A Song, in Welsh

Regular readers might know that my mother was welsh, she was, as she said, "a little welsh dragon",  for the red dragon is the symbol of Wales, going back into the mists of time. I'm not going to try give you the history, right now, but many of my overseas friends think that Wales is like a, well, like a state, which is really part of England, that Welsh, as a language, is just an accent, a dialect of English.

The reality is a little different. If you're Welsh, you know that you're descended from the ancient people of britain, that your forefathers fought wave after wave of invader, gradually, your people were pushed westward, into the mountains, for a while, your chieftains held the mountains in the north-west of england, but then fought their way south, into the mountains of wales.

And they fought the Angles, and the Saxons. They still hold a strong grudge against the Saxons....

And the language? It's still alive, totally and utterly unlike English.

I was in Wales, recently, I love the sound, I love the music of welsh people speaking english, my welsh cousins.... oh, the friendship and humour.
While I was there, I was in a little cafe, (not the one in the video), music was playing, I asked who it was, and it was a welsh singer/songwriter, Meinir Gwilym.

Demons

We all have them at some time in our lives. I sent the Red Dirt Girl a pic of a bumper sticker I saw..

It read "Sometimes I Wrestle with my Demons, Sometimes We Just Snuggle".

I know she's wrestled with hers, I've wrestled with mine. For all of us, the things in life we might define as our demons are different. Our demons may be people, behaviour, drugs, alcohol, self harm, even our very selves.
But the bumper sticker made me laugh. Because, in every conflict, I'm sure there's a moment when both sides think "Does it really need to be this way? Do we really have to fight?"
Like the christmas truce in world war 1, when the men of opposing trenches climbed out onto the frozen waste of no-mans-land, shared their christmas fare, kicked a football about in a makeshift game, until their officers shouted them back into a properly approved stance of murderous hate.

When I was a kid, my primary school was a place where kids fought, there was a ritual to it, to establish the pecking order. Bigger boys would set it up, and you'd be surrounded by a ring of kids, facing someone you had no grudge against and ordered to fight. It's a microcosm of world politics. Amazing, really that I didn't end up in the army, prepared to fight whoever I was pointed at.

I was never an aggressive kid. I didn't want to be there, fighting. However, if you showed weakness, then the mob would descend, you were prey. So I fought. And my method owed nothing to decency and the Marquis of Queensbury's rules of fair play. I soon realised, as a skinny kid with asthma and no muscles, that any sort of sustained bout would be disaster. That my modus operandi would be overwhelming and devastating force, no restraint whatsoever, and... the pre-emptive strike.

So, if you had the misfortune to be pitted against me, then while the big guys were telling us the rules, you'd suddenly get my elbow smashed in your face, my knee in your nuts, and I'd be trying to gouge your eyes out. And bigger kids would be pulling us apart, trying to limit the damage before a teacher came running.

I didn't want to fight. I'd apologise afterwards, try to make amends. After only a few bouts like that, kids were backing off, conceding defeat without bloodshed. Bigger kids, of course, weren't going to show they were afraid. I still got beaten up by groups of bullies, but I developed a reputation for always getting revenge, preferably in some way that would leave you a laughing stock. 

One day I carefully dismantled the desk and chair of my arch-nemesis. Then I reassembled it, with matchsticks and rolled-up paper where the screws should be. That was over lunchtime. I was supposed to be in the library, but I snuck out.

We lined up outside our classroom, waiting for Mr Nyman, and filed in obediently on his order. When Rod went to sit at his desk it collapsed in a heap with him on the floor in a pile of chair components. The laughter was so loud the teacher next door came to see what was going on.

Yeah. I got beaten up again for that one. 

Then I put itchy powder all over his sports kit.

Anyway, I'm wandering off-topic. Point is, I didn't want to be constantly in conflict. I just wanted them to leave me alone, which is what happened, eventually. They just gave up on me and left me to my books and my non-interest in sports.

I have no enemies, so far as I know. No demons.If one came, I'd like to think I could say, "Hello Demon, I've got no reason to fight with you, nor you with me, can we just sit down and talk it over ?"

Let go the grudges, agree to walk away, just as I wanted to all those years back, surrounded by a feral gang of demons, all under  the age of ten. Offer your demons chocolate, get them laughing, show them there's no need for the fight. Be Gandhi.



It was strange glue that held us together 
While we both came apart at the seams  
She said, 'Your place or mine  
While we've still got the time'  
So I played along with her schemes

But I don't have the right to be with you tonight 
So please leave me alone with no savior in sight  
I will sleep safe and sound with nobody around me
 
When faced with my demons, 
I clothe them and feed them  
And I smile, yes I smile as they're taking me over  
And if I cannot sleep for the secrets I keep  
It's the price I'm willing to meet  
The end of the night never comes too quickly for me

But I don't have the right to be with you tonight 
So please leave me alone with no savior  
I will sleep safe and sound with nobody around me
 
When faced with my demons, 
I clothe them and feed them  
And I'll smile, yes I'll smile as they're taking me over  
And if I cannot sleep for the secrets I keep 
It's the prize I'm willing to steal  
Oh, the end of the night never comes too quickly for me
 
And I smile 
The end of the night never comes too quickly for me  
I smile, smile, I smile as they're taking me over 
I smile, yeah 
The end of the night never comes too quickly for me  
Never comes too quickly for me

Summer Solstice

I was NOT up before the sun, today, nor was I dancing around any circles of stones.

