More pictures from the weekend.

This is a very pastoral view. The tree is a very old and beautiful Oak tree. If only it could talk what tales it could tell. I am putting together some images for a calendar for Mum for next year and I think this is one of the ones I will use. The stone wall that you can see at the bottom of the picture runs along the road and it is covered in lichen which creates a wonderful texture.

I love the effect of dappled sunlight and this picture sums up the day for me. Looking at the image I can hear the wind rusling the leaves and feel the heat of the sun on my arms, see the blue sky and the big white clouds moving across. I love the pattern of the leaves that are silhouetted against the sky. I know that in years to come I will be able to look at this picture and remember taking it and remember the day.

I have been fascinated by shadows this summer, the most obvious ones have been of borders; walls, fences, hedges. When you first look at them they look sharp especially if the sun is very bright but if you look closely they are always slightly blurred. This has led to thoughts about borders, edges, rules, conventions. How many of these things in our lives have blurred edges, issues that at first seem black and white when examined closely are many shades of grey. Society creates rules and conventions to protect or make us conform, fit in. We create our own borders - our own personal space, our own rules to create a comfort zone where we can live comfortably. As a species, however, we have survived, become all powerful by breaking rules, crossing borders, stepping over the edge to see where it takes us. The trouble is once we have crossed the line we can not always get back, we loose our footing and are compelled to go forward, making away for others to follow, then we have to deal with what we have discovered and make more rules. There is a blurred line between calculated risk taking and foolhardiness. Without the risks we would not develop, the thing is to know where to stop - where to draw the line.

For individuals crossing borders or living by a different set of rules or conventions can lead to alienation, being an outsider. If you don't take risks and spend your time in your comfort zone stagnation can set in, you loose your 'get up and go'. You become an automaton following the rules, obeying commands - a golem? (the book is getting to me).

The risks I take are calculated ones, my Dad used to say 'if in doubt don't'. I am usually in doubt so I don't but every now and again I need a bit of excitement in my life. I need to break out of my comfort zone and expose my weaknesses and strengths to myself, even if no one else knows I am doing it. Actually when I think about it, it is when my comfort zone is becoming uncomfortable, when there are intrusions that I break out - rebel is probably a better word. The adrenalin is flowing and I am less aware of the risks I am fighting to re-construct my comfort zone.

The riskiest thing I have done so far this year? Probably starting this blog.

Do you know the spell checker does not recognise blog!!

We have spent the weekend in Northumberland visiting my Mum, which has been very relaxing. The weather stayed fine, we only had one shower just before we left. Here are some photos taken this morning. The first is looking over towards Cheviot and the second is Trixi and Neil 'playing'
I seem to be having problems with everything I do tonight, so I will call it a day and add some more photos tomorrow.

The Golem

What I have learnt so far.

A Golem is a creature created from the ground by man and given the form of man and given life. However it does not have the intellect of man and obeys its creators orders.
In the Jewish legend the ability to create and give life comes from a deep understanding of the Cabala, an important form of Jewish mysticism based on the writings of The Book of Splendor, (Sefer ha- zohar) written in Spain between 1280 and 1286 by the Cabalist Moses de Leon, although attributed to the 2nd-century rabbi Simeon bar Yohai.

By using the knowledge gained from the study of this book it was possible for a few rabbi to give life to effigies by the use of mystical words. The golem may look like a man, but it lacks personality and intellect and is unable to talk. It will obey its maker and only it maker can take away its life returning it to the ground from whence it came.
The most famous golem was created by Rabbi Yehuda Leow the Maharal of Prague. It is around the legend of this golem that the book by Gustaf Meyrink is based.

The Golem legend in Clay by David Almond

The golem legend plays a major role in this book.

In Clay the character Stephen Rose has a gift of being able to model clay into life like figures. He is a disturbed adolescent who doesn't seem to be comfortable among his peers. He has recently been expelled from the local Catholic seminary and has come to live with his Aunt who is known to the local kids by the name of Crazy Mary. His ancestors were show people who specialized in hypnotism. The local Priest encourages David and Geordie (who are altar boys) to befriend Stephen.

Stephen confides in David that he can give life to his clay models and persuades David to help him make a life size clay figure that they will give life to and who will protect the boys from the local bully.

David’s part is to take some if the consecrated bread and wine and put it in a locket which will be embedded into the clay figure.

The golem created that is given the name of Clay, has two masters Stephen and David.

Here is a picture of Trixi our dog. She is about 11 years old, but we have only had her two years in November. She came from the Dogs Trust home in Leeds and has settled in with us really well. My husband spoils her, and she is completely devoted to him.

We live near the church, and bell practise has begun which is a sign that I should be getting ready to go for our walk. More when I get back, I am going to publish now because I want to see the picture.

Written on Thursday

The snails are out again tonight after the torrential rain we had here this afternoon.

Had a really good day in Liverpool yesterday, it was so nice to be out of the office and to have no one to consider but myself. I took Clay to read on the train and read most of it. I enjoyed it. It covers some big concepts; good and evil, life and death, creation both artistic and godly. It is about adolescence, the no mans land between childhood and adulthood, and lost innocence. It is also about the Catholic Church. It covers the Golem fable, because a clay being is made and brought to life. It is a strange and mysterious tale, I would like to know what the children who read it think about it.

The book fitted in well with the photography exhibition I saw at OpenEye Gallery and the Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Liverpool. The photography was by Hellen van Meene, who photographs adolescence and captures their innocence. The photographs are difficult to put in any genre as they are not formal portraits or documentary photographs. She works with the models, ordinary people not professional models, setting the scene and sometimes providing the clothes that they wear. After the gallery talk and learning more about the images I was left wondering what was real and what was fiction, similar to my feelings when I finished Clay.

