wild about swimming!

I'm feeling very happy this evening. Mmmmm.

Why? 'Cos I have been swimming here today - and yesterday too - making the most of the fabulous weather we've had this weekend!

'Wild' swimming is one of my top pleasures in life.

There's not much more I can say about this, really, 'cos the joy is all in sensations not words. But I will say this: if you haven't swim in a lake or paddled your toes in a stream recently DO IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

Flow x

P.S. If anyone is thinking that it looks a little bit autumnal in this pic, you're right. It's an old one... When I go down here on a summer's day, I'm much too busy swimming to be taking photos!

A year in 40 seconds

It's almost the end of January, and I haven't posted on this blog for nearly three weeks. I hope you haven't missed me too much!

The weeks have whizzed by. Whatever your age, you will probably have noticed that time seems to pass faster and faster each year. I have always believed that's because we experience the passing days as a proportion of our lives so far: when you are four, a year is a quarter of your life; but when you are forty, it is only a fortieth.

Oops!

I was just about to wax all philosophical - or maybe even scientifical - about perceptions of time, but I caught myself before I began to waffle too much! The bottom line is, time is unpredictable: it depends on us, our moods and the people we spend it with ... in weird ways. Certain places seem to have their own time zones, too: time generally seems to move faster in bed, for instance; and classrooms and hospital waiting rooms are often Go Slow Zones.

We have all experienced an hour that has felt like a lifetime, and a year that has passed in about 40 seconds - like this video.

Did you know that Steven Hawkins says this, in his book A Brief History of Time:

"Disorder increases with time because we measure time
in the direction in which disorder increases."

Which seems to suggest that, if only we expected less chaos, time might move backwards! Perhaps we should try it? A sort of og-og with the flow?!

Flow x

Reasons to be cheerful (part 1)

Hello, hello, and Seasons' Greetings to you all!


If you have been celebrating Christmas, I hope you had a good one. If you haven't been celebrating, I hope you've still found plenty of things to enjoy during this past week. Here are some of my own current Reasons to be Cheerful:

* The days are getting longer and the sun is getting higher in the sky - hooray!

* There are two brave little pink roses trying to bloom in my garden.

* We had a nice Christmas: my children liked their prezzies and we had a lovely meal with friends.

* My youngest son's favourite present was a cuddly polar bear given to him by his big brother, so they have declared an amnesty and are friends at the moment.

* My eldest son gave me Bill Bailey's Tinselwood DVD, and (almost better) since I haven't yet watched it, I am still in a state of excited anticip-p-p-pation about it!

* I have rediscovered sloe gin and ginger wine: perfect winter drinks!

* I haven't listened to the news for several days now, so I haven't been made depressed by what I've heard!

* I have an open fire, and logs and dried rosemary twigs to put on it.

* I am catching up on sleep.

And last but not least, someone called Trevor invented a marvellous phrase to describe the Random Act of Fun I posted about last time, which I would like to nominate as Original Linguistic Invention of the week... it's 'cracker frippery'! Perfectomundo!

Flow x

Spread some warmth!

Eee but it's cold out there - look at the frost! (This was on the bonnet of a car we passed on the way to school yesterday).

How-so-ever, out of the blue, I have received two little nuggets of cosmic warmth; real chestnuts of unexpected and un-asked-for positivity!

The first was from someone who enjoyed a comment I'd left on a bulletin board. Though we'd never met or even talked, he emailed me just to say "Thanks for the humour!"

The second was another email, this time from a guy called Chris who runs the Facebook group 'Optimists Unite! Freedom for Happiness!'. He sent round a message to group members, just to spread some love. Here's part of it:

"I wonder if you realise, just how beautiful you are? Without you, the world would be incomplete. If you've ever felt alone, then you'll know how important it is to show how much you care. If you've ever felt helpless, then you know how it is to feel alone.

"The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. We're all here for each other, and together we are stronger. Don't let lies tear us apart and weaken our resolve. Let truth bring us together so that we can truly evolve.

"Honesty is Love for yourself. Truth is love for others. Be true to yourself and honest to the people around you, and great things shall befall you... for you are sublime.

"The truth is... you are beautiful. You are the most caring, understanding, and wise person I know. I know this because I only know one... I know myself, and I know that we are of the same spirit, devoid of ego.

"Love yourself unconditionally: Heal the spirit. Love others unconditionally: Heal the world".

How wonderful it felt to be given some appreciation, optimism and inspiration when I least expected it. What's more, I'd been having a down-patch, and was more-than-ever in need of some warmth.... And along came these guys, helping to re-ignite a little spark of spirit! They were certainly making the flow more sparkly!

