Hi!

From Jimpix

So I need to write this post quickly and scoot off again, I’m afraid!  Our house is a bombsite and my mum is going to kip over in our playroom tomorrow night.  She doesn’t mind mess, but I think she is kind of expecting a bit of space to move around…?

Sunday is Youngest’s party, so I am also hoping to at least pile everything we need in one place, now that most of the actual buying is out of the way.  Hubby is going to need to take about two carloads to the church hall we’ve booked, as blown up balloons take up quite a lot of space!  It’ll be a case of letting our kids run riot while I pay the money we owe to the lady there, and refamiliarise myself with where everything is kept.  We use the hall every year, but little things can change.

I think there may be a few lists drawn up tomorrow evening!  I know it is all planned out in my head really (I love my subconscious) but the paper is my friend.  Plus I can refer to it instead of  repeating myself twenty times if people want to know how to help me. 

By 1pm or so on Sunday it’ll all be over. 

Breathing calmly here, honest…

Today’s words were pretty straightforward for a Jimpix day.  I didn’t feel like fitting the Muppets in my poem, so I looked up ‘gonzo’ and was pleasantly surprised that I had found a much easier definition to fit in!

Needles  Rascal  Sassy  Lights  Poll  Pour  Saw  Firm  Gonzo

Though their behaviour needles me –

Each tousled rascal with their sassy mouth –

They truly are the lights that brighten life.

Incessant in their quest to poll

Everyone they meet: as to their

Superhero leanings, or their culinary faves.

They pour affection on us all

Eagerly share what they saw or said;

Stand firm in their neediness and love.

It does one good to be around

Those who are still new, still questioning –

Still feed my ‘gonzo’ journals with their truth.

Notebook page

I need to read into Gonzo Journalism a bit more.  Had you heard of it before?

I loved watching our youngest showing his nursery teachers the wee picture compilation I cobbled together at eye-gone-to-sleep-without-me-o’clock last night.  He got a wee crowd around him and was so animated. Bless his wee curly bonce!!

These kids are totally worth all the worry and uncertainty.  Even the washing pile. 

They are chock full of life lessons, the wisest teachers I could ever ask for.  The least I can do is arrange a damn party or two, eh?!

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Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Good evening!

Youngest asked me to put the candles like this “as it’d be weely funny!”.  The cake is from Asda (also his choice…)

Today has been a lovely jumble of things our youngest loves, and what we love about him.  We have managed to collect together most of the party things now, and I am feeling a bit calmer about it all.  I will do a nice post soon, and put up some photos and see if I can write a poem that does him justice etc; but tonight I just want to print out some pics about his birthday for him to take into nursery tomorrow (and maybe wrap a few prizes that he has picked out for his party friends).

The below poem has nothing to do with the lovely day we have had revelling in our newly-four year old, but it is where the words took me:

From randomlists.

Humor  Spiteful  Interrupt  Weary  Average  Ten  Sad  Functional  Mice

There is sometimes humour in the dealings,

But it is most spiteful to laugh

At their underhanded failings;

And their tendency to gaff.

Though they interrupt one’s good mood.

Make us weary with their chat;

It’s not nice to call them ‘average’/

Throw some jibes (or ten) right back.

Best to leave them to their sad game

Keep functional air of ‘nice’;

Let them corrode from the inside

Like unpleasantly used mice.

Notebook page scribbles, in Youngest’s favourite colour.

I hope it is clear that I was not writing about our kids here (!), but about people who feel they have to bring you down in some way, spin a web of lies and generally make you crazy.  Unfortunately I have met a few of these in life.

Something about reading Enid Blyton brought this up, I think.  Her villains always seem to be as the poem describes, and she does sometimes put across the same handling advice!

(I always feel sorry for lab rats and mice with their inbred ailments, due to animal testing, too)

Anyway, I hope you have an evening with people who only want the best for you, and I’m off to sort some more birthday things 😉

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Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi there 🙂

From Textfixer

I have been listening to some different compilations on YouTube over the last few months, to help me write my posts (headphones sometimes have to go on, to drown out the bath time noise of our crazy children…)

I discovered the Norse music of Wardruna through Dervengrym’s music; which I stumbled upon by listening to Peter Gundry’s amazing arrangements…! It all definitely takes you to a different time and place, and ties in wonderfully with today’s words.

After I put ‘berserker’ into Wikipedia, I realised that I had read about the wolf-worship of these men before, and also that ‘northern’ fitted in seamlessly!

