The World Examining Works

Storytelling

 

 

These clusters of berries look horribly toxic.  Beware!

 

The pin oak leaf I found on my walk this morning was  astoundingly big - much bigger than the apple that I found to compare it to. Anyway...

Yesterday we all worked to make a gigantic leaf pile. Leaves were piled in the wagon and hauled from all over.

They were swept up from everywhere.

The heap was so big you could get lost in it.

Afterwards we drew pictures. Henry drew a worm. Then several worms - in fact a whole family of them...

The smell of the leaves, the crunchiness of them, the scatchy little bits of them that get inside your clothes. I think as we get older we forget some of this until we revisit it again through our children and their children.

When I was a child we lived in Essex in England in a gamekeeper's cottage on the Thorndon Hall estate - a rather magical setting for a splendidly dull middle-class childhood where I spent my whole time longing for something to happen. Much later on, when we were living in Morocco and England seemed very far away, I wrote a memoir of my leaf-scuffing, magic-seeking self in which all the stuff that I wanted to happen  did happen. But quite a lot of it is about Guy Fawkes and making miniature gardens on trays and brothers who are bothersome...

It was published as a book  - Jane in Winter - here but is now available on Kindle Direct where you can read the first pages free.

I'm working on a summer story now but it's progressing rather slowly.

Seasonal

 

A rather gray morning up in Union Square. I think soup was being devoured at ten in the morning.

Wreaths and potatoes -- an excellent combo. I bought Butterball ones.

Santa was wandering about, but without his full costume --maybe it is being readied for the big night.

Waiting to see Santa in ABC Carpet. Everyone looking downwards....

Back home we have the tree up with the little old houses that I think are German

a splendid old ball with the silvering coming off --very shabby-chic --

and some of the little German angels I bought when the children were small

and lastly Gretchen who will be having her very first Christmas.

 

Merry Christmas 

Wintry Delights and a Giveaway

Always something appealing about the absence of leaves

so we can see the squirrel more clearly

and the moon still up in the early morning.

Glorious red berries in the flower district --sadly, the sort that start dropping allover the floor as soon as you put them in a jug.

But the amyrillis! Well, all the lovely tall stems did was fall over so....rather short amyrillises now.

And yes, I did get to see the tree and the angels

and looked at all the people taking pictures of stuff being  projected onto a building across the street.

As ever, being the sort of people who are slow to catch on to things, (The Sopranos, Downton Abbey, Twin Peaks) we have started watching 30 Rock and here is the statue of the very same......

Time for holiday shopping! As they did last year, the kind people at Novica who specialize in handcrafted presents from all round the world, have given me a $50 gift code to give to a reader of my blog. So please comment by Monday 10th!

They wanted me specially to mention their new gift finder which sorts presents into categories. Personally I love the silk scarves.....

 

Henry

 

 

 

 

 

Bliss

 

 

Yesterday at the dog park (where I'm known for watering the concrete) I was given a late Christmas present. I hadn't seen anything like it since 1956.

So I rushed home where where my family were forced to take a break in watching the Twilight Zone marathon and coopted into setting it up. Very exciting indeed.

Well......

It looked like some sort of surreal crown. A miniature paper world of mountain, trees and garden.

By this morning a new world was born.....

 

Happy New Year

 

 

Season's Greetings

 

 

Wishing everyone a most peaceful and lovely Christmas.

 

 

 

 

A Party

 

 

What fun to have a birthday just before Christmas

with presents to unwrap

and cousins to help you unwrap them.

 

 

Seasonal: AKA Too Much

 

 

A treat, I think, to be alone for an instant and without any colors this in-your-face season.

However, this neo-hippie Cinnamonsnail cookie truck was just round the corner

as was this vehicle (what on earth do you call it?)

Santa's helper was putting up cool items like 'Marzipan Star' outside Donut Planet. I do not know if this is a donut or a drink.

So we decided to give a party and got out the old angels and the  petit chameau.

I discovered a Lenten Rose at Trader Joe's.

After the party there were many bottles waiting to be recycled

and birds to be observed.

Yesterday I ventured out of my neighborhood and went to the East 60's where women wear lots of makeup and there are glittering shops

a formidable lion

tourists transfixed by Bloomingdale's windows

and very cool decorations for an elf to observe.

 

Heavenly

 

 

 

An excerpt from A Christmas Carol 1843

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time.  Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?"  demanded Scrooge.  "Are they still in operation?"

"They are.  Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?"  said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh!  I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge.  "I'm very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.  We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.  What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge.  "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.  I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry.  I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."  

Now I know who Newt Ginrich's idol is! 

 

So

the sky above Macy's

and the little garden next to our building.

Lenten rose at Union Square green market.

My friend Susanna Gordon, the brilliant photographer and all around nice person, has a much kinder take on the season HERE

A must see post!

 

 

 

Fuel: or how not to get anything done.....

 

 

In order to do anything

one must get fueled up for it.

Eat. Sharpen the pencils.

Ponder tidying things up.

Observe the accidental by products of creativity.

Look at other people's work.

Give up and take the dog for a walk.

Ponder the Christmas tree's last evening.

Look at ghost trees.

Think it's about time to get down to work.

Maybe.