It gave me a boost of energy, and I was able to pass on some of the positivity to other people, through my own little acts of appreciation. Maybe this post will do the same for you. Go on ... Tell someone you know that they are wonderful ... I dare you!

Flow x

Mushrooms, mists and musings

I don't much like autumn, usually.

It never feels like a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness to me. It's too depressing. All that rain, decay and darkness. When all hope of a late Indian summer has gone, I feel bereft - almost betrayed; and when the clocks go back, I rage, rage against the dying of the light.

But this year something seems to have changed. I am looking at autumn with different eyes.

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Suddenly, the colours seem incredibly beautiful, and the sky seems higher, and the cold seems (what's the word?) brazen - like it is daring us to shake our heads and wake up.

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If you look at my pics, I hope you'll see what I mean.

For the first time, as autumn advances and winter creeps towards us, I feel something like relief as well as sadness. It seems the leaves are letting go, not falling! It feels like the out-breath after the in-breath; the ebb after the flow.

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And for the first time, I actually believe that spring and summer will come again!

I wonder if this means I'm getting old?!

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Flow x

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(© 2008 - All photos)

Penguins

I must just share this with you...

Penguins.

Yes, I said penguins!

As my friend Scribblemoose says, "It's hard to take life too seriously when you're watching penguins. So silly, so beautiful and so very full of joy".

Penguins, it seems to me, are absolutely the best role models for go-going with the flow! Thank you, Scribblemoose!



Video and photo - copyright to Scribblemoose 2008.

And here's a link to another fabulous piece of artistic silliness ... a melting icecream van, which I found quite by chance on Boingboing.net, which describes itself as 'a directory of wonderful things' and is apparently the most popular blog in the world!

Flow x

Pure silliness!

I have nothing sensible to say today, so I won't even try! Instead, here are some cheering thoughts, chosen more-or-less at random...

I love this sign, for instance. It's not just a health and safety warning, it's a metaphor for life. Yes, it says sensibly, life is full of challenges, so be careful. But twist your perspective slightly (the lime green might help you!) and it also shouts... "Don't let ridiculous footwear stop you going where you want!"

And this fantastic piece of artwork, which I stumbled upon in another castle, at Collioure in South-West France.

It moves as you walk through the room, and it's at least as much kite as sculpture! If anyone knows (or thinks they can guess) the artist, please let me know.













And this, um, interesting variation on a guard dog!
















And all sorts of other silly things too, like fairy wings for grown-ups, and fluffy dice, and bubbles, and the contents of this website, and - well - allsorts, of the liquorice kind. Oh, and penguins, which are soooo silly that they deserve a blog entry all of their own!



Flow x

The trouble with teens ...

My close friends already know I'm having a bit of a tough time with my teenager at the moment. He's 13, and testosterone has just begun to kick in big-time. If you remember Kevin the Teenager from the Harry Enfield sketch show in the 90s, you'll have a fair idea of what he's like on a bad day ... except there's more swearing in our house. Sometimes I wish I had a BBC sound editor living here to bleep it all out. They could join my 'fantasy parenting' team of essential support staff, along with the cleaner, the cook, the counsellor, and whoever can get here first with a large bottle of whisky.

But I don't want to give you the impression it's always Hell at home. A lot of the time he's lovely. He still talks to me (there's no grunting yet!) and he can make interesting conversation, too. He does his share of the housework, sometimes without even being asked. On my birthday, he cooked tea for the whole family - grilled salmon, new potatoes and veg - and it was delicious. And I've just eaten the fried egg sandwich that he made me for lunch, while I got on with this.

Out and about, he's usually pretty good too. Other mums tell me how helpful and sweet he is with their smaller children. Local shop-keepers regularly compliment me on my son's good manners (really and truly - I'm not making that up!). Sometimes, indeed, he is almost heroic: he carried shopping for a struggling neighbour recently, even though some other boys were watching and scoffing at him; and he jumped in the canal a couple of weeks ago to rescue someone's struggling dog.

So what am I complaining about, eh?!

Well, the flip side of this loveliness is sometimes pretty grim. School doesn't suit him, and while serious trouble is rare, there are a whole string of minor problems, and he's more likely to bring home stress than homework. Then, as well as the day-to-day stomping and Kevin-ness, there are occasional bursts of very stupid or dangerous behaviour. At the moment, for example, he and some friends are excluded from school (that's 'suspended' in old money) for bringing in a lighter and playing with fire in the sports hall. Exclusion brings a whole pile of hassle and - since he's a boy who doesn't like school anyway - it is certainly more of a punishment for me than for him.

