I found myself seeking respite from the unremitting negativity of the news (apart from the item that showed life in Wuhan is almost back to normal!) and I checked out blogs by a few people I have read in the past.

Here is Gretchen Rubin on dealing with the uncertainty of holiday plans. Susanna Conway ponders how, as an introvert, she realises how important other people and being out of the house is to her. Cheryl Richardson's post Becoming a Good Creature and the photographs of adorable puppies my friend Lynne keeps sending me, made me aware of how much having someone or something to care for makes us happier. I enjoyed this HARDtalk podcast from the BBC World Service for its bigger picture take on the current situation from historian Peter Frankopan.

Can you recommend any blogs/podcasts/articles/programmes?

Indulge me while I have a little nostalgia trip...

Midsummer in central Sweden. First cut down your tree from the forest

Gather armfulls of wild flowers from the surrounding meadows

Make the rings to hang on the maypole

Raise the pole, light the fire to roast the lamb on a spit

Put on your national costume

Walk to the village then back to the feast, the snaps, the songs, the midnight row on the lake and the obligatory dip! 

Spotted on the way to the village

I was an Erasmus student with the friendiest, most hospitable bunch of students you could ever hope to meet.  It was a magical time (part of the course was at the University of Venice). I will never forget it and have celebrated Midsummer, and meadows, ever since.

Skol!

Two posts today!

Heather is learning Italian properly (she is already fluent in French) but I am learning just to get by - to be polite eg Posso fare una foto? to ask for what I want and pay for it, decipher labels and sell-by dates and figure out which milk is which, and generally find my way around.  So I photograph street signs to help me remember my way home...

I love this name! Piazza of the Madonna of the Vegetable Garden.

For noting places I will want to go back to...

And just to know what's going on. The Tiepolo in the Church of Santa Maria di Nazareth will have to wait.

I try to translate the newspaper headlines..

Anti-virus panini anyone?

Sometimes I am just curious and photograph a sign to translate later. I don't expect this vocabulary to be especially useful to me, but I really wanted to know what it said! (Construction company boat. Mooring banned.)

Now of course there are all the coronavirus notices to translate too!  Erla  Zwingle in her blog I Am Not Making This Up has helped us out here with a detailed post on the current situation.


Please note -
we can go out
people can go to work
people can walk their dogs
we can go shopping
we can go to the cafe (until 6pm)
we can go to the restaurants (until 6pm)


 Today's 2nd post is sure to make you giggle!

Be well.

You know I like a good question.

Here are three which I find helpful.

As I began thiis blog and focussed on simplicity I often asked myself when I was unsure of how to proceed What would be simplest? I found that i nearly always knew the answer to this question - then I just had to do it.

The second question is helpful in putting any dilemma into perspective. Is this a life changing decision? More often than not it isn't! You can also put the issue on a scale of 1 - 10 in importance....

The third question is a new one for me. My word for the year is strong and I find myself asking Does this kind of self talk/train of thought/potential action/way of dealing with this make me stronger? I've been finding this really useful.

Do you have any good questions?

...put off asking for help even when you know you really need it?

And then finally ask and find it is freely given and wasn't a big deal?

We think we ought to do everything ourselves, don't want to be a nuisance or a burden, are afraid of looking foolish because we don't know how to do something, or we dread being told no and then we might die of embarassment. Somehow it is very hard to say the simple words Would you help me with this. (For some weird reason I can remember how to say it in Swedish but find it sometimes almost impossible to say in my own language.)

I have an eye condition which means that in certain light I don't see very well and I have had to learn to speak up and ask for help on many occasions. I have found that people love to help. I have never been refused help when I have asked for it (and I do know that no-one actually dies of embarassment!)

So I turn things around in my head and ask myself If someone asked me to do this would I think they ought to do it themselves, or they are a nuisance or stupid? In all likelihood I would think they must have a reason for asking and I'd probably be happy to help if I could.

