I picked up an apple last Tuesday morning and took it home. It was a very pretty apple, perfectly shaped and coloured.

And here is the same apple, but with a different perspective. The clock is not a Monsterwecker (as my German friend Patricia called it.

It is a crab apple. I was amazed to see that it was a perfect miniature imitation of an eating apple. From the shape to the colouring, right down to the fly at the opposite end of the stalk. Amazing little thing - just about 1.3cm high at most. And to think that I lived 65 years before I discovered this!

A week later:

That crab apple: I finally cut it in half today, giving in to my curiosity. And I found: this miniature apple really looks exactly like an apple when cut, too, and it smells exactly like an apple! Astonishing! Though I do not know why I should find it so, I do.

A small accident whilst painting newly boarded up fireplaces

Pot dropped. Paint flew. Ottoman kilim drippng white onto floor. Minor accident. Major spectacle.

And here is a funny little story, also 1st November 2011:

All the rubbish left outside by the British Gas heating engineers was collected today, including all three discarded storage heaters (weighing a ton!). I could not watch the guy moving them, just prayed that he wasn't going to injure himself!

About 15 minutes before he came (strangely in a huge DHL Van - obviously contracted by British Gas to do removals), I saw a small middle aged, well dressed man rummaging around outside. He seemed to be measuring one of the heaters. He disappeared, but shortly afterwards came back again and started to unscrew the covers on one the heaters. I went out - he apologised profusely for not coming to ask first, and explained that he had been looking for a thermostat for one of his heaters, that they had become unobtainable, and that the one on the discarded heater was exactly the right thing. He was equipped with all the right tools (appearing from his coat pocket), and deftly managed to remove the thermostat from the old heater. He was extremely grateful that I was not cross. And I was not at all. On the contrary, I helped steadying the heater whilst he used his tools, all the while smoking a cigarette.

I detected an accent, and we established our non-British origins: he is Portuguese, I am Swiss. He explained that his English wife is embarrassed about his rummaging, so she stayed in the car out of sight..... The removal successfully completed, he bowed in gratitude, gallantly kissed my hand and went away, the thermostat in his pocket, a happy man. I was happy, too, that a bit of the discarded heater had been useful to someone. And happy that he had come back just in time!

Autumn 2011

First of November 2011. 1.11.11

Sitting on a bus on a glorious Autumn day - the roadside is bursting with colour. A big fat cumulus cloud squatting on the horizon, in a blank clear blue sky. The low sun is guilding whatever it touches. Even mundane things like Sainsbury shopping bag glow orange in the early afternoon sun: the people scuttling across the road by the shop, carrying orange lanterns! They look like they are hurrying to some ceremonial gathering

On the way back, an hour later, the dance of colours continues to delight. The same fat cloud still sits low on the horizon, in exactly the same place, happy to be there.

Sky News

Sky News Monday, September 19, 2011 at 12.00 noon:

North-East: dark grey clouds looming.
South-West: summer blue sky - tiniest whiffs of white cloud.
Verdict: I don't know what's coming and what's going.

Bird News

The sparrows are flitting about in consternation, holding a great animated debate: the fat pigeon has discovered how it can get at the peanuts in the bird feeder!

Sky News

Sky News - September 18, 2011, at 19.00 hours

Out there is the prettiest bit of sky I have seen today: thin silver clouds tinged with pink and scattered loosely over a sky of the most delicate pale blue.

September birds

Goings on in the square

The rain has excited the birds: about 12 sparrows are twittering away furiously, grouping in the Daphne bush, then regrouping over at the laurel bush, then again gathering under the myrtle. A blackbird is scuttling at great speed across the back of the patio. The fat pigeon is sitting in the laurel, looking on - until another fat pigeon appears which it then chases.

Basel-Paris 24 August 2011

Aus dem Zug gesehen:

Ein Streifen Birkenwald - schon gelb. Gebleicht. Ausgefranst. Müde.

Switzerland 2011

An einem Abend gegen Ende August:

Es ist nun dunkel. Der Himmel hat sich bewölkt. Da ist noch eine Wolke - ganz weiss - hinter den andern dunklen Wolken. "Dort scheint die Sonne noch", sagt meine Schwester.

My sky tonight

I spotted a patch of pink in a sky otherwise brushed by flying grey clouds. The sun is shining somewhere!

River of Stones July 2011 July 31

My sky

The sky here is just a blank, clean, clear blue. The shrubs and trees are huge and lush this year, leaving me only small bits of sky....

A River of Stones 24 July 2011

An innocent couple

Coming down from the Golf course, at the end of a walk very high up on the windy hills, we meet the tiny Canadian woman and her tall Canadian husband - in sartorial cream Sunday suit - lovely clear faces, and very nice manners.

River of Stones 23 July 2011

News

This morning Norway. Why!!!

This evening Amy Winehouse. Why again!

