Visiting The Public, West Bromwich

Today I went to view a friend's M A ceramics exhibition being held in an

 exciting open gallery/ entertainment/ meeting place in West Bromwich.

This wonderful place is called The Public

Sadly it is closing in November to become a college,

 but even more sadly the interior is to be completely gutted

and all the lovely design destroyed.

To find out the history of The Public you can go to

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Public

Here is how it looked today in all it's glorious pinkness.

I lost track of the number of floors when I got inside.

Was it three or four floors I climbed through from the reception area?

The thing is, you can take the lift,

but the way to appreciate the building and the art work fully is by
climbing the winding ramps and suspended walk ways.

 With the reflective surfaces, changing light patterns, sounds effects, and open drops, 

this was not wonderful for my vertigo but
 rich in stimulation of the senses.

(I know it's very tame compared with Frank Gehry interiors
 which I've visited and found more challenging).

 The labels attached to this ramp are tied by local people who were invited
 to catalogue their appreciation of the building

 and what has happened in it since it opened.

 There were lovely interactive art installations on the ramps,

 though this great photo of mine shows none of them.

 I made electronic music,
 watched videos,
 shared laughter,

sent an animated bird-like creation flying around the ramps
 by dancing on an electronic pad,

and much more.

  

Here I am becoming part of the art work.

Fortuitously I was wearing toning pink which fit in with the décor!

Back on the ground floor
 and gravitating to a welcome little tooth full of something in the restaurant

 there were more yellow labels on the chairs.

 

The one at my table said

"It's good that people can come here,

have a snack,

 and meet other people".

I think that says it all really.

The Public

 has provided a magnificent space for the people of West Bromwich.

A focus, and a platform for them,

 and for folk from further afield.

 Where will the knitting group meet

 when this community space is closed I wonder?

The decision to lease the building to a local college

 has been taken by the local government authority

who created a trust to run The Public.

Despite the increasing volume of visitors

 no doubt the cost of running it has prompted the decision.

I wonder if it has taken a while for local people

 to begin to realise the full potential

 of this courageous venture?

  Now it is buzzing,
 and appreciation for it growing,

 alas, too late.

Money aside, are we too conservative,

 too timid,

or too quick to look for possible negatives,

 to take up new experiences,

allow them to mature,

and make the most of them

I wonder?

 Blessings

Just walking.... P.S.

The sense of tears turning to joy
 is written in
 the dying of the year at autumn
which holds in it's heart

 the seed for the rising of the new life of spring.

 The whole resurrection story is here

 written in creation for us to read.

 

And if for the grass of the field how much more so for us!

Today the rain,

 tomorrow the sunshine.

 

Today the letting go and the dying,

tomorrow the receiving of the new, and re-birth.

 

Truly
 "To every season there is a time..."

Listen to Judy Collins and Pete Seeger sing his timeless classic,
"Turn, Turn, Turn".

(It's got a bit of a cheesy intro but that only takes a moment!)

 

Be Blessed

 

Just Walking in the Rain

This Sunday my walk around the village and it's by- ways

 could not have been more different from last week.

 

The golden autumn has given way to rain soaked grey,

 but don't you think the sodden colours of the greenery is wonderful?

 

 

 

 Truth to tell the weather reflected my own mood.

 

You might know the feeling

when it's as if the rain drops are tears

 you are trying not to shed.

 

We live in a world where the pressure to be

"HAPPY"

all the time is pretty constant,

yet how many of us actually arrive at this state of bliss?

 

Sometimes we walk in the rain and not the sun,

and I think that's alright,

don't you?

 

Of course I'm not talking about a state of depression

 which is an illness asking to be taken seriously. 

I am thinking of

 those odd times when melancholy calls us

 to a place of reflection,

perhaps of rest and withdrawing for a while

 to re-evaluate.

 

 

 Losses or hurts of all sorts, great or small, accrue in our lives,

 which we need to come to terms with

before we can set our sights

 on a clearer path ahead.

 

It's good when there is

 a friend ready to walk this bit of rainy path with us,

truly listening,

and helping us find

 that bit of light and healing

 we need to speed our way.

