It’s a tradition… Meat pies and Ginger Biskwits for Crimble!! They don’t stay around for long.
Recipes (from last year) here: Ginger Biskwits Mini Meat Pies
Happy Christmas. Pass the Port!
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a simple real ‘down-to-earth’ event
It’s almost Christmas and even the sternest of critics is likely to hum at least a bar of something related to Christmas over the coming few weeks.
Many will have heard the Christmas story again (you can find it in Luke 2:1-20). Surprisingly the written part of this story is relatively short. The details in the Biblical account have been somewhat embellished overtime by high and pop culture retellings.
For me it helps to ‘realise’ the story to know that the flowery bits are there due to colourful imagination and that in essence it was possibly a simple real ‘down-to-earth’ event.
Many take for granted that Jesus was born in a stable, it’s hard to un-imagine the imagery; however, the Gospel never mentions exactly where the baby was born – just where he was laid afterward. It’s just one of the embellishments built into mythology surrounding the Christmas story that we take for granted.
Did Mary ride a donkey to Bethlehem? Perhaps, but there are various other possibilities. The Bible doesn’t say how she got to Bethlehem. It only says that she came with Joseph.
Did Mary arrive in Bethlehem the night she gave birth? The Bible does not suggest this. They could have arrived weeks earlier. The Bible simply states, “while they were there [in Bethlehem], the days were accomplished that she should be delivered” (Luke 2:6). Arriving in town well before her due date would make more sense.
Thanks to Huw Spanner for these thoughts:
There were no inns or stables in first-century Bethlehem! The Gospels imply that he was born in a house full of family. Ordinary houses then consisted of a lower ground floor where the family’s animals spent the night and an upper ground floor (ie a stone platform) where the family lived and slept. The manger would simply have been an alcove in the side of the platform. More affluent families would have had a first floor – an upper room (as in the Last Supper) for relatives and other guests to stay in.
Early translators didn’t really know what the Greek word meant, so (IIRC) they guessed it meant “inn”. There is no mention of a stable in any of the Gospels in any translation. But first-century Bethlehem was much too small a town to have an inn, let alone a stable. Besides, the reason Joseph was in Bethlehem in the first place was because he had to go back to his home town for the Roman census. Therefore, he would have had family in Bethlehem, and all his relatives would have come down for the census. No one would have stayed in an inn (even if there had been one) if one of their extended family had a house locally – if for no other reason than that it would have been very insulting to their extended family. Joseph and Mary had been engaged when she became pregnant, and they were certainly married by the time she gave birth.
Thus, the situation the Gospels imply is that Joseph’s family home was full of visiting relatives – the upper room was full – so the baby was put in the manger. The house would have been warm, the manger would have had hay in it and Jesus would have been surrounded by his extended family. A very different picture from the one that Christmas carols and cards, and authors of blessed thoughts and Nativity plays, like to paint.
… in essence it was possibly a simple real ‘down-to-earth’ event.
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Bad boy, dirty boy, in your bed!
Without a full rear mudguard…
With a full rear mud guard…
’nuff said?
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The Bike needed Tender Loving £s
You may have noticed my tweet last week that “the bike” needed some TLC (and some TL£).
Alas the wheels (rims and hubs) that came with the specialized crosstrail sport disc 2011 were ‘average’ quality and arguably not up to the job.
It’s been 2 years since I bought the bike. It’s done its best to combat the conditions experienced but the rear wheel – the one that takes the most pounding – gave up last week. The front forks are sprung so that takes a bit of impact out for the front wheel.
The rear wheel’s rim was cracked in 3 places where the spokes enter it and the freehub’s splines were considerably worn – an ex-wheel!
This week’s tally: an ex wheel, the car’s rear ex-tyre and an ex-washingmachine! Arggh! All this week!
In Oct 2011 my initial foray to the suggested “cycle-route” was shocking!
In August 2012, I moved off the death ride route (normal roads) to the shared “cycle facilities”.
The bike now has to deal with a lot more grit, debris, crap, tree roots, curbs, potholes, etc. I’m learning to accept it. I now concede the new route is arguably the wiser option.
The winter obviously sees a lot more debris and wet crud. So although I survived last winter I’ve now opted for the full guard on the rear, I just had a splash guard before. This might protect the mech and chain set a tad. More dedication to cleaning is needed too! Hufff!
