The Introverted Extrovert

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You wouldn’t know – I didn’t tell you – that I’ve been fostering a rather reluctant youngster for around four weeks now. Well I know that there are no guarantees about these things – you sort of take pot luck – but I must admit that I’ve been quite disappointed, worried even. You see at first she was a bright young thing and full of the joys of spring, so much so that I used to think of her as Blossom or Jazzy… She hasn’t been “jazzy” since that first week, far from it.

Luckily, I did “A Level Psychology” years ago, and now, with my newfound interest in philosophy as well, I have been trying to fathom the problem with my charge in the hope that I may be able to help. Unlike me – I’m an extroverted introvert (well you must speak if you want anyone to listen) – I came to the conclusion that Jazzy is an introverted extrovert, meaning that something has been preventing her from showing her natural colours. I just hoped it wasn’t me! I worried she was feeling “in the shade” although it has to be said that the neighbours were green with envy (if not ivy); but she’s not been doing so bloomin’ well since that first week – talk about shrinking violets and wallflowers!

A few minutes ago I went out to see Jasmine, thinking that perhaps she’s like me in the respect that I love the sun; I’d move her from the shaded wall up to the sunny balcony, and then I noticed something wonderful. Little pink buds are dotted all over her – she has nestled in and has decided to bloom again. It appears I can’t be such a failure as a foster mother after all even though we’re quite unalike.

Esperanto – I Hope

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“Who uses Esperanto?” I asked Chris over breakfast.

The previous night we had watched a new, and different type of film, called “Captain Fantastic” starring Viggo Mortensen, about a family going it alone in the wilds of “the North Pacific” and the underlying problems of “opting out”, especially with regard to the wishes and aspirations of the individual children; and had the mother’s disorder, leading to her premature demise, been exacerbated by their isolated natural lifestyle? Of course, the home educated children were geniuses and could even speak Esperanto, which is why Esperanto was on my mind.

Chris Googled “Esperanto” on his mobile phone and soon informed me that (reading from Wikepedia), “It is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world.[7] The Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, Unua Libro, on 26 July 1887. The name of Esperanto derives from Doktoro Esperanto (“Esperanto” translates as “one who hopes”), the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published Unua Libro.[8]“

“Goodness!”, I said, “I wonder why an ophthalmologist felt the need to develop Esperanto.”

“Perhaps he didn’t see eye-to-eye with his patients!”, Chris observed.

He read on for a couple more paragraphs after which I understood a good deal more than I did before about the purpose and goals of introducing a constructed language that incorporates words from several other languages (I’ll paste some of the text below).

“Do you think we should learn Esperanto? I laughed.

“So we can understand each other at last?” my husband paused and shook his head, “I don’t think it will help!”

Captain Fantastic review – thrilling and poignant | Film | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › Arts › Movies › Captain Fantastic

Rating: 4 – ‎Review by Mark Kermode, Observer…

11 Sep 2016 – Family fantastic: from left, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, George MacKay, Nicholas Hamilton, Samantha Isler and Annalise Basso.

Esperanto (/ˌɛspəˈræntoʊ/ or /–ˈrɑː–/;[5][6] in Esperanto: [espeˈranto] About this sound listen (help·info)) is a constructed international auxiliary language. It is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world.[7] The Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, Unua Libro, on 26 July 1887. The name of Esperanto derives from Doktoro Esperanto (“Esperanto” translates as “one who hopes”), the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published Unua Libro.[8]

Zamenhof had three goals, as he wrote in Unua Libro:

  1. “To render the study of the language so easy as to make its acquisition mere play to the learner.”
  2. “To enable the learner to make direct use of his knowledge with persons of any nationality, whether the language be universally accepted or not; in other words, the language is to be directly a means of international communication.”
  3. “To find some means of overcoming the natural indifference of mankind, and disposing them, in the quickest manner possible, and en masse, to learn and use the proposed language as a living one, and not only in last extremities, and with the key at hand.”[9]

