Let your life speak

You know what?

It’s fine that I am a wuss. (See last post).

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has something to offer.

Yesterday I was so tired that I didn’t do anything all day but varnish 5 paintings and read a book - Let your life speak - from cover to cover. The subtitle of the book is Listening for the voice of vocation and surprisingly for me, as I don’t read self-help books or much non-fiction, I found it gripping. 

I have been puzzling on what I am for, now that I am nearly 76. The central argument of the book is that vocation does not come from outside, it comes from within yourself, and the seeds of it are there when you are born, in your inherent nature. 

The author, Parker J Palmer, describes emerging from clinical depression and follows it with this paragraph:

 

Unsuccessful self-portrait 2021

He says we should look at the capabilities and dreams we had as children and young people to find out more about our vocation. This may take some deep thought. He says that if the way ahead is not clear, we can learn a lot from the doors that have closed behind us: that they can tell us as much about our vocation as the ones opening up ahead.

The book has given me profound encouragement. 

And now, as the sun is bright and warm I am going to get up and hang out the washing in my pyjamas.

p.s. washing out, and I want to say that I came across the book because my dear friend Het sent me a link to an interesting FT article which mentioned it. Her sharing - expressing her authentic self - helped me.

The good and the bad

Yesterday, almost three-year-old MsX and her parents came to visit and…

She played at sending cars down the gutter we keep behind the sofa for that very purpose, seeing which was the fastest;

I read her Dogger by Shirley Hughes;

Dave fixed up water play outside for her with the same gutter, and with boats which slid down it when you poured water behind them;

We picked a plum off the tree for her and her mum;

We came back inside again and played with the Fisher Price house and people, putting them to bed, giving them breakfast, taking them to the playground in the bus. They needed duvets so we raided my patchwork drawer, and then we didn’t have enough beds so I emptied the matchbox by the fire and we used that;

Dave came back inside and he read Dogger with MsX (currently the book du jour);

And so it went on, and finally it was time to go home and she didn’t want to go and said so, and I didn’t want her to go and didn’t say so.

This morning I was lying in bed dozing, and thinking about yesterday and all of our grandchildren and remembering playing with them when they were small, and I felt happy. 

Cece, me and Lux, 8 years ago

Then I sat up and read the news and felt awful.

Another war crime in Gaza. 

More poisonous anti-refugee rhetoric. 

More empty space from Starmer.

Dave says I should be disciplined and not read the news if it’s going to make me feel so low, but that’s not the Quaker way.

In our Advices and Queries book, number 34 reads…

“Remember your responsibilities as a citizen for the conduct of local, national and international affairs. Do not shrink from the time and effort your involvement may demand.”

When I was about 8 I had a book called Brave Quakers. 

I found it again when we cleared my mother’s house. The story-telling is really dated and I wouldn’t want to read it to kids today, but some of the (true) stories are inspiring. 

There were twenty Quakers arrested at the last big Palestine Action demo. They are braver Quakers than me. And even if being arrested for terrorism would not bar me from visiting our American family, I don’t think I would do this. I am not a brave Quaker. I am pretty much a wuss.

Picture captured from Instagram 

Letter from home

I am feeling depressed this morning. The news is so bad. Not only is there a permitted genocide playing out in Gaza, but there are right wing attacks and demonstrations against asylum seeker hotels. It’s so appalling. I understand why when this country is falling to pieces and people are having such a hard time that they resent people from another country being fed and housed, but why can’t they understand what asylum seekers are fleeing from? Where is the compassion? 

And where are the politicians speaking up and explaining that?

All Keir Starmer says is he is going to STOP THE BOATS and SMASH THE GANGS.  

Why isn’t he explaining who these refugees are and what they have been through?

Where is the positive talk about helping people in distress, about the international law we are signed up to, and the positive contribution that people from other countries make to our national life and culture?

And why aren’t asylum seekers allowed to work and support themselves?

Enough…here is the news from home.

I went on a wonderful three day art course in July and now I have signed up for a three zoom session course in September with an artist whose book I found on the art course, and bought, and am finding very helpful. He is called Paul Bailey and paints semi abstract landscapes in strong colours.

 His book is extremely helpful in that he goes through his process when painting paintings shown in the book - with specific colour choices, and tools used. He is so informative and very clear. 