 

I have been privileged in my counselling days

 to accompany many on parts of their journey,

even as I have been helped many times myself.

 

Times of sadness

 rightly used

 can be the spring board to seeing

the brighter colours and clearer light

waiting to enter our lives.

 

Be Blessed

  

A Sunday walk

Today was golden with a June-like warmth, and sweet, mellow, autumn sunlight.  

A perfect day to go for my first real walk for months.

 

You can come with me, courtesy of my phone camera.

 

  As ever I start from my beloved park,

 where the trees at the edge of the golf course are beginning to turn their

 various shades of autumn auburn.

 

 On, over the footbridge and into the village , this handsome Georgian house sits on the corner,

 next to some older, but up-dated houses.

 The hand rail on the right runs alongside the footpath to the church,

but I walked up Church Road which lies alongside the house. 

 

Two horse riders,

 (of which there are many in the lanes and roads in and around the village today),

amble companionably along. 

The sound of  hooves breaking the afternoon silence of the lane

 lent a timelessness to the moment. 

 

  The field which is usually full of horses is empty.

The usual tenants must be part of the increase in equine traffic today.

  The village allotments,

(plots of land which are rented by the year to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers),

are being given their pre-winter tidy up.

Fruit and veg is harvested amid the blaze of dahlias,

 chrysanthemums,

 and Michaelmas daisies

 

 Back in the main village,

 the old houses straddle the street in front of the church.

 These cottages date from the 1680s. 

In those days this road, (still called the Birmingham Road),

 was the main road between Coventry and Birmingham,

 and was probably much busier then than it is on this sleepy Sunday,

 when the main artery is the A45 which by-passes the village.

 These cottages on the opposite side of the road were built approximately a century later,
around 1760.

The Old Stone House dates from 1600,

 and I have heard stories that it is haunted by the ghost of a roundhead soldier,

 but as Emily Bronte says in Wuthering Heights,

 it is hard to believe in unquiet spirits on a day such as this.

 

 

Back over the footbridge which links the village with the park.


 






The beech trees are still freckled by the buttery sun,

and as the afternoon shadows lengthen and tea time calls,

 families linger to enjoy the last rays before the autumn dews begin to fall.

 

My own street is much more mundane than the historic village centre but,

 despite my love for my native Wales,

 I still feel greatly blessed to live in this lovely part of England.

 

May your own place on this beautiful planet

Be Blessed

Today

Art and Dusting

 

  

Another little break from the blog, and I've found time to pick up the oil paints again,
and as somebody said they would like to see more of my art work here is one of
Streptocarpus Contre Jour
I'm working on.

It's interesting how I often can see where work is needed
 through the eye of the camera better than straight on.

It's also interesting how much I've managed not to see at all!

I seem to have been oblivious to the grey felt coat that had settled on the furniture and fittings

 during my poorly patch.

 

Against the grain I tackled this slowly,

 one room at a time,

 instead of in the usual whirling dervish swoop through the house I like to do.

 

It was suddenly seeing the cobwebs wafting languorously from the ceiling

 that opened my eyes to the state of things. 

Then I saw that I was sitting, like Miss Haversham,

 in a positive spider-fest of delicately spun, dust- enhanced drapery.  

 

Our spidery friends had been so busy

 that delicate filaments ran from the large jar standing at the top of the stairs,

down to the carpet it stands on,

 for all the world like a mini hawser anchoring it to the floor.

 The corners of rooms

 provided opportunity for long artistic loops and criss-crossings of great complexity.

 Triangular sails fluttered elsewhere.

 

 How come I hadn't noticed?!

 

I admit to feeling somewhat guilty as,

 feather duster and long reach vac attachment to hand,  I removed them,

 wondering how long they had taken to spin,

 how many times they had been repaired,

 and how many  spider families they had supported.

Still I reasoned,

 one of us had to go,

as to paraphrase the old Western movies,

 "This house ain't big enough for both of us." 

 

 - Well yes it is big enough for both of us

 as spiders don't really take up that much room. 

 It's just that I'd rather live without the evidence of their company; 

 or even their company since a large one dropped between my neck and my collar. 