Then there's trouble that descends and lands on him, unexpectedly. A couple of weeks ago he was robbed in the street by two thugs who threatened to kill him if he didn't hand over his 'phone. He was physically fine but we were all a bit shaken, and for me that also meant stressful conversations with the local police, the CID in the city where it happened, and the youth worker who was supposed to be looking after him at the time.

The trouble with teens, from a parent's point of view, is that it's an emotional roller-coaster. When I wake up each morning, I don't know whether to expect shouting or smiles, trauma or delight. Almost certainly, by the time I get to bed, I will have been though all of these, and a fair few other feelings too. Teenage emotions are dramatic... and my teenager seems to change like the weather, blowing through my day, leaving me storm-tossed or sunburnt!

Angel or devil - superhero or villain - or even ordinary mortal boy - it's all absolutely exhausting.

Which brings me to the real trouble with teens. There are lots and lots of rules and systems in place to control them and punish them when they do wrong, but there's very little support to help them do right. It's more-or-less all down to me, and I'm pretty much on my own. As a single parent, I find it particularly hard sometimes ... But don't get me started on absent fathers now... And I'll save my rant on how society is failing boys for another blog.

Being a parent of a teenager is certainly a lesson in learning to 'go with the flow', and I know I'm not very good at that yet! A wise friend once said, after listening to me let off steam, "Yes, it's shit, Flow ... but it doesn't have to be our shit!" And as I sit on my life-raft and watch the flotsam and jetsam and smashed-up cargo of teenage life float past me, I need to remember that a lot of it isn't his shit either.




Flow x

More random acts of kindness, please!

I cooked tea for a friend the other day.

"Thanks", she said. "D'you know, that's the first meal anyone has cooked for me since my birthday. In fact, now I come to think of it, my birthday was the last time anyone did anything at all for me. Before that ... well, I can't remember".

I know the feeling. As a single parent, I spend a lot of my time doing things for other people - giving out and almost never receiving. I guess the same is true for a lot of parents, and a lot of single people. It can get you down.

This morning I got upset because I had to make sandwiches, help find a tie and change for the bus, get a towel for one son stranded in the shower and mop up a puddle after the other - all before 8am - and all I really wanted to do was finish my cup of tea before it got cold. Feeling sorry for myself, I started to think how nice it would be if someone would occasionally make a cup of tea for me. Nothing too ambitious... Just a cup of tea.

Everyone needs some love, attention and kindness, and if you don't get enough, it can make you very miserable.

The trouble is, once you're in the habit of giving more than you take from the world, it's a hard one to break. After a while, if your needs aren't getting met, you start to feel that they must somehow be huge and unreasonable. You become reluctant to ask other people for favours - even relatively simple ones like "Would you give me an hour off from the kids?" or "Please rub my shoulders for me" or "Can I have a cup of tea?" - because you worry that maybe you're being greedy. Or worse, you worry the person you ask might say 'no', and you're not sure you could handle the rejection.

Some people get their needs met by paying for them. I know plenty of people who pay for babysitters and restaurant meals and massages, and one or two have even admitted to paying for sex. But other people find it difficult and upsetting to pay for things they'd really like to be given as treats, maybe because it feeds a feeling that no-one loves them enough to do it for free.

But unmet needs grow and grow. Before long, you may even find you're not meeting any of your own needs. Maybe you know it would make you feel good to have a long bath, go for a run, meet up with friends, sing, bonk, dance, sleep more, eat better ... but you just can't seem to get round to it. You've forgotten how to be kind to yourself. Next stop, depression.

Our society just isn't a happy place right now. It's hard to escape the conclusion that nationally, maybe even globally, we've neglected our need for love, attention, enjoyment and kindness so long that we've forgotten how meet our own needs for these things.

Let's break the pattern. The peace activist and off-beat, inspiring, crazy thinker Anne Herbert recommends 'making generous trouble'. Like she says, "We could maybe go outside and meet and act like we're not jerks, like we're imaginative and creative and generous".

So, whenever you can, whenever you think of it, practice random kindness. Do something for someone else, without being asked. Cook a meal, smile at a stranger, leave something pretty on the bus, drop a fiver. If you need other ideas, have a look at this list, or google 'random acts of kindness' for more.

And remember, kindness isn't difficult; it's just something we've forgotten to do often enough. You can make a start with me, if you like. Nothing too ambitious ... just a cup of tea!

Flow x

The sun HAS got its hat on!

Don't you just love it when the doom-mongers are wrong?!

First up is the weather forecaster on Thursday, who told me I could expect heavy rain again today. But as I write, I'm looking out my window at the blue sky and fast-scudding white clouds of a perfect autumn day ... well, HAH!

