Leaf Drop

Autumn air, walks with doglet, colours changing, turning chilly.

Generally means that a cold is on it's way.

Excuse for a toddy.

Stitching

The end of the Summer has found me doing various knitting and sewing stitches. Here are some 'outcomes':

From a great pattern published by Merchant and Mills.

Autumn hooded jacket.

Blanket for the wee one.

I love all the different textures and techniques involved, even though they are v. time-consuming.

Tiny features

This week featured an unexpected and flying visit to London. A (very) small one has arrived.

Falling in love again.

Seasonal change

We did lots of cooking this weekend, some of which was inspired by the seasonal change in the air -- so cold walking on Sunday evening. Almost time for gloves!

These are British sunflowers, in bloom and reminiscent of the hot sunshine of the South.

Which inspired us to have tomatoes for lunch.

Yet the apples and plums on our tree are ripening.

Later to be unforgivingly stripped.

And turned into apple and cinnamon ice-cream.

Which had followed beetroot soup (lovely colours, and v. tasty, plus easy to make).









Made some soda bread to accompany the soup.

And then thrift-ily used the left-over egg whites from the ice-cream to make meringues, with stewed plums.

Very nice, all in all. Quite looking forward to Autumn now. 

Windmills of my mind...

Normal (whimsical) service resumes. Circles. They're everywhere of late!

This weekend we are: peeling apples, making ice-cream, wondering if the family will receive a new addition. 'Sciting...

1. hydrangeas in the back garden (there are loads of hydrangeas in glasgow)
2. botanic gardens statue thing

3. illustrative of our august weather

4. papoose for the imminent tiny person

5. sake warming during dinner the other night

6. the king's theatre, edinburgh

7. city chambers, glasgow (location of brad pitt filming zombies!)

Green and pleasant land?

harebells is not known for its political commentary... But it's been a strange month. A few weeks ago, I read an unhappy article about how landed estates have become watertight pools, made available by frankly oddly light taxation, into which the rich can pour their millions whilst keeping them away from the peeple. Madonna - shame on you.

The following week, we went for a holiday to Yorkshire, little doglet in tow. Here too the theme was barriers, boundaries and rules. No dogs in the bar! No dogs in the lounge! No dogs in the restaurant! No dogs in the frankly shabby pub that would be lucky to have a customer anyway! All this despite the fact that we had specifically chosen the hotel and surrounding village for its 'dog friendliness'. Feversham Arms - shame on you.

As we perched in our tiny room eating the restaurant food at the smallest table in the world (doglet very happy, sprawled on the cotton bed sheets, this being the only space left unoccupied and therefore her demesne - she's French, and would like to be a landowner) we watched London burn to the ground. And then Birmingham. And Nottingham. And Manchester. And Bristol. And Gloucester. Good God. Would Helmsley be next?

Of course not; it has already dealt with its social problems simply by the power of village-hall fascism. I don't want to repeat some of the comments we overheard about outsiders, but the general mix of wizened Yorkshire-men outside the pub slurring about the cost of French bulldogs (how do they know?!) in combination with green wellies, Range Rovers (both spotless), striped shirts and large sunglasses (ironed hair de rigeur) will give the picture. No furriners here, thank you.

So what of this? I guess this is modern Britain, legacy of those great thinkers and social destroyers, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, even Gordon Brown. In between the 'commentary' from the BBC (it sticks in my craw to give it the dignity of such a term, given its offensive, right-wing, parochial, and honestly irresponsible hysteria -- did you see the interview with Darcus Howe? Good Grief), an unexpectedly well-timed documentary told us about the theories behind those wicked leaders: marvellous people like Friedrich Hayek (and toady follower, Keith Joseph). Very good - worth watching.

The keynote of Hayek's thinking is commitment to 'liberal' economics, a system that advocates laissez-faire capitalism over socialist collectivism. Hmmm, interesting. This brand of totally 'free' capitalism (is anything free? The poor will always pay) promotes the individual for himself. A kind of economic Ayn Rand-ian 'rational egoism' that justifies an aggressively individualist relationship with the world.  And no taxation (giving away money makes no sense to them, or indeed time, care, energy, or even interest in others). It could be summarised as the 'F*** you' way of life.

And it's dismaying how well this has caught on. Cameron et al speak of a 'broken society' of feckless, morally bankrupt youth. What might be the origin of this? Perhaps 30 years of a society in which everyone - rich or poor - is encouraged (by government) to become atomised, to dream of individual car- and home-ownership, to isolate themselves more and more from society, to become 'self determined' (a sick joke, if ever there was one), to be is to buy. To give up on collective action, like Unions, and grab what you can, while you can, bugger the rest of them. After all -- hell is other people, right? Poor Sartre.

Cameron's response is to string them up. Throw them into prison. How sad, and how depressing. Tony B is back on the block today -- his response is 'hey guys, it's not that bad. Come on! You're making us look bad -- I'm always having to explain to my friends around the world that Britain's a marvellous place of plentiful happiness. All my friends are happy and prosperous in Islington, where the house prices have rocketed. You're letting the side down!'. So we're offered brutality, or cheerleading. What have we come to?