The only problem I had today, really, was with the word ‘crabs’…as you will see from my notebook page

😛

Guilt  Northern  Crabs  Berserker  Shock  Healthy  Closing  Dimension  Sphere

They felt no guilt

These fierce northern men;

All weapons and limbs,

Like a strange cast of crabs.

To encounter just one

Berserker, was a shock

To any great army

(Such legend they held)

But when seen as a band,

United in their trance,

Wielding spears with control:

Once healthy men ail!

With the threat closing in

You would be forgiven

For thinking their dimension

Existed off this sphere…

Notebok page (the colour of pen came before I knew what I was writing about…)

It is always fascinating to read about different cultures and beliefs.  It sounds as if these men were truly a force to be reckoned with, and had unswerving self-assurance.  It must have been a hard life, and (as the mother of boys) I wonder how the women were ever comfortable with their babies becoming part of it…but I suppose if that is the way things are, and one grows up with that being the norm,  one doesn’t think the way I do about it?! 

I should imagine that to become a berserker was seen as a greatly heroic and desirable thing.  On the eve of our youngest’s birthday, however, it makes me shudder!!  I’ve been holding back the tears all day thinking about him becoming an official pre-schooler…can you imagine the state of me if he was being fitted for his first spear or something?!

Let me know what you think of the music if you follow the links. I am always gobsmacked by how many talented musical people there are, allowing me to access their amazing works for free.  I really appreciate it 🙂

Thank you to all the wonderful YouTubers out there, you rock (or folk/rap/pop…etc…) !

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi!

From Random Word Generator

How has your day gone?

I have been telling myself all the things I need to get done today, and yet feel like I have been moonwalking  through treacle.

*Revels in that image for a second*

Do you ever get days where the so-called motivational talks you give yourself have the completely opposite effect?  I was definitely on procrastination overdrive; but I also fear that statement may actually be an oxymoron.

I blame the party planning (or the lack of planning that has led to these jitters).  I have soooo much to dooooo and a few days to do it in that could easily accommodate it all if I’d just stop panicing.  I am actually bonkers…

I had a better day than the speaker in my poem.  I’ll hang onto that.

Perfume  Dump  Zero  Gold  Middle  Behaviour  Scandal  Cream  Acute

Her perfume sailed gaily, all around

As she proceeded to dump me –

Zero fluffs given.

The gold hoops swinging from her ears

Waved over her shoulders,

As she left me sitting there.

I raised a futile middle finger back.

Apparently, this behaviour

Caused a bit of a scandal

In the Sunday café.

I chose to depart,

Before the cream in my hot chocolate

Had even had time to dissolve.

I tripped on her foot,

The head pain acute,

As I sprawled on the old dear’s handbag.

I looked up at her face,

She said: “You’re a disgrace!

I hope your girlfriend won’t come back!”

Notebook scribbles

Were you expecting the ending?  And why does it rhyme?!

Both good questions.

The truth is, I was not expecting any of this poem.  I was too busy forcing myself to put pen to paper, and decreeing that I use a generated word in each of my lines until it was over. (I then added that a theme might be a good touch…)

The one word per line thing worked until I got to ‘middle’:

Will I go for a rude gesture?  No.  I’ll make the speaker double over in pain!  No.  Rude gesture it is, but how do I link it to ‘gold’? Oh!  It links to ‘behaviour’ and ‘scandal’…!

Then I got stuck on ‘cream’, so had to say that the drama was taking place in a café. But how the heck was ‘acute’ going to fit?!  I was back to the pain angle again, and had no idea how to elbow that in (if you excuse the pun).  There was only about five minutes left!!

Then this pensioner’s scone shoe appeared as the speaker was approaching the door…

Have you ever had a break-up in a public place?  Did it have disastrous consequences too?!

[Picture credit: Pixabay]

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Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Good Evening!

From JIMPIX!!!!

I wrote today’s words down in utter disbelief. 

What the actual fluff?!

I didn’t know what Facies or Peffery or Lliedi meant; and Exeter seemed a little far from the Niagara Falls to tie in…! It was only my determination not to be undone by the Jimpix curse that stopped me from refreshing the selection (and honesty, of course).

I was rewarded, as it turned out. 

If you follow the links on the orange words above, you will see that we have a word that describes rocks, followed by the names of three rivers, and then mighty waterfalls.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is a common thread. 

So I set my timer and got to work…

Gable  Facies  William  Peffery  Lliedi  Exeter  Potter  Niagara  Lies

Under the gable

Was stacked full:

A mountain

With interesting facies.

William pulled out one box

Then another

Surveyed his collection

Of river-smoothed stones.