Up to two million people worldwide, to varying degrees, speak Esperanto,[10] including about 1,000 to 2,000 native speakers who learned Esperanto from birth.[1]The World Esperanto Association has more than 5,500 members in 120[11] countries. Its usage is highest in Europe, East Asia, and South America.[12] lernu!, the most popular online learning platform for Esperanto, reported 150,000 registered users in 2013, and sees between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors each month.[13]With about 239,000 articles, Esperanto Wikipedia is the 32nd-largest Wikipedia as measured by the number of articles,[14] and is the largest Wikipedia in a constructed language.[15] On 22 February 2012, Google Translate added Esperanto as its 64th language.[16] On 28 May 2015, the language learning platform Duolingo launched an Esperanto course for English speakers. As of 5 April 2017, over 800,000 users had signed up,[17][18][19] with approximately 30 users completing the course every day.[20]

The first World Congress of Esperanto was organized in France in 1905. Since then, congresses have been held in various countries every year, with the exceptions of years during the world wars. Although no country has adopted Esperanto officially, “Esperantujo” is the collective name given to places where it is spoken. Esperanto was recommended by the French Academy of Sciences in 1921 and recognized by UNESCO in 1954, which recommended in 1985 that international non-governmental organizations use Esperanto. Esperanto was the 32nd language accepted as adhering to the “Common European Framework of Reference for Languages” in 2007.[21]

Esperanto is currently the language of instruction of the International Academy of Sciences in San Marino.[22]

Esperanto is seen by many of its speakers[who?] as an alternative or addition to the growing use of English throughout the world, offering a language that is easier for French speakers to learn than English.[23]

Guantanamera, Guantanamera

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Guantanamera – The Sandpipers – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm1anurhbeg

Now if you just want to click on the youtube link above and hear The Sandpipers’ well-known song from 1966 then please do so but, if you’re wondering at the title of my blog post, you may be interested to know why I looked in the mirror this morning and felt the urge to sing “Guantanamera” (not to be confused with Guantanamo, which my text prompt insists is the word I should use); and also, why all day long I have been breaking into bursts of conversation spoken with a Mexican Spanish accent.
“Hey gringo!”, I called out (adopting my “Speedy Gonzales” accent) from our bedroom door at the bottom of the stairs, “Are you wearing shorts today?”
That brought Chris to the top of the stairs.
“No I’m not…”, he paused and smiled as he observed me, “but as you’re wearing shorts I think I’ll join you!” (We’re very together like that.)
Actually, it wasn’t my Aussie red shorts that put the smile on my husband’s face, it was the new top, which I acquired at half-price from Tesco’s last Saturday. I kind of understood why they hadn’t been big sellers on the racks – they were so colourful! And stripey! And red, white, orange, black and pink… with a big, bobble-edged gathered flounce all around the shoulders (no, not like Coco the clown, but a cheerful Mexican or Peruvian!).
“How do I look?” I asked Chris.
“Guantanamera, da da da, Guantanamera,” he sang but he couldn’t sing more than that because he doesn’t know any more of the words.
“Si Señor, I, too, was singing that a minute ago,” I said (like Speedy”) and added, “Riba, riba… anderlay, anderlay (whatever that means)…”
“If you go to Rosie’s farm today the alpacas will get excited,” Chris said before taking a bite of his toast and marmalade.
“Oh, Señor, I suppose I do look a bit funny for Dawlish – I might go and change, anderlay, anderlay (or is it underlay?)” I suggested.
“No, no, you’ll be a trailblazer,” Chris said and hummed the tune of Guantanamera.
“The Mexican trail,” I laughed.
“If only I’d known I’d have brought my pan pipes,” he quipped.
Out by the front door I sang and hummed Guantanamera while I put on my sandals. Chris joined me and grabbed the car keys off the hook.
“Come on, riba, riba, let’s go to Mum’s and frighten her,” he said, “and don’t forget the guitar!”
Guantanamera
The Sandpipers
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera
Yo soy un hombre sincero
De don de crece la palma
Yo soy un hombre sincero
De don de crece la palma
Antes des morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma
Guantanamera, guajira, guantanamera
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera
Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmín encendido
Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmín encendido
Mi verso es un querido cielo
Que busca en el monte amparo
Guantanamera, guajira, guantanamera
Guantanamera, guajira, guantanamera
Songwriters: Peter Seeger / Julian Orbon / Hector Angulo / Jose Fernandez Diaz
Guantanamera lyrics © Peermusic Publishing, The Bicycle Music Company

