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| Cats, Stone Circles, Standing Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cornish pasties, Stolichnaya, these are a few of my favourite things, traaa laaa!! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| We just got three new kittens, Teddy; Tigger & Tawny little bundles of fluff with razor sharp claws and teeth!!!! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Those who love cats which do not even purr, Or which are thin and tired and very old, Bend down to them in the street and stroke their fur And rub their ears and smooth their breast, and hold Their paws, and gaze into their eyes of gold. from "Cats" by Francis Scarfe @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Now from the dark, a deeper dark, The cat slides, Furtive and aware, His eyes still shine with meteor spark The cold dew weighs his hair. Suspicious, Hesitant, he comes Stepping morosely from the night, Held but repelled, Repelled but held, By lamp and firelight. Now call your blandest, Offer up The sacrifice of meat, And snare the wandering soul with greeds, Give him to drink and eat, And he shall walk fastidiously Into the trap of old On feet that still smell delicately Of withered ferns and mould. from "Calling in the cat" by Elizabeth Coatsworth @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Cats sleep Anywhere, Any table, Any chair, Top of piano, Window-ledge, In the middle, On the edge, Open drawer, Empty shoe, Anybody's Lap will do, Fitted in a Cardboard box, In the cupboard With your frocks- Anywhere! THEY don't care! Cats sleep Anywhere. from "Cats" by Eleanor Farjeon @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Hark! She is calling to her cat. She is down the misty garden in a tatter-brim straw hat, And broken slippers grass-wet, treading tearful daisies. But he does not heed her. He sits still-and gazes. Where the laden gooseberry leans over to the rose, He sits, thorn-protected, gazing down his nose. Coffee-coloured skies above him press upon the sun; Bats about his mistress fliter-flutter one by one; Jessamine drops her perfume; the nightingales begin; Nightjars wind their humdrum notes; a crescent moon rides thin; The daybird chorus dies away, the air shrinks chill and grey. Her lonely voice still calls him-but her partner won't come in! from "The cat" by Richard Church. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ My old cat is dead, Who would butt me with his head. He had the sleekest fur He had the blackest purr, Always gentle with us Was this black puss, But when I found him to-day Stiff and cold where he lay His look was a lion's, Full of rage, defiance: Oh, he would not pretend That what came was a friend But met in pure hate, Well died my old cat. For MY old cat "Harry" from "My old cat" by Hal Summers @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Stately, kindly, lordly friend Condescend Here to sit by me, and turn Glorious eyes that smile and burn, Golden eye's, love's lustrous meed, On the golden page I read. All your wondrous wealth of hair Dark and fair, Silken-shaggy, soft and bright As the clouds and beams of night Pays my reverant hand's caress Back with friendlier gentleness. Dogs may fawn on all and some As they come; You, a friend of loftier mind, Answer friends alone in kind. Just your foot upon my hand Softly bids it understand from "To a cat" by A.C. Swinburne @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ To begin with he was a beautiful object: Blue crisp fur with a white collar, Paws of white velvet, springs of steel, A Pharaoh's profile, a Krishna's grace, Tail like a questionmark at a masthead And eyes dug out of a mine, not the dark Clouded tarns of a dog's, but cat's eyes- Light in a rock crystal, light distilled Before his time and ours, before cats were tame. To continue, he was alive and young, A dancer, incurably male, a clown, With his gags, his mudras, his entrechats, His triple bends and his double takes, Firm as a Ramases in African wonderstone, Fluid as Krishna chasing the milkmaids, Who hid under carpets and nibbled at olives. Attacker of ankles, nonesuch of nonsense, Indolent, impudent, cat catalytic. To continue further : if not a person More than a cipher, if not affectionate More than automaton, if not volitive More than mere conscious, if not useful More than a parasite, if allegorical More than heraldic, if man-conditioned More than a gadget, if perhaps a symbol More than a symbol, if somewhat a proxy More than a stand-in -was what he was! A self-contained life, was what he must be And is not now : more than an object. And is not now. Spreadeagled on coverlets - Those are the coverlets, bouncing on chairbacks - These are the chairs, pirouetting and sidestepping, Feinting and jabbing, breaking a picture frame - Here is the picture, tartar and sybarite, One minute quicksilver, next minute butterballs, Precise as a fencer, lax as an odalisque, And in his eyes the light from the mines One minute flickering, steady the next, Lulled to a glow or blow to a blaze, But always the light that was locked in the stone Before his time and ours; at best semi-precious All stones of that kind yet, if not precious, Are more than stones, beautiful objects But more than objects. While there is light in them. from "The death of a cat" by Louis Macneice.....as you can tell I love sentimental poetry, in particular Victorian prose. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& I got this on my Birthday card 3/5/52!! : What all cats know about Living the Good Life A....Act nonchalant B....Be comfortable C....Control yourself D....Discriminate E....Explore F....Fake what you don't know G....Grab at passing opportunities H....Have a moment of wild abandon I....Ignore the ignorant J....Jog in your sleep K....Knead people L....Let it all hang out M....Make friends with your neighbours N....Nap often O....Overstep boundaries P....Play with your Food Q....Quit while you are ahead R....Return to your favourite places S....See thing's others don't T....Take your time U....Understand human limitations V....View things from more than one perspective W....Wait at least 60 seconds before responding X....X-pect only the best Y....Yawn and stretch at regular intervals Z....ZZZZZZZZZZZZ in the sunshine Mmmmmmm kind of applies to humans too??!! Thanks to FreeStyle cards!!!! %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jimi Hendrix, am I a retro old git from the 60s? My wife Joyce Ann would agree with that!!!! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I don't know quite what it is about him, but.... when I hear the first opening chords from "Little Wing", I am lost!!!! I think he represented a BIG life change for me, er.... back in the 60s, when I was a teenager and The Beatles were still clean cut young "Mop Tops", I was a relatively clean living, level headed young lad. The Stones were rebellious, yes, but still they were musically from The R & B Establishment. Then one evening I was eating my supper in front of the teevee and Top Of The Pops came on and Jimi played "Hey Joe!" and I was lost for ever. I was too young and too far away from London to know about the "Blues" boom that was going on, so I had never heard a guitar solo before, only those little guitar breaks in pop songs. I forgot the supper, and back combed my hair straight up and never looked back! ************************************************* Born James Marshall Hendricks on November 7th, 1942 in the town of Seattle, Washington. Born of father James and Mother Lucille, herself the daughter of a full blooded Cherokee. Began playing guitar at the tender age of 11, self taught he learned from watching and listening to other Blues guitarists. He joined the US Army, the 101st Airborne, in 1961 aged only 18. Over a year later he had left the Army and began his professional musical career touring the Southern states with Rock and Roll icon Little Richard! Jimi became a back-up player for amongst others: BB King; Sam Cooke; Ike and Tina Turner; The Isley Brothers amongst others. He felt constrained in theses back-up bands, forever touring on the "Chitlin Circuit" for the few dollars that filtered down from the "Names" that fronted the tours. He left the tours, and soon felt the hardships of going it alone, he even had to pawn his beloved guitar to eat. By 1965 he had reinvented himself as "Jimmy James" and set off on a series of gigs in the dives and clubs of the "Greenwich Village" area of New York's hip centre. The likes of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and The Stones caught his act and raved about it to those back home in England. "Jimi Hendrix", superstar guitar hero was "born" one night in 1966. At the Cafe Wha' Chas Chandler, the one-time bassist for the Animals, sought out Jimi. He was looking for acts to manage and bring back to England. A deal was struck and Jimi left for "Swinging" London! Chas found Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell and brought them together with Jimi to form "The Jimi Hendrix Experience". Within a few weeks of meeting and getting into the studio "Hey Joe" the first single went to number 4 in the charts and in May 1967 the follow up "Purple Haze" went to number 3. In May 1967 the first Hendrix album "Are you Experienced" was released and went Gold, as did the next three "Axis : Bold as Love"; "Smash Hits" and "Electric Ladyland". England made Jimi their own, they tok him to their hearts and loved his music, yet he was still relatively unknown in the USA. The festival at Monterey changed all of that. Jimi blew away the likes of more establishes acts like "The Stones" and "The Who" easily, he wasn't afraid to let himslef go into long improvised solos and to get away from the constraints of the formulaic pop song. He sold out tour after tour, still producing music far advanced for the more conservative pop music of the day, he invented many of the guitar playing techniques taken for granted to-day. Yet by November 1968 it was all going horribly wrong. The Experience broke up. Jimi returned to America and throughout 1969 his performances were rare and apart from his closing performance at the "Woodstock" Festival in August mainly unexceptional. He formed the "Band of Gypsies" in 1970 with some old army buddies, a more funky sound came from his new group. Jimi returned to England for the "Isle of Wight" festival, but viewers of the video tape of Jimi's performance cannot help but see a man in pain, his playing perfunctory, throwing away his trademark licks and fills in an out of tune, sloppy and tired fashion. He was not the Jimi of a few years earlier who could lift your spirits to a different stratosphere, he was a Jimi who had come to a wall at the end of a cul-de-sac. Then on Friday, September 18th, 1970 he was dead. The man who wrote and sang so sweetly : Well, she's walking through the clouds with a circus mind that's running wild. Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales, that's all she ever thinks about... Riding with the wind. When I'm sad she comes to me with a thousand smles she gives to me free, It's alright, she says, it's alright, take anything you want from me, anything. Fly on, Little Wing. *********************************************** ************************************************** O.K. so her is MY biography!!! Age : looks 37 {yeah right!!} but is in reality 47 Status : Married, to Joyce Ann, a gorgeous American lady. The downside is that she has to live in Florida for a lot of the year. So I am a married bachelor, kinda! She was my penfriend before we met, and it would have been love at first sight but for the fact that she had already married another penfriend! Luckily for me he turned out to be more interested in geting his "Green card" than he was in making his marriage work. So I was able to make MY dream come true! I live : in the South west of England, Devonshire. Only 20 minutes from Dartmoor. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Witchcraft, Wicca and a good alternative to mainstream religion ???? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
My Interests: |
My wife Joyce Ann, renowned Icon Painter, got my interests in this subject to be rekindled after many a year's lapse! I t is a fascinating subject, but you are either a believer or you are not, no amount of persuasion will sway you! Approach without fear, you who know me in your heart, for I speak to you with the voice of the winds and the shoreline in the hem of my robe. I am the breath of hope which is born in the East, the Maiden, the new morning, the promise of Spring. Mine is the power which burns in the South, the Mother, the midday warmth, the blessings of Summer. I will draw you to me as the day fades in the West, the Wise Woman, the healer, the mourner of the waning year. And when the bitter wind blows from the North, bidding life withdraw, to rest, to dream, I beckon you as Crone, as the dark Mother, the seed of life preserved in the bare Earth, from which you have been born and will be borne again. ***************************************************************************** If you would like to know a little more about Witchcraft then you could always try this web site : http://www.i-netmail.com/shops/witchingwell/index.htm here you will find LOTS of links to other sites and you can judge for yourself, e-mail me and let me know what you think of Wicca and Witchcraft, what is your perception of their meaning?
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