“This from the Peffery,

This from the Lliedi”

He chanted to himself;

While rocking a bit.

From New Hampshire relations,

Some Exeter pebbles.

This potter-fest unearthed

All manner of things.

He looks back on postcards

Depicting falls of Niagara,

Flicks through weighty tomes and

Lies down in the dust.

Notebook scribbles

Hurrah!  I felt flipping marvellous after writing that! 

Our kids were ready for bed and yet were running amok while I scribbled, but still, I made a poem!

How do you see ‘William’?  What age do you think he is?  I was a bit torn between seeing him as a very focused tweenager that people indulged by collecting stones for him; or an eccentric old man who is obsessed with his collection.

I am reading the 7^th Famous Five to the kids, and there is a guy in that who collects insects – so I wonder if that’s where William has come from?!

Do you know any focused and avid collectors?  Have you any treasures squirrelled away that are taking over your loft?

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi there 😉

*Big wave to my lovely mum!  Happy Mothers’ Day, Mopples!!*

“This is you writing your poems, mummy…with plants behind you” I love how my writing arm is so defined, and I am dancing on the table beside my work!!

This Mothers’ Day, I have been looking at my children, and taking in how big they are getting.

Whereas Eldest’s haircut reminds me of when he was approximately 11 months, and I keep grabbing him to stroke his head (!); when caught in profile he looks very grown up.  I watched him on his bike today, and realised that we need to put up the seat and handlebars, because he is a bit cramped and uncomfortable! He and his brother definitely put on a growth spurt just before their birthdays.

Eldest has been reading chunks of ‘The Secret Seven’ to his dad, and not stumbling over words I would have expected him to.  He has been writing long stories in his notebook, and seems fascinated at the moment with how best to construct things and stick different materials together.

Youngest has become a dab hand at dealing with his own socks and changing his pull-up without me, suddenly.  He has also been focussing on opening wrappers independently, and tries hard to master any buttons he encounters.  Hubby has just reminded me that Youngest doesn’t need our help to scrape out the last morsels of Fromage Frais for him any longer, either.

It is all so bittersweet!

Mummy cuddles: Youngest in the middle, Eldest at the front; a few ‘heartstrings’ thrown in for good measure.

There are many little rituals that we do still stick to, however, and I am hoping some (like a boy appearing on each side of me for cuddles as I blearily come-to of a weekday morning) will follow them through the rest of their childhood and be thought of fondly, and often, as they grow.

I always come back to that rather unsettling feeling that I won’t know how well I am doing at all this until they are grown; but I am already aware that, no matter what, I’ll still feel I missed something important along the way 😛

From randomlists

Play  Earth  Hanging  Paddle  Record  Reaction  Death  Influence  Lucky

It’s not all play

This mothering gig.

Best roses I ever did see!

Sometimes, it’s moving

Heaven and Earth;

Still others: hanging the moon.

But then, there are the chances

To paddle in a puddle,

Record joyful faces, or

Every reaction to a taste.

Repeat favourite CDs to death

I get a little jolt

Every time I think of

How long my influence will last

In their precious lives.

If I am lucky

I’ll impart appropriate wisdom

In just the right amounts

To earn this title: ‘Mother’

Notebook page

I hope all the mothers reading this have had a lovely day today, and that you get a glimpse of all the good that you do, every day, for the rest of the year.

You are a special kind of awesome 😉

X

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

How do?

From Random Word Generator

Well, I wanted sunshine with a bit of heat in it, and I got it today!  The world looked better for it, and I wish the kids had donned a brighter disposition so that we could maybe have enjoyed it a bit more 😉

We did get their hair tamed, however.  Eldest is now sporting a very short hairstyle, and Youngest’s curls have been tidied up well (no shaving of his head while he still has the gorgeous squiggles!).  I have my appointment booked for the 8^th of April, and I’ll be very glad to be rid of my dirty roots and get my shaved sides back again.  Exciting stuff!

There was not much scope for talking about hair in the generated words, unless of course we went fully down the bridal route.  What came out seems to have a bit more backstory than we are shown, and I wonder what it is…

Praise  Marriage  Bubble  Service  Peak  Constituency  Rack  Depart  Favourite

He heaped praise upon my marriage

Making it out to be this protective bubble;

A huge service to, and probably the peak of,

My life to date. 

I looked at him.

This ‘man’, part of my husband’s constituency,

I remembered from schooldays:

Leaning in to comment on my “rack” –

And guffawing with his mates.

How times do change!

I made to depart, and he stood

Playing the perfect gentleman, stiffly.

