Category:

Simply..scent and memory....

12/3/2025

Three of these are decades old! I don't like to finish them because they hold such precious memories.

Special nights out, Audrey Hepburn (Interdit was created for her), Penhaligon's Bluebell is spring in a bottle, and Barry loved the smell of frangipani. It reminded him of Africa where he grew up.

I don't wear perfume now (so ecpensive for one thing!) but I do love how a smell can transport you to another place or anther time. Sweet peas take me to an Aunt's cottage, dahlias to my father's allotment, orange blossom to the tree in my Cyprus garden.

I use unscented products in the house, preferring my scents to come from flowers and fruits, or branches of pine.

Writing this I realise how important scents are to me.

Are they special for you too?

19 Comments

Simply..variety....

21/2/2025

2 Comments

I an sttruck by the extreme contrast between my last two posts! The humble tiny robin which whispers so sweetly when I feed it in the morning quiet, and the almost overwhelmimg drama and volume of Scottish Opera in full flow and with full orchestra in the gilded Theatre Royal in Glasgow. (I mistakenly posted the Welsh Opera video.)

Variety being the spice of life, I am lucky to experience both.

2 Comments

Simply..face to face February....

6/2/2025

8 Comments

..there is a soul nourishing aspect to face to face communication which I really value. There is also some irony in that, if I am with you I can't actually see your face! (Macular Degeneration does that). So I miss a lot by not seeing facial expressions, but there is still body language, tone of voice being important. Nuanced is the word Lucille used.

It's all a bit mysterious but what I do know is that it's important - perhaps we can deduce a lot about another person from the energy they give off. Are they being sincere, are they genuine, trustworthy? Intuition you might call it. Can you make these subtle judgements via a screen? What do you think?

Do read Lucille's comment on this post and Clare 's on this one.

The hyacinths smell divine.

8 Comments

Simply..a frosty walk....

8/1/2025

12 Comments

I've taken my first frosty walk of the year. We have had several sunny seriously cold days with freezing temperatures, but snow onnly on the hills. A barefoot walk on the sparkling grass wakes me up on such a morniing! Then indoors for a good breakfast by the fire.

Question Three from Your Best Year Yet is a good one. What did I learn, from my achievements and disappointments?

I am holding an informal workshop on this book on Saturday here at home. Really looking forward to it.

12 Comments

Simply..two....

8/1/2025

2 Comments

There are TWO tame robins! I think they may be a pair..

Question Two in my current book Your Best Year Yet is What were my biggest disappointments?

By the way I hope you had at least fifteen achivements in answer to yesteday's question.

2 Comments

Simply..bread and daffodils....

7/1/2025

14 Comments

'Life's necessities ' my daughter said when she came to the back door with them.

She knows what rea!lly matters! Which is what the book Your Best Year Yet is about in a way. It consists of ten questions which I thought I would share with you..

Question One - What did I accomplish in the past year?

14 Comments

Simply..a city tour.....

4/1/2025

8 Comments

..Joy in January and a new word for the new year..

Do check out Amelia's lovely idea for joy every day in January. See in comments on this post. Will you sign up?

My word for 2025 is DECISIVE. Life got better for me after I decided to decide in this post last October. Have you chosen your word yet?

There is so much to see in my favourite city. Visual stimulus of every kind at every turn..

There are crowds of course - people enjoying the sights

but just the other side of the Minster are quiet streets

with beautiful doorways

and unusual buildings

with hidden lanes and courtyards

More tomorrow..

8 Comments

Simply..2025....

4/1/2025

8 Comments

..started in Yokshire, one of my favourite places in the world. Staying with friends, good conversation and good food, country walks and old world pubs and a sunny day in the city of York. What could be nicer?

In Scotland we often say 'Start the year as you mean to go on' and you should have the house in perfect order, the rubbish out, the laundry done, the cupboards well stocked etc., and you must have a full glass in your hand at the stroke of midnight. If the year goes on like this I will be thrilled.

Beningborough Hall - I was a frequent visitor with Barry, my children and my grandchildren, I worked on reception, taught drawing and watercolour classes, volunteer gardened, went to lectures and concerts, stayed in Garden House, had my first exhibition there and made life-long friends. A very special place for me.

