Let it go. Let it come to you.

Buddhism is a great tradition for me to have found, because it speaks so much of letting go.

I'm not the world's greatest letting go-er. In fact you could call me a teensy bit controlling.

I also love the way Buddhists talk about everything being 'an opportunity to practice'. It's another way to look at all the messy stuff - the things that piss us off, the ways in which we feel we're failing...

This morning I felt a bit panicky about my 100 Readers project [where I handed 10 copies of my next novel The Blue Handbag to 10 friends, who each handed their copy on to another friend, who will each...etc until I have 100 interviews].

I haven't had a completed interview from anyone for a couple of weeks. I started thinking I ought to be finding out who has the books, chasing people up...

And then I let go. They will come to me. I don't need to get my hands on these things so quickly. It's like telling the dough to hurry up and rise.

Whilst we're on the subject, here's a good article about letting go at Tricycle.

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PS Talking of bread, I pinched the whiskery bits from 2lbs of blackcurrants at the weekend and made 5 and a half jars of jam - labelled with my own coloured-in-with-felt-tip labels. This really is the life! Happy Monday x

Sweet rain and gratitude

Before I grew vegetables, I managed to be grudgingly grateful for the rain. I am a sun lover, and rain gets in the way. 'At least the grass will be happy,' I conceded.

We have had three glorious days of baking heat. The earth is parched, cracked. I went to bed last night with a plan to water the vegetable patch today. My veg patch is a little way from the house, and so this involves two hoses and a lot of time and effort.

This morning it is raining. It is raining on my yellow courgettes and my raspberries. It is raining on my embryonic runner beans and my scarlett chard. Sweet rain.

After planning this post, my Daily Dharma email arrived. Sychronicity:

The roots of all living things are tied together. Deep in the ground of being, they tangle and embrace. This understanding is expressed in the term nonduality. If we look deeply, we find that we do not have a separate self-identity, a self that does not include sun and wind, earth and water, creatures and plants, and one another.

Joan Halifax Roshi, from Essential Zen

Tangled roots. Precisely.

And who knows what else we might be grateful for, if we were able to find a different perpective?

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I've really enjoyed writing here this week. Something else to be grateful for. Thank you for reading!

Peculiar cats and ginger ice-cream

Cats are peculiar creatures.

They find themselves a favourite spot and return to it again and again. Silver (pictured) spent some months squeezed into the gap between the rug and the wall underneath the radiator, and she currently can't be budged from the back cushion of the sofa (which is much saggier than it was before).

I've always been amused by the dogged (ha ha) persistance of their habits, followed by sudden and completely unpredictable switches to sleeping somewhere new.

Last week I went outside to eat a tub of ginger ice-cream.

It was a hot day. I moved one of the chairs from its usual spot in front of the house to the shade of the hedge. I enjoyed the new view - the sliver of road, the big trees, the quiet. I've been sitting there ever since.

Maybe it's impossible to make assumptions about how logical/illogical or sensible/silly someone else's decisions are until we've walked in their shoes for a while. Or their paws.

Widgets and rainbow cake

The a handful of stones widget has been going down well, and more than twenty blogs are now proudly sporting it - have a look at them all (in their fetching rainbow colours) here.

If you haven't seen the widget yet scroll down and have a look - there it is. Fancy one yourself? Here's the code and instructions to add it to your blog.

I'm enjoying my week of no-other-work-except-writing (and an occasional soupcon of blogging). The weather has been rather glorious, and I've had to keep on top of the tomato-plant watering. Don't you just love the sweet musty smell of tomato plants?

Now - who's going to bake me a slice of that rainbow cake and have it sent over for my elevenses?

23 hours left to enter the competition... (and the magic of life)

If you want to win a shiny advance copy of The Blue Handbag, pop over to Goodreads and enter this competition. Quick - time's running out!

On a vegetable note, the garlic is harvested, and I have a big punnet of blackcurrants waiting to be made into sweet dark jam. Now, fried potatoes for breakfast.

And here's something I liked from over at whiskey river - thanks whiskey.

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In the morning I mused
It won't return, the magic of life
it won't return

Suddenly in my house the sun
became alive for me
and the table with bread on it
gold
and the flower on the table
and the glasses
gold
And what happened to the sadness
In the sadness too, radiance.

- Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky
The Spectacular Difference

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PS someone has bought what will be my third novel Thaw on Amazon - was it you?! I'm approving the final proofread changes this week - I'll tell Ruth she has a good home to go to already. Hurray.

Another week begins....

A week I've set aside to work on the 2nd draft of my work-in-progress, Joe in Amsterdam.

I shall also be:

Eating raspberries straight from the canes.

Stroking Fatty's belly.

Wondering where my widget has travelled to.

Warming my face in the sun.

Reading Widsom 2.0 (what Buddha says about people who are addicted to the internet).

Making a white chocolate cheesecake.

That's my week - I hope you have a lovely one planned.

Friday poem, and here's to Michael

It's strange when celebrities die. We think we know them, and maybe we do a bit - as far as it is possible to know anyone without stepping into their skins.

I'm sad for any losses, and especially sad for the unfulfilled, the parts where the light never shined. We never know what choices we ourselves would make if we'd lived someone else's life. So here's to Michael. And to Farrah, and to all the others.

Happy weekend x

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Coming Home at Twilight in Late Summer

We turned into the drive,
and gravel flew up from the tires
like sparks from a fire. So much
to be done – the unpacking, the mail
and papers… the grass needed mowing…
We climbed stiffly out of the car.
The shut-off engine ticked as it cooled.

And then we noticed the pear tree,
the limbs so heavy with fruit
they nearly touched the ground.
We went out to the meadow; our steps
made black holes in the grass;
and we each took a pear,
and ate, and were grateful.

Jane Kenyon