Not a happy (Kombucha) bunny

Kombucha bunny: happy or not?
Living in France now, though it's not hot
Sitting in a cool bag just to keep him warm
Kombucha Bunny, brewing up a storm

Looking like a jellyfish, floating like a log
Has no hands to type with so he cannot have a blog
Not that he would want one, even if he knew
how to say "I'm floating. And that's all I do"

What about the future? Do you have a past?
Do you have a family? Are you going to last?
These are silly questions. They matter not a jot
Kombucha bunny: happy or not?

Back to Kombucha

I have just realised that I left a bit of a cliff-hanger, two posts ago, when I said I was worried about Mr Kombucha. (Not that I really think anybody hangs on my every word, of course!) So I thought I had better elaborate.

From some January posts you will know that Lisbeth has been making her own Kombucha drink since she was given a baby Kombucha at Xmas. (Not FOR Xmas, that's just coincidence.) Her Kombucha culture (looking like a thick jellyfish) sits in its tea/sugar liquid (more like 'floats'), making itself into a drink over a ten day period. For this it needs to be kept warm. In England, it resided in the sitting room which could be guaranteed the warmest room in the house. Here, however, all the rooms are much cooler (no central heating) and even the warmest is, I fear, not really warm enough. I see that she has stood him in a sort of insulated bag. Even so, I do worry that Mr Kombucha is not a happy bunny at the moment.

Pruning the vines

After lunch, today, Lisbeth pruned the two grape vines that grow, one along the wall of the terrace and the other against the house. For those of you in England, and in case you buy a house in France, you may be interested to know that you take off all old shoots leaving the newer ones. Of the newer ones, you select only one (nearest the mother) and cut it back to two buds. The rest you cut out. The other thing to remember is that you don't want too many shoots on the mother, so you cut out everything other than good young shoots approximately 2ft 6" apart. And that's pruning the vine. (I'm aware that this must be sounding like some sort of country dance: a French version of 'strip the willow'!) Anyway, Lisbeth went on to prune other things until it rained. Then we lit the open fire and did a bit of 'being by the fire'. What more could anyone want?

A really French day

Lisbeth is beginning to find her French feet after a hectic few days traveling, unpacking, sorting and cleaning. Today she was invited to eat with her French friends (Gangof4) in the local town. They meet every week for a drink in one bar, then walk to another to eat, all at a very leisurely pace. When here, Lisbeth usually meets up with them in the first bar, however today, she was their guest for the meal in bar 2 which made her feel very welcome. Following this, they adjourned to one of their houses for more coffee and biscuits and lots of lovely conversation.

At 4.30pm, it was back home in Postman Pat and a visit to yet more French friends, just down the road, to say bonjour and deliver some goodies she had brought them from England.

I spent the day worrying about Mr Kombucha!

Postman Pat meets the church clock

So there you have it. Postman Pat parked next to the church in very French France. The photo is taken from one of the bedroom windows - and yes, the church is that close - and yes, the clock chimes every hour. In fact, it chimes each hour twice. So at ten, for example, it chimes ten, pauses, than chimes ten again. (And it's loud) I know! That's what I thought. Then, as if that were not enough, at seven in the morning, mid-day and seven in the evening, it does the 2 x seven/twelve chimes, then does extra dongs in a 'dong-dong, dong-dong, dong-dong', sort of a way.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about all this is that Lisbeth loves the clock and says that she knows she's home when she hears the first chimes.

A woolly sort of a day

Taken all in all, there's something very comforting about wool.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm
And it's so very flexible: You can wind wool, want wool, wear wool, wet wool, wash wool, whirl wool, wrap wool, weave wool and wobble wool. You can wheedle your way into borrowing something woolly and even wish upon a woolly star.

As if she's never been away..........

Lisbeth's arrived and the house is swamped with stuff. I have no idea what all this stuff is that she keeps bringing over, nor why she thinks she needs it all, but there you go............. I think she packed the boxes some time ago and now they've arrived, even she is surprised by what's in them!

She's been fighting a bit of a losing battle with the cold and damp, this afternoon, trying to get heat into the place. It is cold, there's no doubt about that. A house that's been shut up for over three months in the winter is always going to be hard to reheat. Still, bit by bit, over the next week, it will start to warm up.

It does begin to feel more like home, though, despite her only being here half a day. I like having her back.

This is not en route to France

Lisbeth is on her way to me in France. She'll be on the night boat and traveling down to me on Sunday.

This photo, on the other hand, is of trusty Postman Pat when he carried my house mate safely to Wales last month. (Note the boat on the estuary.) I've put it into this post just to capture the notion of traveling and journeys and visiting and adventure and moving on and living life to the full and life in the (not so) fast lane and.................

Lisbeth is Madame Conducteur (Driver) this weekend. I hope the motorways in Britain are not too busy and I hope that the motorways in France are easy-peasy-never-queasy. (And the boat, of course.)

