Today’s the day…

Kahlil Gibran on Love

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Wink!

Beautiful Roses – High Summer

England is enjoying some spectacular weather at the moment! Yes, I did say that. Unusual, I know, but we have had hot, sunny days for a while now and more to come. Is it a coincidence, I wonder; that my husband is arriving from Tennessee next week? Is he bringing his weather with him? I rather doubt it because where he has been staying for a few weeks in South Carolina, there has been thunderstorms and heavy rain every day.  Perhaps he’ll bring those too.

I have been preparing the cottage for his arrival. There are lots of differences to life over here. I wonder how he will cope? What will he notice first? Our lack of air conditioning perhaps? The birds are different here. They look different and they sound different. There are no mocking birds, humming birds or cardinals. Instead we have blackbirds, who sing so very beautifully, wood pigeons, little English robins and tiny wrens. I’m just thinking of my own garden now. With two cats, the birds like to keep away. We have no cicadas or poisonous snakes and our butterflies are smaller. There are no fireflies either.

From my own observations I can say that the trees are different. Ours are not so tall and they are more gnarled looking. We have miles of hedges.  Did you know you can tell the age of a hedge by the number of species of plant and tree in it?

We drive on the left hand side and there are many, many roundabouts. We are allowed to park cars on the side of the road so driving becomes a bit like an obstacle course.

We have double-decker buses. Ours are painted turquoise. We use public transport a lot because our petrol is very expensive. Because I am over 60 I travel free on the local buses, whether they are in my own town or someone elses.

I don’t pay for my prescriptions because I am over 60 years old. Our National Health Service is free at the point of use.

Time for another picture:

I am more than excited about L’s arrival and have been ‘nesting’ for a few weeks now. Only a few more days now…

Dylan update = cooking with Oma.

This is my grandson Dylan last Friday. We did cooking. Here he is waiting for me to fill his bowl with flour. He added the egg himself and did most of the mixing. He made some lovely fairy cakes.  Unfortunately I can’t show them to you because they got eaten too quickly.

Dylan is a very sociable little boy.  He likes to be doing something all the time, sometimes two things at once! and he talks non-stop all day long.

Please notice my nice new floor. This is its first viewing after being replaced.  Do you remember I told you that it became 80% saturated after a series of leaks under the sink? Thank the Lord we were insured so the work was done for us and they even managed to find the same cushion-flooring that we had down before.  I was glad about that because it took me ages to choose it and I didn’t feel like going through all that again.

News! I have news about my American cat Millie.  Millie will be coming to live with me here in England on April 10th! Her flight is booked and she will be travelling alone so I will go down to Heathrow to meet her there. I’m sure she will appreciate a friendly voice after her long flight. I haven’t told my English cat Patch yet!

Even better news is that my dh L will be coming over himself in the Autumn to see if he can become accustomed to living here with our grey skies and rain showers. He is currently in the process of sorting out all his stuff.  Of course it is a massive undertaking and all will depend on when and if he gets a settlement visa but I’m looking on the positive side and keeping my fingers crossed.

So this will be a very busy year for me.

I’m on daffodil watch at the moment. So far there are no daffodils blooming in my garden. It’s just been too cold but this week the weather is set to change so I am hopeful. Today was a lovely, warm(ish) Spring day and everybody felt much better for it.

How is the weather in your neck of the woods?

Oma