Christmas time again..... last years cards are gathered down from the loft, the decorations come out to greet you like long forgotten friends with memories of Christmas past and hope for Christmas present and future.  'A Christmas Carol' is dusted down from the book shelf and opened to bring Victorian warmth and comfort.  'Take Joy' greets the piano and takes up it's place as part of the Christmas festivities.

May your Christmas be filled with magical offerings, wonder, excitement and most of all love and peace.

Aggie :-) x x x

GULP!

Fear - well, there's a lot of it about at the moment...... but I'm not talking fear about the global financial disaster that we all seem to be in, fear about where your next penny is coming from.... I'm talking about fear of what is required - how you step up to the mark, how you make your inner self real, how you achieve one of your deepest desires.  That's inner fear and what you get when you reach the final year of your degree.... GULP!

Chaos is essential for the creative process - well, that's my theory!  Out of the chaos that is too many note whizzing around on paper, in my head, in my mouth, in my ears, on the radio, on the TV, on an iPod etc comes some sort of coherence that needs to be at least 20 minutes long and fairly substantial in terms of WOW factor! ...... GULP!

Still, Christmas is coming and we have the Christmas Tree up - although I fear it does need trimming in order to fix the star to the top!  Maisy Muffin III and Parker have both inspected it and, for the time being, it is safe and secure..... but we have yet to decorate it!  What fun we will have.

Dissertations & Film Scores

This week my head is full of what I need to do for my 2 dissertations, Film Score composition, Orchestration and Big Band composition......

In 9 months I will be done with Uni (until the next time!) and will be scouring web sites etc for work.  Who knows I may even try my hand at the Great British Bake Off...

Autumn is really here now, the leaves are falling and the last roses cling on to their petals despite the wind.  Apples need harvesting (those really hard to reach ones at the top), but the grape is finally in the ground (which took a mamouth effort from my hubby) and gives us hope of a warm summer next year.

Life is mellow and cosy, before the winter sets in. :-)

An Opera loving cat and anxiety....

Another trip to the Vets with our lovely cat Parker - we've been going each morning now for a week, it appears he has some kidney problems at the moment (which we hope will be resolved shortly).  Interestingly he was quiet in the car on the way there when The Marriage of Figaro was playing, but loud and vocal with anything else!  Is there a thesis in there somewhere?  Hmmmm......

Tomorrow I am back at Uni for my final year.  In 9 months it will all be over (save for the award ceremony) and I can't believe how fast the time has gone.  It has been a great experience and I am really lucky to have a) got in and b) survived through to the final year.  I still can't believe that I achieved a 1st for composition..... WOW!  And to all those teachers who said I'd never achieve anything, well I think the 1st speaks for itself.

I am looking forward to life getting back on track again and today will spent cleaning windows, dusting and hoovering the house, playing piano and sorting out the stuff that I need for tomorrow.

I've walked a long walk, but have many more miles to travel......

Below - my pal Nikki who is to blame for all the fun and amazing stuff that I've done over the past 3 years...... I can't thank her enough for freeing me from a near nervous breakdown x

From 'The Old Vicarage, Granchester' Rupert Brooke

Ah God!  to see the branches stir
Across the moon at Granchester!
To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
Unforgettable, unforgotten
River-smell and hear the breeze
Sobbing in the little trees.
Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand
Still guardians of that holy land?
The chestnut shade, in reverend dream,
The yet unacademic stream?
Is drawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene, silver-gold?
And sunset still a golden sea
From Haslingfield to Madingley?
And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . Oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?

Home made of course........scrummy!

Coffee, Books and an old friend

This is how my day will (mostly) be spent, with a brief interlude of gardening/watering/weeding and playing with the cats.

Some days are just SO good.

x x x

Too long since my last entry...

The summer is on the wain and the sky is now further away with clouds of stretched cotton wool...

Today as I start to think about going back to Uni I am going to focus on mini cupcakes and meringue butter cream and my composition Mellow Red.

Perhaps not such a great idea to start the diet today but after a week in Somerset with too much beer and way way way too much carbohydrate, my body is screaming for fresh flavours and crisp salads with grilled fish or chicken.....perhaps tonight I'll do a chicken and mango salad with a sharp lime and apple cider vinegar dressing, lots of fresh corriander and some parsley too.

No dreams at the moment as my head is too busy with cleaning the windows, hoovering, washing and of course cupcakes.....

For me it seems that autumn is about prepping for Christmas and comfort food that does your soul good.
x x x

Calmer and full of cold.....

After my last rant, it is about time I apologise to anyone who happened across it.  Herewith my humble apologies....

Easter break is in sight with 5 weeks that will be packed with study (and hopefully work).  The composition is interesting at the moment......atonal stuff which I love (rather suprisingly).  I think the fact that I don't have to plan ahead too far is what I enjoy - just going with it seems to be the best thing.

Whilst my body decides to have a melt down my hair has taken the brunt of my emotions and is now the shortest it has been for over 30 years...... husband really not too sure.  I like the fact that I don't have to worry about it, just wash it and go, but it does feel like I'm wearing a hat all the time!  Odd..... and I don't think I'll be getting it trimmed too soon.