There's also perhaps the idea that to ask for help is to show weakness but knowing what courage it sometimes takes I prefer to think it shows strength to be able to ask for what I need.

Always learning...

What do you think?

First snow on the tops means it's time for the orange and cinnamon candle. Love it.

I think I stalled in my review of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules For Life at Rule Six because it was the hardest to read (hardest in the sense of painful). It deals with suffering and malevolence.

Rule Six is Set Your House In Perfect Order Before You Criticize The World.

He quotes one of the Columbine High School killers who wrote;

The human race isn't worth fighting for, only worth killing. Give the Earth back to the animals. They deserve it infinitely more than we do. Nothing means anything anymore.

I thought when I read this of David Attenborough saying that human beings are A plague on the Earth. And of a man discussing how young men come to be radicalised - You are a young man seeking adventure. Do you want to stack shelves in Wolverhapton or be a Desert Warrior?

I admore people who are willing to bravely address the tragic aspects of life.

Around the time I was reading Rule Six I heard on Private Passions (my favourite programme on BBC Radio 3) barrister Sarah Langford. She is a defence lawyer representing criminals - from thieves to child abusers.

Articulate and honest, her insights into lives most of us can hardly imagine, were riveting, if painful to hear. She has written a book called In Your Defence.

I don't know if I could bear to read it.

In his very dense chapter, well worth reading, Peterson gives examples of people who emerge from terrible pasts and do good, not evil, and he ends with two pages of advice to those who think they may be heading to despair and nihilism.

I am full of gratitude to people who do difficult work with in Sarah Langford's words the mad, the bad, and the broken.

Rule Seven will be light relief!

If you can access it Private Passions with Sarah Langford can be heard here (and I loved her choice of music!)

From the welcome in Urdu

to the parents lying on mats with their babies on a gallery floor or playing games outside

beautifully proportioned vistas, quality materials

Thought provoking exhibitions - contemporary and from the collections.

and the most elegant drainpipe ever seen

I love what they are doing at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester.

Take a look at their Natural Cultural Health Service.

I could have spent the whole weekend there: in the park, the gardens, the cafe, the galleries, the shop. Free, family friendly, well-used on a sunny Saturday - well done my old University of Manchester! I liked to go to the Whitworth when I was studying but it was darkish, and old fashioned with a played out park outside and very few people inside and the cafe consisted of two tiny tables in the entrance way.

I thought I'd link again to an Emil Pakarklis' video on using the iPhone camera.

I wanted to show the beautiful detail on my cup and saucer and found the tips on adjusting focus and exposure at the same time really helpful. Not quite got it - can't get both accurate colour (3rd photo) and the light shining on the gilding (4th) - but better than before..
.

The iPhone can do so much more than I realised and he explains it very well!

Enjoying watching the Chelsea Flower Show - especially the behind the scenes growers' trials and tribulations...

..isn't just about clearing clutter!

I've always been interested in minimalist art and architecture and have just come across two good programmes about minimalism in music. Tones, Drones and Arpeggios: The Magic of Minimalism (on BBC iPlayer).

Featuring the very masculine and rather nerdy world - can I say that I wonder? It used to be an insult but my sense is that it no longer is! - of the likes of  La Monte Young and Terry Riley in California in the 60's and then Steve Reich and Philip Glass. One of the very few women involved was described as a disciple (!).

Sally Beamish had said that Keith Jarret and Brian Eno influenced her and as is the way, looking them up, one thing led to another and I spent two days listening and watching and learning.

Learning new things makes me feel alive.

Seriously good questions in this (longish) article.

And you know I like a good question...

.www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia

..if you are squeamish!

Living in the wilds has it's gruesome side.

A dead Northern Bottlehead whale has been washed up on the shore nearby.

Rare in these waters it is thought to have got it's tail entangled in crabpot lines (though there are alternative theories about military exercises and sonar causing whales to suffer from decompression sickness and there has been a big exercise here lately...). It's lungs were full of water.

