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Friday 13 September 2013

'When was it

EXACTLY that laziness came 
and bit you on the bum LL?'

Every cotton-picking morning I wake 
with a head full of schemes
and plans.

Every cotton-picking day
I'm just too idle to get my arse 
into gear.

The days pass in a daze of
jobs planned, but never executed.

The studio is now free of a
 summer of 
itinerant visitors...
so my work space is clear.
So no excuse there.

After an action-packed working life
my hands are not to
put too fine a point on it...
buggered.

'How come?'

Well seeing as you're asking...
spinning, knitting, sewing, crocheting.

'Hardly hard work LL!'

All of the above, working flat out
to sell, to earn money in order
to scratch a living off the land.

Peat digging, winkle picking,
digging by hand a huge veg. plot,
grinding corn, kneading bread,
milking goats, 
beach-combing huge bolts of timber

Then farming...
driving clunking tractors,
stacking small bales by hand in a field, 
then onto a trailer,
then off at the other end.

Shovelling the proverbial,
forking silage in the clamp,
then out to the cows,
levelling concrete delivered by
truck (the driver couldn't believe just two
of us were doing it!)
forking out hay,
hands inside a cow, sorting out a calves feet
to enable it to be born.
Cooking for all comers.




Next chapter...

Training as a cordon bleu chef.
Working some 14+ hours in a
busy household, in the main 
without help.

Now if I tell you my left hand is constantly numb
and my right thumb joint is worn away,
perhaps you can get an idea?


Is it any wonder I'm worn-out,
not in spirit, mind.
And on occasions look like this...


Blogging is the way forward...
 I'm content with my life...
not a bad place to be.

13 comments:

  1. Love It LL :) you deserve to be idle after all that. Glad to see you have the new MacBook up and running. Now what are we going to do with it??? Apart from blogging?

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  2. Just blogging... well that is until Ms CinC gives us a webinar on 'How to get the most out of your Mac'
    then I'll sign up and for once in my life be star pupil.

    LLX

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    Replies
    1. Aah you funny lady :) but I am impressed that you know what a webibar is ~ true signs of a star pupil !

      How about we make something in Garage Band OR I could give you a lesson on how to make your own computer game on your Mac ~ now that would make for some funny blogging!!

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  3. Love that final photo - she looks happy! Jane x

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    Replies
    1. Yes, doesn't she just!

      One of my favourite photo's.

      LLX

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  4. One of my favourite photos too - Mr Ravilious was hard to beat when it came to photographing country life.

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    Replies
    1. Aah Nilly, you know so much: you are one helluva clever girl.

      LLX

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  5. I think you deserve to do just what you want to do! I'm looking forward to that - but it will be a long while yet......

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Debs, there is one fly in the ointment... the trouble is you feel frigging GUILTY and not a little bored. The old case of the grass is greener.

      LLX

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  6. What is it with us modern humans that we feel guilty for prioritising being over doing? I'm always interested by the fact that when some people die they are said to have 'lived life to the full', and that what is meant by this is that they have done lots of stuff. Surely you can live a full life, if by that we mean rich in the quality of everyday experience and being, having done, on the external level, very little. Thoreau wrote in his journals:

    "I want to go soon and live away by the pond, where I shall here only the wind whispering among the reeds. It will be a success if I shall have left myself behind. But my friends ask what I will do when I get there. will it not be employment enough to watch the progress of the seasons?"

    Not to mention the fact that I sometimes think that people who cram their lives with lots of activity do so in order to never be alone with themselves. That underneath the 'living life to the full' is just 'panic and emptiness'. (Not that I'm suggesting that's you Linda!)

    So Linda, watch the changing of the seasons, cook, do the washing up, and carry on blogging about what it is to be! Saturday morning sermon over.

    A few years ago I saw a documentary about James Ravilious and they interviewed the woman in the photo, just the same, greyer and equally smiley.

    Dx

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    Replies
    1. You've made me cry... but not in a bad way. In a lovely, hurting, healing heart sort of a way.

      For that I thank you darling boy.

      LLX

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    2. Oh dear, I hadn't meant to make you cry, although I'm glad it was in a good way. The Thoreau quotation was a guide for me when I wanted to change my life, and although my pond is a moat and I've not yet managed to leave myself behind, I'm getting there slowly.
      Dx

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    3. What a lovely quotation. Thanks LL for pointing us back to it :)

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