Dolce Domum

[steepholm]

I'm now back from the Gower, where I had a lovely time, thank you. It's the kind of occasion that I'd feel a little awkward describing in any detail - what happens on the Peninsula stays on the Peninsuala - but I can at least report that last night I saw glow worms for the first time in my life, under midsummer stars - and sang my teenage setting of Blake's 'A Dream' to accompany them. Next year, fireflies!

Oh, and I made an offering of Artemisian incense to Kaname Madokami-sama, bearer of the sagitta luminis - possibly for the first time in Wales, though I certainly wouldn't bet on it.

Looking back at the last week or so, I am rather amazed at my own gregariousness. I have, it's true, been consciously trying to work on my social life, but this week in particular I've been encountering people with unheard-of frequency, and (as far as I'm aware) every encounter has been positively pleasant for all parties. At any rate, I didn't find myself engaged in bouts of small-hour self-castigation for the usual charge list of: lack of tact, bumptiousness, addiction to puns beyond reason, forgetting people's names/faces, sullen and/or awkward silences, repeating myself, shyness, etc. Here, for future reference, is my itinerary, from last weekend to this:

Sat 28: Barbara's ordination in Portsmouth. My mother's house, then Bristol.
Sun 29: Dru comes in the evening, ready for early start to Steep Holm.
Mon 30: Steep Holm all the livelong day.
Tue 1: Work meeting, halfway through which I remember that I've actually been on leave for the last four days. Retreat hastily beaten.
Wed 2: Therapy, piano lesson, and lunch with my friend (and co-editor that shall be) Alison at Bristanbul. In the evening, an end-of-term picnic in Clifton with my Japanese teacher and fellow students.
Thu 3: To the Gower, stopping in Cardiff for a cuppa with my friend (and co-editor that was) Ann.
Friday-today: All systems Gower.
Today: Jessie very happy to see me.

Is this what a normal life looks like? Or at any rate a sane one?

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

What's normal? What's sane?

The only thing i'm sure of is that it sounds like a lovely weekend.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It was that!

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I like hearing about your life. Do they not have fireflies where you live?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Having just done a cursory google, I find to my surprise that glow worms are are in fact a kind of firefly (or possibly the other way around). But in my imagination, at least, fireflies flicker and glow in flight, whereas the glow-worm beetles of last night were studiously stationary and earthbound, with a constant light.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

...last night I saw glow worms for the first time in my life, under midsummer stars - and sang my teenage setting of Blake's 'A Dream' to accompany them.

How lovely!

Yes, fireflies glow and flicker in the air, with a lovely now-and-nowhere inconsequence. For my part, I was saddened when I realized that Marvell's glow-worms didn't fly. How could the Mower stray after foolish fires, if they were lying low in the grass? And I'd put the wrong sort into Cloud, because I so love fireflies and Marvell:

Ye country comets, that portend
No war nor prince’s funeral,
Shining unto no higher end
Than to presage the grass’s fall;

Nine

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Lovely. I think Marvell would have liked this place. I certainly felt like a prelate of the grove at times.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

It sounds great. Having been to A's, I know what you mean. It is not quite in our reality.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Coming from a resident of Glastonbury, that is praise indeed!

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I am not sure I have ever seen a glow worm. Fireflies do flicker-- flash on and off sort of.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Then my quest continues!