 

Psst! Club-Aside

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“Adonis said to tell you that there’s a new dance exercise class at the Leisure Centre tomorrow night at six o’clock,” our good friend and neighbour, Martin, told me with a smile yesterday afternoon when I was doing a bit of gardening.

Martin was laughing because the “Adonis” of whom he referred is none other than lovely Brian, one of the managers at the centre, who I’ve told you about before.

“How do you know I dubbed him ‘Adonis’?” I asked surprised (because I couldn’t imagine Martin being sharp enough to follow my brilliant blog!).

“Catherine told me,” Martin insisted (rather too quickly – maybe he’s a secret follower…).

Well, with an invitation like that, coming from Adonis, I simply had to attend. Besides, I have been feeling rather chubby recently as my most recent Dukane Diet stint lasted only five days (if only I had had the willpower to continue I would be nearly slim by now!). So I put on my fluorescent green keep-fit top and Lycra black bottoms with a slash of green at the waist, so they match (even if no-one but me sees it); and, running late as usual, I accepted Chris’s offer to drop me off.

As soon as I walked through the sliding doors I was captivated by the party atmosphere – and that was only at reception! There was a long queue of women with their money in their hands, and they all seemed excited. Had Adonis invited them all? He was busy at the counter, collecting names on a list and answering questions. The receptionist slid my member card through the machine and Adonis must have noticed my nice fluorescent ultra-fit top and looked up at me.

“I’m so glad you made it. Martin gave you the message then?”, he smiled and handed me the pen to sign on the list.

Then he gave me two fluorescent green things (lucky match!) which appeared, to my untrained eyes, to be pens also.

“What are these?” I queried.

“You just pull the tags off and you’ll see,” he was vastly amused at my old-fashionedness (if there is such a word).

“What is the class called?” I asked.

“Club Aside,” he said, “and hurry up and get in there.”

 

My goodness! The room was dark save for the fluorescent pens (or torches) held by the throng of mostly women and a few men, and some floor lights on the platform where two young men – our leaders – wearing fluorescent face paint, vests and shorts, were about to begin the dance class. It was more like a party on a dance-floor than a dance class.

After a stiff and dodgy start – I was still quite stiff from Zumba yesterday (well I am trying) – I soon got into it and was able to follow our leaders to the degree that my torches were going in the same direction as them even if my body wasn’t. The beat was great and the ladies were vociferous; they seemed to know when it was appropriate to scream and for a while I felt like something of a fuddy duddy. Happily, by the end I was able to scream and jump around on cue like the rest of them – this “Club Aside” music was most infectious.

At last, we all clapped ourselves and the lights came on. I went over to thank the leaders and a lady wearing face paint came over to me.

“Hello,” she said, “I knew it was you in that glamorous outfit!” (So glad I wore my fluorescent top!)

It was my Zumba teacher! One of our young men leaders turned out to be Charlie, the student Zumba teacher who joined in taking our class yesterday at Mamhead Village Hall (the centre of the universe!). Isn’t it a small world?

Back out in reception Adonis was on the phone talking to an ambulance paramedic while a group of staff and other ladies surrounded a face-painted lady who had fainted (as well as painted).

“Will she be alright?” I asked.

“Yes, but we have to sure,” said Brian.

At that moment the lady looked up and said:

“Oh hello Sally!”

“Hello Sheila,” I said. We been friendly acquaintances for many years.

Well, I had to leave – I was starving after all that exercise – so, as walked towards the door, I turned and asked again what the class was called, for it seemed to me that “Club-Aside” was an awfully strange name for a dance class.

