Picking up pace again after the paper marathon!

CD's? done not so long ago.
 
DVD's? Pretty easy as I only have eight.

Skincare products and make up? Not used in a year - out.

The computer is also getting Kondoed (though the guy at the computer shop doesn't call it that I guess!), but normal service will resume.

Soon.

Another happy volunteer on the greenhouse floor is this little herb Robert - geranium robertianum 'Celtic White'. Sown from seed many years ago it sprinkles daintily around the garden, never in the way or ousting anything else. I leave it to do its own thing. It likes gravel in particular and I think gives the garden a relaxed and informal look. Adorable. It is seen here under Fucshia genii which are destined for the black pots once the tulips are over. 

But there are cats, there are sparrowhawks, and he was very old.
 
For a robin.

We're feeding the female, though she won't come to our hand the way he did. It can't be easy being a single Mum of quintuplets...

Our robin has disappeared and we are worried about him, and about the female and the five baby birds. Will they survive without him?

I had a wisdom tooth extracted today. Ouch!

The laptop might be going into the repair shop tomorrow.

Oh dear.

A cheerful little volunteer on the greenhouse floor....

I enjoy pruning and shaping trees and shrubs, and I've found that on whe whole they look better if lifted from the ground - light and air get underneath, shadows create depth, and it can be done so that the work doesn't show (I hate to see plants, especially trees just chopped or butchered!)

This handsome viburnum Davidii had rather outgrown its space and to my eye looked a bit sprawling and floppy. Cutting from underneath I removed all the branches with leaves that touched the ground. Although the grass will take time to recover I do think it looks better for having its skirts lifted as this kind of pruning is sometimes called..

At the other side I love the combination with hakonechloa macra aurea (these Latin names again, but does anyone know if this Japanese grass has a common name?).

The robin has a nest with five babies so is very busy just now....

I know it sounds like I'm showing off, but I like the latin names!

I also like that I know the latin names so I guess I am showing off.
 
A bit. (See this post.)
 
You have to admit It just sounds better than beech. Grander, more elegant, more special. (Fagus Latin for beech, sylvatica of wood or forest.)

I've been watching these few trees for the last weeks as they unfurl their delicious looking lime green leaves - they create a bright patch in the forest even on the dullest day.

Are there any fagus sylvatica near you? Or betula, salix, quercus, or trochodiospermum arachiasumoides subra? (Birch, willow, oak, and I just made that up :-)

There is a point at which if you pick a branch of beech in bud, the double leaves will open along it like green butterflies...I only managed this effect once, but it was magical.

Twice recently I found myself walking in the city carrying a bunch of flowers in my arms. On both occasions i was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who spoke to me. The girl working the street for Save The Children shouted Nice Flowers! as I passed. I got them for my birthday  I said over my shoulder. Happy Birthday! she shouted after me.  Passers-by, sales assistants, waitresses, an elderly man at the bus stop, a woman beside me as we waited to cross the road.... 

Nice flowers.
 
Love the flowers! 

Gorgeous!

They're my favourites.

The first bunch were a birthday gift, the second I bought for myself (in the name of research you understand) to test if it was true that people spoke to me more if I was carrying flowers! 

They do.
 
It made the city feel a friendlier place and cheered me almost as much as the flowers did, if not more.

Why not try it out? (and report back!)

I've loved reading about all your wonderful real experiences. Thank you for sharing! Don't miss Simply Happy Mom's beautiful 'Simple Life Lessons From a Three Year Old' Here, and here.

There are a few real experiences I enjoy but  don't have to travel for. Real coffee, vanilla pods instead of vanilla 'flavouring', real flowers instead of artificial (no matter how clever there is always that flicker of disappointment when you realise they are not real),  Natural fibers, a sun tan from the sun, real food, face to face meetings with family and friends when we can manage it.

Experiencing things before I take the photograph!

Life is short.

Lets live it for real!


Real progress on the Kondo front. Got through the papers!! Never again will I have to go through heaps of them making decisions about each and every one which I could have made years ago and saved myself some trouble. I will think more carefully now about which I store.

How will I celebrate?

i'll take a few days off Kondoing!

How will you celebrate?

Did you notice the blue gate? I sowed marigolds today to grow in front of it..

I always think there is nothing like the real thing.

As we stood in front of the original Leonardo da Vinci cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist in the National Gallery  I read that in 1501 crowds gathered in Florence to view it. The knowledge that today crowds gather in London to look at it thrills me -  and that in relation to this drawing i am standing where Leonardo stood.