First word was that men in huge rubber aprons wielding big knives had been seen on a particularly narrow stretch of the single track road. Experts from the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme were on site but the carcass at almost 7 m long and on a rather inaccessible shore couldn't be lifted, thus the knives. The head has been taken for examination to The National Museum of Scotland, along with samples of stomach contents and entrails. Squid beaks. In the orange boxes.

It is an awe inspiring and very sad sight (and a truly awful smell).

We see seals, porpoise and dolphins, and I know a local boat fishes for prawns (which are sent to Spain!) and when the sea birds are diving you know there is a shoal of fish, but there is so much unknown in the waters of the loch. I did not know there were squid, and I am awestruck at the thought of creatures of this size and larger - this was a juvenile - out there in that other world by day and tonight by the light of a full moon. I wonder how far into the water the moonlight penetrates.

Do the whales look up and take note?

I learned something important (for me) yesterday. I don't mean deep learning in the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning sense - I mean it as something imprinted not just in my mind but in my body, in every cell.

I'm not sure I can explain it well...in yesterday's photo taken by Scott I held that pose for maybe 7 or 8 seconds, laughing because it was early on a rainy Sunday morning, we'd only just got out of bed, I was feeling far from exuberant and energetic, and what on earth were we doing trying to copy a pose on a postcard? (When I showed the postcard to Scott and said 'Do you think we could take a photograph like that?' he replied in his polite way 'No thanks' but almost immediately changed his mind...and went to find his wellies.)

But that extravagant gesture brought with it a delightful surge of energy which stayed with me all day, and made me grin every time I thought of it. Just 7 or 8 seconds of physical movement had such a big, positive and lasting effect!

If you, like me, live too much in your head, won't you try it and see what happens to your energy levels and your mood? It helps of course to have a seven year old around, or a dog, or a friend who likes a laugh.

 I shouldn't really be surprised because I know (in my head of course) that this is why people run and jump and get into sport but I've never really liked sport, or exercise. And I am surprised and rather delighted to have discovered how this worked for me.  It's that 'act as if' thing. I look at the photograph and know that I haven't felt like that in so long...but acting as if I did had this magical effect.

Well this is a long-winded way of saying it made me feel SO HAPPY!

I am reminded of this all-time favourite cartoon - www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/173107179400186336/



I've kept this plan secret till now. (Except I did share it with a 6 year old I know who is very non-judgemental and doesn't make comparisons.  He is more advanced than me and can play Hot Cross Buns and Engine, Engine Number Nine with gusto and can also improvise.)

This winter I am learning to play Bach's Prelude No 1 in C Major.

I am starting from scratch. Absolute Zero. On a whim I swapped a painting for a piano. This book made me believe that even I could do this and I cannot tell you what a thrill it gives me to sit down and play the first  eleven bars (which is as far as I have got....) There are only thirty two.  :-)

Google Elizabeth Gilbert The Wrong Emotions for a thought provoking read....(sorry I had problems with the link).

And if you have time here is another interesting read.

The New European anyone?

There is a lot of fascinating  stuff out there - it just takes a bit of finding sometimes and may not be found in the places we used to look...Thanks to interested Facebook friends for some of the above!

I should say italiano gennaio ..

I have found my BIG IDEA.

My Italian class has started again and I wasn't looking forward to it. (The thought did, briefly, cross my mind to give up.) I feel I am slow in learning Italian. I am not a natural at languages but I like to try. I did Latin at school, have school French, a little smattering of Swedish and Greek, and in preparation for our month in Venice I am doing this very good and very challenging course at Glasgow University.

SO. Instead of despairing at my slow progress I shall try some extreme Italian. I shall talk to Barry in Italian as much as possible (I know, poor Barry), listen to CD's in the car, label things around the house in Italian with post it notes, listen to Verdi, read blogs about Venice in Italian first then in translation, try some Italian recipes, some new Italian wines, oh the possibilities are endless and suddenly January seems more fun.......

I found some of the advice here and the little video here really helpful in getting me motivated again.