My perceptive friend said it's sometimes not the place you miss, but the life you lived there. Do you like to revisit places you have lived or does it make you too sad even though you may have happy memories of it?

I hope 2025 has got off to a good start for you! My head is full of memories of last year (quite a difficult one in many ways) and projects plans and hopes for next year. I like new beginnings. Do you?

8 Comments

Simply..wishing you....

29/12/2024

8 Comments

..above all else peace in 2025

I will be back early in the New Year with my New Word, new plans and new opportunities.

Enjoy the celebrations!

8 Comments

Simply.. supermoon ....

17/11/2024

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..and shooting stars. We are looking out for he The Leonids meteor shower this clear frosty night. No luck as yet (it's 11.30).

Thank you to my grandaughter for the lovely photograph.

10 Comments

Simply..November....

15/11/2024

5 Comments

The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow..

Robert Frost

5 Comments

Simply..uplifting....

8/11/2024

4 Comments

What talented young singers! A super lunchtime concert at the University of Glasgow yesterday.

4 Comments

Simply..IRL/URL

21/10/2024

6 Comments

I often comment on how much I love and appreciate the real thing - original art, live music, real food, face to face conversations, the wind and the weather. The other day on the porch a surprisingly warm gentle breeze, just enough to move my hair from my neck was delicious. Standing under the moon, a log fire...

My URL/online life is important to me too (this blog!) and the technology which helps me with vision loss - I am now registered partially sighted - is invaluable, and inproving all the time, but there is a dehumanising element to AI which is really disturbing. Why on earth would we want a machine to write poetry, or a robot to look after our elderly people?!

Rather than finding a work/life balance maybe we should focus on our IRL/UPL balance?

In Real Life I have holes in my socks. Lighten up Freda! ;-)

6 Comments

Simply..deciding to decide....

18/10/2024

10 Comments

You will have noticed how much mental evergy it takes to procrastinate. And energy is everything, isn't it.

Over and over I go considering the pros and cons of this way versus that way, now or later, the rights and the wrongs, the ifs and the buts, the shoulds and the coulds and the maybes..I'm worn out before I have taken any action at all. I fear I have become very indecisive in even in small matters. In fact mainly in small matters. (In a crisis I am very decisive and clear thinking. Plenty practice this year!) But day to day I muddle along, spending a lot of time thinking for examle about what order to do things in.

The other morning I got so bored with myself I decided to decide. I would make three very small decisions and carry them out. It felt good. I made three more - the energy began to flow. By the end of the morning I was sailing along enjoying being decisive.

When I want to be, I am still a decisive person!

It just takes that first decision - deciding to decide.

10 Comments

Simply..I repeat myself....

13/10/2024

14 Comments

..but so too do the seasons. This is the fourteenth October I have blogged about!
So I repeat photographs of the garden in autumn, the table decorations, the last flowers etc, but isn't it rather wonderful that we can be thrilled by autumn, year after year?

I browsed through some previous Octobers in the (now very extensive) archive and 2015 seemed particularly nice... see here.

A special thank you to those of you who have stayed with me all these years, and more! I have so enjoyed your company.

Nature's gift. Prunings make a free, effortless and elegant table decoration.

14 Comments

Simply..Banksy....

7/10/2024

2 Comments

Clever, and scary.

2 Comments

Simply..who do you listen to....

21/9/2024

13 Comments

..and do they really know better than you what is best for you?

I find it takes time to work out my own ideas, and to be an independent thinker I do need to be informed. I am very very choosy about who gets into my precious headspace! It's all too easy to be overwhelmed.

I want to stay sane and calm and will not let my nerves be wracked by the latest news/trend/scare/speculation/prediction..

Posting this under Simply Chill, Simply Headspace and Simply Live and am simply sharing what works for me :-)

13 Comments

Simply..the sun in the morning....

19/9/2024

9 Comments

..and the moon at night.

At long last we are having a spell of good weather! Clear blue skies and warm sunshine by day, and the most magnificent and huge full moon by night. Magical, beautiful, nourishing both body and soul.

9 Comments

Simply..statistically speaking....