No doubt something in my expression said

He was no favourite of mine.

Notebook Page in Spring Green…

Do you get a menacing air from the man?  Or just a chauvinistic one?  I at first thought he would just come across as some hanger-on of her husband’s, but when I re-read it there I caught more of an undertone.

I didn’t really ‘see’ the characters for this one.  They both had their backs to me, and were sitting on some posh chairs at a function, facing a table with the debris of a buffet on it.  I got the impression it was a big room and others were milling about elsewhere, but the woman had been cornered by the guy for quite a while, and she wanted to ditch him. 

I also thought that she didn’t have any real friends in the room, and that her husband was off making a business/political deal and she was usually left alone like this at these bashes.

What did you see when you read the poem?

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Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hello, and welcome to your weekend!

From textfixer

I love the feeling of a Friday night, even although these days I am not donning my gladrags and dancing into the wee hours.

I love knowing that I have about 64 hours together of not having to do school runs, or even bother leaving the house if I so choose!  I feel free!

I stay up to ridiculous hours of Saturday morning and think of things I have wanted to ask Google all week, or I write a list of tasks that need done in a fit of optimism, I read a chapter of a book, or I tap about social media…

Then I wake up on Saturday morning, realise that I have about 30 things to accomplish in the next however many hours are left, and feel a bit deflated.  Mainly because there is always cleaning/sorting/tidying/maintenance to be done.

I love a clean and tidy house, I just hate the process of doing it.  I know that it will make me feel very proud of myself, and that if I put on music I’ll enjoy it more, blah blah; but the reality is never as good as my theory.

If the kids hear me playing music, they want to shimmy about whatever room I’m in, and if I put my headphones in, and they spot me, they beg me to hand them an earbud so they can tell me whether I am selecting satisfactory tunes (or not).  Then I have to explain that a free Spotify account doesn’t let me pick a specific tune, so they get huffy…so not worth it!

As the sunlight that broke through today (yaaay) hit the sideboard our TV sits on, I was made painfully aware of how dusty the livingroom was.  Took me a good twenty minutes of dusting and vacuuming (and wiping the leather couch) to get that looking ok.  Then there was the ten minutes of stairs and landing vacuuming, the chasing of crumbs in the kitchen and diningroom, the shooing of Youngest from the playroom to clean up the carnage in there without sucking up all the magnetic letters that spring from the whiteboard…

I find it all boring and overwhelming, and I do resent the fact that it never stays clean for more than a few minutes.  So I wrote the below:

Phenomena  Curator  Bliss  Prediction  Volume  Holding  Hacksaw  Anywhere  Unsure

Bizarre phenomena surround

The ritual of the tidy-up-for-guests.

How suddenly any free corner

Becomes the curator of curios;

That no one really wants,

But cannot see binned…

That frantic rush towards the bliss

Of things not in our sight!

The false prediction

That we shall sort through this tub

On another, less-rushed day

In a near future.

When I finally die, I know

The volume of my tat

Will rain down on some mournful head.

I, myself, will be boxed up forever

While the vessels holding all my years of words

Will be airing.

I hope sentimentality

Will not hacksaw at nerves of steel.

I hope those after me can do it:

Discard my deeds and possessions

(Donate them anywhere

But under their feet)

I am always unsure

If what I tossed was valuable;

I hope they turn that corner,

And with it greener leaves.

Notebook page

So yeah, I am faced with a dilemma because I don’t want my boys learning all my slovenly ways!  I don’t want them living in a mess, and feeling burdened by it and resentful of it, the way I do.  The negative self-talk that goes on in my head when I am cleaning really isn’t nice.

I’m pretty sure that if the inner critic would just can it, I would find cleaning up a much more enjoyable experience!  After all, although I am more inclined to clean/tidy when I know someone else will have to try and exist in my chaos, I do actually want to live in a nice space for my own mental wellbeing.

I sometimes (like at the moment) leave my boxes of random junk lying about, just so that I have to manoeuvre around them and get fed up enough to sort them out!  Do you ever do that?!  It is a pretty effective strategy, as long as you don’t mind stubbing your toes or shouting in your head.

Are you a bit of a hoarder?  Do you ever watch TV programmes about people who need dug out from under their junk, and think “totally see how that could happen to a person”?!

Let me know in the comments 😉

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi! 🙂

From Jimpix

It is actually quite sore to type this evening, the weather has opened cuts on my knuckles and across the base of my right thumb.  I did a tricky manoeuvre with the buggy and they started bleeding in a few places.  Sigh.

