Only When It Blooms

So the Icemaiden arrived on new year’s day. Mr. Signs and I were there at the gate with a nicely crayonned sign – totally unnecessary as we recognised each other at once and I was in any case wearing my signature purple trousers. “I am dying for a ciggie,” she said, so we went outside and she lit up. She’s wicked. Since being in her company I have been almost constantly smoking and eating salmiakki - I reckon that while she is here anything of this nature can be safely blamed on her and therefore my conscience is clear.

Looking at this Dr. Zhivagoeseque image of her (taken on our trip to the Smoke earlier in the day) makes her look fabulously innocent (in a sophisticated kind of way)


but don’t be fooled. She’s wicked I tell you and she takes things in: well you’ll see for yourself at some point, I have no doubt (keep checking her blog).


She has put away a fair quantity of mince pies. It's wonderful what you can cobble together with a bit of good quality cardboard and pvc glue -



I told her the pastry was wholemeal spelt (same thing really) and she had them with brandy sauce, washed down with Irish coffee, which was not Irish at all as it was made with brandy instead of whisky. It's fine, for everything pleases her: the sign of a true artist, I reckon. I just knew we would be kindred spirits.

Yesterday we went to the place on the Ashdown Forest where the spirits of Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Eyore still roam, Pooh Bear being something of a personal spiritual guru. Here is the Enchanted Place

where the Morris dancers come at dawn on the first of May to dance and stamp about, for they have to do this in order to make sure the sun still rises every day. Not many people thank them for this, but I always do. The plaque commemorates A.A. Milne and the artist E.H. Shepard who captured the likeness of Pooh and his friends. The bunch of flowers on the side was probably left by someone in memory of a person no longer alive who once loved coming there. People quite often go there to scatter ashes and one has to be careful not to stand too close when that happens or one is liable to breathe in the dusty remains of someone's dearly departed. Such is life.

And speaking of the dearly departed, my father-in-law used to like repeating a saying to the effect that one should only ever make love when the gorseflower is in bloom

the point being that there is never a season when it is not in bloom, and I can vouch for this because it grows everywhere on the Ashdown Forest, and this is how it looked when we walked there. But I say that one could add to this any other activity - writing, singing, taking pictures, eating mince pies or turning cartwheels. Only do these things, or anything at all that makes you happy, when the gorseflower blooms. The time will always be now.

Photos courtesy of The Icemaiden, apart from the one of her which I took.