I’ve decided I’m going to have an exhibition of my latest paintings and I’m excited because an exhibition feels like a party! I hope one or two of my loyal readers will come. It’s going to be the last weekend in September. More details later.

The lovely Jaine (daughter in law) and almost three year old MsX and I went to Chatsworth House Farm and Adventure Playground where MsX had a ball and I enjoyed her having a ball. She lightens my life. All of my grandchildren enhance my life but now the older ones are growing up and away, it’s such a treat to have a brand new little one plop into my life and for her to live so near to us. 

On Thursday Liz and I went out for breakfast and then drove to Minninglow, which is a small but very prominent Derbyshire hill surrounded by a ring of trees. On its summit there is a Neolithic chambered tomb and two Bronze Age barrows.  I have never been before but wherever I cycle or drive around here I can see Minninglow on the skyline. At the top of the hill inside the ring of trees it feels so special, so peaceful. Liz took this picture of me, unawares. 

After I’d got back home and had a nap I went for a bike ride. Oooh, I adore my electric bike. I am so so lucky to have one. I love being out in nature on my own. I attain some kind of peace. Then I come home and read the news and want to be dead.

We are swimming in unripe plums. They are all laid out in the bay window room to ripen on trays on the table and on the floor. We realised last year that we lose fewer to birds and wasps if we pick them like this and let them ripen off the tree. Fortunately they do not behave like those peaches and nectarines you buy from the supermarket which NEVER ripen.

These are just the ones on the table

At the moment we can keep up with eating them as they ripen, but when their ripening speeds up we are going to have to stew and freeze them because Dave doesn’t eat crumbles any more and I have never successfully made plum jam with any kind of flavour.

This is today’s haul - a jam pan full.

I’m in a troubling phase of wondering what my purpose is. Is it to enjoy myself because so many people my age (almost 76) have chronic ailments, and I am fit and healthy?

Palestine Inaction

 Dave’s letter to The Observer yesterday 

Palestine Inaction

Demolitions in the West Bank

And while we have had our focus on the atrocities in Gaza, do you know what the Israelis have been doing in the West Bank?

This is what arrived in my inbox this morning.

An excerpt from this week’s bulletin from the Good Shepherd Collective:

 

Interlude - a pedestrian account

I took a break this week from the pain and horror of our current world.

On Wednesday I went out on my beloved electric bike, on one of my favourite rides.

It goes through the plague village of Eyam, five and a half miles away. Do you know the history of Eyam?  In 1665 the plague arrived from London via fleas in a bolt of cloth brought by a tailor, and 260 villagers died as a result. This is estimated to be about a third of the population. But the remarkable thing about Eyam is that the vicar, Rev. Mompesson, persuaded the villagers to completely isolate themselves and the village from surrounding towns and villages, to keep the plague from spreading. They did this, and they contained the plague.

There is a tiny museum there which documents the history, and the cottages where the plague began have signs outside.

If you’ve never been, the village is worth a visit. I find the history of the villagers’ sacrifice very moving, and I’m rereading a fictionalised account called Year of Wonders, written by the Pulitzer prize winning author, Geraldine Brooks. It’s a wonderful book. 

When I got back from the bike ride, Chrissie came for lunch in the garden and we caught up on all the things old friends have to catch up on. No names, no pack drill.

Yesterday Dave and I walked down the Trail to Hassop Station for breakfast. I haven’t seen any bacon in weeks, so that was a treat.

Neither of us much like the coffee there, but we do like the walk and we do like the chat.

When we got back we played table tennis on the back lawn - another treat. Although our table tennis table is out all summer, we don’t play as often as I’d like, because Dave takes his game seriously and 4 out of 5 days at Hepworth Towers, there is a wind, so he won’t play. I play for fun and wind doesn’t stop me. This week with the heat wave we’ve had some blessedly still, quiet days and he’s had no excuse.

After that I worked on a painting, and at 4 o clock decided to go for a walk. Dave was in the bath after a bike ride. I walked two minutes along our lane and was met by a mountain of foliage head height, completely blocking the lane. I wish I’d taken a photo then! A huge branch, 18 inches in diameter and strangled by ivy, had broken off a large tree and fallen across the road and over the opposite wall.

