Sunday Scribblings - Vision

Vision - what a great word to start from, so many directions in which to go, I'll have to see what comes when I follow my nose over this landscape or seascape if that's where I am.

I'm letting the words simply flow...

Visions are things of great value to the mystic and even more to the myopic.

Visions of the future, of the potential, of the possible drive many of us on.

Some say all you need to do to get something into your life is to visualise it clearly. But be warned sometimes wishes are granted... and if you visualise yourself having to climb lots of stairs to get there... you may well have to do just that.

Whilst asleep we have a different sort of vision, the sights, sounds and full virtual reality of dreams... did they ever really believe that dreams were in monochrome? Mine have always been in full colour... and I made sure when I heard that daft theory to name the colours to myself in my dreams to help me recall them clearly later...

Television... vision from a distance... no great feat of psychic performance required just that miracle of technology and electricity... but I've grown bored by the images that flicker on the box... I prefer to read or listen to the radio... the pictures really are so much better.

Vision... you look an absolute vision of delight, tonight, in the candlelight...

For more Sunday Scriblings - see Vision.

Punchline

Punchline - for Illustration Friday. Drawn using Corel Painter.

I found several different reference pictures of Mr Punch and drew my own versions of them... in a line. I think each of them is really hamming it up!

Digitally Painted in Corel Painter

Originally this had a bit of a jesterish Mr Punch in it but now it makes me think of forests and greenmen... what do you see in it?

Finally, here is an article I scanned from New Scientist a while ago :

Its conclusion is that our brains have decided what to do before we consciously decide... In other words our brain has decided for us before we know it... I'm not sure how this really works in practice... is consciousness simply a symptom of the way our brains are organised? Nor do I know whether or not this is good research or an appropriate conclusion to draw from it... my brain isn't giving me any clues...

Their experiment involved having to punch buttons... probably why I, or my brain, thought to put it in here.

Celebrating a December Wedding in June!

Tinker has invited everyone to celebrate the June Honeymoon with her on Saturday June 14th. After attending a lovely wedding at the end of May she has been carried away for the last two weeks on a tide of romance and thoughts of June weddings despite her own having been some other time...

Mine too. Jim and I were married in December 2000. And I never have got around to putting up photos of our own wedding, despite the fact that for a wedding the May before, where Jim was best man, we'd put up a whole load as part of their wedding present - here. So now I'm taking this opportunity to show a little of ours.

On Leap Day 2000 we were celebrating having been together for 5 years, then I proposed to Jim... and luckily he agreed ;-)

This was my second wedding so rather than white (or the nearest shade that suits me) I choose to be married in blue. I did go and try on lots of traditional dresses, I also contemplated making my own... but I ended up buying a simple long dress and was more than happy with it. I made the shawl to go with it... also a lacy cape, though I've not found any photos of that yet...

My real treat was the tiara - I'd always longed for one. It may only be a fake but what a wonderfully sparkly thing it is; I felt like a princess.

We were married in Cornwall because we both would like to live there one day; though so far that's not been possible. The actual venue was an old fort - Polhawn Fort - on Rame Head - its a bit like a big self-catering holiday cottage set-up for weddings... We hired the fort for a weekend. Various friends came with us on the Friday and we had a fun time decorating it and making it all ready for the next day. The fort sleeps over 20 so quite a few people were able to stay there, others choose to stay in nearby B&Bs. It was a long way from everyone's homes so we were very lucky that so many people choose to come!

The wedding service was conducted by the local marriage registrar... we hadn't met her before the day but we couldn't have chosen anyone more suitable... and I was in tears during the wedding itself... I was quite taken aback by the emotion of the whole occasion.

Once the wedding itself had happened Jim and I snuck out to take our own photo of ourselves on the cliff edge, using a remote control on my SLR.

We had specifically decided against hiring an official photographer and simply took our own cameras and handed out lots of disposable ones to our guests. This was wonderful. It meant there was no-one bossing us around or organising us. No-one intrusively taking photos - just everyone who would have been snapping away, snapping away anyway.

When I looked up from taking this shot of us I found that despite the lack of a professional photographer to organise them all the guests had got themselves together for a group shot:

We then joined them and had fun attempting to take group shots of all of us, using a camera placed a little too far away in failing light...