I am no bike expert, so I rely on people’s advice and the LBS – City Cycles Thurmo
After two years it’s now got:
A new back wheel: Mavic A119 rim and Shimano FH-M525A hub.
In the summer we had to replace the considerably worn SunTour/SRAM chain set (ring, chain and cassette); with a Shimano megarange CS HG41.
So yes, annually the £ has to be spilt somewhere, but just remember there’s no Tax, MOT and insurance and the previous ~£54 a month fuel costs are now zero.
I bought off the shelf, but on retrospect- if you’re buying a new bike, spend more than you can afford (invest) for a bike that will be used daily – in the long term, the bike is the sum of it’s parts!
#keepcycling
As mentioned, I concede that the cycle facility route is the wiser option – I guess I’ll report again on that in due course.
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talking to one’s self
Yes, here I am again, solitarily talking to myself.
Studies show that it’s a mental and physical form of release, justification and excitement.
Yes, I guess I do blog about myself, who else could I speak for?
Question is, where’s it taking me… more and more into an insular world of introspection?
Or is it a release for natural introspection, a purging of the essential contemplation? A contemplation that started when as a growing boy, I first realised that we are essentially alone. A moment, with stars, sky, sea and misplaced(?) instruction…
We all find ourselves somewhere on the introvert extrovert spectrum, some more polemic than others. I don’t think introversion is a crime, but it’s often perceived as such and it can be a weight.
In today’s society/community the extrovert is celebrated, championed and adored. We are expected to take part, join in and display.
A traditional organic community existed as a result of necessary relationships, necessary structures around work, religion and local commerce and trade. Today we find fabricated communities created as novelties and commodities, clubs, groups and lifestyle choices.
I feel there is still a great need for real community but real community does not readily fit with our individualistic, purchasable, ‘click and collect’ world.
My introspective nature generates guilt, when attempting to be part of ‘community’, one fails to entertain, failing to display value, failing to suspend disbelief.
In his book ‘Solitude’, Simon Parke talks about “the feeling that no one really cares what happens… an awareness that we lack close and meaningful contact with others, which produces feelings of being cut off from them.” and that “many people have been taught loneliness. We want our children to live active lives in the world, and so train them for activity. But if this is the only world they are taught to value, a world of external stimulation, they become alienated from themselves”
We teach our children and ourselves to be part of a collective consciousness but when that collective consciousness fails to be worthy, fails to perform, one has no value, we fail, we have no place. Solitude is a reality, loneliness is a symptom of a shallow ideal.
With solitude I can mindfully talk to myself.
With loneliness, talking to anyone, even oneself, can be hard even not possible.
Happy daze?
Categories
Unfocused…
An unfocused time of year…
With plenty of expectation of… “we’re not sure what”, thoughts at this time of year can become a tad fraught.
I can’t focus my thought right now, ‘cos I’m thinking loads about something and something about loads and it’s all getting a tad pre-Christmasy and end-of-the-yeary…
Cards to write and send, insurance to sort, nativities to see, guests to please, friends to see, presents to arrange, wife to please, kids to educate, what did i promise?, animals to feed, bike to mend, money to save, try not to forget, try to remember, try to try, next year to put off…
Mindfulness gong! …and relax… !
I noticed the other day that social media posts about stuff, issues, opinions and the like, get “occasional comment”, but images of silly jingle-bell hats and reindeer costumes get bounteous “licks”. Curious…
Perhaps instead of banging on about how this is this, and that’s that and OML whatever next, we should all just get festive and unfocus… ?
…or should we re-focus?
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Little red boat…
Little Red Boat July 1994
I went down to Godreavy,
sun, wind, land and sea.
The waves relentlessly toil, rolling,
the kite struggles with the wind,
the gull hovers in authoritative glide,
the lovers walk not hiding their pride.
The bay sits and looms, like the rocks,
the spray of the waves wets the breeze,
the horizon inheres, definitive, there,
the clouds pass on their way to somewhere.
