Day 10, Level 3: Latin, French, Tuis and ... the Full Moon!

A minor clean-fest today. As the Omaha house is a new rebuild, having had an associated mega clear-out, there's been no long-overdue culling of wardrobes or sorting of pantries and back corners and crannies required.

But sand does get everywhere. Like ... everywhere. As I may have mentioned in a previous post.

So today I had a bit of go to get rid of it, even though it's an impossible task.

Gave the kitchen a good clean.

Vacuumed.

Why does that awful word vacuum disconcertingly contain the letter "u" twice?

Ah, that would be its etymology = from the Latin vacuus meaning empty, void, space.

One of only a few English words with a double-u (as opposed to a W).

Another is continuum.

Is there any task in this world worse than vacuuming? No.

And can there be anything more hideously diabolical than a continuum of vacuuming? No. And No. Double No.

I did two years of Latin at school - but I really wanted to take Art. I'd already ticked French as an option - but was seriously encouraged to take Latin in preference to Art. I love languages so it wasn't such a hardship. But I really really wanted to study Art. I was an arty kid who'd never had an art lesson and came from a non-arty household. Please can I take art? No - Latin is recommended. Okay, I went with it. And Latin with Mrs Gubb it was. Later, I switched to German ... which I loved.

So today I went to the beach late morning, but there were no interesting or novel photos to take. It was four seasons in a half hour though. Sun, spits, clouds, you name it. At one point rain really threatened, so I headed home via the pathways as a quicker option to avoid getting wet. Walked past the house of some friends and called in for a physical distancing chat in the garden. The sun came out and blue sky abounded.

There were tuis singing in the trees en route.

So today's photo of the day is of a tui. They're hard to capture as most of them are flighty and not very friendly. But this one seemed content for me to fossick about beneath him trying to get some sort of photogenic angle. And some tui song too in the video. Not easy to capture.

Tui

I tuned in with interest to the 1pm update - Level 2 is imminent and welcome.

But oh Jacinda, I think you made a big faux pas today. A very big one.

You said "You no longer need to stick to your bubble". I think, as you said it, you wondered who the hell wrote this nonsense. I suspect that wasn't quite what you had in mind. Too late, you said it.

You should have said "You can slowly expand your bubble - to include family, good friends etc ..."

But today you gave free reign to a lot of people to pop their bubble and do what the hell they want. That's what those people heard. And they probably didn't listen to much else you said.

Big mistake.

I also wonder how much attention has been paid to how the health service is going to cope with more car crashes than normal (people are rusty drivers after weeks off the roads - young drivers will be gung-ho, older drivers will be cautious - it's not a good mix), sports accidents (people will still think they're bullet-proof, there'll be injuries galore) and general foolhardy behaviour (people are going to be going for broke). I'll be staying off the roads as much as possible while nutters find their wheels again.

I think the health system is going to be much more stressed by this sort of chaos than by Covid. We'll see.

Tonight ... it's the FULL MOON! I was all set to go down to the beach and watch it rise above the ocean. But alas, around 5.30pm, at moonrise time, there were clouds across the eastern horizon. It was calm but cloudy, even a hint of misty rain. Visibility was seriously poor at that point. Oops that's not so good, could this be a rare bad full moon occurrence? But no, peak full moon was 10.45pm. Let's give things a chance ....

I put my roast pork and veges for one in the oven. Talked to my sister. Did a Zoom with Brett and the boys. Talked some more with Sam after that.

Then a Facetime with my friend Lyn in UK - who turns 70 today. OMG someone got those calcs wrong. Happy Birthday dear friend. Wish I was there.

I checked the moon throughout the evening - it rose beautifully above the clouds. Not a breath of wind. All hint of misty rain long gone. A perfect Full Moon night. Given we're just about into winter, if you'd chosen this night for your event (which you couldn't right now of course) you'd have been thrilled. In my part of the world anyway. And, I suspect, around most of the world. I'll be tapping into my peeps around the globe to see how their full moons are going!

Good thing is, the full moon is much more photogenic when surrounded by clouds, otherwise it's too bright.

Here's tonight's offering, around 11.15pm. Beautiful.

BTW - my roast pork dinner was also beautiful! I went to heaven and the moon and back consuming that.

And later, around 2.30am, bed beckoned! (Don't fear, this is reasonably normal).

SHARE-NOTE OF THE DAY:

French and Art ...

I alluded above to being encouraged to take Latin rather than Art at school. I was torn at the time and who knows which was the better road to take. I thrive on both languages and art and I went with Latin.

Those who know me will appreciate that I've always done art anyway, all my life, in one form or another, regardless of never having had a formal art lesson. Oh but I so wanted to create a portfolio like those students who did take art. I looked on with envy. But not jealousy. There's a difference.

Jealousy = I don't want you to have what you have - because I want it for me.

Envy = You've got something great and I'd love to have what you have.

I can engage in envy, but jealousy - never.

Back to the art realm. Like many others I know, I've just gone along the self-taught, experimental route. And in a way it's been a good thing, because I never learnt the "rules" of art so never had to be afraid of breaking them. I'm someone who will observe rules if they're in my world. But if they're not, I'll experiment. Go way outside the square. Not knowing art rules turned out to be a good thing for me. Otherwise I may have been very contained, sticking to those learned rules. Experimenting with abandon and a modicum of success was much more fun!

Yesterday's blog post talked about my time in NY in 2006 and that I'd arrived there from Paris.

This was after I'd spent a week in the south-west of France in a tiny village called Labathe-Bleys under the tutelage of abstract artist Elisabeth Poiret. OMG it was the most fantastic week of art immersion and French delight I could ever have imagined. Countryside, food, hospitality and art tuition. Heaven.

So there I was, finally, at the age of 44, doing French and Art - in France, and in French! (I turned 44 while doing that course).

In the village was an old castle, with a Rapunzel staircase, a chapel, a formal garden and everything else a good castle should have. It had been restored by a Parisian couple. They hosted us to dinner one evening - what an experience.

French and Art - magic.