Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Mission control My files...need-more-space.... Today, for the first time i put my feet up properly since leaving the RSPB. My family visits over, having spent the evening out with friends, then the kids just having a playdate and me unable to garden, and NO ITALIANS, it gave me time to just stop and smell the roses and take that holiday that everyone has been talking to me about since they discovered i was a teacher. You'll now be able to have a summer holiday. Errr, not really. But this is the first day i have been able to have that summer holiday. I have been thinking though that over the next few months i will finally be able to do what i have always wanted to do around the house but could not because i was stuck in an office. Now i will be able to make the most of me time. I have spent a lot less time in front of FB, drunk far less tea and also spent time with the kids. I've gardened, sorted bits and pieces out, nothing too major and now, finally now, i can get...

Me wearing a baseball hat so i can read the screen indoors!!!! I knew this was always going to happen but bringing back all the crap from the office, admittedly though there was that much crap, made it more urgent, that i am going to need far more shelf space. Of course i would have more shelf space if i there was no pool table, but i think a take over form Peter's bookcase is immenent. Today the boys are catching up on Minecraft and i'm preping for my last family visit. I'm also going to be pottering around the garden and planning the next four weeks. Some of which may involve seeing Joshua, a friend from waaaay back when, in some part of Ireland and then going to some part of Ireland for a walking thing, possibly Galway, later on this month. But the sunshine really does make things feel so much nicer... and i feel soo much happier. Recently i was reminded for a friend who found the summers impossible. It is soooo hot he would say, when the mercury hit 15. This is ...

Outside Camphill Holywood Sunshine in Belfast... we are ALL stunned So today was simply spectacular. The sunshine, the kids, the picnic, the beach. The chats, the friends. The catching up. It's days like these i am so intensely grateful for. What is life about if it isn't about firends and children? Having them run around and chat and drink coffee, and imbibe some red wine and have camembert and pick on roast chicken in the sunshine in an impromptu picnic? I was able to just talk with friends, to be myself, to be honest, to just infuse everything i have with a sense of love and give everything to have to everything that you see and behold. So i think that life simply cannot get any better... and i think, thank you for the gift of being able to be who i am... and for all those dark days to have this one day of sunshine. To know, the true ringing of brass, as it pings through my entire being, my entire soul, to know... and to say, i am so happy, Thank You.

... and me in a sundress??!!!!! GARDENING!!!??? Listening to The Streets???!!!

Arrived in the school yesterday and saw the most amazing sight - Nicole et Martin had set up and it was unimaginable... magical really... come along for the most amazing retelling of these fairytales - acrobatics, saxamapahones and trombones, juggling and tightrope walking... oh yes, and bring the children!!! The popcorn tent!! The company travel in a set of 1930s caravans... pulled by land rovers :-) Honestly it was like being on the set of Stardust

It was most funny reviewing the papers about the dreadful weather. The UK's Tourism Head or something like that got quite stroppy and said, why are people always complaining about the weather? People don't come here to lie on the beach. They come for the culture. Of course they do. Sure they come for the CULTURE. Anyway, i WISH i could write about what i really thought about my second last day at work. Really and trule thought about it all, but i shall refrain. I read Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and try to receive wisdom from it. I go, Yeah, Sure i Can Do That. And then i go in and i go - eh, Nope i can't. Or rather i don't think at all. In general i am trying to work my way towards not having  bitter old age. Sometimes i think, yeah, it's coming along ok. Other times i think, i'm gonna do hard time in the next life. I was thinking about why is it that the world seems to be taken over by the stupids. By stupid i mean people who are self serving, wh...

I often think of the way each moment is unique and amazing and how we must never EVER take this forgranted... today was one of those days. To my sons who do a great job at keeping me copperfastened to the here and now. Not Wagamama again... Blissing out on ice cream Fountains and frolicks Brothers... I am sooooo not cold Leaping with delight Warm and dry in mummy's jacket and hat

This morning the thought struck me that i really do want, from here on in, to lead a completely ordinary life. One free from all kinds of complications and dramas. I don't know if i have that option - i guess it will always be something which will be bubbling away in the background. But i do think that this is the most acute sign that i have GROWN UP. It is my last week at work here with the bird people after that i become a Steiner teacher. I simply cannot wait to immerse myself wholly and fully into a role which will demand everything it can from me. You know how you are as a person, how much you can give, how you can stretch and be utterly open and generous without being afraid. It is both so very exciting and so very terrifying. And i cannot wait. I have been doing lots of reading and drawing, and lots of organising. My desk now has six or seven boxfiles with subject areas in them. Fairytales and literacy. Maths. Pedagogy and curriculum. Seasons and activities. Admin. Ch...

this morning Ghin told me that he wanted to learn everything there was to know about brds and we should start by drawing them... so we did... three very rough sketches of garden birds later... Peter said this was a cuckoo It looks like a potato mom, said Ghin, which was right... Yellow wagtail, but without doubt the worst bird i have drawn so far Ghin has collected his efforts in his portfolio Is that Leo, asked Peter Darth Vadar from Lego Star wars by Oisin

I am so very highly excited. And mostly terrified as well. I am in the middle of planning my classes and lessons next year. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to have the entire year roughly planned out, do the horizontal curriculum, have the saints in it, cos they are doing saints the year after this so that i can sort of lay the QUALITY of the teaching down, but not actually teach the saints, and then to look at the vertical curriculum and then distill it all into Un Bel Di... ie the Main Lesson. I have no experience of planning a regular curriculum, but the Steiner takes into account all sorts. There is the literacy and numeracy and then there is the practical skills and seasons, and then there is the art and the craft, there is the seen and unseen world. Having been born into a the Eastern very of magic realism this is not an issue for me. So this is a very rough first attempt and then i'll be talking to loads of people about what they think of this an...

Prema's visit to Belfast in 2004... when we were young... Oisin was around 3 at that time! Younger than Ghin is now!!! I cannot believe how young i look! Me back with Oisin in 2003!!!! 2004 in Crawfordsburn He loved that armour Halloween 2004 Just me being crazy, clearly Really crazy... In Derry with Granny Anna Damian, who is a father now...