Cuddles to come and warming words.

The small hairy person in a photo below is Lottie, one of the pack of three dogs owned by the Cornish family. She came to visit because there wasn't room for her in the kennels with the larger two (poodles) and was the perfect house guest. Just as well because I have signed up to be part-owner of an Italian Greyhound, Dizzy, 12 weeks old, who is arriving next weekend. I'm told they are the nearest thing in the dog world to a cat, are unfussy about being taken for walks, are biddable and cuddly. And won't make me sneeze. I hope.

I might get out more. In the past month I have read 24 fiction books and a couple of NF. One day when I got into the car I found I couldn't see properly - my poor eyes were focused at 12" from my nose.

I've also started 3 short stories. I'm really good at thinking of promising titles. It doesn't get much further.

I'm fascinated by all metaphysical thought, not so much by metaphysical poets, only Thomas Traherne, much quoted by Phil Rickman because he bridges the christianity of his female vicar Merrily, and the Pagan leanings of her daughter Jane (who rejects christianity because it isn't cool and threatens to usurp her place in her mother's affections.) Traherne is also a past resident of the borderlands between England and Wales where most of the episodes play out. 

Here's an extract of 'My Spirit' that I love. Especially the line:
'My essence was capacity
      That felt all things;'


  My naked simple Life was I;
     That Act so strongly shin'd
     Upon the earth, the sea, the sky,
     It was the substance of my mind;
          The sense itself was I.
I felt no dross nor matter in my soul,
No brims nor borders, such as in a bowl
We see. My essence was capacity,
          That felt all things;
          The thought that springs
Therefrom's itself. It hath no other wings
     To spread abroad, nor eyes to see,
          Nor hands distinct to feel,
               Nor knees to kneel;
But being simple like the Deity
     In its own centre is a sphere
     Not shut up here, but everywhere.