Sunday Selections #204

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files. 

The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.

Like River I usually run with a theme. This week?  Lazy again.  I am returning to my old obsessions; birds, the sky and the garden.

Then the sky - a sunset this time.

And a hoya which lives on our front veranda.  We picked it up (very cheaply) at a market a few yearss ago because the seller said she was tired of waiting for it to bloom.  She would be sorry she gave it up now.  It has been flowering for a few years now, and we get more blooms each year.

Christmas

Christmas is here, and is rapidly approaching those of you in the Northern Hemisphere.

I don't have a tree this year - but would welcome either of these stunners, sent to me by friends.

The only problem with this one is that I would inevitably need to look at one of the books on the bottom layer...

And this one is just plain charming. although if any of the decorations are like Jazz, approaching it would be fraught with peril.

Despite its reputation as 'the happiest time of year', Christmas is very, very difficult for a lot of people, for a variety of reasons.  Loneliness, bereavement, ill health, estrangement, poverty...

With that in mind, I am delaying our Christmas.  Shortly I will go and do a shift on the crisis line, reach out to others, and remind myself (again) just how fortunate I am.  It will also give me time away from a self-invited house pest guest.

I hope your holiday period is full of love and laughter.  Good food, drink and companionship doesn't go astray either.

It's CHRISTMAS -

Eat, drink, and be merry!

Actually good advice every day....

Sunday Selections #203

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files. 

The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.

Like River I usually run with a theme.  This week I am finally getting over my bah humbuggery and am getting into the Christmas spirit.  Or spirits.

For more years than I care to think about I have been making Christmas cakes of various sizes for family and friends.  Each year I tell myself it is the last time, and each year I start mixing again.  The fruit is soaked in a mixture of rum and brandy for a week or so before the cakes are cooked.  When they emerge from the oven they get a cap full of rum and brandy on alternate nights.  By the time Christmas arrives they are the cake you have when you are having a drink...

Happy holidays, one and all.

Sunday Selections #202

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files. 

The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.

Like River I usually run with a theme. Charitably speaking rather a lot of things in my life are cactus at the moment - so it is just as well that this one flowered so beautifully.

The blooms are perfumed and big - larger than my hand.  They only last for twenty-four hours or so, but I think they look interesting on their way out as well...

Sunday Selections #201

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files. 

The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.

Like River I usually run with a theme.  This week?  I am looking to the sky.  We have had a little blessed rain this week.  Not a lot (until yesterday) but it was very, very welcome.  And yesterday we got real rain.  Drenching rain.  And the garden and I are very glad.

Just after dawn one morning I looked outside and saw a rainbow.  So naturally I went out.  And got damp.  Which didn't matter at all.

Very, very briefly there was a double rainbow.  Double bliss.

A few nights later it was the sunset which had me doing mad woman with camera dances.  Again.

The last book I read ...

was challenging, confronting and nasty.  I feel more than a little sick, and my heart aches.

As I have often said, memoirs, diaries, biographies are always on my go-to list.

I picked this one up for two reasons: because of my curiosity about other people's lives; and as an education.

It looks innocent enough doesn't it?  Wrong, wrong and wrong.  This is definitely a book which shouldn't be judged by it's cover.

Many of you know that I volunteer on a telephone crisis line.  I take it very seriously, and am constantly trying to improve..  Which means reading, studying, listening and learning about subjects I don't know a lot/enough about, even when they are distasteful.  Sometimes a different perspective will open my eyes, heart and mind and help me reach and connect with our callers better.

Distasteful is an understatement here.  The author was in a fifteen year relationship with a man forty-four years older than her.  A relationship which started when she was seven.

 'We were friends, soul mates and lovers.'
'I still think about Peter, the man I loved most in the world, all the time'...
'They were the happiest days of my life.'

 Nothing has ever brought home the horrors and the life-long damage of paedophilia to me more than this book. Nothing.  And her perspective came as a powerful punch to my gut.

She is free of him now - he died by suicide.  She has a husband and a daughter of her own.  A daughter she is working tirelessly to ensure doesn't go through what she went through and that the tradition of child abuse which ran through her mother's family and to her is stopped.

And yet, and yet...  Even though she is now safe from a man we learnt  (confirming my early suspicions) was a serial abuser of young girls, abusing his daughters, foster children, as well as the author  (and quite possibly also abusing boys) she still considers her time with him the happiest days of her life.  Words fail me.  Emotions fail me - and this book will haunt me.

As it should.

It turned my assumptions on their head.  I hope (so much) that very few people feel as she does - but I had never considered that anyone could. However reluctantly, and despite not liking what I discovered, I have learned something.