A time to sit

I returned from UK at the beginning of this week and went back to work on Tuesday, anticipating a very busy week with not much time to sit!

My time spent amongst nature in my Dad’s garden seems a very long time ago now although only a week has passed by, a very busy week.

Before flying home from England I spent some time with the family of a client with whom I had worked some thirty years ago, who died just before Christmas. I had been invited to read at her Memorial Service which turned out to be something very special and I will write about it here later.

I arrived back in Germany on Monday evening and had to be at work in the Kindergarten group the following morning by eight-thirty, I was needed in the school group in the afternoon and had two adults' sessions after that, closing the day with our second conductive music session.

And so the week carried on in this busy mode until Thursday afternoon.

After working in the city on Thursday at InBestForm, the inclusive, disabled and non-disabled group for elderly clients, I was able to be at home a couple of hours earlier than my norm and decided to take my cup of tea out on my balcony for a sit and a bit of communing with nature, just as I had been doing with my Dad in Norwich.

Spring had sprung this week

I had cycled home on Wednesday in a 25°C heat wave and Thursday was still warm, so there was no need to wrap myself up in a blanket as I had done when last out on the balcony before Easter. I settled down to enjoy my first opportunity to sit amongst my spring flowers and listen to the birds singing.

As I sat back with tea and a pile of out-of-date and unread Guardian Weeklies I started to snooze.  But I was brought back to life when I realized that there seemed to be more collared doves hopping around and cooing than I was used to. Gabor and Giselle had been my customary companions in the early spring, having nested in ‘my tree’ many times since I have lived here. But on Thursday evening there were four doves, two babies had joined in the cooing and were eager to be fed. By Saturday evening, having been huddled together at noon they were nowhere to be seen, perhaps already having flown the nest, or maybe they just made it to a different branch. By Sunday there were certainly gone, Gabor and Giselle too, off on holiday I expect for a rest!

On Thursday I had spotted their delicate platform-like nest only a few feet away from me, just above eye level. I was so sorry to have missed all their comings and goings over the past three weeks, but there was to be a lot more action for me to enjoy. While the doves were busy feeding to one side of me a couple of blackbirds started hopping around in the tree to the front. It seemed that after all I was about to see some nesting action for Mr. and Mrs. Blackbird were very busy collecting nesting materials, their mouths full of moss and muddy, leafy material!

But where was the building site? Some detective work was called for.

It did not take long for my eyes to scan my tiny balcony and discover the blackbird’s nest tucked down low, behind my table, beside the empty flower pots and troughs. 

Friday

 

Sunday

By Friday morning there was a definite hollow in the earth and a little bit of moss had appeared. I decided to lend them a helping hand in their search for muddy building materials in order to prevent them emptying my flower troughs. I had learnt from my Mum what blackbirds like as she always left out a tray of soil and compost on the patio, that she watered regularly. This stopped the birds pulling up her seedlings.

It worked well for her and it worked for me too. I am surprised how often the tray needed topping up. All my plants are still firmly rooted and my neighbour’s patio below is not covered with mud.

 

I am really looking forward to the next days, waiting in expectation of the first egg to be laid. After that there will be a patient wait for the chicks to hatch and then a week or two of feeding frenzy before the birds fledge and fly off.

The female blackbird was happily hopping around my feet this lunchtime as I turned my chair and hat another sit in the sun. I will continue to join them on my balcony for ever-lengthening spells so that they get used to me. I am sure that once the eggs are laid and the birds are sitting on them I will be ignored and I can have a bird’s-eye view. I also hope that I can be home early on a few evenings in the following weeks so I can be part of the action.

PS

 

Eclipsed

Today I had the morning off and after a leisurely breakfast I was in time to catch the beginning of the solar eclipse.

Last minute preparations

As I had not realised until last night that this natural phenomenon was taking place today I was unprepared. But late last night I found a video showing me how to produce a pinhole camera in a few minutes.

This morning with only minutes to spare till kick-off I grabbed myself a cardboard box, a piece of tinfoil, a square of white paper, some sticky tape and a knife.

Watching together all across Europe

I was communicating with a friend while I was preparing to watch the eclipse and having built my viewing camera in less than two minutes I recommended it for a fast, last-minute viewing, but my friend preferred a bowl of water on the lawn. I tried this but with the sun not reaching the floor of my balcony it was impossible to arrange.

 

I also phoned my Dad, who I thought would be smoking a piece of glass as he did for me in the mid-sixties to take to school, but there was no sun to be seen in Norwich this morning so he was indoors and had no need for my pinhole-camera instructions, he was however very pleased to have a call from me so early in the morning.

I thought that I would only be able to view the sun from my balcony for part of the eclipse but it was so well timed that it was only after the last part of the moon had passed by that the sun disappeared behind my neighbour’s house.

 

A contemplative two hours

I was so thrilled when I saw the first image on my pinhole-camera screen that I just had to take lots of photographs.

It works!

I spent the next two hours on the balcony not only watching the changing image on my screen but also experiencing the changing atmosphere.

Most noticeable was that I was experiencing an evening sunshine on my balcony where I never have sun in the evenings. The light had that evening quality about it that makes all the colours more vibrant. It was really exciting. 

Evening atmosphere

Gradually it got colder too

I have had mornings off work all this week and I have spent most of them sitting on the balcony working. Sheltered out of the wind the sun has had a warming quality but this morning that warmth disappeared only to return when the moon had passed by.