14/9/2024

10 Comments

..it's probable that almost half of the people reading this blog will have experienced cancer themselves. Quite a shocking fact. whcih has me thinking a lot abput resilience and recovery from both crises and any illness. I am lucky enough to have rarely been ill and I had not realised how patient one has to be as a patient - is that why people are called patients? I never made that connection before!

So I am into all the re words - recovery, resilience, regeneration, recuperation, revival, restorative, reenergised...

It is astonishing and inspiring to see how people respsond to difficulties far worse than mine. I jist have to think of the paralympics or the book The Diving Bell and The Butterfly by Jeam-Dominique Baugy, and the world of regemerative medicine is almost incredible - see Tony Robbin's book Life Force.

So for a few weeks there, when I woke in the morning and my mind raced around the world and back but my body said 'Sorry, I am not going anywhere! ' I had to ssay okay, I understand you need all your energy for healing right now. I will be patient.

As Karen said, healing isn't limear.

This one tiny quince scents the whole room! Possibly my favourite smell in all the world.

10 Comments

Simply..crises....

9/9/2024

15 Comments

I quite simply haven't known how to write (or whether to write) about the family crises which have occurred this year.

Partly for reasons of privacy and partly because I don't have, and don't really wamt, a categorty called Simply Crises!! Writing his blog has been somthing of an antidote.

A worsening of my eye condition, an unexpected divorece, a fraught house purchase, 999 calls and emergency hospital admissions, the putting down of a beloved family pet, a cancer diagnosis (mine. I am okay now) - it's only as most of these are somewhat resolved that I feel I can write about them now.

Whew!

15 Comments

Simply..uplifting....

12/7/2024

1 Comment

I am living life in a beautiful state of........(fill in your word).

Today it was I am living life in a beautiful state of resting.

1 Comment

Simply..it all depends....

6/7/2024

8 Comments

How you start your day all depends on your own situation.

There was a point in my life when I had a huge very noisy alarm clock with two bells, sitting on top of an empty bisvuit tin to wake me. I had a full time job, was studying and bringing up two children on my won.

Only you can know what is best for you in your circumstances and with your temperament. You might start by imagining your ideal start to the day, and seeing if you can perhaps build in an element of that - work from your best case scenario and see how close to that you can manage!

I have gradualy tweaked my start to the day to set myself up to be positive, productive and happy and strong. It quite often works. Takes practice. :-)

I'm setting up July to be a super-healthy month.

Join me?

8 Comments

Simply..any opportunity....

27/6/2024

10 Comments

..to celebrate the beautiful things.

Midsummer night and a brandy Alexander.

10 Comments

Simply..in order to flourish....

4/6/2024

6 Comments

..(flourish is my word for the year) Joie de vivre has to be cultivated, and la doce vita has to be created! By me.

Occasionally at lucky times these just happen, but mostly they require my attention and effort. I do flourish if I can have a little of them each day. The garden is flourishing, friendships are flourishing, and some precious relationships which sometimes flourish in times of adversity..

Can you think of an English equivalent of those two expressions - joie de vivre and la doce vita - other than direct translations?

Forgive me if posts are a bit erratic this month. Late or even missing. There's a lot going on!

Happy June everyone,

6 Comments

Simply..before I leave....

15/5/2024

7 Comments

..the subject of Denmark, I thought you might find this film interesting. It's a 45 minute long film made by journnalist and advocate for Scottish independence Lesley Riddoch and gives a good insight into the Danish way of life (the population is similar in size to that of Scotland).

I found it fascinating.

7 Comments

<<Previous

Simply..scent and memory....

Simply..variety....

Simply..face to face February....

Simply..a frosty walk....

Simply..two....

Simply..bread and daffodils....

Simply..a city tour.....

Simply..2025....

Simply..wishing you....

Simply.. supermoon ....

Simply..November....

Simply..uplifting....

Simply..IRL/URL

Simply..deciding to decide....

Simply..I repeat myself....

Simply..Banksy....

Simply..who do you listen to....

Simply..the sun in the morning....

Simply..statistically speaking....

Simply..crises....

Simply..uplifting....

Simply..it all depends....

Simply..any opportunity....

Simply..in order to flourish....

Simply..before I leave....

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