Anticipation of the return

I am getting very excited in anticipation of Lisbeth's arrival on Sunday. It's been a long four months since she left and I just can't wait to have her back.

Needless to say, she'll hit this place like a whirling dervish. She'll throw open the shutters to let in the light and fresh air before unloading Postman Pat and filling the sitting room with boxes and stuff she's brought from England. Then she'll be putting back fuses, turning things on and connecting things up. Beds will be made up and fires lit. Rugs will be put back on the floor (taken up in case of damp), stuff taken out of storage, furniture put back in place and the kitchen re-animated. And that's only in the first couple of hours! It wears me out just thinking about it.

So I have just two more quiet days before the house bursts into life and the next phase of our French adventure begins....................

Nothing to say

I've nothing to say today, today
I've nothing that wants to be said
No thing, no say, no me, no day
What a thing to not say, today

From clutter to cash update, update!

We can certainly say that Lisbeth's heart was in the right place when she opted to sell her clutter for Comic Relief. However, her brain seems to have been on hold when she counted her takings. When she took the money into the Post Office today she found that she had £95.00 not £75.00!

From clutter to cash update

Lisbeth has had a count up and, adding in the sale of a sledge today, the grand total is £75.00. "Well done you, Madame House Mate." A great success and well worth the effort. I think she still has quite a lot of things left but I expect she'll take it all to a charity shop. It's not only important for the house to be free from clutter but for Lisbeth's internal landscape to be free of mental clutter. Hence, clearing the former can help with letting go and clearing the latter....or so I'm told!

From clutter to cash

A rare photo of my house mate, sporting her Comic Relief red nose, selling her stuff in the garden. She said that she did her best to prevail upon the locals, en route to the shop, to buy as many items as possible before the rain and cold weather arrived. I don't know how much she made but I'll keep you posted.

Comic Relief

Lisbeth says that I should ask all my readers to: Give as much as you can to Comic Relief this weekend.

Something red for the weekend?

Have you noticed how often I use questions? I have questions within poems; often use them as post titles, as well as having sprinklings within my posts. Perhaps you could say I adopt a 'questioning approach' to how I construct my posts (or engage my readers)?

But I digress. My title, today, refers to Red Nose Day. It seems that Lisbeth is planning something but not on Red Nose Day itself. She's considering getting rid of some of her clutter by having a garage sale on Saturday (although she doesn't have a garage). She does have a small front garden and, as she lives next to a shop, there should be plenty of passing trade.

As a point of interest, did you know about the Westminster Nose-Free Zone? (Now that is a good question.) If you don't, you should click, read and think-on, as they say........

Thus Far has friends in the music industry?

Check out these albums

Thus Far

After many weeks of looking, I have at last adopted a sheep. I found it in Garf's Sheep Emporium. I've named it 'Thus Far' because Garf describes the breed as follows:

"The most reclusive of all sheep, this breed prefers a wooded environment. Possesses an unnerving ability to identify over seven varieties of cheese by scent alone. Favourite word: 'Thus'. Preferred tipple: Sheep dip on the rocks." Now that's my kind of sheep!

I've got a certificate (with a number) and everything!

Another photo from Giant Builder

The puppet certainly is big. I'm impressed.

I'm really sorry that Lisbeth wasn't able to make the trip up to York to stay with her friends and to see the procession itself. (I've put another photo in my sidebar.)

Counting the days

I'm counting the days to Lisbeth's return to France. It has seemed ages since she left and it will be great to have her back. The house is just too quiet and dull without her.

That being said, I am very proud of her for staying in England longer than planned and for sticking to the work that needed doing. She has been trying to sort things out there for a long time and I know that she can get quite down and demoralised. This time, however, she has worked her little socks off. (Not that I understand what socks have to do with anything!)

So what awaits her here? Well, apart from unloading a full-to-bursting van, opening up the house and getting everything up and running again, it will be full on gardening, I'm afraid, as everything is growing, growing, growing. After that, I expect we will discuss where I will go when I leave my winter quarters.

A giant puppet for York

Hot off the press is this photo of a puppet made by Giant Builder for a project in York Minster this week.

For more details and to see it in action, check out this video.

Visitor 2

Visitor 2, Oh who are you?
You look as if you're feeling blue
I like your horns. I like your patches
Were you mentioned in dispatches?
Don't be sad, just think it through
The world's your oyster
Visitor 2

To read, perchance to glean?

My visitor stats are approaching the thousand mark and my feedburner shows 3 signed-up readers. Hardly world domination, I know, but the journey of a thousand readers begins, as they say, with the first hit. I must own up to being a little ashamed that I check my visitor stats most days. This amuses me because the whole notion of having readers never entered my head when I started blogging.

