Cloud Spotting

My favourite pastime these days. Cloud spotting. With the summer thunderstorms over the last fortnight, the skies have been fabulous. Here's just a quick 2min video of a cumulonimbus, the might mac daddy Zeus of clouds, which appeared on the horizon the other day. But if you want to be really impressed, check out the clouds and storms over the recent Chile Puyehue volcano currently spouting, triggered interestingly for those interested in these things, by earthquakes. The increasing frequency of volcanoes triggered by earthquakes seems to suggest those who expound the Expando Planet cycle theory, might be on to something. Photos are stunning whatever you think.

Enjoy

Memphis

All aboard the Bilderberg Bus...

If you can, follow our friend Charlie's hilarious and satirical Guardian blog over the next fortnight or so. And catch up on the ones he wrote on the 2009 and 2010 conference if you know nothing about Bilderberg. Bravo Charlie. We'll be with you in spirit(s).

Bilderberg 2011: All aboard the Bilderbus

As the Bilderberg conference heads towards Switzerland there's still time to book your seat on a minibus to St Moritz

Fishing in the Rio Zêzere

The Gardens of Abrantes Castle

After many months we finally got to meet up again with our good friends Francisco and Raquel (and baby Manuel) from the lovely old Portuguese city of Abrantes. It's about an hour or so from our place, but always worth the drive to see them. This time Raquel showed us, including new puppy Saphira, around the castle and gardens. Divine.

It was particularly inspiring to see many of the trees we have planted at Moses, and how they will look in 30 to 40 years time. We walked through the gardens catching up with Raquel and imagining the ladies that would have paraded around in long dresses and parasols next to the swans in the days when the castle was the centre of life in Abrantes.

And those flowers. And cacti. And prickly pears. Simply dripping. Thanks for the tour guys. Let's do another one somewhere else later in the summer eh?

Fishing season opened once more in Portugal on Monday. With license in hand (3 euros for the year!), I flew down to the River Zêzere a couple of times with our neighbours this week. Caught a few local tips of how to improve my fishing, although no joy in catching anything to eat, but what a blessing it is to sit and ponder on such beauty. I'm hooked. Will let you know when the fish are too.

This morning we said goodbye to two delightful French Wwoofer sisters, Laure and Emma from Bordeaux. They have diligently weeded and dug and planted and mulched beds for more tomatoes and cauliflowers. Merci! We now have a week alone until Bridget and Alison arrive at the end of the month. And not so long now before we head off to Glastonbury.

The Wwoofers have been fantastically helpful this year. Very much appreciated. And will be again for Olive and Wine harvests later in the year. But we sense that the time has now come for us to open up Moses for a retreat space. I've updated the Booking section on this blog with more details of the gardening, yoga, massage and acupuncture available here from September. If you're interested let us know. It should be a lot of fun and rewardingly hard work. Which is the reason we love gardening so much.

That's it for now. I'll leave with a quick tour of one of my favourite places in the parish of Amieira. The Olive Press. "Today on Playschool, we go through the round window..."

Peace and love as always

Memphis

Terraces planted with potatoes

Saphira Arrives

I'll let the young lady speak for herself....

Lines written in Early Spring 1798...

William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?


Thanks to my Aunty Sally for sending through this poem. Wordsworth was a British poet who spent his life in the Lake District of Northern England. Wordsworth, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, started the English Romantic movement with their collection LYRICAL BALLADS in 1798. When many poets were writing about ancient heroes in grandiloquent style, Wordsworth focused on nature, children, people, and used ordinary words to express his personal feelings. His definition of poetry was "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings arising from emotion recollected in tranquillity"

"Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science."

Lyrical Ballads, 2nd ed., 1800