And just a couple of months ago, plenty of heavy-weight commentators were saying Obama couldn't win the US presidential elections, whether because of his race or because some other dirt could be dished that would spoil his chances ... well, HAH again!

And then there are those famous - or infamous - gloomy brickbats. Like the IBM chairman who, in 1943, so modestly speculated "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers". Or the DECCA music company executive who rejected the Beatles demo in 1962, saying "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out". Or - perhaps the most pessimistic prediction of all time - the World Health report in 1989 that claimed "There will be one million cases of AIDS in Britain by 1991". In fact there were around 8,000.

Why DO we seem to have got into such miserable habits? It's time for some more GOOD news stories! There are a few US sites, of which the best (by which I mean least schmaltzy and/or religious) seems to be http://www.happynews.com/, but I haven't found a British or European equivalent.

So here are my headlines... They're all TRUE, though it's just possible that not all of them made the national news.

• Mortgage rates now lowest since 1965!
  
• Youth rescues trapped dog by jumping in canal!


• Thief sends apology and £100, years after stealing cigs!


• "Tiggers Don't Like Honey" sketch fetches £31K at auction!
  

And if your taste for good news stories stetches as far as a willingness to listen to semi-amateur rock bands, then you might like to check out 'Canary Wolf' http://www.myspace.com/canarywolf . Their new song 'Credit Crunch' is at least as much about carrots as finance. As their lead singer says "It's not the end of the world, is it? There's benefits. We were all — myself included — spending money on things we didn't need".

They certainly know how to go-go with the flow!



Flow x

Remember hope, remember joy?!

We're living in weird times. All sorts of things seem to be teetering on the edge. I was going to say, balancing on some sort of threshold between bad and good, but it's sometimes hard to escape the impression that bad is likely to tip over into badder-than-bad.

Politically, socially, personally - and of course seasonally - it feels like things are sure to change, and as so many people seem to be saying at the moment, "Things will get worse before they get better".

Blimey!

If you've been listening to the UK news recently, you will have been fed a miserable diet of war, economic crisis, bank collapse, BBC presenter scandals, 'yob culture' and the 'youth problem', and you probably have indigestion by now. The chances are, aspects of your own life seem to echo these depressing headlines. My own tally of gloom this week includes a sore throat, a contract I didn't get, my thirteen year old son getting robbed, and hearing that a dear friend has colon cancer. Even the weather seems to be in on the conspiracy: we had a disappointing summer, now we're gripped by a grey, bleak autumn, and we have months of winter still ahead.

Rain or blizzard, trouble or collapse, unhappiness or total misery: these seem to be our doom and gloom options!

And yet ...

And yet, there are some signs of hope. Some of these are relatively small comforts - like the sun coming out this morning so that I saw a patch of blue for the first time in a week. Some are small but important - like the marvellous fact that my son wasn't hurt when his 'phone was taken, and we found him a new, better one on eBay last night for only a tenner!

And yes, some things - YAY! - are big, fat, juicy causes for hope. This week, as you will certainly know (unless you have been on retreat or held hostage somewhere very isolated*), America elected a new president who has inspired millions to vote who had never voted before, and who offers hope and a new positivity. Whatever we want to do or dream, Barack Obama says, "Yes, we CAN". My 8 year old heard his victory speech and said "that sounds like a poem" - and politicians who speak poetry are an excellent reason for hope, if you ask me!

Now, I'm a glass-half-full kinda woman. My occasional episodes of anxiety and depression (yes, I'm one of the one-in-four) have been stress-related and a reaction to horrible things - where anxiety and depression, frankly, were the sanest responses. But, generally speaking, I'm contented and cheerful, and I always prefer to look on the bright side of life.

But sometimes it's hard to be cheerful, amid all this doom and gloom. Sometimes it's hard to remember about the sunshine, and the blue sky, and (bloody hell, I'm beginning to sound like Fotherington-Thomas!) poetry - even the poetry of politicians!

Sometimes I need reminding about the good stuff.

So that's what this blog is all about: it's for silly stuff, stuff that makes me laugh. It's for beautiful images, words and sounds. And it's for serious stuff, ideas and thoughts that give me inspiration. But most of all, it's a record of my day-to-day attempts to remember hope and remember joy!

OK, so I'm not always so good at going with the flow (as kind friends sometimes remind me!) ... but meanwhile - oh yeah! - I'm determined at least to go-go with the flow!

Wanna come dancing with me?!

Flow x

*By sheep, say, in a small village in the Pennines with no digital TV signal and generally appalling telecommunications! ;-)