 

The atmosphere was very still and the birds certainly quietened down for a while. They did not go totally silent as they did in 1999 but today at the peak of the eclipse they certainly quietened down for a while and they were less active.

Back to conductive reality

I was sorry to pack up my camera and jump on my bike to go to work. By the time I was out in the countryside on the cycle path the midday sun was make to its normal strength again.

The sun looked like the moon

The eclipse had been the favourite subject at lunch yesterday. One little boy had said he was afraid of the eclipse, others were worried about whether mum would have managed to buy some special viewing glasses to take to school or whether they would have to borrow Dad’s welding glasses.

Today the little boy who had told us that he was afraid had lost his fear and happily described to us  – ‘The sun looked like the moon today and we will be able to see it again in a thousand years’ time!’

A rainbow in my coffee cup!

 

Daily, weekly and annual routines

Winter at Boxdorf village pond

It is nice to be reminded just how important our daily, weekly, and even annual routines are. 

An early morning cup of tea on the balcony, a weekly visit to a friend, or the seasonal routines of blowing eggs for Easter, making cards for Christmas meeting for an autumn family walk, all remind us that our world is turning nicely.

At my work the children often remind me how much they depend on their own routines' staying constant when they arrive at the group and ask- ‘Where is Évi?’ or ‘Where is Susie?’ when one of us is ill or working elsewhere.

They always notice when another piece of our new kitchen is installed, and have a hundred questions to ask and need to look through the new cupboards and drawers to make sure that all the old things that they are used to are still there.

When a school assistant is ill, or a new replacement begins, it is the first story we hear before coats are removed.

If Mum or Dad is away at work, if a favourite teacher has left the school, or a sibling has gone off on a skiing trip, these changes are also reported. These changes are often the reasons for differences in children’s moods and the children know, without really knowing, why it is important to report these changes in routine to us and to their friends – we discuss them over lunch, their friends ask questions and we all learn from the situation. We learn how to adapt and learn new ways of coping with what comes along in our paths through life.

Spring at Boxdorf village pond

As conductors we must remember that we also have clients who cannot rush in the room and ask where someone is, tell us that brother is away all week and that he is sorely missed, tell us that Dad has had to fly off on a business trip, or that Grandma is poorly and now in hospital. Many of our children cannot report these routine-changing events to us so we must remember that when a child is sad, does not want to eat, seems restless, unmotivated, agitated or unhappy that perhaps their routine has also changed and perhaps we should ask about it in order to indicate in some way that we understand.

This of course happens positively too. Positive changes in routines also have to be discussed and changes in behaviour noted and often praised.

I am the first person to initially react negatively to change. I have improved as I get older but still my initial reaction to a change in my routine is fear, worry, it can even be panic. This may only last for the few seconds that it takes for me to tell myself everything is fine in its new way, or it can last for days and weeks depending on the degree of change.

I think it is one of the reasons that being a conductor suits me, because although my work is so varied and colourful there is always that underlying routine in it that we need to develop for the clients and it does me good too.

I have work in a new city, a new family, a new group of adults, new colleagues, but when the work starts I have to build into it a routine and this is very calming and reassuring and spreads its influences out onto my personal life.

Summer at Boxdorf village pond

What made me start thinking about routines today?

It was when I sat down to read the newspaper with my early morning cup of tea, the one that always tastes best, and I realised how much I had missed this routine and thought perhaps that this was why I never seemed to get going on Saturdays recently.

At last … my Guardian Weekly had arrived and just in time for Saturday morning breakfast as it always used to.

I cancel it when I go away and it usually starts appearing again the week after I return home.

But after my Christmas and New Year break it did not appear in my letter box – week after week.

At first I did not realise why, I thought I must have told them the wrong start-date, but eventually I wrote an email and was told that they had forgotten to restart delivery. My routine had been disturbed and oh how I had missed it.

Each morning as I got ready for work I took Chekhov or one of my other Christmas books with me, all quite heavy tomes, instead of compactly folding the Weekly into my pocket.

Rotating routines

My new routine starts again on Monday, the one that I have to prepare for with lots of sleep in the preceding weeks because it exhausts me.

For three weeks I have been working with the stroke group in the mornings but next Monday I begin three weeks with the Kindergarten children. This work starts an hour earlier but my day still stretches on well into the evenings as always. I find this work tiring but I have developed this as part of my routine so that despite always catching a cold from the always runny noses, I love it.

The dependable routine of nature always accompanies everything we do and makes its own changes along the way. I am happy to see that when I get up a earlier next week I will now be able to enjoy some daylight before I start work and perhaps in the evenings too, on my way home, if I am lucky to get away on time!

Autumn at Boxdorf village pond

My old much-loved, and much-needed, routine

The snow has almost melted and the days might warm up soon if it does not snow again, then I can begin the other routine that I love so much – cycling to work. 

Despite the massive amount of road-works on my route for the extended tramway I am determined to ride my way into the routine of summer, with nature gazing, picking four-leaved clovers and photographing the sunset all to look forward to!

I am glad that nature with its seasons ring the changes but still keeps to its daily routine.

PS

I chose the photographs published here to illustrate my early morning routine of observing the seasonal changes at our local village pond,  not to illustrate the changing rhythms of nature that also affect our lives, that is something else to be dealt with another time.