Small Joys

  

From April to July my daughter has been doing an online art portfolio course with the City Lit. The last project was a personal project that she entitled 'Petite Joyeaux'. Small Joys seem to be even more important at the moment. These are a few of the ideas and pictures from the project.

   

Finnigan's Travels

From 2006 to 2020, I traveled around Britain and a little bit of Europe and North America with Mum and Amy. We were occupied with other things at the time, like work and school, and also had my dad with us from 2006 to 2012. I have begun to think that ideas from our fifteen years on holiday could be a springboard towards other creative projects. Below is the basic itinerary for our fifteen years away.

The holidays specifically inspired my mum to paint these two pictures. The first is based on a photo of Amy looking out of a hotel window on the Isle of Wight. The second is based on me looking through our patio doors in a holiday apartment in Torquay.

Chiswick house gardens

  

  

I've sort of given up on visiting Chiswick House, but still thought a visit to Chiswick House Gardens would be good. I wasn't wrong, our visit in July 2020 was lovely and special days out in locked down London have been sanity, if not life, saving.

  

In search of Alderglade

 

  

Alderglade has been on my list of places to visit since March. Because of the Covid19 Lockdown it took us over three months to get there. We had a very pleasant walk along Fray's River to reach the nature reserve which was over run with wilderness, so we stayed mostly by the river and enjoyed a much appreciated and anticipated drink in the 'Swan and Bottle' when we returned to the main road. Later in the day we also enjoyed lattes in the Bucket List Coffee Shop. We do a lot of nature walking but sitting and watching the wold go by in pubs and cafes has been much missed.

Love Eat Pray holidays 2020 version 2

Despite the Covid19 Lockdown of Spring and Summer 2020 I am hoping to still go on my three love, eat, pray holidays later on this year; hopefully in August, September, October. Hopefully we will go on our holidays and have a reasonably good time on them.

Yoga Therapy

When I first attempted yoga in the 1990s it made me feel sick, so I probably wasn't doing it properly. I came back to yoga in 2018 when I was facing a very challenging time at home and at work. I did mindful yoga at the West London Buddhist Centre and other types of yoga at our local leisure centre and at home. I got on much better with it and found the combination of gentle exercise and meditation very therapeutic. I would definitely recommend it.

Travelling without moving

I have a small collection of wellbeing travel books. They have been a tonic in these lockdown days when getting out and about has been a big trial. It seems it is difficult to just go anywhere these days, but at least our minds are free to wander where they will.

Virtuous Dolls

I don't think I'm a terribly virtuous person, there is definitely room for improvement. However, I find that thinking about the virtues, helps me to be a better person. I became fascinated by the seven contrary virtues as a way of tackling the seven deadly sins, so my first set of virtuous dolls are named after these; patience, generosity, diligence, kindness, temperance, chastity, humility.

The Contrary Virtues

Faith, hope and charity are the theological virtues, they are pictured below.

Faith, Hope & Charity

The cardinal virtues are prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice

The cardinal virtues


There are many fruits of the spirit, my dolls depict nine of them; patience, peace and love; faith, constancy and kindness; joy, integrity and gentleness.

The Fruits of the Spirit

6B460 Review

6B460 Review (written in April 2020)

 

My 6B460 review was meant to include a review of a visit to Belfast, but because of the Covid19 Lockdown all my travel plans have been postponed. I decided to go ahead and write the review anyway. Hopefully I will have visited and reviewed my future trip to Belfast before this blog turns ten in 2023.

1. Visit Belfast and Northern Ireland

I was due to visit Belfast at the very end of March and the beginning of April 2020. Because of the Covid19 Lockdown this failed to happen. I don’t know when I will get to visit Northern Ireland, hopefully sometime before November 2027, which is when I will turn sixty.


2. Work in libraries for at least thirty years

I celebrated thirty years as a librarian in February 2020, just before the Covid19 Lockdown, by visiting the British Library’s Buddhism exhibition. I was pleased I celebrated my three decades of library work with some style. At the end of March I started working from home. I hope I will keep working well into this decade.

3. Keep a blog going for ten years

I started my blog in 2013, the year my dad died. My blog is now seven years old and I have scheduled posts until 2023. So hopefully, even if I don’t write so much in the future, my blog can keep going for a full decade.

4. Play classical piano pieces in public for ten years

I started playing classical piano pieces in public in 2010 shortly after starting as a semi-professional piano teacher, teaching my daughter’s friends. After facing a crisis of venues in 2018, I managed to keep playing until January 2020. I don’t know how much public (or private) piano playing I will do in the future.

5. Practice Buddhism everyday

Living through the Covid19 Lockdown has made mindfulness feel even more important to me. I am getting better at mindfulness, meditation and ‘il dolce far niente’. I go for a walk everyday and enjoy slow tea and food, listening to music, watching films, drawing, gardening, reading books and poetry. I find I am much calmer and try to be kind and patient.

6. Live a good enough life

Luckily we managed to celebrate my mother’s and my daughter’s birthdays in February 2020, before everything shut. It was a time when appreciating a slower, simpler life was becoming more of a priority. I feel that I have done what I could with what I have and hope that will continue.