Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Belvoir Park Forest...i work AND run here! That is the Lagan River, THE river in Belfast Today i went for a run. For the first time in two months. The knee is completely healed and doing well. On a 1.2 mile route it feels nothing. I love running in Belvoir Park. Not as much as i enjoy running in MacRitchie, however it is an old forest, with great history, some magnificent trees and the birdsong was totally awesome. And speaking of birdsong, i was listening to it this morning. We have song thrush, robin, blackbird, dunnock, chaffinch, starlings (yes, don't mention the starlings). I have not learnt to recognise the song of the blackcap, but i'm sure we have some of those around as well. Around 4.30 it starts and then by 6 it is deafening. It is really crazy now and if i thought things were bad when i came back they have become slightly worse in terms of things to do. I am i know completely procrastinating. I have assignments, favours, work, children type things, family ...

Abandoned house in Lisburn that is home to at least six pairs of swift You know that i am now a birdnerd when i am in a garage after a satisfying session of wushu with Oisin and we are coming out of the car and i go, Swifts. You can hear these buggers a mile off. And then i say, this is a game we play now, who can spot the birds first. Currently it  they is now me. But soon it will be Oisin i'm sure. I say they somewhere here. Where? I turn and there is this beautiful old house that has been abandoned and they are in the eaves. I say, cmon, let us take a closer look. That last sentence denotes that i have gone over to the bird side. I drive over and we walk to have a closer inspection. As i walk there i tell Oisin about swifts and am amazed that he knows so much. How do you know all this my dear? He points to me as he swallows his icecream. You told me. Ah. Wushu is great only that i cant remember the sequences. I have managed to remember this six-step thing but i am perfectl...

Camille Claudel The human being's capacity to suffer is legendary. We suffer is the first tenant of the Bhuddist the Four Noble Truths. Today in class, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, in the last chapter, Steiner writes, we move from the imperfect to that which is good... which then made me ask myself, why is it that as human beings we are spectacularly good are screwing things up? Why? Perhaps that is not even the question... perhaps the question is why do we ask? Why are we programmed to ask this question even? And then why do we have to learn the hard way? Why is wisdom only hard fought and hard won? If we never encountered pain and suffering, then we would never grow, never develop. We would always remain as children, as innocents. The truth is that we will encounter pain in the world. We suffer. Then is it not how we stop the suffering but WHAT we do with it? We have a few choices, but it boils down to this: we can use that pain to do good or to do bad. Not doing anythi...

Reinstated into the conservatory Well due to the bird mite issue i have had to move out of the bedroom to do work. I'm not sure what i'm going to do about sleeping. It'll have to be the boys' room for a few days i think. Maybe the sofa downstairs. Maybe even the conservatory. I also have to get the house checked out sometime this week. I'm going to try hoovering the ceiling and see how that turns out. It isn't the small black ones that are an issue. It's the invisible tiny ones which are giving me hell. Anyway it's a good idea that i now have moved down. I can now get on with redecorating the bedroom which would not have happened if i didn't move out. I can now also get on with other things, like my assignments. Also it's much more sociable doing this with everyone around me instead of locked in the bedroom. Plus the conservatory also got a good cleaning. So i think all it all it's win win win except for my skin which looks like it ha...

We went to see Eddie who used to work as the warden for Portmore. I love seeing Eddie, he's incredibly funny and has the best stories. The garden was a vertiable reserve itself. With housemartins, tree sparrows, tits and butterflies which the boys enjoyed chasing and catching... here are us chillin... bliss... When Oisin met Eddie he was 1.5 years old. He is now 11. That's Ghin getting his 'kicks'... it was really funny that Pretending to beat Oisin up Look at this! Green veined white... got caught several times!! No butterfly is safe with Oisin around Eddie usually runs a moth trap for us every July. Last year it didn't happen cos we went to Harapan and then Singapore. And then summer passed and it never took place. Its funny the things you miss when they stop happening.

So i am clearly rapidly trying to update my blog. Sometimes it does happen, i go through these periods of not being able to post anything mostly because what is going on in life i quite unpostable. Also sometimes i get quite depressed. Usually around February when i go this winter has gone on for too long and really, what is the point. Sometimes on monrings like this you cannot imagein winter no? You cannot imagine how cold and wet and miserable and damp you can get... and that was only two weeks ago. The other thing that is going on in my life a series of now very unfunny double bookings but the WORST thing that has happened is the infestation of bird mites. I am soooooo annoyed. I thought at first the bites were this rash that was the result of the illness i had. But then they kept on coming, the rash and then i found these funny creatures crawling on the ceiling and i was still in denial and finally, i had to concede they were bird mites when a friend came over last night and ...

One evening the boys came into my room... here was what they did...