I knew Dave would want to know, so I rushed back and told him and he jumped out of the bath, pulled on some clothes, grabbed his chain saw from the shed and got to work. Meanwhile, I telephoned the farmer, and left him a voicemail. It turned out he was on holiday and his manager was unavailable.

The pictures show Dave after half an hour’s work.

Today I’m having my monthly picnic with Liz, lover of swifts.

It’s been a lovely week here. I wish it was lovely elsewhere.

Murdered by the Israelis

Photo and text taken from The Guardian 12/8/25

Anas al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera reporter, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night. This is the message he had prepared for his family, and his call for the world not to forget Gaza

The following statement was posthumously published on Anas al-Sharif’s X account, after an attack on a tent for journalists near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Seven people in total were killed including al-Sharif, the Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, according to Al Jazeera.

This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.

First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings. Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabaliya refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and His decree is final.

I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification – so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.

I entrust you with Palestine – the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls. I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.

I entrust you to take care of my family. I entrust you with my beloved daughter, Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I never got the chance to watch grow up as I had dreamed. I entrust you with my dear son, Salah, whom I had wished to support and accompany through life until he grew strong enough to carry my burden and continue the mission. I entrust you with my beloved mother, whose blessed prayers brought me to where I am, whose supplications were my fortress and whose light guided my path. I pray that Allah grants her strength and rewards her on my behalf with the best of rewards.

I also entrust you with my lifelong companion, my beloved wife, Umm Salah (Bayan), from whom the war separated me for many long days and months. Yet she remained faithful to our bond, steadfast as the trunk of an olive tree that does not bend – patient, trusting in Allah, and carrying the responsibility in my absence with all her strength and faith. I urge you to stand by them, to be their support after Allah Almighty.

If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles. I testify before Allah that I am content with His decree, certain of meeting Him, and assured that what is with Allah is better and everlasting. O Allah, accept me among the martyrs, forgive my past and future sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family. Forgive me if I have fallen short, and pray for me with mercy, for I kept my promise and never changed or betrayed it.

Do not forget Gaza. And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.

Words words words

I have a free day and warm weather forecast and yet I feel ineffably depressed. 

How can it be that the governments of the western world are still just making statements, and NOT DOING ANYTHING THAT WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE, such as imposing swingeing sanctions on the terrorist state of Israel. 

How many more Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have to suffer violence or starvation or die, before politicians actually DO something? Soon it will be too late.

Meanwhile I am in awe of all those brave protesters, facing certain arrest, who silently sat with placards in Parliament Square on Saturday to demonstrate against the genocide, and for the right to protest, and against the proscription of Palestine Action (a non violent protest group trying to stop the genocide.)

Meanwhile, not reported in the press was another London demo against the genocide, which was supported by 100,000 people, according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who organised it.

I had considered travelling to London to go on this but in the end I decided to donate my train fare to Medical Aid for Palestinians, and a tenner to PSC. These demonstrations have been going on in London at least every two months since October 2023, and they are seldom reported in the press. I decided that going on the one on Saturday would make me feel better, but it wouldn’t do anything to help the cause. 

My friend Michelle said she was also going to donate her fare but her plans changed and she was a short trip away so she decided to join the demo. Here is a photo of her to brighten up this gloomy blog. 

Him and me and ChatGBT

It’s been busy and happy and lovely here since Saturday when our American family arrived for a visit, and now they’re on their way home and I don’t know when I’ll see them again and I’m feeling deflated and sad, and the house is far too quiet. Having been brought up with two sisters and two brothers, I like having a house full of people I love. Now it’s just Dave and me and ChatGBT.  

Usually I have my next trip to see my Americans planned months ahead, but the way things stand politically, coupled with my views expressed on here, I don’t feel 100% sure of a hassle-free trip through immigration. And I am not as brave as those septuagenarians who are holding up placards saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” and risking all the indignities and discomforts and restrictions of being arrested, let alone being sentenced to 14 years in prison. 

It has been beyond wonderful to have all our kids and grandkids together - British and American. It happens so rarely, and now the grandkids are growing up, who knows when the next time will be? They’re now aged 21, 19, 15, 13, and nearly 3 and it’s heartwarming to see how well they all get on.  

