Birth, death and pausing for breath.
My friend is gone beyond my ken and body sighs and cries a tear.
“I’m fine.” comes a familiar voice, “ I can see! ”
I don’t much doubt these intimations. Whether or not the voice of my dead father or of my friend comes from within or without doesn’t matter to me. These are brief but real communications which my mind has not conjured up unassisted.
My friend had 12% vision. Her obvious joy in having sight was as evident to me as it was when my father spoke briefly and in the voice of an energetic young human and not an old and suffering man.
God is Love and from love, joy springs fully formed.
That’s the only ‘God’ that I want to know about.
I played a version of ‘When Angels fall’ in her honour at the Imperial hotel an hour or so after receiving the news. I’m ‘sure’ I could hear her delighted laughter as we butchered the song by being out of tune.
“ Happy to be here anyway!” echoes ‘she’ - from the ether - and we did much better with the next two songs.
This is now a quiet moment between Ironfest, Winter Magic Festival and other public performances. I have a day or so to just draw breath.
After much long time, Pennie and Bruno from ‘My Hearts Dezire’ came over to play. Chris joined in on drums and more than a few songs got ‘improved’. In the evening, they went off to enjoy Brian Cadd and Russell Morris at the Gearin Hotel and I took electric and played at the Family.
Fergusson played as a featured artist at the Imperial Hotel on Tuesday. He is a sometimes restrained, whirlwind of Celtic feeling complete with the instrumentation. About to leave for the U.K. - their gain. Happy to buy his cd ‘Sam’, he preferred to swap and we’re both delighted.
In the garden, almost out of sight of the window, there’s a small bird feeder. I had it closer to the house but birds sometimes just don’t see windows so I moved it back. Just put out a cup or so of seed - being very quiet so as not to attract the attention of the voodoo ninja chickens - from "down the back".
A female satin bower bird, camouflage greens and browns washes in the base of the fountain. Polyanthus flowers - all beaming brightly are reappearing in the flower beds under the tree ferns. Polyanthus, Portulaca, Petunias - favourite flowers and a good category for ‘Bird, Beast and Fish’.
If you’re ready - this game requires pen and paper. We played it as kids in a large family and the ‘rules’ can be adapted to the age of the participants. You don’t need to buy anything and it increases the general knowledge of all concerned.
Our categories were literally bird, beast and fish, plus country, town or village, river, tree, flower, fruit.
I’ve played it with other categories - boys name, girls name, vehicle.
Pick a letter - preferably not X - shout ‘go’ and we all try to fill up our categories - which we’ve already listed on our piece of paper - and whoever gets there first shouts ‘stop’ and then gives their result for comparison with everyone else. If it’s not too competitive, it’s a wonderful and constructive game. Perhaps ten points for something unique and five for something other people ‘got’. If your knowledge base is greater then have multiple entries. This is good fun - honest!
There’s something very weird about watching on television, other people watching their television while they’re going through the motions of perhaps playing tennis and watching the results of their movements being mimicked by cartoon characters on T.V. Give me bird, beast and fish and a cup of coffee and a glass of wine.
The throaty warble of a young magpie on Ron’s tin roof and about nine degrees outside brings me back. Another friend is due to give birth ‘any day now’ and, the nearest that I have to a grandson turns nine. Sent him blues harps.
..... off to play while I may. Thanking you again Griff Hamlin for your 4 note blues. Still working on the first lesson with a little dexterity but coming from a very low base on that front.
Do doo do do doo - doo doo! ....... ‘ey lad - don’t be daft!!’