The elderly couple walk with the wind,
the surfers fight it and laugh.
the sound of the breakers, endlessly boast,
the holiday-makers try making the most..,
…of a scene that I love, and is me,
the screaming sea-gulls agree,
the sun’s gleam makes a silvery coat,
there’s a little red boat just barely afloat,
In the bay being bossed by the sea,
a little old boat just barely afloat,
the screaming sea-gulls agree,
a scene that I love and is me.
Sun, wind, land and sea.
Categories
Wake up…
Our jobs, our families, our homes and our social-lives* what else is there?
A lot of our energy is taken up with the above and indeed we cherish and put effort into maintaining “our” lives. Tending to our “gardens”, polishing our “treasures”, getting, doing, being.
Yes, I agree, there’s a lot of shit out there and some of it can take a great deal of patience, tolerance, acceptance and forgiveness. We work hard to make stuff right, ‘cos it matters.
However, there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ in between. Yes, it’s a cliché, but it’s vitally important.
We rush to and from these things, we fill the gaps with ‘stuff’ and perhaps don’t notice what we are hypnotically passing by.
John Lennon famously sang about his Beautiful Boy “life is what happens to you, While you’re busy making other plans”.
Indeed! And what Antony De Mello said is often true, “wake up”:
“Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know, Catholics, Christians, non-Christians, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion — are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare. “
“The best path to self-actualization is not to Become Your Dream; rather, it’s to Come to Terms with Your Nightmare” BikeSnob
Various things help to wake me up. It’s an ongoing thing – “’cos everything’s enchanting” isn’t it?
A few years ago, I attended a ‘speed awareness course’, following a minor indiscretion on the highway, officer (and a faulty speed-camera). Amongst other insightful discussions was the simple reminder that, when we’re travelling past or through somewhere, that “somewhere”, is often where other “people are, or live”. Often our journey, through a village, into the city, down the corridor, into town, through the kitchen, around an estate… is about a and b, and the path in between is overlooked – just a means to an end. But real-life is “going on” as we pass through/by!
Our world tends to get populated more and more by things, and not events and experiences.
When planning our lives, tidying the house, travelling to work or “the shop/s”, it’s too easy to neglect the journey: “what we are actually doing”. We’re often busy with something better, something shiny, something polished, something jingly and exciting(?), we’re busy making our plans.
We subscribe to various forms of distraction, tonics and chococoffeecelebritygossip. We buy into culture and the collective consciousness. Some of us have to occasionally sneak Aldi Cheeseballs into the basket. Some of us have to pop pills to stop the “busy-making-other-plans” taking over and crashing the machine. Some might need a good defrag. And we all need careful ongoing maintenance.
Some of us might be able to just stop all the clocks… and be truly thankful… but it’s harder and harder in this world of non-stop 24/7-365 interconnectivity.
Where am I going with this I don’t know…
But I am here, now, breathing…
I see my children growing and sleeping and I’m amazed at the miracle of life.
But I love it when they wake up, and, as children they do see lots that we miss!
When I do go to sleep I try and acknowledge a smile on my face – and I try to remember to truly “wake up” tomorrow.
“The best path to self-actualization is not to Become Your Dream; rather, it’s to Come to Terms with Your Nightmare” BikeSnob
(*for those with children, I’m told social lives do exist and will re-emerge you know!)
Categories
Absorbed… (not cool, but true)
Absorbed…
If you know me you’ll know that music is one of those things that floats my boat. I’ve always had music† in varying forms around me. I, like most, enjoy, value and try to find new ways of seeing through music.
However, it’s been a year or so since I valued any ‘specific’ recorded music. A few artists that I’ve followed for many years have dropped off my list, their output was just not reaching me, and while thousands sang praises about new albums etc they failed to engage me. I found I couldn’t listen to ‘stuff on my list’, it was just not singing anymore. Shuffling through, I would skip, skip, skip and possibly turn it off.
Possibly linked to my period of transition*? I don’t know. I have kept up casually listening to ‘stuff’, with the help of Late Junction, Jools H and Spotify, but, as I say, I was not absorbing any specific artists output? Perhaps the loss of faith in humanity? Perhaps a loss of confidence in past assumptions and values? It’s affected my relationship with music.
However, as you might know, I am revaluing perceptions and pursue a new outlook*.
