Five Little Things : On the Road

Often as you're driving places or when you stop overnight somewhere you stumble over little treasures and think wow, how lucky I am to have found something so beautiful here. This was the case for us a few weeks ago traveling home from friends in Bourgogne. 

We picked a village on our way, not too far from the motorway, just a place to stop overnight and break-up our journey. It was called Sainte Suzanne and while the "glampsite" turned out to be a little disappointing, the village was anything but. The cobblestoned roads, the soft evening sun, the haunting castle ruins, the clustering roses and the magnificent stained glass windows in the church. Here's what I managed to capture on film.

Five Little Things : Boats

I love boats. I don't sail but somehow they still represent for me a certain escapism, a possibility of adventure, a je ne sais quoi...
And because I love boats I photograph them. And it's a collection just like our shell collection, or Noah's strange assortment of rusty metal bits or my china cats, I collect boats with my camera. 

Oban, Scotland 2016

Greece 2004

Jardins de Luxembourg, Maya's birthday 2009

Homemade walnut shell boats

Birttany 2008

All that thinking about boats got me writing a list poem about the words we have for boats. It's a very rough sketch, no idea where I'll go with it but it has lovely sounds. Here it is:

The language of boats

Sail boats and tall boats

canal boats and barges

bowsers, cokkleshells

coracles, crafts

cruisers and cutters

dwows, dredgers, drifters

dugouts and flagships

ferries and freighters

gondolas, hydrofoils

houseboats, icebreakers

kayaks and kanoes

life rafts and liners

paddle boats, pedalos

punts, rafts, sculls

shikaras, showboats

skiffs, smacks, tugs

tenders and tankers

trawlers and tubs

vessels and whalers

watercraft, yachts.

 

Five Little Things - Flowers

I almost called this post Pretty in Pink! (Yes I love that film). Here are a few of my favourite flower snaps at the moment. There is something infinitely joyful about a blooming, beautiful flower. They are at once delicate, ephemeral and yet robust. Enjoy.

And from a treasured poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, my favourite stanza from Maud in which flowers feature greatly. 

 

There has fallen a splendid tear

      From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

      She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"

      And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"

The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"

      And the lily whispers, "I wait."

Little Things : Secret Doors

As I think I might have mentioned I have a little obsession with old doors. There's something about them I love. They're mysterious and inviting and I like to photograph them.

Discreetly mossy

Sometimes I wonder if it all goes back to a childhood love of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. I loved that book and the idea of a hidden walled garden seemed so romantic. Even now I love walled gardens. But what really hits me about the story is the idea of searching for the door and the joy and excitement of finding it. How Mary's hand must have trembled as she put in the key, wondering what was going to happen when she turned it.

Doors are in many ways symbolic of beginnings, opportunities, chances we can take or refuse. Perhaps my love of them - the old and gnarled, seemingly forgotten, beautiful and strange - stems from the desire to explore, to step into the unknown, to voyage in my imagination. 

So here they are, doors I photographed in the lovely town of Chateau Gironde where I had the exceptional good look to spend a few hours wiht my friend Estelle. Our dear husbands watched the kids and we enjoyed great conversation and the magical ambience of a medieval French town on a sunny Sunday afternoon. What more can a girl poet ask for? And is it any wonder they inspired poetry? Well here's the sketch I'm working on...

All the Old doors

Unopened, keys long lost

like forgotten letters,

stand there watching;

silent and patient.

Locks and barrels,

hinges and latches,

orange tinged and tinted;

rusty and dry with age,

stiff as arthritic limbs

they are still waiting.

No one remembers

what they were for,

where they used to lead to,

all the places they could take you

if you knew where to go.

And this door here -

it’s dark blue faded pale,

it’s paneling cracked,

bare wood peeking through,

this door could be the one.

This door could be your future

if you put in the key,

turn the handle and see.

   

Storms and board games

Lotta nearly blown away by the wind

The last few days, storm Zeus has raged across our part of the world. We've spent quite a bit of time indoors playing board games mostly - one of our favourite occupations and an important homeschooling tool. And something we can do in spite of the frequent and prolonged power cuts (hence today's rather short, belated post!).

Right now we're loving classics like Carcassone which we've amended the rules to so that we can play cooperatively as well as more recent additions to our selection, Jamaica and Mapominoes. We love games and all enjoy playing. We adapt the rules so that everyone can join in and insist upon the importance of just enjoying the playing not only winning. 

