All I want for Christmas is the use of a remote cabin, half way up a mountain.
Give me the key, show me the way, and I’ll see you in the New Year.
Dying peony flowers.
Early morning sounds - birds singing, a machine tool running…silence. The sun rises on a new day.
Many years ago I remember reading an interview with a Western Buddhist monk. The monk was asked what he had got out of his years of meditation practice. I like the monk’s answer,
I know that I get angry.
Today I know that I was angry.
This evening was beautiful, crystal clear with hardly a breath of wind. A couple of friends dropped by to say “hello.” At sunset the conversation turned to what to do for dinner?
So while I lit a fire, everyone else got busy in the kitchen and concocted a meal from leftovers. Our dishes full, we sat round the fire eating, chatting and catching up. And there we stayed for long after our plates were empty, under a dark sky thickly dotted with stars.
A lovely, unplanned evening.
Setting the scene, from the garden.
A big “Thank you” to Andy Carolan for creating my seasonal owl avatar to take me through the holiday period…and maybe through the winter?
This is my third owl avatar. Two by Andy and one by heyheymomo.
Why owls? I lived in South Wales for just shy of two decades. While there I could hear owls calling out during the stillness of the night. Occasionally during the day I would catch a glimpse of a tawny owl sitting in a tree, or quietly in flight. On one lucky occasion I caught a tawny owl feeding its young in the hollow of an old apple tree.
Here on Maui I have seen Pueo, the short-eared owl that lives here in Hawaii.
Owls have felt like a silent presence in my life.
Wednesday, November 27, 2024 →
Well that figures, the Inbox of my Drafts app is currently sitting at 666 😈 and the app is playing difficult to get, alongside my phone stalking and jumping around. Hopefully this addition to the Inbox will resolve that issue…that or simply turning my phone off and back on! 🤨
Wednesday, November 27, 2024 →
🔪 Sharpening knives ready for tomorrow…and it was an overdue job anyway.
Wednesday, November 27, 2024 →
🔪 Sharpening knives ready for tomorrow…and it was an overdue job anyway.
Hanging a Picture
Monday, November 25, 2024
Hanging pictures is not my forte. They usually end up too low, too high or lopsided. That along with the copious, probably visible marks on the wall as I try and measure where to place the picture and too many holes as I make up for afore mentioned mistakes, usually sees my wife going in search of someone else if something needs hanging on a wall in our house. All of this left us in a quandary over a picture that had been lying around our Alcácer house for good while.
I keep playing Between Two Points from David Gilmour’s new album Luck & Strange. While it ends with a signature guitar solo from Gilmour, it is the beat of the song alongside the hauntingly beautiful voice of his daughter Romany Gilmore who sings, that draws me back.
Between Two Points was originally recorded by The Montgolfier Brothers, who I had never heard of. David Gilmour has kept with the spirit of the original, though it is his version that pulls me back again and again.
Lunch break at Ho’okipa Beach Park.
A wave like cloud at sunset this evening.
Aloha from Maui.
Back to Kagi Search
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Well things change. Back in July I shared how after six months using Kagi search, I didn’t feel that the benefits over my previous search engine of choice, DuckDuckGo, were sufficient to justify carrying on paying for Kagi. In the last couple of weeks I have reversed that decision and am now back using Kagi as my primary search engine. Why the flip flopping? DuckDuckGo, for all of its privacy features, felt to me as though more ads were creeping in to the search results.
🥶 Brrrhhh! Upcountry Maui is windy and cold right now, though those in more northerly latitudes might question my use of the emoji I chose here?!
🥶 Brrrhhh! Upcountry Maui is windy and cold right now, though those in more northerly latitudes might question my use of the emoji I chose here?!
Well who would have guessed? I thought that I was a leak, but it appears that my Veggie ID is…
Broccoli.
I watched a film unknown to me while flying from London to LA last week. Daddio, staring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn, with no other cast apart from extras in the background. 95% of the movie takes place in a taxi, maybe more? Johnson and Penn just talk. They had me. 🍿