Oh for those early days on the blog when I was allowed to show you photos of them. Ooh, just had permission to use this one of Lux climbing while her two older cousins look on and encourage her:

I mentioned ChatGBT because it’s Dave’s new best friend. He can talk to it for hours and hours about all his pet subjects - ancestry, Catullus, Kilvert’s Diary, astrophysics, politics - and it’s eyes don’t glaze over. Ever. If you’re married to someone with ASD I recommend that you sign them up. Dave said the other day “I have more interesting conversations with ChatGBT than most people I meet.”

I am happy for him.

Musing

 As I was driving home from Aldi this morning I was thinking about Gaza, which is usually on my mind either background or foreground, and I was thinking about a friend who told me they prayed for peace. 

I said I couldn’t believe in praying for peace, although I did believe in praying for individuals. And that made me think of something I read on Di McDougal’s blog this week. “We can’t heal the world but we can heal the moment.” (Link to Di’s blog at the side of my blog.)

But I remembered it wrong…I remembered it as “We can’t bring peace to the world but we can bring it to the moment.” I am easily angered these days, which I think comes from frustration at world politicians, and their refusal to listen to the people they are supposed to represent. This frustration comes out towards other people in the immediate environment, people who have merely done small forgivable things that irritate me. So I’m going to try to keep in my mind both of these sayings. 

We can’t heal the world but we can heal the moment.

We can’t bring peace to the world but we can bring it to this moment.

By the way…

This is the painting I brought home from the Contemporary Landscape course. 

It’s popular on Instagram and yet I can take it or leave it. I mean…I think it’s ok as a painting but I wouldn’t want it on my wall. 

Dave’s brief letter in the Guardian today

 

War crimes

I am sorry it’s been a week since I’ve blogged.

I was revving up to tell you about an art course I’ve been on, and various other bits of news from Hepworth Towers, but now, since Keir Starmer’s hopeless statement on Gaza this week, I don’t have the heart. 

We need outright condemnation of Israel, complete sanctions - trade and otherwise - and recognition of Palestine as a state now.  It should have happened years ago. Saying it won’t happen if there is a ceasefire is ridiculous. Israel is not to be trusted: it broke the last ceasefire. Its plans for Gaza and Palestinians are open and obscene. We need an end to the war, and an end to any kind of friendship or support for Israel while they pursue their obscenities.

In his unwavering support for Israel, Keir Starmer is complicit in the genocide. 

First step

 At last the ‘western world’ has spoken out against Israel’s barbarity.

As expected, Israel doesn’t care.

Now, we need concrete action to stop the genocide. And we need it NOW, as starving Palestinians are dying of malnutrition every day, while others are being killed as they queue for food.

On Saturday I was part of a refugee hospitality day, welcoming refugees and asylum seekers living in Derby to a day out in Bakewell.

We run two or three of these every year. We pay for the bus to bring our guests, provide craft activities making things to take away, take them a walk along the river, on a visit to the folk museum; we provide a lovely lunch, games inside and in the garden, but most importantly, a warm and friendly welcome. 

There is a lot of preparation beforehand, and for those on the committee (of which I’m one) it’s tiring. OK, I admit that for various reasons, this time I was so exhausted I stayed in bed until 2 pm the next day. But it was worth it.

We’re not offering solutions to our visitors’ problems, we’re offering a day out from their difficult lives, and we’re creating happy memories too. The feedback we get is heartwarming. The smiles, the thanks, the hugs and the waves from our guests at the end of the day are precious.

Here’s a comment from one of our guests in April “Thank you very much. I have never experienced such a wonderful moment since I arrived in England.”

HOME  by Warsan Shire

Watch and listen

https://www.google.com/search?q=home+by+warsan+shire&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:e7de3db0,vid:vR6tqLwInZQ,st:0

Or read it here:

Home

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
I don’t know what I’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

Warsan Shire

 

Only one topic

 Look, I have no idea when I will be able to blog again about something other than Gaza.

I am so appalled by this government’s lack of concern for what is happening there. I am so depressed and so angry.

Look at Starmer’s response in the Commons to this question asked by Imran Hussain in Prime Minister’s Questions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aTNGXbcL8U

And this week the EU refused to take sanctions against Israel. So they are complicit too.