Some of our games like Conjudingo (french) and Chronicards(french version of Time Line) are obviously educational and help with specific skills, conjugating verbs, learning history, counting or maths to name a few. But in fact all our game playing has educational value. Board games offer a really ludic way to integrate skills like communication and cooperation as well as strategy and anger/frustration management. Rory's Story cubes develop our expressive, creative and literary skills as does the wonderful and very original Dixit.

In fact we like games so much and find them such a wonderful way to learn that we recently attended a games festival with more than 200 board games. We're also always looking for new games. So if you have any favourites of your own do let us know.

Our next purchase...

This post and it's title turned out to be inspiring which for me was a nice confirmation of why I write a blog - it gets me thinking about things, about our life together, here and it stimulates my creativity. Pictured below a draft of a poem I'm working on titled Storms and Board Games!

Scribbled notes for a poem

Five Little Things : Knitting and Dwelling in Possibility

 

Well possibly a few more than five. While studying for the great online MOOC ModPo I really enjoyed the Emily Dickinson poems. In her great poem I dwell in Possibility she proposes that poetry is a freer imaginative world than prose. In fact the world she describes is limitless as the sky. Whether you agree with this or not - I also find prose to be a wonderfully large imaginative space - what I really like about this poem is the invitation to live in a place of what is possible. Not probable, or likely, not practical or convenient but possible. For me, to live always with an ear open to adventure, to taking a journey of the mind, to beginning something and seeing where it leads you. 

 

Olivia's blanket - some of wool's possibilities

 

Dickinson ends the poem with these beautiful lines,

 

For Occupation - This - 

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise -

 

And as I was reading the poem again recently, I thought how this act of spreading my hands also talked to me about knitting. How from such humble beginnings you can go in so many directions. Just take a stroll around Ravelry and you can see the creative possibilities are endless!

 

Yesterday I signed up for an exciting local project. We're going to yearn bomb the town centre to liven it up a bit next winter. I looked at a lot of pictures of what other people are doing and picked up some wool and it got me really excited about all the possible things we can do with wool. Hopefully I'll share some pictures of where this project takes us later in the year. For now, here are some pictures of where my 'wool journey' has taken me recently*...

 

Blue Shawl

Beautiful Blue Waves

Close up on that lovely Malabrigo Wool

Maya's Bolero

From the back

And here are the works in progress*...

 

Lotta's artichaut

For Me - A Cardigan

Wool really does offer us so many possibilities just as words do if we give ourselves permission to live in a world of possibility. What a wonderful idea to practice with our children to, to try and say yes to their imaginations, their flights of fancy and crazy ideas as often as we possibly can. It may not always be easy but I can guarantee we'll have some fun adventures.

 

Here is Emily Dickinson's poem in full to inspire us all...

 

 

I dwell in Possibility

by Emily Dickinson

 

I dwell in Possibility -

A fairer House than Prose -

More numerous of Windows -

Superior - for Doors -

 

Of Chambers as the Cedars -

Impregnable of eye - 

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels oF the Sky - 

 

Of Visitors - the fairest - 

For Occupation - This - 

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise -

 

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

 

*For those who want to know what the patterns are, from the top... I think the first one is called Old Hand Lace Master but as Ravelry wont work today I can't give you a link. It's knitted in Malabrigo Rasta colour Azules. The shrug for Maya is Nora's Bolero by Pickles a Norwegian company whose patterns I love. It's an easy knit. I used Malagbrigo Lace in Pearl and Fyberspates Cumulus in Silver. The latter's mix of silk and apaga gives the bolero a beautiful drape and a lovely shimmery feel to it that the photos aren't quite capturing. Cumulus is also the wool I'm using for Lotta's little wrap bolero - yes they're both getting boleros but not quite the same style view the age gap. It's the Artichaut pattern by de rerum natura a company whose environmentally friendly and humane wools are a delight to use. It's one of theirs I'm using for my cardigan which I'll tell you more about soon.

Poetry with Kids

Poetry books on the breakfast table

Yes, another stack of books. This time poetry books for younger readers. One thing that's partly true with homeschooling is that you tend to share your own interests with your children, as all parents do. As a poet myself, I have always enjoyed sharing poetry with my children. Poetry and verse are also popular in Waldorf styled early years education which was a strong influence on us when we were starting out as homeschoolers. 

