solstice
Category: facebook
originally a facebook post
uni reunion
Exeter Uni Réunion. Nimble and Poised. 40 (Forty!) Years ago in September Fresher’s week we all met for the first time… in our 2nd year sharing an iconic student house, 82 Howell Road next to the prison. Tim, Mary, Sarah, Ben, Kathy, Claire and String! Beautiful people x
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Last weekend, a lush few days back in Exeter… Sunshine, Tapas and Falafel, wine, laughter, even some dancing, lots of catching up and a healthy dollop of reminiscence
slip back into the groove of group dynamics, the ebb and flow of rapport… the trajectory of lives, successful, well lived… families, jobs, dreams… but all of us miraculously somehow the same! And not! broader, deeper, trust this spiral upwards
I love Exeter … the cathedral is magnificent! The city small, quaint, ancient and quirky… perfect for my 18year old self.
Shy and introverted, I’d hated the grim, aggressive, bog standard comphrensive secondary school…
but at uni… reading books was COOL! staying up all night pontificating nonsense was where it was at! Along with all the usual teenagery things (we were so young!)… drinking, dancing, flirting and an awful lot of laughing. Beauty and astonishment
Privileged? Gawd yeah… but if life leaves you curious, loving and open hearted, only a good thing… in benign conditions we all have the possibility to flourish… and.. schmaltzy, clunky stylee, it is Indeed late at night, ha… what makes us the perpetually blossoming beings we are? Why, nowt but the company of beautiful funny friends! x
mary: You’re a great poet for a Chemist String! Lovely thoughts and beautifully expressed. Three years is a flash in the grand scheme of our lives, but such a formative time, and we were lucky to find such lovely people x
Ha, never the most plausible of chemists, the dubious foibles of a jazz hip hop soul!… tho as a sometime programmer deffo happy to own my logical scientific side…. yes! Such a brief but influential time… First steps out into the world… uni and travel deffo set the tone for my life… and, as you say, a blessing to meet such beautiful folk xx
sarah: Lovely words – and we were so young ! Very happy memories of that time, very formative years, but best of all fun – very lucky to have known such people ! The daft things we sometimes did lol, and a lovely place to spend time in x
Lawks we were but babies! Smashing days!… Glad you could join reunion even if just by vid link xx
bexy: Ha Stringo – I’d forgotten you had a previous bunch of Exeter friends!! 
So which year was it when you lived with Marky Boy & Hugh etc. in Pennsylvania? That’s the start of my String era! 
. And there was Ocean City ….
Bexy! Early 86 when I moved in with those reprobates, I’d had my 21st in Sydney… So everyone thought I was some wise, ancient almost geriatric soul… Reunions are brill… Let’s have one for the Pennsylvania gang next year, year after?… Oh and we’ll always have ocean city… King and Queen o the boardwalk! Xxx
nige: Well said String! We were so lucky x
… and thanks to you, and the eternal summer oldridge vibe, my “back from travelling semi detached’ uni adventures pleasantly spooled on for several more years! Blessed idleness indeed Xx
pier
Ended up here at the end of my jog this morning… Quick sea dip, it’s cryogenic baby, just like Cristiano Ronaldo… no towel no problem!… And indeed such a shiny head
Floundering along by hove lawns, joining the daily throng, it’s where all the cool kids run!
Think I shall try and take my shoes up to London next visit, much fun wheezing past iconic monuments
crescendo
bless the infinite tumult crescendo of late may!
a world burst higgeldy piggeldy with flowers
bird song, days stretched out by endless light
the air perfumed by liacs, roses and elderflowers
kirtan, evenings of comedy, dancing at caravanersai
the mighty elm of preston park
dunk in the crisp, electric blue of the ocean
a handful of words scattered carelessly
the soft languor of twilight, expansive, realm of staggering rapture, flow from above
bask in this enchantment, today, the euphoria of everywhere!