“Clubb – er – cise”, Brian said slowly for me.

I ran home feeling exhilarated. Then I had toast and cheese and biscuits – not very slimming. I do hate dieting but I love Clubbercise!

 

An Australian Sunset and an English Spring Day

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Oil on canvas 1mtr x 1mtr

Peranga Sunset (Unfinished) Oil on canvas 1m x 1m

I just thought you might be interested in seeing the progress of my latest oil painting in the new Australian series. There are still a few gum trees to go on the right side of the painting but I think you can feel the mood already. This is typical of the beautiful sunsets out west. I hope you can feel the loneliness and the heat, if not the mosquitos!

While I was waiting for paint to dry there was Zumba class followed by an uphill walk with Rosie and her dogs on the farm. As you can see from the photographs, it was wonderful and probably as much exercise as Zumba!

 

 

 

Oh My, What a (Meaningful) Coincidence!

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The Swiss philosopher and psychologist Karl Jung pioneered the field of “Synchronicity”, a term he coined to represent those meaningful coincidences that happen to most of us, where there seems to be no cause for events but they have significant meaning to those who experience it. Synchronicity allows for the unknown element that affects our lives and causes wonder – the inexplicable “other”.

I’m not sure if Karl Jung would have called an event that occurred to us last Monday Synchronicity but it was certainly wonderful. Because of the lovely sunny morning after days of rain and cold Chris asked me if I’d like a trip out to “Plants Galore” (about eleven miles away) to buy some yellow flowers to finish off the display on our terrace. I jumped at the opportunity and suggested that we could go also to Stover Lake for a nice walk, as we’d be in the vicinity. Naturally, we asked Mum if she’d like to join us and then my sister Mary said that she, too, would like to go (Geoff was going out somewhere with their daughter Katie and her children). After our fun in “Plants Galore” we had a pleasant drive in the countryside before wending our way to Stover Country Park. We were walking to the lake when who should we see but Geoff, Katie, James and Annalise coming towards us? Of all the places they could have visited… what a coincidence! But was it Synchronicity? Was there a special meaning? It was good to see them – and a great surprise – but if there was an underlying meaning I wasn’t aware of it. Not like another strange coincidence that happened several years ago…

I know it will sound a bit weird, especially as many people don’t know about such items, but at the time I was looking for one of those china things that you put inside a pie to let air out during the cooking and prevent the innards from boiling over the pastry – I think it’s called a pie funnel. I’m right. Here are some examples : –

Well, my old pie funnel had broken and the only place where I knew I could buy one was from a little china knick knack shop at Widecombe-in-the-Moor, on Dartmoor; the owner of the china shop made the geegaws himself for tourists visiting the village (famous for its fair and The Great Thunderstorm in 1638 which killed four worshippers and injured sixty during an afternoon service).

So on this particular day Chris and I drove the fifteen miles or so to Widecombe on this special errand. We had been searching through an array of novelty pie funnels, looking for a plain white funnel to no avail, for several minutes when who should come along but Mary and Mum! They were as surprised as we were, considering that neither party had any notion of the other’s intention to venture out into the moor and go into the china shop. Noticing that I had a novelty Old Uncle Tom Cobley pie funnel in my hand, my sister said:

“What do you want that for?”

“Well, I need one because mine has broken and these are all I could find. They don’t have any plain white ones,” I explained.

“You don’t want to spend out money on that,” Mary grinned, “not when I have exactly what you want in my handbag!”

Mary put her hand into the bag and produced a white pie funnel that she had picked up a little earlier at a car boot sale. Now that’s what I call Synchronicity!

And here are some photos of baby Annalise and my new flowers:-

 

 

 

 

 

The Catwalk

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Chris arose from his seat at the breakfast table and went over to the fridge for butter.  When he returned I hit him with it:

“Do you know who who reminded me of just then?”

“No,” Chris paused and braced himself as if something awful was coming. (I can’t imagine why husbands always expect the worst…)

“Well, you looked just like Jess the cat,” I said.

