Summer Daze

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The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

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I don't know much about praying, but if the act of attention is a form of prayer then perhaps I do after all...

It is so hot and still today I can feel the grasses sway and the whole garden throbbing.

I love the last line..."Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life"

Sarah

-x-

more pics here

Super Saturday

My mind is whirling zoetrope, chock full of sporting images. 

I have witnessed real life super-human endeavour, and it is breathtaking.

The Olympics really is the Greatest Show on Earth and the Olympic Park isn't bad either!

...and all the while I kept thinking how great this park will be long after the Olympics and marvelling at the flowers, all those nodding heads...thinking of Sarah Raven's Rivers of Flowers....corridors of wild flowers in our towns and cities...

 Phew, no words really....just a jumble of memories and feelings.

On the way home we met these lovely ladies! Such fun!

 -x-

Danny, champion of the world!

It's great! Britain. Danny Boyle is a legend! 

I am still marvelling at his Olympic "Isles of Wonder" four full days later. I have struggled in vain ~ I fully intended to keep quiet on this topic and leave all the comment to professional bloggers and journos. I simply can't, such is my delight and amazement ~ I need to blurt it all out...

All that detail, the art direction, set design, music, vision ~ absolutely cinematic in it's ambition. How I loved the narrative, "this is new"! From the opening sequence and the overhead shot of our "Green and Pleasant Land", bucolic, complete with cottage, village green, geese, sheep, cricket and seemingly the cast of Larkrise to Candleford all the way through to the burnished copper brilliance of the Olympic fire-flower it was a triumph.

The costumes were so brilliantly realised throughout the piece, the colour  and mood shifts between each of the acts, reinforced by the soundtrack and lighting...it made me long for closing credits, so that all involved could be congratulated.
Thanks to that drum beat, Dame Evelyn Glennie and Underworld the ceremony moved relentlessly onwards towards the Industrial Revolution. Dark, brooding, smoke filled ~ somewhere between a Lowry painting and a Big Country album cover!

Those industrial chimneys being ripped from the earth as the green and pleasant literally rolled away, workers forging 5 rings ~ amazing visual effects to pull off in an arena, live ~ and those rings levetating in the night sky, sparks flying...awe inspiring.

Corgis, not just run of the mill corgis, comic corgis, Royal corgis! Bond, Her Maj. and a waving Winston Churchill...

At this point I began to think, "how on earth is he going to follow this?" Of course! The NHS ~ brilliant. Showing his working class credentials and flexing some political muscle, good for you Danny. Again the art direction superb, costumes and fabulous lighting. The colour palette in this section was perfect, cool clean crisp pastels and pure white light. The Stars? Children and real NHS staff ~ masterstroke.

And so to literature, a celebration of children's writing. JK Rowling, the Child Catcher and Voldermort...thank heavens for all those gorgeous Mary Poppins, although I must confess I was secretly hoping for The Doctor.

Next, a race through film, TV and music all tied together by a boy meets girl story...luckily they had social media to bring them together. And all thanks to Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web who was revealed to great applause.

The memorial to the victims of the London bombings (that happened the day after it was announced London had was to host the games) was stunning. Mesmerising coreography by Akram Kahn and a beautiful performance of "Abide with me " by Emeli Sande.

After the triumphant entrance of Team GB to the strains of David Bowie's 'Heroes" came my highlight. Those Dove bikes accompanied by the Arctics playing "Come Together" so cool! Perfect after the the supreme efforts of "Le Wiggo". I hope Mr.Spielberg enjoyed the dove bike that took flight ~ I loved that nod to him ~ the camera work on that was great too.(Love this article with more insight .)

Ok, Ok I know enough of the gushing. This post is packed so full of superlatives I suspect some will read it scornfully, and that's fine. I simply want to come back to this in the future weeks, months and years and try to remember some of the incredible images and theatre we witnessed and how wonderful it all was.

 As Seb said "...this is our time...and we did it right." 

Final words to Danny Boyle

"Beijing is something that, in a way, was great to follow."

"You can't get bigger than Beijing, you know? So that in a way, kind of liberated us. We thought OK good, we'll try to do something completely different."

You certainly did that Danny! It's a great big thumbs up from this tiny corner of the "Isles of Wonder".

Wittering away...

Currant bun came back! Mr.Lane declared an away day...and so it was we found ourselves wending along the South Downs this past weekend. To my mind the South Downs look like a succession of partially buried tennis balls, all in different phases of sun~bleached greens and yellows stretching away into the distance....it pleases me, this thought.

All those repeating green waves of hills and valleys, flowing and undulating, sweeping, epic, rising and falling, makes you want to grab a brush and paint with the entire arc of your arm.Ah tricky when you're driving of course and so many brilliant depictions of the Downs already exist...

South Downs Poster c.1946 by Walter E Spardbery for Southern Railway

A luminous woodcut of the South Downs by Edward Loxton Knight

The Long Man at Wilmington by Alan Tyers

an earlier version of The Long Man at Wilmington by the great Eric Ravilious, painted as we approached the  Second World War.

Your Britain (South Downs) Frank Newbould...
...such an iconic swathe of English Countryside, I bathe in it's familiarity and timelessness, Downs to my right and glimpses of sparkling sea to my left...ah, yes the seaside.

There is something about seaside places...kitsch becomes appropriate, colour takes on another dimension in short all is saturated...especially the catch of the day...where would we be without "Fish & Chips" and the King...cottage gardens bursting with old fashioned blooms, gaudy perfection. Seaside pubs, endless horizons, driftwood sculptural, hinting at an imagined form, wet dog, sandy dog, happy dog. Boat motifs and best of all these things?
 Mr.Lane! Step forward the true, the real, Mr.Lane. I saw happiness and contentment in his face...I had almost forgotten it, that look. Standing in the footprints of his Dad and his Dad before him, I could picture them, all three, standing alongside one another, shoulder to shoulder in this much favoured place. There is history here for us and that line of continuity is strengthening and nourishing in the face of great turmoil. Tears fell, so great my relief at this glimpse of my beautiful boy...

We were visiting Pagham (check out the life boat station!), West Wittering and Itchenor in East Sussex.

 Hope you are enjoying the return of  "the bun!"

Sarah -x-

...oh and a note from the wettest, sandiest, happiest hound in all of Sussex...

"Olympic training is going well, aiming to equal Micheal Phelps 8 gold medals, so far I have managed channel swims on four beaches and counting, must dash as I find myself with a rather sandy tongue and I have just spotted an exotic looking piece of seaweed..."

I've seen THE light!

Yes the light cast by an Olympic flame no less!

 

It was brilliant! Woo~hoo, so looking forward to THE GAMES!

-X-