Books like Elsa Beskow's Around the Year are wonderful if you're looking to bring a seasonal, rhythm to your life. There is a poem for each month as well as the classics The Hours and The Days of the Week and the illustrations reproduce Beskow's magical world of elves and fairies, summer and winter characters as well as some beautifully simple domestic scenes.
 
Another beautiful collection of rhymes for catching the seasons is Shirley Hughes' Out and About through the Year. In Hughes simple, evocative style, the poems not only have a childlike voice but they really capture the life of small children and their carers. The experiences these poems talk of were really easy for my children to relate to. Another of her books, The Nursery Collection* is also a great favourite of ours and we often gift it to small children we know. Again I absolutely love how close Hughes gets to what life with small kids is really like and when reading her books and poems, not only do the children recognise themselves, I also recognise the life we're living together and feel reassured. 

The great Shirley Hughes

As well as poems which tell the story of their daily life, my children also enjoy the classic rhymes of Mother Goose. Richard Scarry's version is illustrated in his style and has been a firm favourite here ever since it was first gifted to my oldest daughter. 

An absolute classic

A bit of silliness is also very popular and writers such as Michael Rosen and Quentin Blake have been happy to provide it. Bananas in my Ears is a favoured collection as well as Mr Magnolia. Hearing our children shout 'I can't hear you, I've got bananas in my ears' over breakfast has led to a lot of hilarity, and the recording I have of my husband and son reading Mr Magnolia together is very precious, who would have thought there were so many words that rhymed with boot! Reading this kind of rhyme has also led to a lot of great language play among the children with whole meals passing in rhyming play often with words like poo and trump but it's all good stuff if it gets them playing with words in my opinion. 

Great fun!

Of course as someone whose passionate about poetry I didn't stop there. We were lucky to be gifted a beautiful treasury of poetry by a very dear friend when our daughter was young. With it's liberal use of gold and beautiful illustrations it has been much thumbed and is so popular that I couldn't put my hands on it when I sat down to write this post so no photo and I'm afraid no reference as I can't remember the details off the top of my head. Another beautiful anthology that I would highly recommend is the Barefoot Book of Classic Poems. It's a beautiful book and I'm so glad we bought it. We went secondhand as new it was quite expensive at the time. It's a beautifully illustrated collection and feels like one of those really special books we all remember from childhood.

The richly illustrated Barefoot Books Collection

One of my favourites Blake's The Tiger

Since then we continue to add to our poetry collection as and when we see things we like. Emily Dickinson, Gillian Clarke, the list is growing. There is so much great poetry out there to share with children and in doing so I really believe we are sharing something with our children that has the potential to nourish them their whole lives. As Carol Ann Duffy says in her introduction to the Barefoot Collection, "the best of poetry is memorable". It "offers us moments in language which preserve or celebrate, explore or elegise, transform or enhance our human joys and sadnesses". And it stays with us long after we read it, returning to us like an echo or a touchstone throughout our lives.

Beautiful illustrations and rich language make for a gripping read

If you have any poetry books you've really enjoyed with your children please leave details in the comments, I'd love to get some new recommendations.


* This books as well as Out and About is not always easy to find though you can usually get your hands on a second hand copy either through amazon or Abe books. Alternatively ten books were published which together reproduce the sections of this book, you can also find them if you search for Shirley Huges The Nursery Collection. Or why not try the library.
 

Five things - Stacks of Books

Our house is full of books.

There are piles of them everywhere; on bookcases and coffee tables, beside our beds and under them, on our desks and on the floor. We love books and I love having a home surrounded by them. They offer us a world of infinite possibility. We can immerse ourselves in worlds full of wizards (Harry Potter of course and Earthsea), the life and times of Shakespeare (1599) or that of a Roman Gladiator (Horrible Histories, You wouldn't want to be a Roman Gladiator).

We can laugh ourselves silly at the strange things we all might wish for and later regret (Five Children and It) or the antics of animals (James Herriot - makes for a brilliant audiobook). We can be brought to tears over Welsh Sheep (Gillian Clarke's collected works) or feel like jetting to New York and walking her streets (Frank O'Hara's) or be reduced to giggles reading about a strange case of hysteria (Carol Ann Duffy's). A good book is a marvellous thing that takes us on a journey and fills us with delight.
 

Back to the stacks, there are now so many of them that we have big plans for new book housing this year. Once we've finished decorating... hum let's hope we manage to get through that quicker than last the time, at least before more of these wonderful friends find there way here.