It's too hot!!! It - is - so - hot.... I cannot believe that two weeks ago we were all bemoaning the probability that we will never see the sun this side of Christmas. Today, we have had no less than one week of wall to wall sunshine and really, at this point everyone is going, have we died and gone to heaven? To walk outside and feel the HEAT, that wonderful skein of bright light and skin penetrating hotness just going right in, through your skin right into your bones, drying out the soggiest bits of damp and mould accumulated through the winter and that so called May. To feel the warmth of the sun seep in and tell your body, wake up wake up, it's summer time... oh there is nothing like it. So photos. Actually i've been really bad with photos. We have been everywhere and done loads. On Friday for instance, i was looking at blue tits in cigarette boxes and then we went hunting for henharriers. I was told that seeing a buzzard was very rare in these parts, but i w...

I'm sort of doing post illness depression which mostly consists of thinking my life is shit and worrying about stupid things which didn't seem to worry me last week. I know i am only doing this because i am procrastinating. What do i have to procrastinate? Everything. Studies. House cleaning. Work. You name it, procrastin. The truth is i just cant be BOTHERED. Really. It is also the first day of the period. Yes, that may have something to do with it. That was the nice thing about being pregnant, no period. The after effects of pregnancy though are something shocking. Although my friend then said it is much better that you get a period than not getting the period no? Well ladies, i think we all know the answer to that. Anyway, i used to think how people can live life without any creativity? They must be very sad these people. Then i discovered that actually some people are not creative and that's alright. I still find this incomprehensible, but yeah. So i need to stop ...

Japanese horror film.....never to be watched alone....

The upside of sending your children to circus school is that if they run away to join the circus, you know you were directly responsible for such behaviour. You don't berate yourself and say, oh i should have let him have that dirty bomb kit he wanted on his 11 th birthday. No, you say, it was going to happen anyway. And then the likelihood is that he will end up becoming a merchant banker as he rebels against his childhood upbringing of Steiner education coupled with the circus school. He will be very rich and you will be taken care of in your old age with a villa in Italy. So it all works out in the end. The other upside is that you are constantly entertained. We were an amazing Nepalese restaurant in BELFAST when Oisin decided to cut the lemon slice into teeth and insert the carrot as a tongue and then proceeded to behave like a dork. He had me in stitches. I feel sorry for this partners already. They will be relentlessly amused whether they feel like it or not. In fact if the...

My life is a sitcom. Really it is. About two days ago, i felt soooo ill i thought i was going to die. In fact i thought "i have never felt so ill in my entire life". And then on Wednesday night i thought, after not being able to lift my head from bed, i am depressed. And then i went on line to find out about the symptoms of depression and i was offered an online test for depression. So i did the online test and it turns out i was not depressed at all. However i should contact my NHS advisor, just in case, which i decided i wouldnt, just in case. Anyhow, after spending most of Wednesday night delirious, and feverish and finally sweating it out, i thought i feel fine in the morning and then went to get myself washed. It turns out i was not well at all and the ten steps between the bed and bathroom had me breathless, and not in a good way. So i thought i'll take a bath and that did not sort me out. But i was like oh my god, i am going to die. I feel like i'm going to ...

It has been not a productive weekend. Well ok there was Tory, but after that, yesterday was supposed to be about getting the house cleaned, which so did not happen as i fell asleep at 12 pm and didn't wake till 2 and then Peter said we were going to the Lisburn swimming complex and it turned out we couldn't swim cos the place was bunged. And he needed to be home by 5.30 pm, plus he left his card in the garage and we couldn't find the garage... so in the end we just ended up after finding the card, in the Robinson centre. Cos Ghin really wanted to show Peter that he could swim as well. Mummy... i'm ever so sleepy and tired... Yep, take me mummy, take me!!! Ah yes, what if i look this adorable, will that work? I'm sort of in limbo. Despite being back for slightly more than a week, i have not been able to settle. This has manifested itself in the mess the house is in as well as the lack of structure in my life. This of course will not be aided by my pos...

So i had agreed with myself this year that i would spend time visiting parts of Ireland that i had never visited before. Sometimes fate comes together and i was able to go along for a weekend in Tory Island. Tory Island is a place of myth and history and legend. Balor of the Evil Eye, the Formorians, who used to live in Ireland before the De Danaan arrived, finally found their last stand in Tory. Balor was finally defeated by his grandson, Lugh of the Long Arm. His eye was pierced by Lugh's sword (it was a very large eye) and as a result the entire North bit of Donegal was covered in the gunk that came from it, creating the Poisoned Glen. Tory is famous for many things now - INCLUDING, supposedly at this time of the year, Corncrakes. I have never heard or seen a corncrake now despite having worked with the RSPB for almost ten years. So i was hoping to rectify this situation. This was not to be as the King of Tory told us, despite corncrakes calling for the whole week, they d...