Aux jours pluvieux qui se raccourcissent, aux ruisseaux qui glougloutent dans les prés, aux landes silencieuses dans la bruine que seul le croassement de quelque corbeau vient transpercer, à ces talus couverts de mousses et de feuilles mouillées je dédie ces quelques lignes en échange de ces beaux cèpes qu'elles a offert au cueilleur de champignon solitaire. Il est parti avec Bobby son chien alors que le jour pointait à peine. Derrière lui se dégageait une odeur de cigarette grillée. Il a marché dans la prairie marécageuse, s'est arrêté quelques instants devant l'ancien lavoir en pensant aux heures de son enfance quand les lavandières battaient le linge en racontant les ragots du village. Il s'est rappelé avoir retourné leurs caissons, y avoir trouvé un nid de paille et miracle du bleu de méthylène ainsi que de l'eau de javel. Il s'en souvient encore du bleu qui se répandait dans le lavoir puis empruntait le fil de l'eau qu'il suivait en trottinant. Il se souvient aussi de ce lavoir qui vidé de son eau livrait ses secrets avec des anguilles à plein seau.
Il a aspiré encore une longue goulée, a toussoté, la fumée s'est élevée en volutes se mélangeant aux fines gouttelettes en suspension dans l'air. Bobby assis sur son arrière train attentif observait sont maître. Puis il est reparti, il a franchi le talus derrière lequel le ru aux sables d'or se fraie un chemin incertain allant jusqu'à disparaitre en chemin pour un peu plus loin réapparaître. Il a enjambé cet obstacle ou auparavant il venait jouer avec des moulins confectionnés de ses propres mains. A l'orée du bois, entre landes, châtaigniers et pins maritimes il a redoublé d'attention comme lorsqu'il était enfant il a longé les talus, écrasé du pied les landes à la recherche du cèpe qui pour lui est le roi des champignons. A cet homme qui vit en communion avec la nature, à cet homme qui est mon frère et qui ma donné une cagette de cèpes.
L'écluse du moulin de Kerivarch (*)
(*) Lanvénégen Morbihan
It's been a shocking week and it's only Wednesday.
Monday night got things off to an exciting start with the 4 Corners program giving the Climate Change skeptics a full run. After all Malcolm's efforts to try and hide these characters the ABC has given them the opportunity to increase the size of the hole in the hull and they went for it boots and all.
Then something snapped in Joe Hockey who is supposed to be a future leader of the Libs. For some strange reason he has decided to play the God card, presumably because he thinks it will better his chances in Leadership ballots. Logic fail. Kevin 07 beat Howard in spite of his religious beliefs not because of them.
Aussies are always supicious of "God Bothering" from pollies. Yes, you can declare your hand if the matter is raised by others but to start the topic yourself is a very dangerous tactic. When you have another political challenger in your Party representing Cardinal Pell pushing a different God then things can get ugly mighty fast.
To add insult to injury, young Joe has also come out with the extraordinary claim that he doesn't lie. Perhaps he has already forgotten his part in promoting Work Choices but the victims of it haven't. It shouldn't be too long now before the Interviewers start reading back on his unhappy time as the Minister and start quizzing his pronouncements. Perhaps he should have added the caveat "from now on" but even that would be a struggle. His announcement that "People smuggling is in decline" though not an outright lie is certainly a dishonest presentation of the facts.
All this on top of Howard sticking his head up to remind the Voters of children being imprisoned with their asylum seeking parents.
The week can only improve from here.
After looking through old photos of myself and my sibs when we were kids, I have come to the conclusion that we must have worn the most ridiculous, daggy swimmers you could ever hope (not) to see.
Now I myself only saw my mother sew once, when she sewed my bridesmaid doll a dress and cape. But these definitely have a home sewn look to them. And we seemed to wear them for years.
Take me here for instance. Determined to get to the beach. And nothin', not even those baggy daggy swimmers is going to stop me. I mean mother, you could've taken in the legs a little. I bet if I keep looking I'll see one of my sisters wearing these before I got them. Probably both of them.
And one of my favourite photos. Emjay, the oldest, with our brother and sister. Sporting a very unfashionable blue suit with a matching home done fringe trim.
And here she is again, what maybe a couple of years later, still wearing it.
Move forward another couple of years and my other sister is now wearing it and Emjay has a much nicer, yet still loose fitting pair of swimmers on. As you can see I'm still wearing the same pair I had on in the beginning. Because I had penty of room to grow into.
OMFG. And I was right. Even though I was only half joking. Here is Min, wearing my baggy pink swimmers. I wonder if I ever owned a new pair.
I have this vision of my mother, searching through her wardrobe every year the day before we went on our summer holidays, pulling out a bag full of atrocious old faded swimmers and handing us each a pair. Mind you it wouldn't have been a very full bag. We seemed to last through our childhoods with three of four pairs between us.
`
With us all diligently slapping hand sanitizer on our hands to kill 99.99% of everything that might make us sick..... where do all the killed germs go?