I have been feeling sorry for the daffodils I keep seeing strewn about the place, and the crocuses have been looking limp and battered too.  Spring is playing peek-a-boo, and I wish it would just hurry up and  give me some warm sunshine already 😉

However, I have noticed a few ‘outside’ poems creeping into my posts in the last few weeks, and it is nearly Mothers’ Day, when the clocks will go forward and we will have more light for seven months.  It has been a long time coming.

I did not know what the heck I was going to write about when I saw today’s word selection.  I looked up ‘Catbird’ and realised I was not looking at a bird native to the UK, and I got stumped.  So I began with what I did have!

Catbird  Invented  Mustang  Accuracy  Luck  Church  Lopsided  Juicer  Harsh

Well, one learns something new every day:

A ‘catbird’ exists, and mews from its perch

Apparently.

Who invented its name?

I envisage a toddler

Poking at forest borders

With a stick;

Hearing the bird’s call, and

Naming what he hears.

He may have a toy mustang

In the other hand,

Or a bow and arrow set

He brought to improve his accuracy

By shooting at trees.

(What luck that few other kids roam here)

Maybe he’s been set free

From the stuffiness of church,

And is running, like an ape,

In a lopsided ‘ug’-ing fashion;

Scaring the birds from their branch.

Maybe his father joins in

Then swings the boy up to broad shoulders

When little legs grow tired.

Perhaps mum is back at home

Demonstrating the delights

Of her new juicer to her friends –

Promoting a business.

Whatever occurs, I see

No harsh words being exchanged

Only sunlight, and friendship,

And joy.

Notebook Page

I quite like this poem.  It doesn’t take itself very seriously, and resembles some of the ‘poems’ our three year old dictates for us now and then.  It is always difficult to predict where those little flights of fancy will end up!

It’s a wee romp in my imagination, because I always see my poems as scenes being acted out by the characters in my head.  So hopefully you see pretty much what I did, as I wrote it down as it was ‘happening’.

Do you witness children pretending to be (less developed) apes often?  I find our boys go through spells of it.  They are very convincing 😛

I am really looking forward to the days when the waterproof dungarees can be cast aside and we can all explore places in t-shirts and light jumpers.  I know I live in Scotland and sometimes we require waterproofs in the middle of summer (for days) but I need the wind to be kinder, and I want to sit on our drive watching monster trucks race down the slope, or referee a lazy football match.

It’s been too damn long, weather.  Too damn long.

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Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hello

From randomlists

Soggy  Wacky  Sand  Satisfy  Late  Zipper  Scared  Chalk  Strap

I came home, soggy clothes in a bag,

Having spent time gambolling about

With wacky pre-schoolers.

Not paint or sand to satisfy their senses –

No, today there was a hill to roll down;

Eggs to chase; worms to see up close;

Late brown leaves to check the shape of!

Those garments had been well played-in

And soaked in fun and frolicks.

I flicked on the news, and sat and ate

(Once I had scrubbed dirt out of little nails)

My lunch was simple but yummy, after all the miles.

As I packed the buggy to leave again

The first reports came in.

As I pulled a zipper for my sleeping child,

I heard of people running scared.

Imagined chalk outlines in the street;

A wife in tears.

Far away, I continued to strap in my boy,

Check I had snacks, normal life.

Turned off the screen and focused on mundane…

Notebook page

It was 2.50pm and ‘all’ that was being reported was that a man had stabbed a police officer outside Westminster, and had been shot for his crime.

I was obviously worried by it, after the other attacks in Europe, but I came home around 4pm and the reporting had suddenly all got a lot more horrific.

It always makes me feel very weird to be ok when these horrendous things are happening in the world.  I watched our eldest excitedly asking me to download a game to the tablet (one that he’d been less cheeky than usual for!) and it seemed very wrong, as well as very life-affirming.  He had a great time learning how to master it – while I was informed that teenagers had been injured by some madman in a lethal piece of metal travelling at speed.

Words really fail me, the last time I checked there were five dead and 40 hurt in the attack today.  How can that be justified?  How does anyone comes to terms with that?

There will indeed be a wife crying, and a father no longer there for his children, as Keith Palmer died of his injures when he was stabbed while protecting Westminster.

My husband came home from work as usual, made me dinner, and helped me polish off the last of the chocolate cake; after helping our eldest with his homework and bathing both our children – and before going to hug our youngest to sleep.

My condolences will never be enough to the families affected by the violence in London today, but my heart is full of them, nonetheless. 

I also have so much admiration for those who helped/continue to help the injured, and those who are striving to make the streets of London safer.

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!