To be a child again...

[Geoffrey]

Thank you so much, Geoffrey. I wasn't able to post it myself.
This week, it is 23 years since Mum died, so spare a thought for Bena.

very beautiful lady

[Karren B]

i have been asked to publish the following photograph
mum wedding!.jpg

Solong wrote
Thank you so much, Geoffrey.
I wasn't able to post it myself.
This week, it is 23 years since Mum died, so spare a thought for Bena.

What a beautiful photo Michael. She looks like a film star.
Last week was 10 years since my mum passed, It seems like yesterday. I'd give anything to hug her one more time!
Wishing you all good things.
xx

[Diane]

They say you are only as old as you think you are; well I think I'm 20 yrs younger than I am but unfortunately my mind has forgotten to pass this information on to my body!

There ain't no cure for age, and yet friends are encouraging me to join them for cold water immersion, which involves suddenly entering a lake and remaining there for three minutes. I have been doing some research, and it is scientifically proven to cause mitochondrial biogenesis, which means you get younger with each dip. I mention it because I notice you live by the river .

Just can't quite visualise Mike and Geoffrey as children. I wonder if they were as well behaved then as they are now?

I can't quite imagine them as grown-ups! Nevertheless Mike's a friend since the old days, when he introduced me to the late great musician Jackie Leven - not just the music but the man himself. And I have been a follower of Geoffrey's column, and his hugely talented artwork, since one of the funnest ever threads on here, when he was winding up the late great poet Andrew McGeever.

Yes, that's one special photograph there, of your mother, Mike. She is indisputably a female you in appearance. Hats off to Bena.

It's nice that you posted Mike's pic, Geoffrey. Of course, in your part of the world an icy plunge in the fjord is de rigueur:-) And by the way, thank you for your baked carrot recipe that you posted on here!

[Karren B]

Diane wrote
There ain't no cure for age, and yet friends are encouraging me to join them for cold water immersion, which involves suddenly entering a lake and remaining there for three minutes. I have been doing some research, and it is scientifically proven to cause mitochondrial biogenesis, which means you get younger with each dip. I mention it because I notice you live by the river .

I have heard that cold water immersion can be good for you, that's if the shock doesn't kill you first. I could imagine doing it in a beautiful clear lake but unfortunately the river I live near is the Thames, and even Public Health England advise against swimming in it.
xx

[Diane]

Really?! Until very recently I was living in a village by the Thames near a castle. It likely isn't the same one, but I am PMing you to find out:-) I walked my dog every day along the Thames, and saw quite a few people taking a dip. It's quite a thing at the moment isn't it. The ones that emerged usually looked exhilarated. But yes, the river itself did seem rather grimy.

[sebmelmoth2003]

Childish Things

Something Understood

Turning 40, for many, is a time of anxiety and existential crisis. In thinking about what it means to be finally grown up, journalist Abdul-Rehman Malik finds his thoughts returning to the question of what it means to be young - and what of childhood and youth can we still carry with us.

If, as it's said in the Islamic tradition, youth comes to a decisive end at the age of 40, then how can we still hold on to the energy, dynamism and even innocence of our younger years without being childish?

Reflecting on Saint Paul's advice to the church in Corinth to leave behind "childish things", Abdul-Rehman finds consolation in the words of C.S. Lewis who thinks that adults too concerned with adulthood are rather more immature than children. He also finds uneasy perspective in the encyclopaedic Hindu scripture Srimad Bhagavatam which tells us how, even in childhood, we carry the trauma of past lives and experience - shaping our adult lives.

Drawing on William Blake's Songs of Innocence, Sioux tribal wisdom, Zen paradoxes and the music of Herbie Hancock and Leonard Cohen, Abdul-Rehman finds that growing up well has as much to do with knowing what of childish things to keep as with what needs to be let go.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vwmsn