Keep Calm and Carry On/Yellow Jasmine

    Everyone knows the story behind the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters, don't they?  They were made by the British government during World War II, but were never used.  Since that image is used on so many things now, you may think it has been around longer, but it was only discovered in the year 2000 by the owner of a bookshop in England called Barter Books and their website is www.barterbooks.co.uk   In the USA, we have bookstores (well, we did, they are closing down everyday) but in the UK, they are called bookshops.
You might like to pay that website a visit.  (I have read that the copyright is expired on this, but since this is an independent bookstore, wouldn't it be nice to support them?)  I love books and bookstores in the USA and bookshops in England!  Now, put a bookshop  in a beautifully built railway station from the 1800's and I am in heaven!  The story behind the poster is in the Youtube video I have posted here.  This very interesting video not only shows fascinating wartime footage but also  the bookshop itself, complete with miniature trains running overhead, which is fitting, wouldn't you say? ( PLEASE, you MUST go and look at the website. Don't miss the Writer's Mural and make sure you read about the  Station Buffet not to find out what food is being served, but to discover that it was a HIDDEN  room! )  I even love the music chosen for this and the beautiful way that it is filmed and edited.  Oh dear, can you tell that my son is a film major in college and has had an influence on me?  But hey, it is YOUR gain, dear reader.
Hope you find this video as special as I did.
Can't leave you without an image of Arabia Mountain!  We walked there Thursday night and tonight and this photo was taken on Thursday and it is the yellow jasmine. The fragrance!  It is too wonderful for words.

"Flowers are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul"

Walk4life/Mull of Kintyre

Everyone should try to go for a walk.  It is not just good for your physical health but is very important for your mental health as well.  Good for the body, good for the soul.  What could be better?  There are great walks in every country but did you know that in England there is a wonderful website that you can go to...it is www.walk4life.info/ and once there, you put in your post code or the city and it will show you the walks that you may go on in that area and there is tons of information to help you on your walks. You may log walks on the website and it will help you to track and keep up with your walks. It has wonderful detailed maps and lots of other useful information and all arranged with such wit and charm, it is as if James Bond himself designed it!

Healthy adults should walk 30 minutes a day at least 5 times a week.  How are we all doing with that?   Yes, I know it may not be always easy to do...there is always so much that needs to be done, but hey...it's for your health, so we need to make the time, don't we?  I don't live in England, but I asked Walk4life if I could put their logo on my blog since I love walking so much, and the nice lady that corresponded with me said that I could!  Thanks, Abi! She has written a wonderful post on the blog for Walk4life.  www.walk4life.info/walk-more-live-longer  Please read it!  It will make you laugh but will also inspire you to walk more, I promise!

When I contacted Walk4life, I asked if there was anything similar in the USA since I said that something like this is sorely needed in this country.   If anyone can look at this website from England and tell me if there is anything similar, then I would appreciate you letting me know!   

 These photos are all from Eastbourne in England and I am walking in two of the photos, but hey, you have to stop and rest and enjoy the view sometimes! Perhaps I am in better shape now. (Richard took all these photos and that is our son, and Richard's friends, Henry & Sarah and Dave walking at the top of  Beachy Head. Beautiful day!)

    Walk for life, no matter what country you are in!

 Mull of Kintyre... I never heard this song until I lived in Eastbourne in the 80's...it was a huge hit from the 70's selling over two million copies in the UK alone but is mostly unknown in the USA, which is really a shame because I really like it!  Written by both Paul McCartney & Denny Laine, it is a very good song! (If you want to know more about Denny Laine, and you really should, go to his website at www.dennylaine.com ) Listen to it and let me know what you think ...that is the great Denny Laine and the lovely Linda with our beloved Paul walking down to a beach and of course, meeting up with a poverty of pipers.  Aren't they on all the beaches in Scotland just waiting to make a music video?  Never know what you may find on your walks!  Maybe I will see Paul McCartney or Denny Laine one day, here's hoping!

I Wish You Dreams

Je te souhaite... I wish you ...

