Shelter Webinar

Excellent webinar on London's Housing Emergency conduction in association with Shelter. The webinar discussed facts around homelessness and shared frontline experiences from tenants.  In question time both myself and an architect raised the point in that with the pandemic the city is turning inside out.  Business workers are working from home in the suburbs and surrounding countryside. So we are seeing the potential for office blocks to be turned into apartments. The architect pointed out that they can easily be refurbished for living.  But with a need for government to guarantee 25 % for social housing. I am going to add at this point the need for more reservoirs as the water usage will grossly increase for home dwellings - you only have to think of each apartment having automatic washer, maybe dishwasher, family showering and sanitation and you can see demand will need to be met. 

Some slides captured to share... But the webinar was recorded so I will place a link into this post as soon as I have access.. 

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 Shelter Reports

Spotlighting this beauty in my garden today

 

Healing Garden book on Colour & Water

 

This book is a real winner to have, so full of wonderful facts about gardens and the power of flowers, nature and this amazing world we live in. So many treasures around us that can heal our mind, body & soul.

Palace of Illusions

 I was sharing this book Palace of Illusions with the Wednesday Women Together Zoom group..We were asked to share a book and author we like. As our Zoom group is international I felt Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni was the perfect author to share as she is able to produce stories that straddle two cultures.  She is a lecturer in creative writing in America and has had one book made into a Hollywood film Mistress of Spices  

I always define Chitra as not a page turner but a page stopper...why? Because you feel in awe with her writing you feel you want to stop annd re read a sentence or paragraph and marvel in the beautiful way she has written it. 

I found an extract from Palace of Illusions that had inspired me to reflect on it and stimulated me to write my thoughts on the Wedding Garland...

" Coiled on the silver tray like a white snake, the wedding garland was as thick as my forearm. I regarded it warily as though it might at any moment decide to strike." 

It made me think of that metaphor of the garland like a coiled snake. Amidst the sweet smelling flowers, the fragrance of a once sweet romance can turn out to have a venomous bite........

...... oh! that the beauty would continue and the flowers of love do not die! For some this can be so, an everlasting garland of bliss..... oh! for the fragrance of love to continue as it emanates to surround those it brought together forever! ...But forever is a long time and a promise perhaps for some impossible to keep.

Poem for my cats

I have found this poem on file that I wrote when Lulu Blanche & Pengu Noire were kittens... 

Kitten Power

Twisting, turning, jumping up high

A leap that makes us fly

A dance led from within

Putting target in a spin

A dance for our biological survival

No other species can rival

A gavotte in place through eons of time

Up high for better view we climb

Then crouch down with target in focus

This is no magic or hocus pocus

Hunters of our prey

A toy today

No one teaches us

No one shows us

But all our muscles and our joints

All our senses to target points

Flexible in all sorts of moves

Designed to make those moves

Designed to create this action

Our target not missed by any fraction

Helps the mouse to catch

That may come on our patch

Or the bird to hook with our claws

Sparrows or Jackdaws..

Now firmly held in our jaws

Its only weakness to fly close by

Twisting, turning, jumping up high

Stalking, pouncing, watching with keen eye

Energy driving from within

No time for tickles to our chin

Power to paws

Grip with strong claws

Power to eyes to see the moving target

Power to the ears to hear the moving target

Power to our whiskers to sense a sudden change in air

Then our prey is seen

Our reaction very keen

Jumping and pouncing down from chair

This time a toy

To play with gives us such joy.

 Marjorie Bahhaj 

In dedication to Lulu Blanche & Pengu Noire …

two lovely kittens born only two in a litter and devoted sisters..  

 

Pearl of the Desert

 Nip over to my Marjorie's Yard blog to read about the value of Frankincense in skincare The Story of Frankincense and how through the centuries it as been considered the Pearl of the Desert. And there is a Christmas gifts selection of Rejuvenating Frankincense check it out with me Marjorie's Yard

Red Jasmine

Lovely supermarket shopping session with my daughter on Tuesday to stock up my food cupboards chance a further protective lockdown. Spotted a red jasmine in the new supply of plants. Managed to get this planted by my white jasmine..now looking for a butterscotch lemon one as to have them entangled will look lovely. Jasmine the flower of Syria..but also popular as hair decoration in India and for fragant garlands.