Sausages

Recently becoming a little self-conscious about the shape of my fingers and toes I began a daily survey of those I spotted on others, in order to rate the normalness of my own. A very good place to do this is on the tube. The vast realms of recent tube-inspired art have dwelt much on the amazing people spotting opportunities at your fingertips ...so to speak. In a colleague's descriptive terminology... shits and giggles. My first impressions of the tube led me to picture the masses as oversized and underimportant rats, being hoarded down the sewer pipes ...by the establishment pied pipers. The establishment pied pipers probably have long pied wily pied piper digits...but the digits displayed by the city rats vary vastly. Many have traveled far, many are spreading unknowingly the winter germs around, some were definitely not washed this morning and some have come directly from Miss Posh and Poncy Nail Parlour. Some are protected from the inclement weather by oversized fluffy gloves...or are the fingers themselves oversized...in which case the gloves would be acting as quite a cunning masquerade.... Some are tightly wrinkled, each crevice has a long dark story to tell, some are soft, gentle and seemingly Innocent. Some are tense, anxiety clutching the metro that the eyes are not focusing on, and others nervously tap out a late arrival. Some tap less intensely, in time to the stop/starting , the opening/closing and some tap in tune to mp3 music that must surely be on full volume to overcome the deafening rumble ..but then why can't we all hear the music each time the train stops at a station...maybe the earphones are just earplugs to block out the closeness of other rats? Some fingers touch a partner...some hold back form touching...but want to all the same. And some fingers look just like sausages.

I want to see whether any toes look like sausages too... but toes are much harder to spot in November...even with the vast eccentricities offered by the sewer world. I have to imagine peoples toes by the shape and style of their shoes. This imagining makes the toe variety ...endless.

little rays of sunshine

Eeyore days can get off to a good start when, having dragged yourself out of bed to get on with endless amounts of uncertain work, you look out the window and simply feel miserable. It's practically dark outside and drizzling a pathetic type of rain with a secret potential to soak through to the skin, and putting on the light makes all scroogish sentiments rise to the surface. It's even possible, you think, that the electric company is playing with the weather, to reap in their oversized profits. Nothing is possibly going to be good about today.

But... if you concentrate on uneeyorelike thoughts and look hard enough there may well be some little rays of sunshine to make you smile. There were several for me today.

A peregrine falcon landed on the upper branches of the tree at the bottom of the garden. With the bird spectacles kept handy in the conservatory the feathers burst into life, the white-chocolate tummy protruding proudly. Predator shakes lazily and begins preening, ruflling up, gently nibbling. Of course I got just a little bit too excited coming back an hour later, convinced that Mr. Peregrine had gone and come back with Mrs. The bird spectacles dashed me down, revealing only a crow and a collared dove. Sometimes we do see what we choose to...in my case quite a lot.

Later, braving the icky drizzle, taking over-excitable walk-deprived dog down to the forest edge, a small child buried in galoshes and bright pink raincoat was merrily jumping in each of the mud-brown puddles in the clearing, giggling and pleading, 'may I jump in the next one too mummy?'. I wished I also had put on wellies! Dog made up for it by doing plenty of splashing and wallowing. He has a piglike desire to get down and dirty with any type of mud.

On the way home I noticced that the neighbourhood fetish for enstalling old-style red phone boxes in once's front garden has grown...Perhaps I'll look on ebay now to see how they are priced. ;->

remembrance

The soothing sort of pitter-patter rain that acts as a therapeutic lazy morning lullaby encouraged myself (and the cat) to roll over and press the snooze button a few too many times until the nagging feeling that I was supposed to be somewhere became a sudden urgent panic that I probably wasn't going to get there on time, and I certainly wouldn't be having breakfast. I wonder how different my life would be and whether I would feel any positive results from less pitter-patter snoozing and more tea and porridge.

I don't often expect much of a Sunday-morning church turnout these days...and certainly not when the service is being held outside and the pitter-patter has become a windy downpour. This remembrance Sunday it felt like the whole of this small, unknown town had turned out to gather around the cenotaph. Hearing the names read out of the fallen ... First World, Second World ...Wars was not the sentimentalist play of history that is perhaps at times can be, but rather a very real enforcement of so many suffering here and now. Solemn army presence evoking tears and a helpless anxiety.

The vicar, white robes soggily clinging to a bony frame, prayed a simple pre-scripted prayer:

"O God of truth and justice

we hold before you those men and women

who have died in active service:

in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

As we honour their courage and cherish their memory

may we put our faith in your future;

for you are the source of life and hope

now and for ever. Amen"

A peaceful silence descended briefly ... swept away with the closing lines of the prayer, but offering still the distant possibility of a tangible hope lying beyond ourselves. And what else could more fully explain so unusually large a performative act, if not the search for hope?

Cake

Cake! Baking it, designing it, eating it. Good for the soul. Good for creating time to contemplate life, love, the universe etc. Cake makes time out with a friend in a snug coffee shop a great indulgence. Cake celebrates every occasion, is a useful tool to demonstrate both thanks and repentance. Gaile Parkin brings the Rwandan capital to life through the medium of cakes. Baking cakes in Kigali is a gentle but terrifying rebuke to the western reader, a moving insight into the aftermath of empire, racial tension, war, and the simple but profound efforts taken by one solatary, hurting figure, to reach out to the community. Angel's unique cakes uncover the daily horror of survival but begin to offer quiet comfort and hope, bringing in return a slow but certain measure of healing for the deeply-proactive and extremely human baker.