So why, I muse, would people read what I write? Do I have novelty value (me bein' a sheep 'n all)? Or is it because I write well or write amusingly, perhaps? I can't really know. All I do know is that I find blogging quite therapeutic and, as I post most days, it gives me a sense of comfort in the familiarity of its form.

Why me, not her?

One of Lisbeth's friends has asked why I am writing this blog as opposed to Lisbeth. Good question. She did actually start one but said that couldn't find a 'tone' for it or a 'voice' she was happy with, so after several posts, she deleted it. This was all back in November last year and I think it was called 'Talking Practice'.

Her second attempt found her uncertain as to its purpose: a daily journal about how she was feeling or a diary of what she was doing. She appeared to favour the latter and wrote quite a bit about me as I had not long been over here and had just moved into my winter quarters. However, she deleted this attempt, as well, and gave it up as a bad job.

So then I started to write. Now you may not believe it, but you're probably better off with me than with Lisbeth. She has a tendency to do too much depth: you know, what's going on inside, how she's feeling (plus a bit of analysis for good measure). Whereas I can have a more detached view of her life and am full fat free to write about whatever takes my fancy.

So it works well: Lisbeth gets on with her life and isn't encouraged to dwell too much on her feelings; I am free to record, to comment, to offer advice and to have fun doing it.

From breadth to depth

I just couldn't resist the temptation to alter the previous post title from "breadth" to "depth". It seems more appropriate for the content of the post and a better fit with the original song. I don't know why I didn't realize that yesterday. It's good, though, don't you think: "Another day over and deeper in depth"? I am really enjoying thinking up clever titles. Well, I've got to do something half decent or Lisbeth will have me doing more Formal Talking Practice!

Another day over and deeper in depth

Having choices: that's a good thing, right? Making changes in your life (if they are for the right reasons) helps you grow as a person, right? So why is Lisbeth finding it so difficult?

One of the models in NLP offers a structured approach to thinking through the process of change. It's called a well-formed outcome. The final stage looks at the 'ecology' of the proposed changes, focusing on the possible consequences for both the person driving the change as well as for others who may be affected. This suggests that it isn't OK to just go ahead and make changes willynilly. (Nice word.) Life changing decisions require the application of some wisdom: 'right thought' and 'right action'. To be able to exercise these, I imagine that it is necessary to have a certain amount of self knowledge so that one can distinguish between decisions made on behalf of the soul, (good) and decisions driven by the default motives of the personality. (Not so good.)

When all the thinking has been done, the consequences considered and the decision made, then it's just a matter of trusting the process, trusting yourself to do the right thing, and trusting that others can be resourceful for themselves.

Job done, Lisbeth! Monsieur Mouton has spoken words of woolly wisdom

This is how it is

Well, this is a poor show this weekend. I don't know what to write about. I'm tired, a bit out of sorts and feeling somewhat distracted. I've made an attempt at a Formal Talking Practice on 'choice and change' but just couldn't seem to get it going. I may try again tomorrow, I'll see how things go.

I don't think Lisbeth, despite a great night on Saturday with friends, is feeling any better than I am. She says that she is beginning to feel the pressure of her impending return to France. There are lots of things that she needs to do before leaving, not to mention tackling some of the difficult decisions that are waiting in the wings. All of which are interfering with her sleep.

Still, I'm sure this is all 'par for the course', as they say. This is how life is, so this is how it is. It's just a weekend. Weekends pass and tomorrow is the start of another week.

Lisbeth update

I've had so much on recently that I had completely forgotten to update my tales of Lisbeth.

So...............now........let's see........ummm............Last week she went away to...........err...........somewhere to see somebody and she took some.....er....stuff to........er..........do something with and......umm.....then she .......errrr........got back and did some other stuff. Oh, and I think she's been painting fencing panels again.

What's more interesting is the cool Shaun the Sheep video in my sidebar.

To bleat, perchance to scream!

I've had some communication today about my poem. It seems that Lisbeth's friend, Mr Grammarman, has commented about my linking of 'poise' with 'because'.

I do know they're not an exact rhyme, Mr Grammarman, and it isn't because I'm "just a sheep" that the rhyme is as it is! (Shades of Green meets Grey Grazing?)

I actually chose to reject what might be thought of as a 'better' rhyme: "You have such charm, you have such poise. You lean. You look. You make no noise." My decision to reject a rhyme like this is because I'm working at a more sophisticated level than you might think!

Serious consideration was given to the utilization of 'because' as well as to my choice of posing a question: "You lean towards one side because?" As a result, this line is probably pivotal to the poem in that it subtly embodies the 'ish-ness' of Visitor 1. Look at the photo. Is she perfect? No. Does she have charm? Yes. Are there some questions as to her provenance? Yes. Is the photo intriguing? Yes.

Hence, this interrogative sentence, complete with slant rhyme, captures the charming uncertainties (think semiotics) of Visitor 1.

It's not called Talking Practice for nothing!