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pics, mostly, credit to mara
it’s me, me,me and me again!… yes, i know, i tried diluting with flowers… but it’s impossible to choose a single snap, when the colours are just so blooming marvelous! x
Esther: Love your take on the world 
may blossoms
Lazily lazily may blossom mornings
piddinghoe jog
morning jog to piddinghoe and back… foot grumbling a smidge, but not toooo bad (touch wood), have missed running since jan
full moon and buddha day!… nothing speaks so powerfully of impermanence as moving our ageing but miraculous bodies through the glorious and ever changing spring
enjoy the beauty and vibrancy of this fleeting physical form
lumber creak and wheeze, me, well i was a slo-mo day-glo blur!
odd to find a daffodil in may, empathy for all late bloomers
oh and hogweed(?), gets a bad rap, have been loving the heady smell from huge clumps of this roadside plant
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was thinking earlier of, as a kid, going for a run with dad to the paper shop with hound on lead in tow, ooh way back in the mid 70’s,
must have only happened once or twice, not a family of athletes, but the jogging craze swept the nation!
amber: I love your posts, they make me smile 
bluebells
impossible bluebells… a hue of blue, twixt dulcet lilac and strident sapphire
by the billion, enchantment and harmony beneath green woodland canopy
etc etc…. ha, Love em!
woodland dance
woodland dance with lovely folk and headphones on sunday…
bluebells a bit reluctant, on account of this chill sog spring…
wood anemones tho… and the yellow ones i always call celandines (just googled, they are!!)
fab to feel squelch mud twixt toes… and hug a few majestic oaks
the woods are flourishing… hope to get there again tout suite!
… and loft jungle begun
megan: I have a big bedroom jungle at the moment!
Ooh good stuff… im a little late, its been a cold damp spring, and a little unimaginative… but anything and everything is glorious! Xx
Wild Garlic Pesto
Wild Garlic Pesto! this mornings culinary experiment in potions… one batch with nettles, one without. oooomph in a jar!
no vampires will be snogging me… well at least not this morning
i love the virulent, almost Radioactive, fairy washing up liquid absinthe GREEN of Ransoms
these gathered whilst up at mums yesterday… of course i had no bag, so fistful bushels of green coddled in my arms, a cloud of pong, as i meander stride along the willow and alder clogged banks of the River Mole… manic, deranged grin for all the surrey families… menace with foliage.
Wild Garlic Pesto and Porridge! always conjures pleasant memories of our mighty cycle ride Lands End to John O’ Groats… how can that be 8 years ago now!
mutters, must go on more adventures!… conveniently neglecting to remember i’m not long back from the Himalaya
a pleasantly erratic week, a few days off, so up to London to visit friends… out on a bike, pedaling along canals, past monuments, down residential back streets, out to the marsh lands of the north east (crested grebes!)
every park the brimful hurrah of blossoms… so many cycle routes, nowadays, London on a bike is a joy
back in sussex… first sea swim since my return, fff-ing freezing…. pottering with seedlings in the garden… trips to the tip… singing… ginormous portions of veggie lasagna with daughter
the usual cheerful sprawl of spring life
god is risen. scoff chocolate eggs…
sheltering from the rain under the tree in the garden… birdsong is all trill, hoot and chirrup
out in the woods the goddess runs amok, profound and fecund…. ah april! our splurge extravaganza in green
Baba Ganoush
Stinging Nettle Baba Ganoush! well, in truth a hummus hybrid, roast aubergine, plumped out with chick peas… olive oil, lemon, garlic and seasoning
‘Baboushka ya yay ya yay ye’… the essential ingredient, early 80’s Kate Bush, then dance, with exaggerated panache, wielding hand blender, around the kitchen… a slightly less skimpy outfit as a drab, cold rainy day here… such a revolting country. tho it makes me happy to live in a world where Baba Ganoush is a word!, such a delight to utter
surprisingly tasty dish, tho beware of the sedative nettle effect, i promptly fell asleep on the bed in the loft, sleeping beauty slumbers
first nettle harvest of the year… my ankle recovered enough for a slow jaunt up the cliffs
tingle throb, fingers fizz from a nettle sting… a fuzzy sensation that convention labels as painful… but is it?
bird song the soggy lament for this somber spring… the hillside still clad in its winter garb, branches of purple burgundy mingled with lichen green… the occasional canary custard yellow daub of gorse
look closely, the buckthorn sprays, tight clenched buds, about to kick off! next week a seethe froth of white, not yet… not quite yet
mud, mud galore, ooze slurp that keeps the score, patterned from each passing footfall
channeling a soupcon of Jack Nicholson in the Shining for the snap too!
anyway, back to tonights movie… The Yin Yang Master… a cheerful romp, loving the kung fu racoons!
when in doubt, life at a crossroads, always helpful to ask myself ‘what would kate bush do?’… cheerfully eccentric results x
milarepa, great buddhist yogi and saint, whilst meditating in his himalayan cave ate only nettle soup and promptly turned green
