It's all Greek to me

Have you noticed how the world of Ancient Greece is coming closer? In the Mighty Dead, Adam Nicolson's great question Does Homer Matter, is so compelling that you will be inspired to read those good old Homeric stories and to find out more. Ancient Greece is in the British Museum, there are television (BBC 4 Ancient Greek Art) and radio programmes (Woman's Hour) featuring the world of Gods and heroes, of the way that art and architecture make a real statement about the connection between the world of the Gods or the great powers and the world of men. When you see the frieze depicting the battle of the Gods and the Giants you see a battle which can never be won. The Giants just don't get the idea of anything beyond the physical world. The Gods need a human being, a human soul to come into the picture for there ever to be victory. We are like this now, never mind Ancient Greece. We are the ones caught between these great forces and we could learn a great deal by going back to the great stories of this particular past. Let's hear what this world can tell us about our souls today.

Battle between the Gods and the Giants, Delphi museum.

Absent friends aren't really absent

The whole idea of Easter is that nothing is what it seems, that's what our Jesus did, he fooled everyone.  He even fooled the disciples and he had been telling them that nothing is what it seems for three years, turning water into wine, pulling shoals of fishes out of the sea, walking on water and raising Lazurus from the dead.
They were, and so are we most of the time convinced that the thing we see is the real.  They thought that he had gone and that was that!!!  Years later He is everywhere, high streets, low streets, desert monasteries, this country, that country, art galleries and tourist shops, everywhere.  So, he meant us not to worry about his body or for that matter to worry about the bodies we can and can't see.  If you can't see the person you love, you don't need to think they aren't there and you can wish them well and well and well.

a hot debate!

Jump boys and girls jump

mother love!

As the debate rages between the party leaders, in Grandpa's house or rather in Grandpa's garden, the hot debate is which way the duck is going to take the ducklings she is hatching on the top of the garden wall?  This is a faithful couple, the duck and drake have been here before and this is her second brood of babies to hatch out on the top of a high level site.  He, the duck sleeps close by, head tucked under his wing, concerned like any father that his wife and children are going to make it in the next few weeks never mind the next parliament.  The first obstacle to the ducklings future is getting them down from that wall.  Last time they hatched up there, the duck pushed each baby off the top and they somehow bounced onto the grass underneath.  The second obstacle is negotiating the path through the garden minding the dogs and the large predatory birds who will spot those little brown and yellow bumble bee like babies as they follow Mum to the river.  The next obstacle will be life itself and that has it's own dangers as every Granny knows.

follow me and be quick about it!

Does David Cameron meditate we wonder?

In today's Times, there is a long article about Dave.  I rather love Dave because he looks quite a lot like Grandpa!  (Not Grandpa as you saw him in his woolly onesie with ears).  Grandpa and I wonder what he does in the "tiny windows" of time out which are mentioned as being included in his diary.  In the report these windows of time are called "moments of stillness" and we think that maybe he meditates....what do you think?

You tell us one thing and we tell you another!

He says that he does have regrets and fears and that he doesn't much look forward to Prime Minister's Question Time which he describes as a "bearpit".  We say look Dave,  meditation frees you up, it helps you see that your life with it's ups and downs is passing:  Prime Minister's Question time and even being photographed in a woolly onesie is passing passing passing.  Meditation means you don't have to hang on to all the bad things that come along and as long as you let the good ones dissolve in the same way you can just let your self detach for those minutes and more or less hey presto...things get into perspective.

So, Dave, to help you get through the debate next week and to help you ride the election roller coaster and if you get in, to help you to help us for the next 5 years, get meditating we say.

meditating Grandpa becomes an Easter bunny!

Taking Grandpa shopping isn't really what he wants to do on a Friday afternoon.   Even a meditating Grandpa has limited endurance when he finds himself in a shop full of curtains, duvets and pillows. Of course it might have been different if he had been in a hardware store!  

So, a little light diversion was needed to keep him cheery... and as it is nearly Easter this seemed a seasonal way to bring a smile to his face.  And the other shoppers too!  They really appreciated seeing someone modelling this particularly stylish outfit.  

Does anyone have any ideas for the right shoes to go with it?

The real Grandpa hiding within!

The outer Grandpa

left behind slipper

I am going to start with a slipper which slipped out of the wellington boot rack yesterday.  It belongs to the abracadabra girl.  She is skipping about in Singapore and doesn't need it there, barefeet do the business there.  So, it made me think about all the absent grandchildren and how the left behind grandparent thinks about them.  Well, you may not know this hidden part of the Grandpa who loves his dogs and loves shouting at the television and is in every way a particular kind of Grandpa in the English mode.  The hidden Grandpa comes out to the special garden hut where the bric a brac Buddha presides and before he meditates, he starts to sing!!! You didn't know that did you?  And this is what he sings....May all be happy, may all be without disease, may all creatures have well-being and none be in misery of any sort... And he sings it in Sanskrit, he chants it beautifully.  And together we meditate with that sound as the dedication.  Then, out with the dogs for him, and over to the hens for me and we whisper to the hens that one day you will all be back so they shouldn't stop laying eggs.  And we tell the dogs that you will all be back soon and will have tales to tell us about what you have been doing in your new lives, new schools, new skills and even a new baby have been added in to your lives.
Then everynight, we say all your names, one after the other, before we jump into bed.  So, see the picture below of the Grandpa you don't always see and see how magic his meditation is...he even manages to turn Algie's eyes green.

WOW!

Granny tries a scooter in Singapore

Imagine this one electric

This one even has a seat

 There is always something new to discover and new to try before you pop your clogs and there is a lot to give rise to an optimistic future for we Grannies.  For a start, i pads for us will be our way of communicating not our way of staying dry!  We won't need zimmers and walking sticks if we can master the new electric scooter. I am sure you have seen small children zooming along at speed on their little scooters, paddling the ground with one foot while they stand on the platform with the other.  They weave along the pavement dodging Grannies and dogs with their mothers calling them to stop at the end of the pavement.  They have made electric ones for us now although they are being marketed for executive types to get to work but that is only to  make them seem cool.  They are really been made for us, I know because I tried one in Singapore.  Easy it is and you zoom along just like your grandchild but with no effort, you just stand on the platform and lightly turn the handle and off you go.  Perhaps they will invent docking devices so that we can glide into a safe place without tipping off but I'm sure that's what they are working on.  Then watch out, no more Granny stuck at home, we will be out and about as soon as we can order our very own scooter from the internet on our i pad.  Move over young people, we are on the move in cyber space and shortly we will be on our way down the High Street too.  All the more time to meditate if we get to our destination quicker after all.

This one isn't even electric