Je te souhaite, I wish you,

Je te souhaite des rêves à n'en plus finir I wish you dreams with no end
Et l'envie furieuse d'en réaliser quelques uns. And the desire to achieve furious few.
Je te souhaite d'aimer et d'oublier ce qu'il faut oublier, I wish you to love and forget what to forget
Je te souhaite des passions, I wish you the passions,
Je te souhaite des silences, I wish you the silences,
Je te souhaite des chants d'oiseaux au réveil I wish you the songs of birds in the morning
Et des rires d'enfants, And the laughter of children,
Je te souhaite de résister à l'enlisement, I wish to resist the stalemate,
A l'indifférence et aux vertus négatives de notre époque, At the indifference and negative virtues of our time,
Je te souhaite d'être toi... I wish you to be you ...
  Jacques Brel

 

Arabia Mountain/Spring Comes Early

 We did our walk on Arabia after work and ended up staying until sunset.  Look at these photos.  Can you blame us?

 These flowers are oneflower stitchwort but I will always think of them as the little white flowers which give me great joy!  I think my name for them will be joyflowers. 

 Here we are on the top of the mountain and the pools are rather full after the rain this weekend. (Richard took this with our new camera with the fish eye effect, we've never had that before!)

 This is on the other side of the mountain and the water drains down on this side into the lake. The sun is so bright here that you can't see how thick this is with the bright green moss... And at the base, this water combines into small waterfalls!  Just lovely! Richard takes videos of them, so sorry I can't share them with you!

 Can you tell how very clear this water is in this pool?  It's hard for me to tear myself away from this sight...I just want to gaze and gaze. 

                                                                                                       
This is a mockingbird and it was eating those blue berries on this cedar tree but when Richard got there with the camera, it looks as if he is wanting him to go away, doesn't it?  Mockingbirds really do "mock" other birds, they will do a bird's call three times and can be quite vocal.  They sometimes will sing well before daylight. They are also very protective of their nests and will "dive bomb" at cats and humans. Never heard of anyone dying from a mockingbird though, so I think we are all safe.!

 Another view of this side of the mountain, but just next to the lake with the pine tree blocking the sun!

 We have seen this yellow before but this was the most pronounced.  Could it be golddust lichen? I read a description of it and it certainly was yellow!  This is only a guess, as my knowledge of all plants is very elementary.  Well, all my knowledge, to be honest.

 Can you tell how the diamorpha grows in the smallest amount of soil?  It is so beautiful!

 This is wooly ragwort, sometimes called "bunny ears".  Once again, I believe this to be correct!

 The lake, very quiet and peaceful...only the sound of birds and the water trickling down the mountain.

 Richard took this as a close up from the next mountain over, "the quarried mountain", I called it in an earlier post.    At first, I felt very uncomfortable on that mountain, but now,  I am seeing the beauty of it and we walk over to that mountain now.  But not on this day, we wanted to see the flowers coming to life.

 Walking back to the top of the first mountain and these boys were on the very top, and I asked Richard to quickly take the photo!

 The sun going down made everything a golden rosy shade.

 

 Close up of the diamorpha smallii.  

 

 I told you we stayed until the sun went down!

 This tree at the bottom of the mountain had these white blooms.  What is this tree?  It's lovely!

We wonder if this might be a Georgia oak?  It only grows on stone outcrops like Stone Mountain and Arabia mountain and was also near the base of the mountain.  It is a small scrubby oak and hangs on to its leaves during the winter. 

We also went to Arabia Mountain this past Friday and Richard took some magnificent photos of the clouds over the mountain that evening.  For me personally, it was so beautiful that tears came to my eyes.   Clouds over Arabia, look for that post soon!  In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this walk that we just did yesterday!

St. Simon's Episcopal Church/Songs Of Praise

Our service today at St. Simon's Church was wonderful...the worship, the sermon, the music...everything was lovely.  (Thank you, Father Dan! )  Our church website is www.stsimonsconyers.net and if you go there you can see a photo of the inside of the church. Since I like to sit on the left side near the American flag, I have a clear view of the stained glass window of Jesus raising Lasarus from the dead, which is the first window on the right side.  That is a close up photo of the window above.  It's difficult to express my beliefs but I love the Lord and I love the worship at my church.     Being from the southern USA, as a child I was only ever around Baptists, which I think still make up the majority, but I was able to attend St. Simon's as a teenager with my friends, Connie and Shirley and really loved the service.  (Thanks, Mr & Mrs Rascoe! )  Later, as an adult when I was searching for a church, I remembered  St. Simon's.  Here is a quote written by a Baptist preacher who became an Episcopalian and he states it much better than I can...