These have nothing to do with dead things on hands - I just thought they were pretty. Taken on walk around the neighbourhood next to ours on the weekend:
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We have always entertained the notion of having chickens running around the yard and finally we have the ability. The plans have been modified though. Anyone with a garden using wood chips as a water saving method will know where I’m coming from here.
Chooks live to scratch and have no concept of how a garden should look.
But behind a chook wire fence, they have made a brilliant addition to the yard. Got leftover veggies or indeed the scraps left over from their preparation? Into the chook pen. Pulled out a few weeds and want to turn them into compost? In they go too.
After having the chooks for just on a year, the sandy soil in their yard is looking a lot more healthy. Between the chook poo and the weeds, the soil has really built up. We even have worms in there although it’s risky for them to reveal themselves. Nothing gets the excitement levels soaring like turning over a few shovel loads of dirt and a worm or two turning up.
Egg production is a real eye opener too. The eggs are big. And the yokes so yellow. Nothing like their pale cousins in the supermarket. The laying process is a sociable event too. We have 4 chooks and they take it in turns to produce an egg. After one has laid an egg it comes out of the coup and loudly declares success. Then another will walk up the ramp and lay her egg right beside the first one. Out she comes and the process continues.
The actual chicken coup sits right in the back corner of the yard under a huge gum tree. It’s shaded from about 10 am so the chooks have cool conditions throughout the day. Never the less the curent heat wave has dropped production from 4 eggs to 1 per day. I don’t blame them at all. We have had such a mild opening to the warmer weather that the 100 degree F days have been a bit of a shock to the system.
So that’s how chooks have entered our lives. Even more fun than I thought they would be and great little recyclers to boot. A welcome addition to the homestead.
Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?
lol, what a strange question! Are we expecting one then?
I'm obsessive compulsive enough thanks. If I start worrying about potential natural disasters I'll be a nervous wreck.
Although, we are going to Thailand at christmas time, and I must admit that the thought has crossed my mind as I run on the treadmill each morning, that'll I'll be right to run a long way up into the mountains if a tsunami hits. Maybe even carrying one small child on my back. Which rules out my kids because they're all much bigger than me. Which is good because I won't have to do the Sophies Choice thing.
Remember when everyone was freaking out about the Y2K thing? I said to Daz, maybe we should stock up on food. And when the year 2000 clicked over with no problems I looked in the laundry and we had stocked one bottle of water and a 4 pack of baked beans. It was a pretty piss poor effort really. We'd have lasted a morning.
I think to be prepared for a natural disaster the best thing you can do is forget about supplies and just stock up on weapons. Lots of guns and ammo. Thats your best bet, because you're going to have to kill a lot of crazy desperate people to get to the supermarket and the bottle shop. Maybe even zombies. I'm not sure what sort of disaster we're talking about. Oh yes,there they are, I wasn't looking properly. No zombies, so that makes it a bit easier.
And nail polish. Stock up on nail polish. Because new nail polish always makes you feel better.
My new bottles arrived in the mail the other day.
I'm wearing blue at the moment. But I'm wishing I'd picked Calypso.
Sur ces terres de bruyère et de landes soufflées par les vents du large, que l'on soit du Finistère ou du Morbihan ou des autres départements bretons la fougère fait partie du décor. L'hiver elle tisse un manteau brun dans les moindres recoins de végétation comme ultime protection à la faune et la flore qui se tapit en son abri. Au printemps elle sort vigoureusement de terre puis déploie les crosses qui deviendront ombrelles au début de l'été. Enfin quand passe le cycle des saisons, que viennent les prémices de l'automne la fougère frissonne et prend une parure fauve qu'elle conserve jusqu'au nouveau printemps. Lorsque les nouvelles frondes surgiront du tapis de mousse, les vieilles tiges usées par les assauts de l'hiver retourneront à la terre nourricière pour que les cycles végétatifs se perpétuent.
Dès lors est-il étonnant de retrouver la présence de la fougère dans de nombreux lieux-dits ou même nom de communes en Bretagne ? A commencer par la ville de Fougères en Ile-et-Vilaine dont on trouve l'étymologie de Felger en breton et Foujerr en gallo. L'autre nom de la fougère en breton est raden qui a laissé son nom à beaucoup de lieux-dits exemple Radennec, Keradennec. La nom de la commune de Rédéné dans le Finistère serait issu en fait d'un nom breton-roman : Rédéné était connu sous le nom de Radenix en 1150 ! Avec les quelques chaos que je connaisse dans cette commune je me prends à rêver que cette terre de landes , d'ajoncs et de bruyères dominée par la silhouette des pins maritimes aurait pu être une terre d'aventures pour Astérix et Obelix.
The first photo was taken when I was in London in August. It's of Regent's Canal and was taken with my daughter's point and shoot Sony DSC-W150.
What's the oldest article of clothing you own? Bonus points if you show us a photo!
I've got several items of clothing dating from the very early 1990s and many from nearly as long ago. I tend to keep my clothes until they fall to pieces.
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