Tomorrow there is a big demo in London STOP STARVING GAZA

https://palestinecampaign.org/events/national-march-for-palestine-stop-starving-gaza/

which unfortunately I can’t go to, as I am involved in our Refugee Hospitality Day.

The majority of the British public are appalled by what Israel is doing.

Israeli teenagers are burning their draft papers because they won’t take part in a genocide

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/shorts/israelis-burn-military-draft-papers-in-gaza-protest-243385925845

New graduates of Edinburgh University walked out of their graduation ceremony this week in protest at the university’s investments in companies complicit in the war on Gaza.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QehJYTZ7ssc

Have you written to your MP lately?

Are you boycotting Israeli goods?

Have you checked your investments to make sure none of them support Israel?

I am asking you, because I can’t think of anything else that I can do to stop this obscenity, an obscenity that will go down in history as an atrocity allowed by the politicians of the western world.

 

 How has it come to this?

That the United Kingdom is complicit in a genocide.

Lucky

Every morning when I switch on the shower I am thankful. It’s just something that comes over me. I think of all the people who don’t have showers, don’t have food, don’t have safety, don’t have roofs. I think of people in Gaza who are starving, and who get shot when queueing for food. 

I am so fortunate. 

The trainee GP I saw ten days ago saw my Gaza bracelet and asked if I was from Gaza. 

“No,” I said, “but I can’t bear what is happening there. I can’t bear that the world is standing by and letting it happen.”

“I am from Gaza,” she said. 

We had a short conversation about it, but it was my eyes that filled with tears. 

She referred me to the hospital for a gastroscopy, and yesterday I had it.

The consultant gastroenterologist introduced himself with a name of Middle Eastern origins. And when he saw my bracelet he said “Fine bracelet.”

Everything went smoothly. I’d been nervous, but there was no need. The nurses were kind and efficient. The doctor was friendly and skilful. And I came home with the results of what they could see with the camera. The biopsy results will come later. I have some problems, but none of them are dire.

I am so grateful for the care of the NHS, damaged as it is by the purposeful neglect of previous governments. Will this one improve things? We’ll have to see.

I’m so grateful for Dave’s tender care, and for the love of my family and friends.

I’m so grateful for where I live.

This was me picking sweet peas in my pyjamas yesterday morning. 

Today I’ve been instructed by Dave to take it easy; it’s only 7 o clock and he’s already washed the kitchen and bathroom floors. What a guy! 

Liz is dropping by for a quick hello and to bring me some Welsh cakes. 

I’ve got it made.

This week

 I know I owe you a post. Here are the headlines.

The docs have not found a solution to my annoying but minor health problem but they’re still on the case.

Dave is always very nice to me when I'm under the weather. I gave him a big hug the other day and said: "Thank you for being so sweet. I know you'll look after me when I'm old and decrepit," and he said "I already do."

The garden was bone dry and the seedlings not growing, but today we have woken up to steady rain and I’m delighted for the garden and the farmers.

I’ve been:

cooking and freezing stuff for the next Refugee Hospitality Day lunch;

picking raspberries every two days, eating some, freezing some for Eton mess when the Americans come in August;

picked and frozen gooseberries;

picked blackcurrants and we made some jam. There are more to be picked. 

I finished another painting, this one inspired by my holiday in Pembrokeshire. It’s called “To the beach!”

As for the news - Palestine Action, a non-violent protest group acting to stop the genocide, has been classed alongside violent terrorist organisations and proscribed. And yesterday in London, a group of brave people protested about this proscription, including an 83 year old woman. They were arrested, and face up to 14 years in prison for this protest in this fine democracy of ours.

The protest was organised by a group called Defend Our Juries and they put out this statement:

They also said:

BBC photo

There was no need to proscribe Palestine Action. They could be prosecuted under criminal law for causing damage. Our government consulted with the Israelis, Israeli lobby groups, and arms manufacturers before this legal action, but not with the many civil liberties organisations opposing the ban. Since when do we need to listen to what the Israelis think when we are framing our laws?

There is still one thing we can do in the face of a repressive government deaf to the opinions of the majority of the public, and that is give to charities working in Gaza.

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Red Cross/Red Crescent

And you can join the non-violent organisation that has been organising the national protests against the genocide for the last 18 months. It's still legal.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

And you could support conscientious objectors in Israel.

Refuser Solidarity Network