I recall one specific discovery as a 19 year-old lad, on a grey wintry trip to Woolworth’s in Camborne. I recall reading the lyrics all the way home and… turning on the ghetto blaster in my room… I remember a profound engagement with the sound, the feel, the lyric, the music… OK, it’s not cool, but to me then, it rang of “things bigger”. Since that album, Deacon Blue’s debut album, Raintown. I’ve collected much of their material; the albums, as well as various CD singles from the bargain bin in Woolies. How can you forget such classics as “Dignity”, “Loaded”. “Real Gone Kid”, “Wages Day”, and “Fergus Sings the Blues” etc. Especially when you’ve heard them live in various forms. But more memorable were the album tracks that burned impressions on in brain. I’ve followed Ross and Mcintosh etc and have seen them as a band and individually many times in numerous places. Then I had kids.
Last month, I woke up to hear the immediately familiar tones of Ross and team on my radio! Yes, a processed pop tune, but nonetheless “The Hipsters” had the old sound. A new album; my curiosity was raised. The sound rang round my head. All the familiar sounds came back, the lyrics, the images, the various thoughts and feelings from 25 years ago, that have been layered since, with other thoughts from other artists that also got through to me.
So, I’ve had “The Hipsters” for my birthday, along with socks, slippers, pjs, etc that you get from your kids when you’re 44. Now on my ‘wish list’ is the “Ooh Las Vegas” album that I lost in transit somewhere. And, the overlooked The Great Lakes and Pale Rider that I have spotified repeatedly recently.
Ross and team have always evoked something that I identify with, as have many other’s on my list. So, thanks for the new album Deacon Blue, for awakening my senses.
I had lost the ability to absorb. Fighting the period of transition had hardened my neurons to ‘stuff’.
Imagine not enjoying any food to the point that you don’t eat.
Well now I’m eating, and it tastes nice.
Listen to your breathing.
†by “music” I mean anything that creates a resonating expressive sound. However, as with food, there is “formulaic” & “processed” music and that falls on the edges of my interest. Yes I like the occasional “Flames” burger and pack of “Nic Naks” as much as the next, but there’s a lot of pap out there. It’s advisable to watch your diet – you are what you eat! And, there’s a lot of stuff you’ve never tried. Listen.
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We cycle to know we are not alone…
As you know I cycle. However (bear with me), cycling as a sport is not my thing. I don’t find the spin and whirl of the latest chrome or carbon gadgets specifically exciting, I don’t find the latest audacious audax or spritely sportif of interest, “different chevaux for different courses” I guess.
Cycling for me is a way of travelling, getting from a to b, but also it can be a catalyst to seeing the world and your place in it in a new way. Not easy to summarise, it’s essentially an ongoing experience, but over the last year or so I have discovered a few notable (and readable) cycling related reads.
One of my first finds was “The Bicycle Book” by Bella Bathurst.
It’s a great read on the essence of the bike and bicycling. I’d suggest an essential starter.
“What is it about the bicycle that so enchants us? And why do its devotees become so obsessed with it?
A journey through cycling’s best stories and strangest incarnations. A brilliantly engaging portrait of cycling’s past, present and…”
“It’s all about the bike” by Rob Penn was another good read.
A great enthusiastic study and search for the best in cycling without overdoing the technical.
“the bike’s story, from its cultural history to its technical innovation to the fascinating colourful stories of the people who ride it…. with humor, humility, and authoritative intelligence… a rare and precious portal to the heart and soul of bike culture and its surprising footprint on all of culture”
.
Recently found, and I’m still reading, a lighthearted but enlightening read “The Enlightened Cyclist“.
Making me smile and think…
“Discussing the trials and triumphs of bike commuting with snark, humor, and enthusiasm: If we become better commuters, will that make us better people?”
It’s great when you find the reading of books build on each other. Indeed, when unrelated books enforce each other and start to agree and colour a picture in your mind, then life can seem more real.
In “Shadowlands” we imagine C S Lewis “we read to know we are not alone”.
I suggest we also can cycle to know we are not alone.
Onwards!
Incidentally, TBB borrowed from the local library, IAATB and TEC via KoboBooks.
I guess the drawback to readers of the ebook paradigm shift is that I can’t lend you the book to read…! ?
*** Incidentally, 5 years on and I read real books, the e-reader needs charging ***
Jules P Richards 