Thoughts of a Soo

   Singing as the Darkness Lifts 29/01/2024 Podbean Link for those who like to listen Ronnie is a little blurred outside the venue for the yarn show, but taking another photo was not an option because after this photo he landed in a pigeon poo and had to hibernate for a while until it was bubble bath time. Or as Alt Text puts it: 'A stuffed animal flying in the air'. This morning it is raining and there is a comforting smell of woodsmoke riding the air. At the weekend we returned from eight days in Welwyn Garden City and our time at the ‘Wool in Garden City’ yarn show. During those days and on arrival back home I felt as though I had been transported into a completely different life of meeting people and talking about Kath’s design work. It felt like I was being extended, exercising a different side of me. I liked this. The cottage we stayed in whilst we were away, was nicely remote (although I don’t really miss the drive down the bumpy old track to ge...

I loved being interviewed for the 'Meet the Poet' feature this month and it was a lovely way to start the new year. I always enjoy reading interviews and to be featured made me smile. Thank you Miss Yerem for including me on Meet the Poet: Sue Finch .   This kind of joyful feeling...     Ronnie jumping for joy above a shingle beach. The sky is blue and there is a sign in the background. I don't think the sign said 'No Jumping for Joy'.

Singing as the Darkness Lifts Podbean link for those who like to listen  This morning the air smells clear and clean, like the breeze on cloud-skimmed mountain tops. In my dreams last night, squirrels hatched from gossamer spun eggs in the branches of fir trees. The tree I stood under was full of them, and I watched in awe as the white webs dissolved and the creatures emerged fully formed. These were red squirrels, but perhaps the dream came from seeing black squirrels whilst staying in a cottage in a field near a wood. I am not sure I have ever seen black squirrels before and I had to check with someone who lived locally that my eyes were not deceiving me. In the past week I have sung with a local choir, sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to my sister and I celebrate my voice for doing these things. If you had asked me a year ago if I was likely to go out and sing with others I would have told you I don’t have a voice for that kind of thing. And yet on Wednesday last week I stopped working at ...

Singing as the Darkness Lifts 15/01/2024 Photo of blue-footed booby x 2 via vecteezy.com Today's photo is of two blue-footed booby birds and by the end of this blog you may be able to work out why. Today smells like cold margarine tubs. There is no ground frost, but there is a sense in the air of it being cold enough for snow. To counteract this I showered with a warming egg nog shower gel that my sister bought me for Christmas and the contrast was wonderful.   Today is what I am calling ‘Itchy and Scratchy Day’. I have been hearing a scuttling in the loft, and today we have someone from a pest control company coming out to help us identify what is causing it.    When the scuttling noise first started my wife did not really hear it as much as me. I paid it quite a lot of attention and could even tell you what times of day it had been happening. Sometimes it seemed to be one creature with a clear lunchtime and bedtime routine and now I think i...

Singing as the darkness lifts 08/01/2024 A heart-shaped crisp on a red background, 2013. A different heart shaped crisp on a black background, 2023.    Another heart-shaped crisp on brown card, 2023.   This morning the smell that rides on the air reminds me of my brother. There is a tinge of paraffin and I am transported back to the times when we were young and the temperature dropped, and to protect the cacti in his greenhouse paraffin was decanted into a lamp. I remember him crouched for the lighting and me finding delight in the shape of that lamp (like something from a fairy tale) and the way the wick was wound up slowly and with such care.   One of the highlights of last week was being featured on Annick’s blog and it felt especially good to be there at the beginning of a new year. I loved the questions that were posed and had fun answering them.   There are certain smells recounted there too so if you haven’t read it yet do have a r...

  Singing as the Darkness Lifts 01/01/2024   It was difficult to place the smell as the day started this morning. The closest I could get was the smell of the inside of a new fridge door.    Sleep time last night was framed by the moon. First of all in a sky punctuated by fireworks as we took a midnight walk, and this morning on the other side of the house when I got up to make the first cups of tea of the new year.   It was good to walk at midnight and to make the discovery that we see more fireworks by going in the opposite direction to the one we have often taken on previous years. The weather has been rainy and windy over the past few days so it felt good that our little stroll to welcome in 2024 pretty much remained dry.   I missed writing my blog last week. I decided not to write as it was Christmas Day and I felt it would not really fit in, but it felt strange having started a new habit of making this ...