The Henry Moore sculptures at the Tate, were lovely, I really like his work. They are very much about creation and dialogue. I so wanted to run my hand over them, but that was not allowed. Although most were made of bronze or marble I could connect them to the clay used in the book to create the golem creature.

It has all given me a lot to think about. I have also found a couple of other books which use the Golem fable; The Amazing adventures of Kavalir and Clay by Michael Chabon and He She and It (Body of Glass) by Marge Piercy. Why do I have this interest in The Golem? Something for me to think about.

On my way to work I pass by a canal, and this morning I saw a charming sight. There was a covered wire running along the side of the canal and then dropping into the water, as I walked passed there were three sparrows who were taking it in turn to land on the wire and then hop down towards the water and have a little drink and then fly up to the bank again so the next one could have a go. Charming may be looked upon as a quaint word these days, but the sight charmed me and put a smile on my face.

I was right about last night, it was a late finish. The book we were discussing was Happiness by Richard Layard; I would class it as Popular Science and not the normal sort of thing that we read. In the book Layard is putting forward a new social policy based on scientific evidence about happiness – I think, I must confess I only read half of the book and half of the conclusion. It provoked a good discussion, about what happiness is and what causes happiness. We all perceived happiness in a different way, I felt that it was an extreme emotion that is difficult to maintain, while someone else felt it was a much deeper emotion and what she described I would call contentment. When you start to think about it there are so many words to describe emotions and they can all be used in several ways.

The next book we will be sharing is The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, and then The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Sharp. We are a small group, eight in all, and we have been meeting for nearly two years now. I initiated things by putting posters up in some of the local shops, library and railway station asking people to contact me if they were interested in forming a group. I only got two replies, but we all knew someone else who was interested and so managed to get eight together. In the beginning the main concern was how to choose the next book, but now we rotate and bring three books and decide as a group which we should read next. We are going to look for a published reading list to try next. Over the two years a good and supportive atmosphere has developed, and although sometimes in our discussion we stray away from the book, we always have a good time.

A couple of other books I want to read soon are Clay by David Almond, it is set in Newcastle upon Tyne, my home town and writen for children. It sounds like a good read, 'A haunting and compelling novel' The Guardian. I also want to read The Gollum by Gustaf Meyrinck, which I think I am right in saying is a Jewish fable, but I may be wrong. I have wanted to read it for sometime and I think it will follow on well from Clay.

I am off to Liverpool for the day tomorrow, it is my 'cultural development' day. Although I work in a visual arts organisation I don't get out of the office much to see real exhibitions. So I get a cultural development day when I can get out to visit galleries. Last year I went to Newcastle, and this year Liverpool, I will be visiting the OpenEye Gallery, which is a photography gallery and Tate Liverpool. I am looking forward to it. I love photography and hope to put some photos on here soon.

Trixi and I have just got back from our evening walk, there were a lot of snails about tonight after the rain this afternoon. They are amazing if you look at the way they twist around stems and climb up walls.

Another weekend drawing to a close, they go so quickly and I never have time to do all the things that I have planned to do, however we have not done too badly this week. We have posted our first Offer on the freecycle site for Leeds and already have 6 replies. We will have to draw the name from a hat tomorrow.

It is also my reading group meeting tomorrow night, which will mean a late night, as we tend to sit and chatter once we have finished discussing the book and choosing the next one. It would be good if we could build up reserves of sleep so that if we lost an hours sleep one night we could with draw an hour from the reserve to make up for it instead of trying to get through a day feeling tired. I am off to bed to prepare.

Having worn short sleeved shirts during the heat of the last few weeks, I put a soft wool jumper on this morning. When I put it on I got that weird sensation on the skin, it is difficult to describe, I guess it is due to the skin being more sensitive after being bare. Anyway I find this feeling comforting and homely - snugly, perhaps it awakens some long forgotten childhood experience. A nice experience.

Summer is drawing to a close, there is a certain smell in the air first thing when I take Trixi out and I noticed this morning that the blackberries are beginning to turn, and some of the Rowen berries are already red. During the week we usually take the same route for our evening walk; up the road, round the park, down the snicket, along the road and through the town, up the road, past the church and round back home again. Sometimes we go over the stile and through the field after going past the church. In the mornings we only walk up the road and round the park.

Trixi has only two bad habits, one is attacking anything that comes through the letterbox and the second is grabbing hold of her lead when you set off for a walk. With lead in mouth she prances, dances and shires her way up the road until she comes to a really interesting smell. For some reason she can not smell with the lead in her mouth, having rid herself of the lead and had a good smell we continue in a more orderly manner. Because it is very quiet in the mornings I have tried to set of without putting the lead on, but she stands in front of me looking expectant and won't walk.

I have really enjoyed finding out about blogs this week - starting my own and adding comments to A Curious Singularity. It has given me a real buzz to a engage with other people about Chekhov's Lady with Lapdog. I have enjoyed reading other peoples views and it has made me think about the story in ways I wouldn't have done if I had read it in isolation.

I still have a lot to learn about blogs, but it is fun learning.

Well this is my first posting, and I am not sure what to write, and I am still a bit unsure how everything works.

When I walk the dog, Trixi, morning and night I tend to use the time thinking, nothing momentous just random thoughts about the day ahead or what I have seen during the day and I thought it would be nice to make a note of these thoughts. I have never been very good at keeping a diary or journal so to begin with I have promised myself to try to update at least once a week. I also hope to add photos to the blogg, I often take a camera with me when I am out walking and I like to record the seasonal changes that show in the world around me.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been in contact with my local council about a dog bin that had not been emptied for weeks and was overflowing with plastic bags. I rang them three times and contacted my local councilors. Yesterday the bin was emptied, and I feel as though I have achieved something, which is a good feeling.