 But that's another story...

 

*

I've also been re-thinking the blog again as bloggers tend to do from time to time.

Asking myself all sorts of questions

 and knowing that one of the answers is certainly that

 each day holds small, seemingly inconsequential wonders worth remarking.

 

There is one much larger wonder from my life I have not shared,

but which I think I should.

 

That too is a story for another time.

 

Many Blessings.

The Flower and The Rock

Sitting on the patio today reading "Awake Mind, Open Heart".

 

The end of the introduction said something to the effect that 

seeking or gaining wisdom can be likened to holding a flower against a rock

 and hoping the flower will grow.

 

Apparently this image is to console us

by pointing to the fact that we may be like the rock

 but we can be patient and hopeful because even with us,

 something will happen over time.

 

As if to underline the point

next to me on the patio was a pot of stones

 into which a single flower from the hanging basket had blown.

 

 

All too often our view of ourselves isn't a true one,

and we incline to listen to the critic within,

 who is always so busy pointing out

 how much better we could and should do,

 or be.

 

Who knows what wisdom, truth, love, or beauty,

 garnishes our spirit even at this very moment

and we haven't even suspected.

 

Perhaps this weekend we can find time to befriend ourselves and begin to realise

 there is more to us than meets our own critical eye.

 

Blessings

Lovely Bit of Life - No3

 

One of the great joys of the two days in Devon with the family

was spending extended time with our great grand son Zachary. 

Having given in to his insistence we have our photo taken
 in the middle of his beach fortress.

 I'm trying not to show how much my aged hips are
 screaming at me for
getting down there. 

 

It's the sort of picture repeated over and over again in every generation,,

 reflecting the great British holiday tradition of sitting on the beach with the children all day.

 

 My childhood memories are of single days out,
 not week long holidays.

 

Weeks before we would actually get to the beach,

 preparations would begin when two neighbours would do a tour
 of the row of houses perched on the Welsh hillside where we lived.

It was their self-appointed job
 to see how much support there was

for an "outing"
 to the sea side for the day.

 

As even this modest excursion was enough to stretch the budget,

 each week leading up to the outing these same two ladies

 would tour the little community collecting instalments towards the cost,

 until, all paid up,

 the longed for day would arrive.

Sandwiches duly cut and packed, thermos filled with tea,

 swimming costumes, bathing caps, and towels packed into everyday shopping bags,

 we would scramble into the bus ready for the off.

 

Once the obligatory head count was over off we would go,

with two adults to a double seat as you would expect,

 but and in those pre- health and safety days,
 three children to a similar seat.

 

It wouldn't be long before the a big bag of sweets would be passed around the bus;

 the result of pooling sweet coupons in those days of post war rationing.

 

It always seemed an age before somebody who knew the route and thus where to look,

 would begin the chant,
 "I can see the sea!  I can see the sea!"

 until it seemed all the bus had cottoned on
 and having glimpsed a bit of the longed for water somewhere,

was able to join the sing-song.

 

Once out of the bus, and the queue for the toilets behind us,

 we headed en-masse for the beach,

where one or two would "bag" our place on the sand,

 not too close to the water's edge,

 to allow us to
 remain in the same place all day

without having to move back when the tide came up.

 

The remainder of the party would hire and carry the stack of deck chairs for the adults,

 which would be arranged
 in one large arc facing the sea.

We kids would sit in the centre of the semi-circle under the eagle eye of the grown ups,

 so all our castle building, squirming in and out of  "cozzies",

 wandering up and down to the sea, and communal paddling,

 was supervised and commented on.

 

Our lunch of sandwiches would be liberally seasoned with sand from our fingers

 and I can still taste the hated cold egg and grit, and the stewed thermos tea. 

 Still, eaten with friends,
 (and if possible swapped for their tit-bits),

with ones toes buried in the cold, wet, sand,

and the smell of the sea in ones nose,

they still went down well. 

 

Our return home at the end of the day would pass

 oh! so much more quickly than our journey to the sea,

and far too soon the old music hall songs we sang all the way,

would come to an end
 as we would tumble out of the bus in the gathering summer dusk,
say our "Good nights",

and go our separate ways.
 

