Transferring to here20 months ago

Here’s the list as it stands: a mixture of seasonal fayre spanning high summer to Christmas! It befits the transitory in-between feel in this corner of the world right now :)

• Damson gin – maturing already under the stairs
• Limoncello – I have the ingredients and I really want to give this a go even if it is the wrong end of the summer so maybe is not strictly seasonal
• Sloe vodka – just found some sloes from last year in the freezer. Seems a shame to waste them ;)
• Wild plum chutney – quantities of plums are waiting in the fridge and need using fast. I have everything else I need so hopefully tomorrow for this one
• Wild plum mincemeat – just came across a rather nice-sounding recipe so if I have some wild plums to spare this will be next
• Spiced elderberry jelly – the hedgerows are groaning with elderberries and I’ve never yet made anything worthwhile with them. I tried elderberry rob once; it tasted like a particularly nasty cough medicine but with none of the soothing benefits. This recipe sounds promising. If I have time before the season is over.

And I also want to go blackberry picking. Plus the apple tree is calling to me, And the garden plums need picking NOW….

:) 22 months ago

I can’t quite make up my mind about the season. It is still August and it ought to still feel summery which it does – sometimes. But autumn is always hovering. It’s fairly non-descript here today – though dryish at least. But a couple of days this week have been wonderful. Cool and misty early mornings but with clear promise of better things, and sure enough, within an hour or two we’ve had gorgeous, mellow, late summer days: warm and golden. It’s so much quieter at this end of the summer. The birds have given up on their frenzied singing competitions and there’s no longer a sense of urgency in the growing and the blooming and the gathering. We still have tractors and combine activity but it’s sporadic now. The silos are filled. I like this drowsiness; this more gentle, winding down of the summer. And I’ve noticed the robin singing again: very pure and clear.

Not that I’m keen to see the summer gone of course. Not that we’ve really had a summer! But the signs of impending autumn are hard to ignore. Leaves are turning; hedgerows hang heavy with elderberries, haws and blackberries; mornings and evenings are chilly and sharp. And the evenings draw in inexorably. I’ve not seen any swallows gathering on the wires yet though, so officially – it’s definitely summer still :) 22 months ago

I’ve been meaning to add something of this sort for a while. I’ve only just realised that one of my favourite 43ters has had exactly the goal I was looking for on her list for some time.

It’s nice to be in good company :) 22 months ago

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours. ~ Grover Cleveland, 1905

ORLY?

“Feminism is about making your life better. It is like self-help multiplied by a hundred.”
Jessica Valenti

“As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.”
bell hooks

“Feminism is for everyone.”
bell hooks

“Justice demands integrity. It’s to have a moral universe – not only know what is right or wrong but to put things in perspective, weigh things. Justice is different from violence and retribution; it requires complex accounting. “
bell hooks

“I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.”
bell hooks

“Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.”
Lois Wyse

“Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.”
Margaret Mead

“The function of freedom is to free someone else.”
Toni Morrison

“You are your best thing”
Toni Morrison

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
Toni Morrison

“Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.”
Gloria Steinem

“Have higher standards. Trust your bullshit detector. That’s what it’s about.”
Gloria Steinem

“For much of the female half of the world, food is the first signal of our inferiority. It lets us know that our own families may consider female bodies to be less deserving, less needy, less valuable.”
Gloria Steinem

“If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn’t it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?”
Gloria Steinem

“I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.”
Gloria Steinem

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”
Gloria Steinem

“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who’s confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.”
Joss Whedon2 years ago

In Sweden, kids dress up as traditional Scandenavian witches and hunt for chocolate eggs. That’s what I’m gonna do next year! 2 years ago

This is a photograph from the Beltane Fire Festival in Scotland. Beltane coincides with May Day, the holiday referring to the Celtic god Bel and his fire (“tane”). Beltane, the fires of Bel. It’s about renewal and the approaching summer.

It is very very very strange writing this. I can so clearly see myself as I was last year: perhaps twice as healthy as I am now, and expecting to get even better. I didn’t do anything for May Day this year but I want to mark it somehow, even after the fact. I often feel as if time is out of control, as if I am on pause and everyone else is on fast forward. Putting these marks on the year makes the cycles seem much more regular, and much less like I’m standing in and being thrashed by the sandstorm of time.

This is a French May Day custom that I like:

On May 1st, 1561, King Charles IX of France received a lily of the valley as a lucky charm. He decided to offer a lily of the valley each year to the ladies of the court. At the beginning of the 20th century, it became custom on the 1st of May, to give a sprig of lily of the valley, a symbol of springtime. The government permits individuals and workers’ organisations to sell them free of taxation. It is also traditional for the lady receiving the spray of lily of valley to give a kiss in return. Now, people may present loved ones with bunches of lily of the valley.2 years ago