Soft kitty seeker

Right, gotta pay for that cat food. I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go.

Fb memories reminded me that it is 11 years since I had an argument in Kyiv with the then Ukrainian president's security detail before I had even had coffee. I didn't win, they made me walk all the way roundtable park to the coffee kiosk that was 50 metres away even though he wasn't there yet.

Do we get to choose the colour? I would say black but given it is already 28 degrees in the day may not be a wise choice.

Is this a tshirt yet? I'll brave post Brexit customs to get it to Sicily

I have banging but I like it because they may finally finish by this Friday

Love and light

Choose joy, there's a lot of it out there. You cannot overthrow evil on your own and we need to survive long enough to organise. So find those little bits of joy. Tiny lights, keep on shining, hold back the dark.

And the total was 42.42 so I started to explain why I had done a little snort of laughter and I think the cashier thought I was talking about some weird religion. I could hear Douglas Adams spinning in Highgate Cemetery. If someone is near leave a pen for me please.

Quoting Marx at a Norwegian woman as we wait for the supermarket to open is so on brand for me I worry I am becoming a caricature.

And that I am only here to get cat food.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

(thank you old me who left this poem in memories)

For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

3/4

And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back.

2/3 (or maybe 4)

Small Kindnesses
By Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

1/3

Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

This seemed apt tonight.

I was just short of 4 years, frustratingly! I arrived February 2016 but hadn't realised the school hadn't in fact "sorted your residency" (I was unwise in the bureaucracy ways) so I wasn't legally resident until 2018.

Whereabouts are you? Congratulations on citizenship! Due to Brexit I can't apply until 2028, through residency though I've started sorting out documents already!

Yay I guessed correctly (This Corrosion works better in the context of broadband)

Whereas I have gone the Goth route, hey la, hey la la sing this broadband to me

A lone fig tree in the olive grove behind the house is coming into leaf. The sky is blue above the hill.

Minty has claimed this sunny spot in the ruins surrounding my house

In amongst the horrors, choose joy. Joy is resistance. The fig tree is budding and Minty is snoozing in the ruins.

Nice surveillance system you've got there, Shame if something happened to it.

(I hate that America uses Sicily for all its evil and have resigned myself that if the nukes do fly I'll be evaporated rather than dying slowly of radiation poisoning)

Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.

On hyper alert as there were 3 big (seemingly unaccompanied) hunting dogs around yesterday late afternoon & at 10pm Tony growled & startled, I ran outside & heard their bells. Got all the cats in for the night. I did a round of the ruins & fields before I let them out at 6.30. No sign but I'm nervy.

I am English and lived near Loughborough for 25 years.

Ha, I think she's had quite enough, for a thorough lesson.

I am still getting whatsapp messages as she tries to pronounce it.

Information board on weaving and loom weights

I hadn't seen them before

Modern recreation of loom weights

One with heart

@itsmotherswork.bsky.social lovely installation where local schools recreated terracotta weights for loom weaving and inscribed them with words or symbols. Heart for you.

Segesta temple

Just one more. Look at it. Isn't it perfect?

I have a spare room.

Temple of Segesta seen from the path down from the amphitheatre

Who's the best temple? You are.