Thursday, June 16, 2022

Bloomsday, Sock Ministry, lavender

Today is Bloomsday,

and my annual push through Ulysses is on. 


As you see, nearly there. It's a wonderful work, hysterically funny if you have relatives who talked like the Dublin people, same old sardonic jokes, religious references from heavily doctrinal educations. 

I don't know how you get through it otherwise, to be honest. It might be very opaque if you don't have the voices of my uncle George and aunt Kitty, and my mother quoting Latin from the Mass along with Shakespeare and proverbs and old Yorkshire sayings.

The latest batch of socks is up, along with Joanne's, ready for the PO when it stops raining 



When handsome Son visited the other day I asked him if he'd noticed how well the lavender's doing this year. 

He looked around him vaguely, after I mentioned you practically have to push it aside to open the front door. Hadn't noticed it. Not a plantsman. 

The day lilies, as you see, are budding up bang on schedule to open next week. They're one of the few to stay on time. The Montauk daisies are budding ten weeks early, the spice bush and cherry bushes not budding at all. They're as confused as anyone.

Today's about rain and thunder, no need to water, but yesterday was a lovely day to sit out and draw. 




Charcoal pencil, graphite pencils, tortillon 

One of my early art teachers used to say that sitting outside drawing in summer is one of the great pleasures in life.
It is, Peter.

Happy day everyone, keep pushing to help struggling Ukraine, don't get used to it as background





14 comments:

  1. We just went to a play called "Bloomsday" which takes place in Dublin on, of course, Bloomsday. It was full of jokes about how no one has ever actually read "Ulysses" because it's so hard to get through all that stream-of-consciousness. The play was about love when you're young versus when you're old, lost love and regret. There was some unexplained time travel involved as well.

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  2. My ex-brother-in-law is trying to grow two plots of lavender on his rural property. He’s at the northern limit for the plant. The lavender is up but not yet flooring from what I gather.

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  3. Your patio/garden is so pretty! And that lavender! It's too hot to grow it here although I see it in pots for sale all the time. Maybe some people have figured it out but I never have been able to. I've even tried the Spanish variety with no luck.

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  4. I agree with you and Peter.
    The lavender looks lovely.

    Funny, I looked up the pronunciation of tortillon. The Youtube channel with Julien is interesting.

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  5. Mary, lavender grows on blazing hot mountains in Greece and Italy. But I think the difference is, it's dry. It wouldn't like the humidity of Florida with no winter rest. Here in NJ it gets very humid but months of frigid winter weather let it rest, and it comes exploding back in May. Anyway that's my shade-tree mechanic reasoning.

    May, I must look up that channel and see what it's about.

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  6. You have an idyllic spot for sketching.

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  7. I checked in the pronunciation channel, and remembered that's the guy whose speech is completely unintelligible to me. I can't even tell what language he's presenting in. Evidently he hits all the missing parts of my hearing spectrum.

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  8. We visited one of our favourite lighthouses and there were two women sketching and doing watercolour pieces of the lighthouse. So nice to see. I love what you did

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  9. I cannot let Ukraine go to background. It's the first news I check in the morning. Putin must crack soon.

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  10. Drawing is (or is like) a meditation. Practice is required to be able to achieve that desired state of mind soon enough not to get bored or annoyed with trying. Because I'm not practised some days it is pure pleasure (by accident) and some days it is like a scheduled exercise regime (almost resented because the brain side won't let go of the other stuff). Your lavender is beautiful. Ours keeps getting stolen (whole plant). We have given up trying to get any established.

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  11. I love lavender. Unfortunately the only one that will grow successfully here has no beautiful scent - a tiny bit in the leaves but none in the insignificant flower. Sigh.

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  12. Nice bunch of socks. No sitting outside to do anything here these days.

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  13. There was a man on the radio yesterday urging us not to be frightened of Ulysses. I think there's a broadcast of it this weekend and he was encouraging people to listen with open minds, to accept there might be bits you don't understand, but to give it a go.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vcpdb

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  14. Nice pile of socks to donate once again - I'm sure that group must be thrilled to have you on board to help.
    I'm afraid I would have to hold my breath when I'm entering your house else I would be sneezing. Love lavender but it doesn't agree with me.

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