I am listening to this charming one over and over picking out the words I understand and am pleasantly surprised that I understand quite a lot of it.


(I did actually think of the idea of Extreme Italian as I was writing yesterday's post....Oh I do love blogging!)

..or should I say Venezia. I am enjoying learning Italian with my excellent teacher Luisella. She speaks a lot in Italian throughout the class - talking quickly, translating as she goes, insisting we listen, listen, listen and talk, talk, talk. She goes at a challenging pace!

A challenge I had not anticipated was being unable to read the whiteboard when Luisella uses a coloured or faded pen. I had to explain that I have an eye problem. (I have AMD, a degenerative eye condition.) Until now when out and about or meeting new people I get away with not saying anything, but we are asked to work in pairs and read to each other from the textbook. If the lighting is not good - and it isn't - I can't see the words. I am still so shocked when this happens! So of course I have to say 'I'm sorry I can't see that'. I have a tiny torch the size of a credit card (thank you Lynne, what a thoughtful gift). It helps but makes me very  slow. I've never before in my life been slow in a learning situation. It is so hard! It makes me feel foolish and so self-conscious. I know I have to get over those feelings and find ways of coping.

It also makes me feel humble when I see people coping with far greater difficulties.

I enjoyed this post on a favourite blog about Venice.

(This post explains why I am learning Italian!)

Got out my satchel - I'm a student again. Yay! I always say I feel most alive when I'm learning....

What makes you feel most alive?

And can you fit more of it into your life?

'Touching the Length and Shortness of Life in Living Creatures, the information which may be had is but slender, observation is Negligent and Tradition is Fabulous. In Tame Creatures their Degenerate Life corrupteth them; in Wild Creatures their exposing to all weathers often intercepteth them'

Francis Bacon 1638

One of the books I would not part with is this one by David Lack, from which I have taken the above quotation. Observation is far from negligent in this fascinating book which I've had since I lived in a remote cottage on a moor and first took an interest in birds.

By the age of nine David Lack knew the names of most birds and had written out an alphabetical list of them....read more about him here.

This edition was first published in 1965 and is dedicated by the author to 'all those robins who patiently bore my rings and permitted my intrusions into the intimacies of their lives'.  Checking on Amazon I was delighted to see that it is still in print (and I've ordered a used copy of Redbreast: The Robin in Life and Literature - an anthology by David Lack's son Andrew Lack).

Either of these would make a good Christmas gift for anyone interested in ornithology....

More about 'my' robins tomorrow (and photographs on yesterday's post and on the Cards page.)

I'm going to be teaching drawing in a summer course at the Boathouse at the Scottish Sculpture Park next year....

I firmly believe that drawing is a learnable, teachable skill, just like reading and writing. I hope you have time to look here at my new website Drawing for Non Artists.

Maybe I'll get to meet some of you there?

On a Chinese brush painting course I acquired this chop, or seal.

I like to use it as a finishing touch to drawings and some watercolour paintings as an accent and a kind of signature.

I chose it for its meaning. I am reliably informed that it means 'still learning' and I love that, and like to think of it as my motto.

I feel most alive when I am learning.


Do you have a motto?

 
Here come the vivid colours of the summer garden! The blue perennial cornflower centaura montana, hardy geranium Max Frei and orange geum Borisii - all very easy and very long lived in this garden.

You're always learning in a garden.

I've often said that I feel most alive when I'm learning something new and I've been vaguely looking for something new to learn.

I've got a piano in the studio now (with the help of four strong men - thank you chaps!) and am really excited about learning to play it. I'm swapping a painting for it - two happy people..

I plan to learn a little about wine with the help of Jane Brocket at winestorm. Not in a big way; I really just would like to find say 7 or 8 wines I really enjoy and can keep to hand.

I plan to learn Pilates if I can find a class near enough.

I've just learned how to create links on the blog in a more sophisticated way (I'm always learning using a computer - it's a steep learning curve for me sometimes!)

What are you learning?  Does it make you feel alive?   Do share....