Nice

The world needs more nice at present, doesn't it?  So many nasty and sad things happening out there.  So this will be a nice post.

My zygocactus is flowering.  There are much prettier and more spectacular zygocactus in the world, but this one is mine.

 When we bought our last house in 1987 this was left by the previous owners and the pot it was in was disintegrating.  A chunk of plant fell off and I shoved it in this pot, a gen-u-ine orange plastic pot left over from the 1970s.  The original plant died off, the piece I planted kept growing.....but it never ever flowered.  I brought it with us when we sold up and moved here, goodness knows why.....yes I do know.  I wasn't leaving anything behind for our buyer after the hoops she made us jump through.  I had run out of nice by then.  It hangs on our covered back verandah, and has flowered every winter since we came here.

Perhaps one day it might even be planted into a more glamorous pot with new soil........or perhaps I should leave well enough alone!

 My little project is finally finished, a souvenir of last autumn's holiday in Canada.  It's called "Leaf Peeking" and will be used as a table topper.  With the exception of the pale background print behind the leaves it's all batik fabrics.....I love the border print.  It's a very gorgeous green.  Have I ever mentioned that I am quite fond of green?

A few times recently we have woken up to frost, the hill behind us is quite white, and some mornings the shady bits haven't finished melting by 11am.  Well, it is winter after all......the morning walk has been a bit of a trial on such cold mornings, but I am persisting with it.  Cloudy mornings are easier, because the last part is uphill and it doesn't seem to matter what time I go out, the sun always seems to be in my eyes when I am coming home up the hill.  However, I am not getting up at the crack of dawn just to beat the sun.  Mornings just don't do it for me.

So far the fingers haven't fallen off, the difficult chords are becoming easier with the daily (except when I occasionally forget) uke practice.  It's the barre chords which are still giving me trouble.  A barre chord is when you place the left index finger across all the strings at once - that's not so bad if it's only one finger doing the work, but when the other fingers on that hand have to hold down other strings too, well, that can be a bit painful.  At least the narrower neck on a ukulele is easier to barre than a guitar neck, I have never been able to quite get the hang of that.  My fingers aren't particularly short, but just a bit more length on them would make barre chords so much easier.

Ah well, can't change what nature gave us, can we?  If we could I would be a bit taller, my fingers would be a little longer, my hair would not be going grey, I would still have the slender figure of my youth.  At the folk festival at Easter a friend who is a few years younger said she admires me and hopes to be as good as I am when she is my age, she considers me to be a role model.  It was meant as a compliment and I took it as such, but oh my.....I hate getting older.  I hate the way my hair is white round my face but still has a lot of its natural dark auburn elsewhere.  I hate the way my waistline is but a distant memory.  I hate the wrinkles which make my eyes look so small now, when they used to be big.  I hate the way some health issues, thanks to inherited genes, are surfacing.  Bugger growing old gracefully.  As far as I can see, there are no compensations for getting older.  Not one.

Much is made in the media about young women and body image, but what about Olde Phartes?  Are we not allowed some regret for our younger selves, or are we supposed to just be resigned to the fact that our most attractive years are well and truly behind us, be thankful for small crumbs like my friend's compliment, and uncomplainingly put up with our lot in life?

And this was going to be such a nice post.

"Can any one fancy what our society might be, if all its members were perfect gentlemen and true ladies, if all the inhabitants of the earth were kind-hearted; if, instead of contending with the faults of our fellows, we were each to wage war against our own faults?  Every one needs to guard constantly against the evil from within as well as from without, for, as has been truly said, "a man's greatest foe dwells in his own heart".

Indeed, the world would be a nicer place, would it not?

Enjoy your days!