My generation and my class are every bit as to blame as are those who were out looting and rioting. Middle-class enclaves like Ealing are horribly illustrative -- everyone is locked up indoors with their children and possessions, indifferent to the fate of those up the road in Acton. Students who graduated through the 1990s who took their degrees and ran to the City now join those at the start of this blog who shore up wealth and greenery and fresh-air opportunity on tax-light estates.

Who's to know what to do? Well, it doesn't have to be doom, gloom, brutality or cheerleading. Perhaps it's a moment to become humane. To look for contentment in modest privilege, not rampant individualised excess. To feel some kind of social responsibility, and care. I can't recommend enough this amazing address by Jimmy Reid, given to the University of Glasgow. Try not to feel too depressed that this was 1973 and we've not listened to a word, but rather note the tone of community, fellow feeling, social love. A wonderful, brave, beautifully eloquent, moving thing. And he was friends with Billy Connolly - what's not to like?

And, surely, surely, surely - taxation is the only civilised, humane way of sustaining a society?

* All photos taken on our holiday in Yorkshire, August 2011

The Tree of Life

1

My mum and I went to see Terrence Malik's new film this week; it was an extraordinary experience. I'm really not sure what it was about, and it was certainly one of the strangest things I've ever seen in the cinema. But it had an ongoing effect - Mum and I have both talked about it a lot since, and as Mum was flying home the next day the memory of the film made her feel quite funny about being up in the sky. It makes you think about all the molecules and fibres that make up the world and through which we are part of a huge organism called life. 

2

This makes it sound like some kind of gaia philosophy, and maybe that's what it is supposed to be expressing, but I think of gaia (perhaps unfairly) as almost neutralising relationships into millions and millions of connections that operate on the same principle. Whereas this film was definitely about how specific things or people connect to other specific things or people.

3

It has absolutely beautiful and totally absorbing sequences on childhood, where you can feel and smell soft baby skin, light breezes at the window, washed fabrics, tiny fingers and toes, eyelashes and bedhead. And it, rightly, makes parenting a profound and responsible process. You see both parents (the acting was brilliant) moving through different phases of relationship, proximity, domination, anger, responsibility and gracefulness involved in being parents.

4

Because they have to deal with bereavement, parts of this film are so painful and raw, it's incredible. Much of this comes from the cinematography, lighting, sound: this film uses technical aspects with touching sensitivity. Since the birth of the camera (as we learn from Walter Benjamin) art has to build, rather than assume, a relationship with aura, which is complicated when you have cameras and film that appear to capture an everyday reality, no part of which is more significant than the next. I love gritty realist films and photographs, but this offers something totally different.

5

It is unapologetically non-realist and, to me, feels more like the experience of a Renaissance painting, a Michelangelo ceiling, or his pieta. The film captures memory more than plot, and grief and emotion more than action. It made me think about how so many of those huge paintings to the glory of God seem also to be about the pain of life on earth. Long sequences that spin through time from the big bang to now put individual bereavements into a bizarre, disorientating but, I think, ultimately comforting perspective.

6

Perhaps best of all is the music - Smetana, Preisner, Couperin, Bach. 

1. on a walk in the trossachs

2. last week in the botanic gardens

3.the beautiful meadow that we are about to lose to developers

4. the family baby

5. jellyfish and pudgy toddler arms in la jolla

6. more jellyfish at the scripps institute

Nice and tidy

I've been really happy lately to have found some head space - at last. Things have settled down so that I can relax a bit and feel the tension unwinding. This has only been made better by the presence of our little dog, who is growing up now and getting really rather responsible and good. (I say as she starts chewing cables underneath my desk.) One of my favourite things about having a dog is going in to get her from the pen first thing in the morning - cue high-intensity, bum-shaking African-style dancing (and that's just me!). It's just lovely to see such happiness as the first thing of the day. And then we can have calm little day together.

So I've been taken up over the last few days with making things tidy and sorting things out. Which has been really exhausting and dusty, but so blissful in effect. There's something so incredibly soothing in the end about tidy, ordered, alphabetised bookshelves. I really have a passion for these things, and it calms my heart and head to look at a whole row of spines all in a row.

Of course, there's lots that's gorgeous about piles and piles of abundance heaped together too, but even then I prefer single piles of uniform items.

Maybe this makes me a strange little thing, but I certainly feel that now that things at home and at work are spick and span at last the fog is lifting and I can start proper thinking.

Onwards and upwards.

a rose in June...

It's been such a long time! I'm very sorry to the one or two people out there who actually read this. Births, marriages, deaths, happiness, vexation, sadness, and delight have each characterised the last few months and all but obscured the life I love, and the Scottish road we follow. 

 *1

When last I wrote it was snowing and blustery and the trusty mittens were still on duty. But now -- at least every now and then -- it is sunnier, and since Scottish roses must do what they can with very little encouragement, they have defied the blusters and snaps of cold and come out to play. 

And now they get to play, in the case of our garden, with a crazy doglet. One who is currently throwing an alarm clock around her head. In a sock.

But she's still a keeper. Especially when she's sleepy. 

So small. So powerful.

*1: Photo by my darling companion (human).