And the light really was fading. The wedding itself had been at 4 pm and as this was the beginning of December the sun had already officially set... (15:54). I can see the appeal of long June days now... :-)

The weather was however amazingly warm. We were incredibly lucky. And although it then proceeded to rain buckets over the next week whilst we honeymooned in Cornwall at least on the day it had been dry.

One of the advantages of handing out cameras to all the guests was the variety of choice of subjects - my favourite are these self-portraits taken by one of my sister's boys:

It was a wonderful day. I've enjoyed recalling it to share it here now. Thank you Tinker for thinking of this!

And as a final image - Jim's mother, Mary, made us this lovely memento:

Thank you for joining me on this little journey down memory lane.

Squiggles

Patience is rewarded

Its here at last - at the end of February we ordered some new furniture for our sitting room. And look its here! I may be spending the next few days with my feet up... ah...

Yesterday I suddenly remembered I'd been planning to put the old futon we'd been using onto freecycle. I got it on at 5 pm and it was collected before 10 pm - what's more by someone who'd been asking for a futon for the last week and a half so actually wanted it. I'm really glad its gone to a good home. And even gladder that we've got this new seating now.

The people delivering it had all the parts wrapped in great big bags with straps - the bags protected it and made it reasonably easy to slide around - and they took them away to use again so no cardboard to recycle.

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My blog still seems to not being published in bloglines. As blogger is owned by google I'm suspicious that this is an attempted to move us all over to google reader... and I've succumbed... its rather good actually.

Testing, Testing

My blog seems to have stopped being updated in bloglines...

If you get this via a feed please let me know!

Update:

So far the feed from this blog has been confirmed as okay by:

Google Reader (thanks Adele)
newsfire RSS (thanks Colin)

And definitely not working in Bloglines (thanks Andrea)

Illustration Friday - Forgotten

Its so long since I've done an Illustration Friday I'd forgotten how difficult it is to select what medium I've used on the input page.... this one was drawn in pencil and pen then scanned and inverted.

In fact I think its almost a year... the last one being Fortune last July.

What do you do to help yourself remember things?

Let Play Tag

Its ages and ages since I did one of these things... this is one that Jo had on Spinning Against The Tide

The Rules

Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags some people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. Five things I was doing 10 years ago:

1. In 1998 I was studying HK (I've written quite a bit more up about this here)
2. I got Reiki attunements
3. I studied anatomy & physiology
4. Also interview skills for therapists
5. And a course on running a therapy business (that one was a waste of time and money, the rest weren't!)
   

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

I don't have to-do lists... I always feel overly constrained by them. Carla's current coaching posting is about them...

Here are 5 things I have done:

1. 2 loads of washing.
2. Sent distance healing to someone.
3. Checked the plants in the solar shed with Jim - some are doing almost too well and need planting out - luckily he's now finished the construction (raised beds and trellis) that was holding us up from planting things outside.
4. Made a particularly good Mexican-style breakfast that is turning out to have been a brunch.
5. Finished reading a book.
   

3. Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Hot cocoa - it may be a drink but its definitely also a snack.
2. Lindt's 99% cocoa.
3. Salted roasted pecans - overly salty but yummy.
4. Salted crisps - ditto!
5. Jim's sourdough toasted.
   

4. Five things I would do if I was a billionaire:

1. Stop dreaming about becoming a billionaire!
2. Buy a house with 2-3 acres in the Cotswolds - its where I grew up but we can't afford the kind of place I grew up in since it became stockbroker belt... As a child we kept lots of animals and had what seemed like a vast garden - I'm hankering for something similar though preferably not next to the busy A417!
   
3. Make sure all my family are okay for money too.
4. Give some of it to the Woodland Trust (I'm already a life member).
5. Have a housekeeper - now that would be a real luxury - I'm not much cope at it but love having a clean and tidy house.
   

5. Five places I have lived:

1. Duntisbourne Abbotts (that's the Cotswold village I grew up in).
2. Cirencester (where we moved after my father died and my mother had to sell the business).
   
3. Upper Dowdeswell (where I went to recharge my batteries after my first marriage broke down).
   
4. Paradise, Painswick (where I was living when I got together with Jim)
   
5. Bristol (where I've lived on and off in different parts for rather a lot of the last 23 years)
   

I shall tag Dru, Joy Eliz, Tinker, Imelda and anyone else who wants to play along!
(Don't worry if you don't want to do it - this is not compulsory!)

Update: Something I had no idea I'd make today so could not possibly have been on a to do list - a hummingbird SoulCollage® card - on my card blog.