Autumn

Last year at this time I was writing about the benefits of spreading dung on your field. This year I’ve come up with something a little more romantic. When Christian was 6 he had a poem to learn about autumn. It caught my imagination and I’ve often wondered what it was and who wrote it. This morning I Googled it. It was by a Belgian poet called Maurice Careme (1899-1978). He had been a teacher for some of his life and wrote many of his poems for children. In France you will find 5 schools named after him. Don’t worry – the poem is short and I’ve dared to translated it.

Autumn
Autumn in the corner of the woods,
Plays harmonica.
What fun for the leaves!
They waltz in the arms
Of the wind that carries them.
They say they are dead
But no one believes it.
Autumn in the corner of the woods,
Plays harmonica.

Maurice Careme

Goodbyes

You must go and read Worldman's farewell to Darfur post. He has been working there for the past four years looking after the refugees.

Good News

I haven’t heard from my friend Willow in Norway for so long. Today I saw that her blog had been updated at long last with some very good news!

Willow, I hope that you and Tito will be very happy together.

You might not believe this

This afternoon I received a chain email from an old friend, Malcolm. It was a prayer from Saint Theresa whose fête was yesterday. It told me that if I forwarded the letter to 11 people something nice would happen; so I sent it off to 11 people and one back to Malcolm, except that the e mail was empty. (I’m really sorry about that) Cassie very kindly let me know so I sent it out again.

When Rob got home he opened two letters from the tax office. When he read the first one he couldn’t decide whether we owed them some money or they owed us. He opened up the second letter and there was a cheque worth having. Really.

Here is the prayer:

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing,
Dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

In which I don't do the homework

My big burly 17 year old son asked me last night if I’d colour his homework map in for him. He’s learning about the major canals and waterways of the world at the moment. The map had to be coloured mainly orange for some reason. I told him that I’ve coloured maps and filled in enough density of populations dots for one life time thank you.

In France they have to ‘do’ philosophy in their last year. Most pupils hate it because they just don’t get it. Olivier is one of them. Dom has taken it as an extra two years running at university she loves it so much. Any way I thought of telling Olivier he will just have to be philosophical about it, but I don’t think he’ll appreciate the joke…

Why didn't I find this last week?

You must try this. It tells you everything you need to know about your birthdate.

I think I have proof that it works

On Saturday we went out to tea at an old friend’s who I’ll write about in another post. She’d made a chocolate cake so I had some of that, after a walk round by the beach we had an aperitif. In France you can drink port before a meal and very nice it is too. She’d also made my favourite, a savoury olive cake* and there were other nibbles. Rob and I returned home late and so I made pizza (as in out of the freezer into the oven) as I didn’t feel like cooking much and had the last of the lemon meringue pie from my birthday meal on Friday. Needless to say I didn’t take a reading of my blood sugar before I went to bed. On Sunday I felt rotten all day – almost hung over. It is a long time since I went off the rails to that extent and proof that I do need to stay sensible if I want to feel and stay well. We won’t mention weight.

*Dom made a few cakes in the summer too, they must be in a cake conspiracy together.

Emmett Till

Emmett Till died a month before I was born. Since I discovered his story I’ve written about him several times on my birthday. If you want to see what hate looks like look here (You’ll need to scroll down). His mother, Mamie, should be remembered alongside Rosa Parks.

Strangely enough at the moment, Olivier is studying those people who wear white gowns (I won’t put the name, but I think you know who) and guns in the US in English. We had to look up the white gowned people at home because the lycee computer blocks those kind of sites. So I told him about Emmett and showed him the picture, then I found him the Lyrics of Strange Fruit and he listened to John Martyn singing them. We both felt pretty sick after that.

A day later, he gave a talk on the subject, he thinks it went pretty well, he made an effort to speak slowly to the rest of the class. His talk lasted longer than intended and he didn’t use all of the material he’d prepared (I’m familiar with that one).

Wasn't I cute?

It's my birthday today!

Helping people

This morning I was heading for the door into the newsagents and the lady in front of me held the door and waited until I came. I thanked her of course. She shuffled ahead of me, obviously handicapped and I was struck by the effort she must have put in to hold that door open. On my way out I held the door open for three men who came in at the same time (the door opens inwards so it was logical or me to hold it open for them). The first man said nothing, the second thanked me and the third, who happened to be my doctor, thanked me and wished me a good day.

Chandni has been writing about helping people too.