“How do you mean?” Chris still thought there was an insult coming.

“Don’t you remember how Jess sort of rolled his shoulders forward like a big tough guy and swaggered his haunches to show off?”, I answered, getting up and doing a bit of shoulder-rolling and swaggering myself. (In fact I reminded myself more of John Wayne than Jess our long departed cat.)

Chris laughed and we had a few moments of silence while we each enjoyed our own private reverie about Jess. We didn’t need to speak because we’ve reminisced so many times on the characterful antics of our half-feral cat. Jess didn’t like flea repellent. As soon as he ever heard the crack of the glass capsule breaking he would go into reverse and nearly walk up the wall back feet first. But he was clever enough to understand that he had to keep very still when we had to remove tics using a lit cigarette and a pair of tweezers (those were days when I used to smoke – now I’m like Mother Teresa, not to be confused with Teresa May our Prime Minister!). Poor Jess, he died from poisoning (a neighbour had set a trap for rats in his garden).

No doubt the image of Jess’s face flicked through Chris’s mind, too – and the burial, which was something of a black comedy. You see Jess was rather a big cat, and it seemed all the more so in death – and we have a vertical garden with little topsoil and lots of sandstone; hence we decided to bury him up on Haldon Moor only a few miles from home. Along with the black sack containing the heavy body, we carried a pickaxe and spade with us into the woods… but, unfortunately, below the scant three inches of topsoil was flint – sparks flew every time Chris’s spade made contact. We couldn’t bring ourselves to take the “stiff” home with us so the only other answer was to build a pyre above ground and place logs and stones on it to prevent foxes from getting at it. It was quite a romantic send-off, if a bit furtive. Armed with our pick and spade we felt like criminals coming  out of the woods, especially when we met a cyclist who looked at us suspiciously. “Just buried the cat,” Chris said. “A likely story,” the cyclist may have thought… We made our getaway before he had a chance to call the police.

Back in the kitchen it was clear that Chris had not felt insulted.

“I hope you didn’t mind me saying that you reminded me of Jess the cat,” I smiled.

“Not at all,” he responded, “you’ve said a lot worse!”

 

 

 

The North Wind Doth Blow

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Image result

That nasty old North wind has come back. For over a week I’ve been busy trying to get as much of the outdoors painting done as possible before the predicted change for the worse in the weather today. Our house is like the Forth Bridge, in that when you’ve finished all the maintenance works it’s time to begin again! In spite of the cold wind this morning it was quite warm in the sunshine on the sea-side of our house, where I took the paint and brushes to paint the railings by the back steps (our house is sort of back to front because the back is the architectural front and our main entrance from the roadside is really the back elevation); at the same time Chris was painting our gate on the other side – the cold side – so I had the preferable task.

I’m into philosophy at the moment and enjoy listening on YouTube to lectures on the great thinkers while I paint – of course, that’s usually painting of a different sort but if I can listen while I paint pictures then why not when there are less challenging railings to be painted? So I clicked onto a lecture – “Carl Jung’s “Synchronicity” Explained” – and began painting those seemingly endless railings. Wearing an old demoted sun-top and shorts I was surprisingly warm – even had to nip upstairs and put on sun screen – so long as the sun was out. Two huge grey clouds threatened rain and made me shiver but they they both passed over and shed their loads over the sea.

Soon Chris came down with the phone and I turned off “Synchronicity” (Synchronicity is a concept, first explained by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, which holds that events are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related.)  It was my friend Rosie inviting my sister Mary and me to meet her tiny new granddaughter Senka; coincidentally, I am soon to become grandmother to a little girl (at present Penelope), and Mary became grandmother to her fifth granddaughter last year.

