Angels in the sky

Dawn Chorus 4am

Love....some favourite quotes that hold truth for me right now...

We sat side by side in the morning light and looked out at the future together.

Brian Andres


Is a life worth living, without no one to love and to be loved in return?

Zena Joy Pym


It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld


Love at first sight is possible, but it pays to take a second look.

Anonymous


Love is the only kind of fire which is never covered by insurance.

Anonymous

Two separate, distinct personalities, not separate at all, but inextricably bound, soul and body and mind, to each other, how did we get so far apart so fast?

Judith Guest


If love is shelter, I'm going to walk in the rain.

Source Unknown


Love is like a game of chess: One false move and you're mated.

Anonymous


Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists.... When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence.

Erich Fromm



Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it.

Joan Vinge

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

Erica Jong
1942-, American Author


I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal.

Vita Sackville-West



when you are always on my mind and my heart hurts when you are gone what is it that i feel, if it is not love

naomi kay


When a heart finds another, what's a cloud more or less in the sky?

Wolf and Page


The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements, compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.

Kahlil Gibran
1883-1931, Lebanese Poet, Novelist

God made many puzzle pieces, but only those two 'cut out' for each other, can fit together to create a perfect and beautiful picture.

Jessica Cochran


Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.

Jean Pierre Claris De Florian


This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess.

Rainer Maria Rilke
1875-1926, German Poet


We have to realize that we are as deeply afraid to live and to love as we are to die.

Ronald David Laing


A heart that loves is always young.

Greek Proverb


The pain of love is the pain of being alive. It is a perpetual wound.

Maureen Duffy


Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.

Francois de La Rouchefoucauld

Life, the universe and everything...

Today I officially start my third Open University course, and it looks fascinating. I knew that atoms were made from protons, neutrons and electrons, but wow! even just flicking through the course book, I hadn't realised how many particles atoms really contain!!! They have such strange group as Hadrons (larger particles like protons and neutrons and their anti-particles) and Leptons (such as electrons, positrons (anti-electrons), muon and taus (also with their anti- equivalents), which are divided into Baryons, Antibaryons and Mesons. The sub-particles of which have brilliant names such as Ups, Downs, Charms, Stranges, Tops and Bottoms!!! Leave a physicist in charge and that's what you get :-D


Anyway, that's how the course starts, but it goes on to explore the universe from the beginning of time and into the future, multiple dimensions, strings and all kinds of other weird stuff...



This is going to be one heck of a course!!!

Flowers in the bowers...(and other places)

Bluebells in the shady spots of the woods catch the colour of spring...


For window boxes geraniums and lobelia are just the thing...


And a scattered trail that made the sixties swing...

Above the clouds

Reason, Season or Lifetime?

My good friend Akemalu recently sent this to me in the post, and my thoughts keep coming back to it...maybe it explains a lot of things in my life:

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person..
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support,
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons,
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson,
love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

Thank you for being a part of my life,
whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime.

Sunsets on Samsø

Easter was a strange time. Just over six months since my mum died and we'd had the cremation ceremony with friends and family, we buried her ashes...

The Saturday that begun the two weeks break we buried half mum's ashes with my dad in the local churchyard. The ceremony was simple, and consisted of only family along with a couple of other friends who'd missed the cremation - one of whom had come over from Denmark with mum, and who'd trained as a nurse with her when she was in her twenties. A few words were said by the village vicar, and then we lowered the ashes, threw a handful of dirt, and filled in the hole ourselves. It wasn't as hard this time as the first time, but I have to say I felt another tie snap and mourned a little more.



Mum's elderly brothers couldn't make it from Denmark nor France for the burials, and we wanted the link with mum's birthplace to stay strong, so we had decided some time back to take her ashes back to the Island where she was born and scatter them with her brothers present. But, when we arrived there, my uncle couldn't bear the thought that folks would walk over her ashes, so we agreed to bury the rest of her remains in the churchyard she was married to dad in next to her parents.


Apart from having to negotiate with the local priest in Danish (luckily my younger sister had lived in Denmark for a year when she was in her thirties, so was able to guide us through this very tricky discussion :-) ) and apart from needing to purchase an urn from a local urn maker, it turned out to be a straight forward process. Nearly two weeks after burying half of mum's ashes at home, we buried the other half in the other place her heart was...on the island of Samsø, Denmark.

Funny, it wasn't what we'd envisaged. We knew the Danish there had lovely little gardens around each grave, where some had placed little seats, others flowers or trees, others yet had places some kind of memorial. Most 'headstones' were simple stones with 'mor' (mum) or 'far' (dad) painted on or carved. Some just said a name, such as 'Jens' or 'Signe'...no surname for it is unecessary in a plot that belongs to a family. Their christian names are who they were known as so only they are necessary in death. Some chose to be buried in the 'unmarked' part of the graveyard...wanting no lasting memorial for themselves. There was no cost for burying mum there as she'd retained her Danish nationality.


The ceremony was simply to lower the urn in the flower rimmed hole (they'd placed a perfect sized wreath to cover the hole, but to allow the urn to be passed into it...very pretty. That was it. No words. Just a general 'goodbye'.


Well, it was strange having three funerals for mum...and we joked that only she could have so many ceremonies for her, but we were all glad that we had done this last one...it was special to share it with her brother and the family present over there. It gave us and them a place to return to if ever we wanted to 'visit' mum, for we had wondered if we'd ever go back if there was no reason to go (being easier to remain on the mainland with her extended family in the lovely village by the sea where they lived!)


And, thankfully, that brings a closure to mum's life so we are able to move forward without her...

Its better to have loved and lost....?

I used to think that phrase was right...how wonderful to find love in these lives of ours that can prove so difficult and hard sometimes. How amazing to find someone to love and have that chance to be really, truly happy. How even more amazing to find someone to love who loves you back!! Of course it is better to experience that than never to have known this feeling!




Why wouldn't it be?




When I least expected it, I found love. And more amazingly, I was loved back. It really was the most incredible experience of my whole life. I felt the luckiest person alive. And so did he. We couldn't stop smiling. We couldn't stop thinking of each other. All we wanted to do was be together. We talked of a lifetime. We talked of pensions and the future. I never felt so happy. Not only did I love him, but I was in love with him too.




And being loved by the person you love? Wow! The best feeling in the world! There is nothing like looking over at someone and seeing the love in their eyes as they look back at you. There is nothing like that little touch in passing which sends electricity right through both of you. There is nothing like hugging that person you love tightly, and feeling them hold you close, hearing his deep breaths as he's equally shaken.




And the kisses...the kisses that turn you into a puddle, melting at his feet. Oh how earth moving were the kisses! And then you pull away and look right into his eyes, and you swear you can see right into his soul...and what you see there wraps you up in a warm blanket, makes you dance as you work, makes you want to sing loudly in the car.




All the other bad things in your life become more remote. They don't touch you so harshly. With someone you love to share your day with everything seems to glitter and shine, to become brighter, dimming anything negative and lighting up all the good things so you want to burst with happiness. God, how amazing that feeling and oh so fantastic! It is the greatest pleasure that can ever be given to a person.






So, now its over, why do I wish I'd never had it?