Mirror, mirror

 Reflecting since 1765.

It saw me today in the V&A.

I was just passing through.

John Tenniel.
Alice Through the Looking Glass

Green shoes, white wall

Well worth the wait.

What do you mean 'they're just plimsolls' ?

I bought them specially because 

they are a perfect match for this

and

I don't do heels.

Desperate measures

I am not happy.

Blogger has ordained that I can only recycle

 photos already on my blog for the time being

and I was so looking forward to sharing with tout le monde 

pictures of my new green shoes (not these old things)

and the wall (this one) 

I painted white (yes, white) today.

 Only time will tell whether this was

or only fit for the bin.

The wallflower

Wallflower, Wallflower, up on the wall,

Who sowed your seed there?

"No one at all:

Long, long ago it was blown by the breeze

To the crannies of the walls where I live as I please.

"Garden walls, castle walls, mossy and old,

These are my dwellings; from these I behold

The changes of years; yet, each spring that goes by,

Unchanged in my sweet-smelling velvet am I!"

From A Flower Fairy Alphabet

by Cicely Mary Barker

The greens

Swiss chard,

wild garlic,

parsley,

sorrel,

risotto 

for Meatless Monday

found here.

Fun with tulips

found here.

Blue sky and brown earth

 over the last few days.

The Freemasons' Hall in London,

venue for the City of London Choir

and the London Mozart Players

performing Mozart's Requiem, Serenata Notturna,
 and this for you to listen to

instead of listening to me...

There may also have been cream teas

and remote country pubs.

Happy Earth Day

Heard about it here.

Scribblings

Read here for more on the

slow death of handwriting.

(And spelling very probably -

I see I have left an 's' out of dissolve!)

Self help

The problem with reading a huge blog like Zen Habits

is that the very act militates against its central message 

which is about

disconnecting, minimising, focussing.

I have been lost for at least an hour 

in a maze of posts and links

which while offering me the key to a

saner, simpler, happier life

has simultaneously spawned

another monstrous time devourer.

So, after I'd plucked away the many suckered tentacles

 of seductive prose 

here's the basin I managed to clean

and here are the flowers I picked.

And just in case I'm tempted to go back there

here's a photo to remind me

just to get on with it.

Solitude

The silence in the skies above us has had me thinking about

the value of solitude.

Even when alone, 

I am never disconnected.

I am constantly aware of 

the pressing and urgent business of other people's lives.

As planes sweep restlessly overhead

carrying their many hundreds of unnaturally seated human beings,

as emergency vehicles announce their presence

with variegated alarms,

as people shout and gesticulate 

on their mobiles on trains and in the street,

I am diverted from the simple matter of being me.

My thoughts are tempered, even if only slightly,

by the need to react to others

yet they are not even communicating with me.

Leo Babauta talks of the lost art of solitude 

and has much advice to offer.

Nobody who knows me would think that a blog called Zen Habits 

would have much success in detaining me,

I am a multi-tasking, easily distracted flibbertygibbet,

but

I do increasingly feel bombarded by information,

harried and rushed through each brief day

and anxious about 'getting it all done'.

Perhaps it is time to take stock.

Time for some blue sky thinking.

Would you like to ride

in my beautiful balloon?

Up, up and away.

Way up in the air.

The world's a nicer place.

Suspended under the twilight canopy.

For we can't fly.