Other originals, other thrills - the Matisse collages in Tate Modern, Daniel Barenboim playing there on the stage in front of me in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, chinese artist Fu Wua creating a brush painting with such energy and panache as I stood beside him, discovering a neolithic axe head on an archaeological dig in Cyprus...

Facsimiles are disturbing. The intention of the maker is very different from the intention of the original creator of the David in Florence or the Four Horses of the Apocalypse in St Mark's Square in Venice. I believe the quality of the intention of the maker becomes the spirit of the artwork. (My theory is that that is why we are drawn to children's art - their intention is so pure.)

Holograms are disappointing. The culmination of the Yorvik exhibition in York was supposed to be the Viking helmet found on the site. In it's place was a hologram. I can still remember my dismay.

Of course experiencing the real thing is not just about famous or cultural things....

I've been looking at the programme for the Edinburgh Festival, and in particular at the performances by ballerina Sylvia Guillem who is doing her final world tour. It reminded me of the thrill of seeing the real thing. Films, videos, recordings - they are marvellous - we listened to some wonderful music in the car on the way home from the city today. Christian Blackshaw playing Mozart (1h 33 mins in) on the Steinway at Wigmore Hall. Glorious!
 
But nothing gives quite the thrill of the real thing, the live performance, the original painting, the genuine article...it's one of the reasons why people travel I think.

Have you travelled in order to experience the real thing?

My friend Liz gave me prunings from her twisted willow tree - they make great supports for the sweet peas on their painted cane wigwams. This one will have sweet pea Gwendoline - pale pink, strong scent - surrounded by ammi majus and gypsophila.

Sweet pea Nearly Black is going to be grown on the blue canes (needing repainted really but I'll just think of it as shabby chic for this year!). Around will be poppy Dark Plum.

Much nicer than string I think. I tried coloured string but it faded within two weeks.

Meanwhile, a far cry from the delicacy and subtlety of the anticipated sweet peas, I'm  almost overwhelmed by the opulent and voluptuous tulips which kept opening in the warmth of the room until they were the size of teaplates!

It has a certain charm perhaps?

Have you noticed this unfortunate new trend in the publishing world?

Trying to order a copy of Marie Kondo's book for a friend I noticed A Guide to The Life Changing Magic of Tidying. The words Guide to being written in small type above the title of the original book which in large type dominates the front cover. You could easily think you were buying the original book. But why would anyone want a guide to it anyway? It is a model of clarity and simplicity!

I was also looking for a copy of Thomas Picketty's Capital in the Twenty First Century and lo and behold the same author and publisher had a Critique of ... A bit unlikely I thought! Same format with the typeface. Also a best  seller. And as it happens this book is also a model of clarity, which is why I want it. (Well I really only want pages 1 to 37 and page 157 on, where the author so succinctly puts his reasons for writing the book and his conclusions).

So I checked the publisher out on Amazon and found that Brief Concise and to the Point Publishing have brought out guides or critiques or summaries of at least 13 best selling books from every genre. Avoid? I think so.

I also took issue with author Adam Nicolson. His book titled The Smell of Summer Grass is really a reprint of Perch Hill  (yes, he is married to Sarah Raven). I admire his nature writing and enjoyed reading Perch Hill the first time round, but was dismayed to find so little new writing in this new title. In the Acknowledgements it states that two thirds of it - I thought even more - was published under the title Perch Hill, but do you read the Acknowledgements before you buy a book?

OK.

Rant over.
 
Time to contemplate a tulip....

..Kondoing my papers. I expect you are also bored with me Kondoing my papers, so I have vowed to have them finished with by my next Friday's post. It will be such a relief! And I certainly have not missed or even given a thought to the tons which have already left the house! Well, maybe not tons...but far more than I knew I had.

I have searched for more words of wisdom from Marie....how about her three categories for papers to keep - currently in use, needed for a limited period of time, and must be kept indefinitely.

Can I really throw away all the rest? She says her basic principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away.

She says it is fun.
 
Well doing the clothes was fun, doing the books was fun (tiring fun) but for me, doing the papers is not fun. It's exhausting. Decision making fatigue is setting in, though as she says they will, my decision making muscles are strengthening which is just as well because I have so many photographs! But I am getting ahead of myself. I have reduced the six box files from the loft to one and a half. I have a small shelf of eight ring binders to do then it's on to Komono (miscellaneous). but not before I've had a little celebration for clutter clearing the papers.
 
Hmm. Any suggestions?