When our telephone conversation ended I resumed painting without feeling the need to continue listening to the lecture; I was happy just to think about the things Rosie had said to me. I smiled to myself as I considered our conversation. Rosie said I was a “young grandmother” – in attitude, if not years (Mary was thirty-eight when she first became Grandma) – and attributed her notion of youthfulness to my being from the flower power era in the late sixties and early seventies. And the more I thought about it, the more I agreed…

To Mary and I living in Australia at that time “flower power” meant wearing psychedelic flares, apple-seed necklaces and cheese-cloth tops, and we wrote words like, “Make love not war”, without really understanding that we were growing up in an age of greater freedom – because we were part of it, being too young to have actually brought about any changes. We made slave shoes out of raffia, not realising that the symbol of the flowers represented peaceful protest (at least, I didn’t think about that at twelve years old).

By happy coincidence at four o’clock, just when my “Forth Bridge railings” were finished at last, the north wind brought showers of sleet and hail. Tomorrow we’re promised more of the same so I’ll be back painting in my studio with Carl Jung or Jean-Paul Sartre in my ears. It’s so nice to be regarded a young grandmother – more aptly perhaps… a Jung grandmother.

Image result for flower-power

Cutting It

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I have just had my morning shower and I’m looking for something to wear, so I’m stood in only my “bare necessities” as I peruse the vast array of tired clothes in my closet. Nothing inspires me, hence I’m standing there for quite some time. Suddenly, I feel a pair of masculine arms encircling my waist from behind. I don’t look around because I am reaching up to take a garment off its hanger and also, I know who it is. Nevertheless, I ask lightheartedly:

“Who is that?”

He laughs and pulls me tighter. As he does so I bring my hands onto his and I feel something sharp – I look down and see that he has a pair of nail scissors in his left hand. (Obviously he was coming back to the bedroom to return the scissors to his ‘man-drawer’.)

“I know who you are,” I say before adding, “Edward Scissorhands!”

“Cut it out!” Chris says.

“No need to be so sharp,” I say back.

 

Image result for edward scissorhands

 

A Little Dotty

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Something very sweet happened to me last week. Chris and I were just coming home from a small shopping adventure at our local Sainsbury’s. Chris had rushed ahead of me and flew down the steps before I had even reached our gate. I was about to go through the open gateway when I turned and noticed a lady walking with a tiny tot wearing reins. The toddler caught my attention because she was rather tall but she had a nearly bald head like a much younger baby. Also, the dear little mite looked right at me in the unabashed way of an innocent who has not yet learned the social mores.

“Hello,” I said smiling.

Would you believe that the tot toddled over to me, put her arms around my legs and snuggled up to me? I was rather overwhelmed with the urge to pick her up and give her a big kiss but I wasn’t sure what her mum would think so, instead, I patted her little bald pate and, seeing that her mother was smiling, I bent down to kiss the scant hair above an ear.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Dot…Dotty,” she said.

I suddenly had a childhood memory of the cartoon character “Little Dot”; it took me back to the time when I was nine and had just had my appendix out. I could hardly move in my hospital bed for fear that my wound would open up and I was reading “Little Dot”. The cartoon Dot was dying of thirst in a desert when she saw a cactus and cut it open for the water… Cartoon Dot awoke with a start from her desert dream as she realised she was just about to eat the cactus pot plant on her bedside table! That had me in stitches! Isn’t it funny what strange things come back to us years later? Just because of a name…

The real little Dot didn’t have a red dress with black polka dots – she was wearing a pink baby dress over grey leggings and she wore pink shoes. Dotty was looking through the open gate at the view of the sea between the rooftops. I picked her up that she might see better the sunshine glittering on the water.

“She loves the sea,” said her mum.

“Well I must go Dotty,” I said, putting Dot down on her own two legs. (Yes, I know you might think I’m dotty already!)

The darling girl took me by the hand and told me, without the need for words, that she wanted to go for a walk with me. Ah, so sweet…

And in early July my son’s little girl is due to enter the world. James and Jaimy say they’ll be happy to let Penelope come down to Devon from Brighton and stay with Grandma and Grandpa when she is old enough. But I won’t be able to introduce Penelope to “Little Dot” from the comic – they finally stopped producing them in 1984.