have to work a little less ...
which would give us more time.

time to be still, time to watch and listen. time to appreciate the wonders which surround us.

time to listen to a child or an older person. time to learn from their innocence and their wisdom.

time to remember all the small acts of kindness, the loving touches, the concern and care shown to us by others.

time to reach out and offer our particular gifts to those who have need.