Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Dear god, what a fucking Monday. Forest School restarted and it rained incessantly. Then, on the way home, my car hit a pothole and it got a flat tyre. Another parent hit the same pothole and had the same flat tyre.  Anyway, two hours after Forest School, I just got home. The wind was winding and the rain at least had stopped. It was kinda mad.  This is the third storm this winter. Schools all over Northern Ireland have cancelled. I don't know. Are people being overly dramatic? It had been really windy last night. I will spend the day doing home things. Lovely home things. And get my car sorted later today. Sigh. I need to get the under carriage checked as well to see if any more damage was done to the underside of the car and get that repaired if that is the case. Fuck. Just after passing the MOT too...

Brent geese in Belfast Harbour estate Islandmagee The Gobbins This magical faraway place - it reminded me of Myst. Complete with its own waterfall Oisín is spending much time now with me. As Síuban said, when the boys are in their 20s they will understand what has happened. We laugh about everything. At everything. Morning started off at General Merchants. Oisín had huavoes rotos and I had espresso. I had already eaten. Then I collected Ghin and dropped both off so that I could do the Forest School shop. It is gonna be a wet Forest School. Then I headed back to get Oisín. I said I wanted to do a long drive for the car to give its legs a stretch and we drove to Islandmagee.  I love Islandmagee. Its a mix of the North Coast and Donegal in miniature. We walked down to the shoreline and to the start of the 'walk'. This is one of the few ins...

Years and years ago - 2011 - in Harapan.  I live for the simple. The simple, the easy, the straightforward. I live for the peaceful and the no drama. That's what I committed myself to around 13 years ago and that's what I have upheld. Since then, life has never been simpler. It has been amazing. Yesterday, Oisin and I went to go to get food and then we mooched around TK Maxx and went to Pets At Home. After that we watched Fargo  and then headed to Newtownards to get his eyes checked. It was very busy in Ards. I said to Oisin that it was great how local Ards was. There is nothing gentrified about it. In fact, there is not a loot gentrified about any of the small towns in the Ards Peninsula. After that, Oisin stopped over at Jim's house and then returned later. I was supposed to go out with Emma, but she dialed it in. So I watched T he Perks of Being a Wallflower  which was weird because it was full of well known young actors who now have troubling histories, or have faded ...

Just rambling on the blog here... Just trying to get thoughts together. It has been difficult over the past few months - the Gaza genocide has been awful. I have deleted TikTok and I do miss it a bit. I kind of have no idea what is going on in the world. The biggest thing youtube seems to be interested in is the fate of the Beckham family and the mediocre stupidity of the people who are part of that show. BUT the good news is that I am just not on TikTok so much any more. Just the sheer drivel that is now on it is mind boggling. I think I am going to go and get some coffee to make coffee with. I need to sit and plan though - just so much to do and think about and run through. But at least the plumer has been paid, tickets to Singapore bought, car's MOT sorted and finances taken care of. So now to focus on elements and other things.

The class are doing brilliantly. All of them are up with their times tables and they are now working towards goals which they can achieve. Fridays are lovely days where we will be working hard to complete anything we need to complete. And yesterday that meant learning how to wash up after cleaning, their cross stitch, their passages on Zarathustra. It has been an amazing time really. I have really enjoyed the work we have done over the last few months. Next week start with decimals. It should be relatively straightforward. They all understand fractions and now they will understand decimals. And then we will learn how to convert and then be on our way to percentages. Then more geometry. Maths will be a singe now because they have their tables and understand fractions. The hardest part of maths has been cracked for most of them. So there it is. The car passed its MOT and I'll get it serviced by anothe...

The view from the top - my annual view of Scrabo Tower during the MOT - usually through driving rain and bitter cold... Well, yesterday, for the MOT, the car passed. I was SOOOOOO happy. It was lashing down and I had to dig everything out of the boot and put it into the trolley I had in the boot. Before that the usual washing of the car before the MOT. I thought it was going to fail on account of the passengers window not working, but it was not an essential. After that, all I needed was a wing and a prayer. And it passed. Another year. The car lives to be on the road another year. My 2011 S40 Volvo.  That makes it 15 years old. How many adventures we have had. My little car and I. Driving to England and then driving to all over Ireland. I think I'll celebrate with a little road trip down the Peninsula.  I have always said that I would never be without a car. Just like I didn't care about biodiversity and roaches and mosquitoes can go such a fat one. It is SUCH a relief. Such ...

You have to wonder about the state of the world when someone who is in the deep boomer territory is now making idiotic pronouncements on the world stage.  Like:- taking the territory off an ally, trying to create a coup in a major Middle Eastern country... I wonder sometimes if the Americans actually understand how large Iran is. Literally. How large and how massive is Iran. Kidnapping the President of Venezuela. Trying to say they are going to get Canada. It is clearly the raging of a mad man. But on the other hand, we have the exposure of the Israelis. The coming together of the rest of the world against the racist West. No one wants Iran to collapse in chaos except for Israel. They are so evil. I wish they would just implode - how does someone like Trump and Netanyahu live. How are they still alive?