River of Stones July 22 2011

Silence

I know - blue sky, patches of, in amongst clouds - the grey, and piled up creamy whites, against the mid-summer green, dark in the shadows. But nothing else? I judge. The deal was to just look!

Yesterday, this was a blank. Today, I reflected on yesterday's silence.

River of Stones July 21 2011

Growing up

I realise with astonishment how much growing up I still have to do - and how difficult it seems, but also how easy it becomes when I stop fearing the consequences.

River of Stones July 20 2011

A new chatroom?

The waiting rooms for visa applications at Embassies......

River of Stones July 19 2011

Today it is the starlings - quarrelling over those peanuts. Quite a vicious lot they are! I have never seen young ones before - dove coloured, but already showing hints of the lean athletic body and the aggressive behaviour of the adult.

River of Stones July 18 2011

The fat pigeon

The fat pigeon is getting fatter still, feeding on the pea nuts I put up for the sparrows. What impertinence!

River of Stones July 17 2011

Sage oil

My flat is clean, smelling of sage oil. This makes me happy. I enjoy just being in it.

River of Stones July 16 2011

I leave, sad, tears barely contained just behind my eyes, and when I walk home from the station, the tears and the rain are wetting my face.

River of Stones July 15 2011

The old people

The band plays and the old people sing along - word perfect, pitch perfect, the sparkle of a 25 year old in their eyes.

River of Stones July 14 2011

The birds in my garden.

The birds in my garden all chasing each other this morning - flitting all over the place. Young blackbirds, tits, sparrows, tumbling, zooming, diving, falling about, and having a really great time. The air is soft. The colours dancing.

River of Stones 13 July 2011

The flute in the fog

A friend telling me the story: Paris, 1968. A foggy night. The sound of a flute leading him down to the Seine, by the Ile de la Cité - Notre Dame looming dark in the thick fog. The rumble of a police boat, manned by a machine gun, a search light breaking through the fog and holding him in its beam. He twists away from the beam, slips into the dark fog, the menacing rumble of the boat intermingling with the sweetness of the flute.

River of Stones 12 July 2011

The games we play.

As adults, we continue to play the same games we have learnt when we were kids - on the playground.

River of Stones July 11 2011

Being quits, or being squirrelled.

Squirrel on Bird food. I am indignant. I go frighten him.

Squirrel dashes in wrong direction, towards the house, flies up the vertical wall, tries clinging to drainpipe which offers no hold. I see him drop, down, down. A thud on the corrugated plastic roof over the neighbour's patio. Silence. Now it's me who is frightened. My heart nearly stops. Now it is me flying - up the garden steps to look down on the roof. He is sitting on the bridge. Looking at me. Not moving. Stunned? Injured?My whole being feels sick. What have I done! He has only been eating some peanuts. Yes yes, they were meant for the birds. But who says? I already write the scenario: The RSPCA. How does one catch an injured squirrel? And then I see him, hanging upside down on the bird basket. And I am glad. I think we are quits!

River of Stones July 10 2011

The Uncle.

That house. That room. In that room, the old man. We put clean sheets on the bed, clean covers on the duvet and pillows. We opened the windows and curtains, to let in clean new air, whilst the old man changed into clean pajamas in the bathroom. Back in his bed, both arms stretched out on the duvet, the man looked content, as neat as the neatly fitted, smooth, totally uncrumpled covers. Why does this make me happy?

River of Stone July 9, 2011

The Japanese Maple in Grange Gardens

Late afternoon light brushes the flat top of the Japanese Maple. Fruit reaching for the light - the ones on top bright red, like large flowers, whilst below, they are small, delicately pale green, like young leaves. Samara - that is the name for a fruit which looks like a propeller. And here is what Wiki says: "A samara is sometimes called a key and is often referred to as a whirlybird, helicopter, whirligig, polynose, or, in the north of England, a spinning jenny."

River of Stones July 7

Outside my window:

Sunbeams cutting through droplets of rain

hanging on leaves and branches.

I am looking at the world through sparkling tears.

River of Stones July 6

The air is behaving like water today - splashing all over the place.

Ok - I have decided to join the River of Stones - but in my own private blog. I started late, and have done just one so far:

Monday July 4

Wineberry garlanded around the Bay Tree:

the Laurel's laurels!

Tuesday July 5 - blank! Why!

The good old days.....

I really wonder what has happened to these great times that were promised to us way back in the 70s. Everything seems to have become more difficult - despite the advances in technology, and the insights made by Science, Psychology, Philosophy etc. Strange - it seems to me that what used to be simple has become complicated, and what was already complicated has become impossible.

If this is what progress means, then all it seems to have led to is depression, unemployment, austerity, poverty, deteriorating education, struggle, stress, worse health service, threat to public services altogether! I cannot understand the world and human beings. We are supposed to be intelligent! But the world seems to be getting more stupid. Even more important then for me to spread the Alexander Technique and - hopefully - contributing to the evolution of consciousness and intelligence. I try not to get caught up in despair.