But I did stop off this evening, and sit awhile, with my book, in the Alhambra Garden in Roundhay Park. The picture is not mine, for some reason, I neglected to take a view, like this, down the centre line.
The specialty gardens, here, are a little off the beaten track, maybe they're busier at weekends, but I had the place all to myself, lounged on a bench in the sunshine, ate my sandwiches, drank elderflower champagne, and mused.

The Very Best News!

Yesterday morning, I was on the phone to my beloved, also known as the Red Dirt Girl, who I met through leaving a comment on a blogpost, who, without knowing it, sparked me to start this thing, and we were discussing the lamentably slow process for getting permission for me to move to the U.S. and marry her.
It's not as easy as it looks in the movies, where someone just jumps on a plane and lives happily ever after.
We've been on this journey a long time, the paperwork is slowly, slowly, working its way through the governmental digestive system.............

Suddenly, on the phone, I hear a squeal, and for a while she's incoherent. "We're approved!"
She's doing a Snoopy dance of pure joy.

She's just dialled our tracking number into the USCIS status checking box on their website.
" Post Decision Activity: On June 19, 2013, we mailed you a notice that we have approved this I129F PETITION FOR FIANCE(E). "
It's not over yet, but the biggest mountain is behind us. Now I wait for an interview date, and another pack of forms for the U.S. embassy in London. I have to have a medical and be inspected, a week or so before the interview date.

Looking at other people's experiences on the very helpful and huge 'Visajourney.com' website, it looks like that interview could be in about two months time.
For so long, we've been in limbo, no idea, for month after month when the paperwork would actually hit the desk and we'd hear what the next stage was... It could have been approval, it could be RFE, which means a request for further evidence, and more months of anxiety, or it could be..... the thing everybody fears most, denial.

Now there's a light at the end of the tunnel. A light that was not there a couple of days ago. I don't think it's a train coming the other way, I think it's sunlight, I think we'll be together soon.
So, that's why I'll be smiling all day today too.

Please feel free to smile all day too, I have so much happiness that you should have some too. Take a basket of light with you, and thank you, my friends, for being patient with me, through this journey!

Smile!

Can Gadgets Supplant Paper?

Charlize Don't Surf?

Russian Master-class Surfing. Ladies, pay attention. No more flip-flops on the beach!

Garden Musing

 A few days ago, I learned that my city's prize winning RHS Chelsea Flower Show gardens of recent years, have been reconstructed in Roundhay Park, which is a mile and a half up the road from home. So, one evening, after work, I carried on, past my house, and went to have a look.

My fiancee, also known as the Red Dirt Girl, is professionally qualified in the world of Landscape Architecture, whereas I'm a bloke who likes growing things. It works well, I've taken her places on our travels, like Harewood House, and Rievaulx Abbey, where she sees things I've never noticed, she can explain process and intent, and can tell me, usually, the names of plants and their characteristics. Being used to the climate of the southern United States, she's interested to see the plants that happily grow here, in our wetter, cooler climate.

These were around the Alhambra Water Garden

 

Like blue gas-flames.

Poppies heavily budded.

I thought I knew what these were, but they're not...

An old mill.  Or is it?. Nope, it's as fake as Tom Cruise pretending to be Jack Reacher in the movies...

I clambered over a locked gate, so I could see what's around the back!

 This won the RHS Gold award, when set up in London at the Chelsea Flower Show, an Industrial-revolution era, 1800s canal lock, surrounded by wild flowers.

 At Chelsea, the water pouring through was in torrents, here, I think the pumps are somewhat failing in their pretence.

(big photoset on Flickr by Andy Paraskos, showing the construction and background of these gardens here)

Way back, I wrote a piece, an obituary, for Jimi Heselden,  a local man who invented something that made him a millionaire, and saved countless lives

Jimi Heselden was a great appreciator of the work done by the city's parks department, and it was he, through his company, Hesco Bastion, who funded these gardens, and gave those gardeners the opportunity to win the coveted Gold award. His family, after his death, have continued in their support. I thank them for it.

(Hesco barriers are widely used to protect military outposts , and around the world as flood protection, Iowa city recently deployed some seven miles of Hesco barrier against impending floods)

(My camera phone was mis-set, the colour balance favouring blues, but I can confirm these lilies are just as electric in real life).

I wish RDG had been with me, for a stroll in the park. We're awaiting the outcome of our visa application, but it's a slow process, and frustrating because there's no feedback, no idea whether anything active is being done to the application, months pass, and you're not allowed to enquire what's happening, it's a Schroedinger's-Cat situation, and you can't lift the lid of the box to take a peek.

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