Something deep in me responds to the sweet and tempered ways of the Episcopal Church.  Its atmosphere of reverence, its ordered and stately worship, its tradition of historic continuity, linking today with ages agone; its symbols which enshrine the faith of the past and the hope of the future; its wise and wide tolerance; its old and lovely liturgy - like a stairway, worn by many feet, whereon men climb to God- and still more, the organized mysticism of its sacraments - all these things of beauty and grace move me profoundly. 

                                             Joseph Fort Newton

Yesterday's post spoke of my enjoyment of English TV.  The USA has copied so many of the shows from England, sometimes they work here (All In The Family, Sanford And Son, Three's Company,  Antiques Road Show) and sometimes they don't, (Life On Mars, Coupling, Prime Suspect).  I wonder why the network can't copy the show "Songs of Praises" which has been on the BBC for years?  The BBC visits a church and films the choir and the congregation singing the hymns.   We only have a small choir but they are so good that it is hard to believe sometimes that they are so few in number. (Organist and choir director, Anne Cruz, does such a wonderful job!)  If we ever DO have a show like "Songs of Praise",  I hope that they will come to our little church!  In the meantime, I have found a clip from a much larger church than St. Simon's Church, but just think of it, since we are both Anglican, we have the same exact readings each and every Sunday... 

Peace Be With You. 

English TV Shows

We like to record shows from England and then we watch them when we are home together.   Have I ever mentioned that I love TV shows and movies, but only the good ones? I read that it was very surprising that Americans loved Downton Abbey so much, but I mean, really, people like me who saw this on PBS are almost always true-blue Anglophiles! Hands down, my favorite character was the one portrayed by Maggie Smith, who is one of my favorite actresses anyway.  Some of her lines just had me hooting in laughter...  "Oh, must have said it wrong then" and "Why does every day have to start with a fight with an American".  I also loved that the American actress in this is someone that is not only beautiful but is also made of strong stuff!

Of course, we have watched every single episode of anything by Agatha Christie (love Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot), Midsomer Murders, A Touch of Frost, Life On Mars, and well, everything that we eventually get over here really!  I truly loved the shows with Graham Norton, where they had the singers get voted off one by one to be in one of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's shows.   My favorites were the young men trying for Joseph in "The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat".  The song at the end, "Close Every Door",  where they went up the staircase after they were voted off?  That was great TV!   They knew they were leaving, but I loved the ones who sang their last song with determination and confidence rather than anger...  My favorite was the one called "Rob the builder" but I couldn't find a video of him, but this clip of Daniel is not too shabby.  Graham Norton almost seems as if he is about to cry at the beginning, and you can see how the others react to this performance.

Just this week, we watched an episode of "New Tricks" and because of where it was filmed, it has sent me into a frenzy of research into Victorian architecture (which I have always admired) and will have to wait until another post!



Please pray for all the families affected by the horrible tornadoes, I think at the last count, twenty-nine people have died.  That was such a huge storm...when they showed it on the USA map, it showed that it covered 342 miles. This photo shows the clouds coming over Arabia Mountain at about 6PM on March 2nd.   The worst hit county in Georgia was in the northwest part, but the whole state was under what is called a "watch" which means a tornado could develop and there is no way to tell when or where...Whenever we have these tragedies, the Red Cross is always there to help, along with any of the churches in the area. I know I am leaning heavily on Youtube for this post, but do you mind just one more? 
 WE ALL NEED SOMEBODY TO LEAN ON! 

Arabia Mountain/Dr. Seuss

Lovely day, Tueday, especially if you take that day off from work and go to the Monastery and have some of the fruitcake that the monks make with all those cherries!  Good with a cup of Java!  (If anyone is interested in the monastery their website is  www.trappist.net ).

Then, go to Alexander Lake and walk even though it has been raining and it looks as if it is going to start pouring at any minute.  Hey, we have the day off...we must take advantage of every minute!

I am sorry that I have mixed these photos up a bit... but we had a nice day even though we had to dodge the showers.  The wildflowers were beginning to bloom on Arabia and we we had the mountain all to our ourselves.

Tomorrow is March 2nd and is the birthday of Dr.Seuss.  It is also the date for the realase of the new movie, "The Lorax", which is from the Dr. Seuss book.   The movie just looks so bright and just a wee bit over the top and not at all like the book which I love so much... "I speak for the trees"... just one of my favorite quotes from a children's book, any book for that matter...

This is long I know, but even if you look at a bit of it, you will get a better idea of the book rather than the overblown movie.  Sigh, why don't these moviemakers call me before they make these movies, just because they have done their market research and will make millions, don't they know they should ask me first?