All the crap that has been going on this year has led me to re-think some things which my sub-conscious firmly believes (as they've been entrenched there for several decades).  The biggest issue is one of pain.....not levels of (and excruciating comes to mind), how much we get but, and it's a big BUT, the reason why we get it..... Ok we manage to cut our finger when putting the paper into the printer/copier what ever. Ouch!  That's not what I'm talking about here...... it's the pain that is on-going, that is un-ending.....that really wears you down or completely debilitates you...... why?  Well, somewhere in my sub-conscious I get this type of pain (and have had it on many occasions) because I am a horrid person.....the pain is my punishment for being so horrid.  Now isn't that just bizzare.  I'm not a horrid person, I am generally quite passive, let others get on with things, don't like conflict, haven't been convicted of anything, love my family and friends and would do anything to help them.  I know I'm not horrid, but my sub-conscious doesn't recognise this.  (Freud would have a field day I tell you!).  So my mantra for the next few weeks - now that I've finally put this out of my brain and into the world, is to turn my sub-conscious around and letting myself be nice to me and hopefully the pain of the bad back, the painful feet, the muscle spasms and the potential burbling appendix will go away......

Music at the moment is Messiaen - The Dove - beautiful.

Baking - Whoopie pies.

x x x

HITS - anagram!

I know that life happens, that you think you have control of it but in reality you don't.  But overall it just stinks - I've put up with 40 years of crap and quite frankly have had enough!  Not that I want to end it all, just really want to stop it all being so crap, there is no let up here.  People say 'that which does not kill us makes us stronger.'  Well my response is that in actual fact all it does is wear you down to a point where you really don't give a damn about it anymore.  That's not coping or dealing, that's being flogged for something which generally you have no control over.

Music - something loud and angry.  U2 Bloody Sunday comes to mind.

Cooking - it's way too dangerous to be in the kitchen with knives at the moment.

Endurance and endeavour are my words for the week.

Bring it on!

Hmmmmm!

Well, the year is proving challenging.... what year isn't.  All part of lifes rich cycle or tapestry I guess.  A few more grey hairs to cover with dye and a few more lines to fill with moisturiser and yes, boobs that perhaps fall a millimetre lower than last year....... enough on the boob front with the scary mental images!!!

Strength and endurance, courage and fear.  4 powerful emotions that guide and help us, hinder us and bind us.  On their own they can be dealt with but when they hit you all at once your world goes random...but today has been a good day and whilst financial panics and troubles abound, the essay writing is improving.....awaiting (nervously and with fear) the results from essays handed in last year...... gulp.

This year will be about finding that strength and endurance and the courage to overcome fear - of which there is much but I say this from a viewpoint of knowing that I have overcome fear before, that it is a productive force, that it can motivate and provoke positive outcomes.  However, for one small moment I'd like some slack, to have my ERNIE bonds come up with enough money to make things OK for me and for my Mum and for there to be enough so the worry is taken out of everyday things such as shopping and fuel....I guess there is comfort here too as I am so very fortunate to be educated, live in a country that has clean running water readily available in the kitchen tap, that I have four walls and a roof around me, that I can life peacefully and without war.  We so often forget these things and fight constantly with trying to live up to the expectations of the media and our greed.

Now I've learnt the lesson, can I have my Porsche please?????

May you all find the strength you need to help you when you fear it most, the love to support you when you feel you can't go on and the endurance and courage to see it all through.

x x x

Lady Penelope PLC

Gorgeous Girl
Darling girl
Little Munch-kin
Sweetie-pie
Cuddle Cat
Pretty Little Girl

All names given to our darling cat, Lady Penelope PLC (Purrs Loudly and Constantly).

September 2005 - January 2011

RIP darling girl.
x x x

The New Year....hmm

Whilst Christmas Day and Boxing Day were wonderful - listening to old 78's of Glen Millar and Joe Loss and dancing with my Mum, things went rapidly down hill after that.

John's birthday (27th) was spent with him wiped out in bed following a collapse in the morning.  So on the first working day back I mad him a Dr's appointment and went with him - he duly had a collapse whilst in the Dr's surgery.  The rest of the day was spent at East Surrey Hospital - thrilling and worrying at the same time.  In short he has a heart condition - we don't know what it is exactly and neither, it seems, do the Dr's so we await all sorts of tests and trips to consultants etc.  In the meantime he is exhausted.

The New Year came in with a whimper as our gorgeous lovely little cat (Lady Penelope PLC - Purrs Loudly and Constantly or Pretty Little Cat) is ill again.  She is in desperate need of an operation to remove lung lobes which are diseased...... the cost would be around 4 to 5 thousand pounds.  Insurance has already paid for her treatment to date (now running at nearly 5 thousand) but I just simply don't have any money.  She will come home and will be on anti-biotics for a while, and we are of course hopeful that this will give her some good quality of life, but if the problems return we will need to consider all the options again - we can only keep our fingers crossed and pray that she will survive again on more anti-biotics.  She is only 5 and a bit and is such a plucky little thing.....I pray for guidance and support and of course and foremost for her.

It is odd how the year has started, but these shocks have made me realise my need for support beyond the human - in what form this is I am still undecided, but faith and trust is obviously going to be the order of 2011 and whatever it brings.

May you all find the courage to deal with the problems that the year brings and joy in the love you have for friends, family and pets and in simply being here on this wonderful planet.

Peace and love
Aggie x x x