Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

I'm trying to write while Ghin watches Nora Jones sings to Elmo. This is when a 17" screen would come in useful. So here is in on my lap and we are watching youtube, while i am typing away.  Yesterday the boys had a BBQ and it was the last day of sunshine before today, when some rain, welcome rain fell. I'm learning about contentment and creativity. Re reading John Lane's Timeless Simplicity and once again rediscovering that quiet voice which is always there, just buried by the hurrying of the everyday. But on Friday i was deeply previleged to have spent sometime in the Glens of Antrim. A family has won an award for farming in harmony with nature and i went out to take photos and do some and do some publicity for the award.  My sense of Antrim is, despite it being very old and ancient, it is filled with indifferent looking townand slightly dull villages. Many workaday, but some destroyed by over development. No different from many places in the UK and Ireland. But afte...

Ghin is looking for breakfast in bed. I am not getting it for him, daddy is. He'll say, i'm hungry mummy/daddy, i want breakfast. He loves his breakfast Ghin. He can eat 4 rounds of it. Which is just as well, because he will not eat dinner. Except yesterday he insisted i do a steak for him. And he ate most of it himself. He just stuffs his face with the tiny pieces. He loves his steak rare as well. I don't think he has had it any other way. This is MOST unlike Oisin who would eat a vegetarian sausage anyday, but if anything has a hint of once being alive, he'll run. Except burgers or sausages...and bacon.... it's typical really. Well, it's been a great two weeks. Sun shine from corner to corner, and no flights for the last week. Most of my friends have said, this is a good thing, the sunshine and the no flights. As one put it The Earth is Alive!!! I quite like it. I think that the airlines wanted it all to start again because they were afraid if people got used ...

This is my 601st post...that's about 200 posts per year. Anyways.... today i went to the Donaghadee Garden Centre. And got myself a new welcome mat and a new wallet by Cath Kidston. The mat is a rip off, the wallet is not. I figured it's been ages since a new wallet and i just CANT NOT BUY IT. It's been two years since a new waller actually and it was bought at Blood Brothers in Singapore. It's a man's wallet and it has served me well. It is still good and i'll probably use it again in the winter... so photos... Philip is now doing this no dig potatoes. That's cardboard and newspapers and seaweed and potatoes. The blackbirds are delighted at the insects they have found in the seaweed. But today i found  a very naughty jackdaw flying away with something that DIDNT look like seaweed. It looked suspiciously like a potato seed... This is the two storey deluxe hut which Peter made Leo. It has a staircase and lots of space for a rabbit to be happy in. Leo just sit...

The chicken pox is much better now. Ghin is now sleeping through the night and the spots are crusting over. I spent yesterday fervidly looking at the spots, trying to will each of them into scabs. It's not till each spot has been scabbed over will they accept him back in the nursery. However, i also think that it's really important that he is feeling up to it and there were a couple of moments yesterday when i thought that he looked tired. I spent most of yesterday then being domestic. Making another BBQ, and then even baking the buns for the BBQ. It's this new stone ground unbleached organic flour from Switzerland which was remarkably reasonable price wise and i was really pleased with how the buns turned out. It was the first time i 'proved' the bread, ie let it rise for the second time. Usually i bake with spelt and it doesn't really need proving since it's not very 'strong'. I also did a load of laundry - on Sunday i did five!!! - because of the ...

We are under house arrest. Ghin has chicken pox. It hasnot however made him a more humble, contrite human being. On the contrary, he is the oneriest patient i've ever met. The screaming, the complaining and the being unable to make up the mind. Doubtless the blisters are driving him out of his mind, but my god, i have not had a single night's sleep since Friday. He wakes up at 4.30 demanded breakfast and honey juice. He orders me around constantly. Clean my chair, it's wet. I want a new plate for my cup egg. I need a new spoon. Is that Choobs or Frubes? It's uncanny. It's like living with the 900-year old doctor. Except i'm in the cage. My mother told me about the bomb blast in Holywood. Having gone to bed at midnight after holding Ghin in my arms because he refused to sleep on his own, i was of course, not about to sit up all night listening to the news. But yes, the bomb went off on Old Holywood Road and Northern Ireland made the headlines again. I do think th...

Daft Eddie's in Sketerick Island. OK place to eat, excellent scenery. Crazy customers After dinner, a perambulation around the lake Sunset, which the camera does no justice. I cannot capture the silence, the peace, the clean air and the piercing colours and presence of all the ages in this ancient landscape. Or maybe i have... Sketerick Castle. It was fine before we arrived. Yesterday was a strange day. It was one of those days where i just wondered what the point of everything was. Especially at work. In this sector you can end up wondering why should we bother telling people about the birds in their garden or worse still the birds on farms - birds and farms that no longer exist. I wonder why should people care more about golden eagles than poverty in a street next to them. Can creating a wildlife garden really make people's lives better or do people with better lives have wildlife gardens. Yes, i was having a crisis of faith. And then there are so many truths left unsaid, so...

Here is Ghin doing a turn on the colourful carpet in the Living Room... And the charm never stops... Now this confabulation has a history. On the morning of the Easter festival at the school, Peter lept out of bed with Oisin and declared that they were going to make a chitty-chitty bang-bang out of gingerbread. Yeah right, i thought. But kept that thought to myself, since i would be accused of being negative. Yes!!! i said, sure. Why not? Privately thinking, there goes my organic flour, molasses and butter. But nevermind. One must be encouraging. So they get dressed and go downstairs and i follow. Anxious, but concealing it. But maybe NOT concealing, i do not know, since i am so bad at these things, so so i have been told. As they look up YouTube videos of the car i make the gingerbread. And oil the biscuit trays and take out the silicone paper and just stand by like some badu. Anyhow, i see them taking out rulers and pencils and drawing things...and i just bite my tongue. I think of i...