* 

I am slightly sad Zachary will not have these memories of community,

of neighbours who seemed like extended family,

 but he will have his own treasured moments to look back on.

 

He obviously has his own way of collecting these,

and perhaps his drawings of the family,

done on post-its

and stuck to his pyjamas to carry to sleep with him,

means he has already begun.

 

 
Learning to hold those you love close can't start too young,
or last too long can it?

 Blessings

Lovely Bit No.2 -. Up Above My Head

I hope you will forgive this device of "Lovely Bits of Life",

 which seems a bit superfluous given the whole blog is dedicated to

 the wonderful in the everyday.

The reason I'm employing it is to pick up on the fact that

 so much of my recent time has been spent resting and feeling ill,  and then

 "Bingo!"

 there have been extreme contrasts

 of something really beautiful and "other" in between.

For instance, this photo was taken from the patio of a beautifully restored fisherman's cottage hubby and I got to share with our family, a couple of weeks ago.

I hadn't been well enough to spend the whole week there

but we had travelled down by train the night before to spend two days,

 and arrived after dark.

The morning brought this sight of the water front from the patio,

 with the bobbing boats practically at our feet.

  (That's my coffee cup in the lower left hand corner.)

 Above our heads was a blue, blue, sun-filled Mediterranean style sky.

Thinking about the uncertainty, and sheer randomness of life's happening

 it was this palm tree and deep blue sky,

( which could have equally well have been snapped last year
 when we were in Turkey, or Greece),

which somehow spoke to me,

bringing to mind as it did words from the old song,

"Up above my head I hear music in the air".

We may be familiar with the words,

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning .    Ps 30:5

but we never can know the how, or the where of it:

never can know when our mourning will be changed to dancing,

but we can keep faith with the music,

 and the strangely weaving dance of that faith,

which is uniquely ours.

I've included two versions of the song "Up Above Your Head",

(both by women as it happens),

just to emphasise how important it is to

 sing your own song,

in your own way.

Without your voice creation wouldn't be complete.

Who knew Sister Rosetta was such a rocking mama!

Blessings

Lovely bits of Life - No1.The Perfumed Path

 In between feeling lousy I got to feel life was possible a few weeks ago,

 so we pell-melled down to Devon for a few days

 because it is just awful to go so long without glimpsing the sea.

 

We stayed in a small apartment literally across the road from a path which

 linked onto the coastal path.

 

About one hundred and fifty yards down the road was another path

 leading down to the steep drop to the sea.

This is it viewed on the climb from the sea.

 

 

Can you see that for some two or three hundred yards or more

 the path ran between buddleia bushes?

 

 

As the path plunged down amidst the greenery,

except for the occasional glint of blue below the horizon,

the sea was lost to us,

and we were cocooned amongst the sun-hot,

 blue, perfumed, branches waving around us.

 

With the butterflies thick about us,

it felt as if we had stumbled into a timeless place,

where summer was the only time imaginable,

 

 

then as the trees became storm twisted,

 and the nature of the path more rugged,

 the spell was broken. 

                                                                                                                                                 ;- Eddystone Inn,  Heybrook Bay

Passing through a gate,

 we found that conveniently enough the path emerged

near the pub which sat perched over the bay .

Beautiful though they are these coastal paths don't just wander about willy nilly you know!

 

 

May the week ahead offer you some version of a perfumed path,

or the awareness that the one you are on leads to a lovely bit of life of your own.

 

Blessings

 

Lovely Promising Bits of Life

 

Isn't it amazing how often a stony place can bring forth unexpected new life? 

 

After so much time off line I still don't really have anything I can say accept that,

 just like the photo,

there is still  lot of contrast going on between comparative barrenness

 and

some lovely refreshing bits of life for me.  

Just now I am waiting for more test results and hoping there will be indications of what is going on. 

(For those who were kind enough to ask, and I said I was o.k., - I was wrong!)

When I feel more able I will post some of the bits of loveliness,

 but until then how about this? 

As the title suggests it really is a song I find difficult to end once I start to sing.

How about you?

Blessings