Today it has felt that everyone has been following the old lock-down message to “Stay at Home”. This is because the weather has been like it is winter!
It’s been really misty, raining all day, that type of thin light rain and generally a bleak day. The streets, parks, etc…were really quiet, hardly no people out and about. I guess, everyone was just staying at home – I mean we are all good at that 😉
Saying that the roads were super busy, I guess anyone who was out, was probably using their car.
It was really dark all day too and so my energy was pretty flat, with low motivation to do much. Honey and I just went to Kate’s Park for a couple of walks. Hopefully, tomorrow my energy will pick up and we can go for a longer walk/run. Honey doesn’t seem too bothered, sleeping most of the day. I guess, she is still recovering from the beach party on Saturday. Or maybe the smoky smell that she still has in her fur is making her drowsy?!
So not much to reflect on today about living in lock-down.
Even this pigeon looks pretty wet and fed-up 😉
Creative / Gardening Corner
This section seems to be coming to a natural end. It started on Day 86 as ‘Poetry Corner’, where I shared all the poems I wrote during my mental health nurse training and a few of you also shared some of the poems you have written and like.
It then expanded to ‘Poetry / Art Corner’ on Day 115 where I shared all my life drawings at my one and only life drawing class, which followed by Anna’s amazing collection of lock-down paintings inspired by The Paint Republic.
Eventually becoming ‘Creative / Gardening Corner’ on Day 138, which continued with more of Anna’s paintings.
After 61 days, it feels like there is nothing more to include in here, so I propose to the ‘Blog Community’ (Brayshaw, MJ, 2020) that it ceases to exist. If you have any objections to this, please let me know or go via the Blog Union Rep, Matt Brayshaw.
If you have any suggestions for a new section, please let me know.
So to end this section, I thought I would share a photo I found whilst clearing through my spare room.
You may remember back on Day 102 I shared a poem I wrote about watching the sunrise on 1st January 2000 over Arthur’s Seat. I said I had taken a photo of the moment, but couldn’t find it – but I have found it 🙂
So here is the poem again and photo.
The Perfect Moment – Once Every 1000 Years
The sky was dark, the air was cold,
A sense of excitement filled up the hill.
Sparsely scattered, we quietly gathered,
The world united for a new awakening.
Slowly the sky, began to change,
Red, Orange, Violet and Yellow.
The first light slowly, rose above the horizon,
As we watched the dawn of a new millennium.
Readers Corner
Anna
Anna sent me a message yesterday after reading my blog (Day 146), commenting about the painting card she had finished yesterday, saying:
“The card was painted and given today so the recipient did see it first.”
Och well – I’m glad the recipient got to see the card before we did!
It Made Me Smile
Today Google Alerts, alerted me of an article in The Guardian that made me smile.
It is called: ‘Shows, suds, cider and a soaking: the Edinburgh fringe from my bathtub’ written by Kate Wyver
This bit at the bottom, reminds me of August in Edinburgh and reminds me why Edinburgh Fringe works a lot better in real life than virtually:
“After almost five months of a much slower pace of life, it is a pleasure to have so many things to rush to, to be late to, to walk out of, to miss. In my cider-soaked efforts to recreate the fringe,
I’ve found new artists, new shows, and new hopes for next year.
But I can’t help it: the people are what really make the fringe.
The strangers you meet in queues. The artists you chat to in bars. The friends you collapse with at the end of the day. However many shows you watch at home, nothing can quite recreate the feeling of being squeezed together on a balmy August evening in an Edinburgh courtyard, the light fading behind you, telling stories about stories, and revelling in the togetherness of it all.”.
I’d like to think she also saw Jim the Magician in The Pleasance Courtyard 😉
Music Corner
This is Eddi Reader, singing Ae Fond Kiss. Which originally was a poem by the Scottish poet Rabbie Burns. It is Burns’ is most recorded love song.
According to Wikipedia, whilst Burns was in Edinburgh he developed a platonic relationship with Mrs Agnes Maclehose and they began regular correspondence using the pseudonyms ‘Clarinda’ and ‘Sylvander’ Before she departed from Edinburgh to be with her estranged husband in Jamaica, Burns wrote ‘Ae fond kiss’ after their final meeting and sent it to Maclehose on 27 December 1791.
A
s I come to the end of this blog, I haven’t written much.
Today has felt like being back in lock-down and it reminds me of when we were all “Staying at Home” and the lower energy I had. I remember writing about when we travel to different places, to work, to the shops, etc…it helps shift our energy, which is why we all found we were doing less and less in lock-down. This has definitely been going on for me today.
Also as the weather has been so dark and wet, will have dropped my energy and mood.
The weather today has been wet, dull, misty and dark all day. It’s felt that Edinburgh has been sitting in one massive cloud all day. When we went out for our bedtime walk, it had stopped raining and was actually relatively mild, but I guess it is August.
It made me think, I wonder what lock-down would be like in Winter? It would probably so much more depressing. Fingers crossed we won’t be back in lock-down then.
Hope you’ve had a good start to your week.
Jim x