There has been no greater act of love.
It was this act and this sacrifice that brought new meaning to the precious nature of love, of the unending devotion of parent for child, of the respect and loyalty of child to parent.
This moment brought fresh to the world, and to our hearts, the all encompassing unconditional love that holds us in its presence even before our conception. It is this love that carries us through the pathways of life; is with us through our deepest despair and darkest fears; in our triumphant victories and successes, in our bitter defeats and failures. It is love which does not turn its face in shame and sorrow but holds us in the gaze of true acceptance, of understanding and of perpetual hope.
There was no greater gift given that this.

This Easter time while we move from a season of preparation to one of celebration, while we remember the sorrow of loss and the joy of reconciliation, we are called to remember this great act of loyalty and love. We are asked to open our hearts and share in that love with humbleness and humility- just as it was first given to us.

May peace and love be with you this Easter.
May you be filled with the energy of a season which promises growth and change.
And may the challenges of the coming year bring you closer together with those around you, strengthening the bonds which unite us, healing those which have suffered affliction and generating opportunities to engage with new people and situations.

Happy Easter.

For those in the know, and those not- Lent starts on Wednesday.
that is the 6 weeks of preparation up until Holy week and the Easter services.
Lent has always been considered by myself as a time to challenge my discipline, to try and be a better person despite the pain it sometimes brings, and to reflect.
Those are good things, hard things but good things.

I try to give something up and take something on during Lent. But this year I am a little at a loss what to do.
For the last few years I have given up caffeine and choc completely and tried to be a calmer person. But this year I don't know- Do I do the same or different?

I would welcome some suggestions- but also some reflections about what you guys do or don't during this time of the year.

Would you rather be a high elf or a wild elf?

Let me know people.

Now don't get me wrong members of the jury, I love children. But one of the essential facts of childhood is that children grow- it is what makes it so precious. Each stage of development mental, emotional and physical is important. It leads on to the next new experience, the next great adventure.Babies, to toddlers, to kids, to teens, to young adults, to (dare I say it) grown ups. Boys into men, girls into women.
Yes there can always be overlapping areas, the woman may have some element of the girl or uncomfortable teenagers lurking around in there. The man....well anyone who has ever watched Top Gear or seen the supposedly grown man get a new, of want of a better word, "toy"- there is always the boy in there somewhere just waiting to explode excitedly and often messily forth.

None of this I have a problem with. We are who we are in the present moment, shaped and forged by our experiences, always containing some element of the past.
However here come my crime. My opposition, the focus of my ire, is those self proclaimed "Little Girls". whose deliberate retardation, if not total cessation, of development makes me want to hurt something- often them, even more often myself.
What do I mean? Surely I am not against a liking for pink, the tinkling of a giggle. No I mean those females whose refusal to accept the process of biological development from girlhood into womanhood. Who deliberately stay, strive to stay, the size they were at 13, 14, 15 even 16.
I am not against the petite- hell no. This is a very specific, disgustingly pervasive trend in women- and it is against pretty everything that Mama nature had in mind. Let me state for the record right now--- THE KNEE SHOULD NEVER BE THE LARGEST PART OF THE LEG. It might be ok, as a transitional stance, at the ages of 12-14 but at 20+ NO!!

So ladies and gentlemen of the jury- I stand before you, aware of my guilt but petitioning to your judgement to be acquitted of these charges of intolerance.
My closing argument harks to precedent- wrapped in a song (which has been edited for the purpose of relevance)

Little girls
Little girls
Everywhere I turn I can see them
Little girls
Little girls

Night and day
I eat, sleep and breathe them

Little cheeks
Little teeth
Everything around me is little
If I wring
Little necks
Surely I will get an acquittal

Some women are dripping with diamonds
Some women are dripping with pearls
Lucky me! Lucky me!
Look at what I'm dripping with

Little girls
How I hate
Little shoes
Little socks
And each little bloomer
I'd have cracked
Years ago
If it weren't for my
Sense of humor
Some day
I'll step on their freckles
Some night
I'll straighten their curls
Send a flood
Send the flu
Anything that You can do
To little girls
Some day I'll land in the nut house
With all the nuts and the squirrels
There I'll stay
Until the prohibition of
Little girls.

My head feels like this icon right now.
I have ear-ache again and I thought I had caught it early enough by getting to the docs yesterday but no.
I have snakes in my ears and throat. I want to curl up in bed not finish my full working day and then go and babysit.
BAH

I am going out to a Gig at the Celtic Connections festival after work tonight.
I was very organised brought make up, change of clothes etc to work despite the urge to just be a slob about everything because I had an 8.25 Doc appoint this morn.
I go to get ready and what do I find----shock horror----No eye-liner. I am at a loss. I know exactly where the eye-liner is. It is in the fridge with the cheese. Why?! well why the hell not.
I will make do and mend because such is life. but still these baby blues won't be as sparkly tonight.

We finally got a new hoover last night and my god the difference.
The Bear bought one which was specifically designed for houses with pets -we don't have any but we a Bear and He maintains I shed more than any pet ever might.
It was amazing- wasn't fighting with the floor for it to relinquish its dust.
So last night I hoovered, washed floors, dusted, cleaned bathroom, cleaned kitchen and took out Trash.
Consequently the house is pretty much close to being clean- even if it is nowhere near being tidy.
I could really use a housework pixie. Sigh.

Sitting at work rather confuddled about the news that Heath Ledger is dead.

I have just watched the latest BBC/Andrew Davies adaptation of Sense & Sensibility- and find myself again full of that happy sad emotion. Of witnessing beatuifully crafted joy and sorrow in both its oringal observations by Miss Austen and through its adaptation which reminds and revives that which we sometimes forget has been so often and deeply felt throughout time. As I sit not crying but heartfull. I know both hope and sorrow.

Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.