Dog shit and posture

Made some window frames for the narrow front or corner section of Boulevard Haussmann building.

Used white Fimo (an oven hardened Plasticine), rolled into thin spaghetti like sections. A bit fiddly and the Fimo kept sticking to my fingers and itself. Hope these photographs explain the process.

Into the bottom oven for 20 minutes - a low heat.

Checking that the frames can be removed.

Glued into position with PVA onto a backing of purple card.

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Currently listening to:

Chemical Brothers:

"Surrender"

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Last night's dinner not really on a shoestring:

Leg of lamb, mashed potato and asparagus.

Forgot to take photograph until half way through eating it.

However, did at least use the leftover lamb plus gherkins for my lunch - so that was a saving.

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Meditational prayer:

Have pretty well read all of the Thomas Merton book on prayer. It made some useful distinctions between different kinds of prayer.

He made an interesting comment about meditation - without giving any details as to what was involved in the process.

Meditation can be seen as a means for finding God BUT it can also be considered as an end in itself, namely, meditating upon the God that one has found.

So meditation can be considered as a technique and /or it can be deemed a state of contemplation. Perhaps the two boil down to the same thing.

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Dog shit and posture:

Over the next 6 months I'm determined to make adjustments that will prolong the useful life of my right knee and thus avoid going into hospital for a knee replacement.

One element will be to eat less, lose weight and thus take off some of the strain on the joint.

The second element is to improve my posture. The Tango lessons are helping that but I've noticed that when I walk along the street, I'm permanently bent forwards like an old man. That cannot be good for my knee - all that mal-distribution of weight.

I think I've got into this habit because over the years I've continuously monitored the pavement directly in front of me for dog shit.

So, as from today, my approach will be to check the 20 metre stretch in front of me, confirm that there are no suspicious lumps thereon and then walk for 20 paces with shoulders back and head up.

Like so:

At last some model railway action

Found some time today to visit a hobby supplies shop. The purpose was to get ideas for decorating the exterior of my HO scale Boulevard Haussmann building.

These 19th Century Parisian edifices, like their Madrid, London and Glasgow counterparts were adorned with sculptural features and railings.

The hobby shop was on two floors and I was very patient and determined to inspect every shelf looking for ideas.

Made the following purchases:

To be rolled out like spaghetti to make the window frames.



Reels of patterned borders to make the railings around the windows.



Shiny plastic tiles for general adornment.

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Currently listening to:

A YouTube channel called RoughTempo which broadcasts continuous Drum 'n' Bass mixes.

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Last night's dinner on a shoestring:

Skate wing

Flaked the skate and served with leek and a Parmesan-topped courgette and potato crumble

 

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Mass at St Peter's Partick, Glasgow:

There was a locum priest at St Peter's this morning.

He made everybody sit up with his sermon and the girl in front of me shook her head with disagreement at several points during it.

Basically, he said that the efforts made by the Roman Catholic Church over the last 50 years to make itself more accessible and user-friendly had led to a loss of wonder at the majesty of God. According to this priest, Pope Benedict was quite rightly trying to turn back the clock with his reforms.

It was important to retain a distance between man and God - and not to get to chummy.

The Pugin designed St Peter's - just over 100 years old.

Are special prayer techniques really necessary?

Sad news from the SNCF Society.

It's longtime Secretary and Journal Editor, Andy Hart, died last week.

People such as Andy Hart are priceless.

It is a pity but young people these days are simply not interested in joining committees and by the sounds of things, there is nobody available to fill Andy Hart's boots.

The March quarterly issue of the Society's magazine is now on hold, perhaps indefinitely.


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Last night's dinner on a shoestring:

White pudding and artichokes.

The white pudding is boiled for 20 minutes.

Verdict: that's the first time I've ever eaten White pudding (basically oatmeal, beef fat, and some spices). Found it OK - nowhere as sumptuous as Black pudding.

NB. For some reason, I had always presumed that Black pudding was pre-cooked and that all one had to do was re-heat it. Seems it is basically raw meat and that one MUST cook it properly. Well I haven't been  for the last year or so!

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My favourite fish monger is Fantoosh in Glasgow:

Here is a photo of their fish counter this morning.

Spent £13.79 (including discount on presentation of my Bus Pass) and bought enough for 2 meals - today's and possibly tomorrow's.)

Tonight: skate wing for me, haddock for wife.

Tomorrow: a huge fillet of Plaice (with skin on) cut into two pieces, currently in freezer.

That works out at approx £3.50 per person. Is that extravagant?

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Currently listening to:

Teenage Fanclub

Musical tastes:

Was chatting  about music to a young student after squash yesterday. He liked to listen either to classical music or techno/electro/house music. I said that that more or less summed up my own habits. That's obviously not entirely true since I've spent the last hour listening to Teenage Fanclub.

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 Are special prayer techniques really necessary?

It's all very well my spending hours reading about different kinds of prayers but is it necessary?

After all, Christ told us to come to Him like little children and that the only prayer we needed to say was the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,

The power, and the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

As for contemplative prayer and meditation, is there any Biblical basis for pursuing these.

Certainly, we know that Christ went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, but we don't know the details of what he actually did.

By coincidence, in this morning's Gospel reading at Mass, (Mark chapter 6 verses 30 to 34) Jesus said to his apostles, "You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while."

In his commentary on this passage the priest interpreted this as the recommendation that we should all follow suit and find time to get away from the concerns of the temporal world and find a quiet place to be with God.

Nevertheless, there is quite a gap between the simple recommendation to find a quiet place and embarking upon a 6 month period of studying prayer and meditational techniques which is what I have in mind.

Reaction to my mission.

Had a massive amount of work to do to tidy up and hand over (now) ex-clients' files and paperwork.

Therefore, nothing done on railway today.

So, instead, here are some paintings of French railways.

The first two are of the same scene, The Railway bridge at Argenteuil, both painted by Monet in 1873.

Next, is 'Railway Carriages' by van Gogh.

And finally:

The Railway Cutting by Paul Cezanne, 1870.

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Last night's dinner on a shoestring:

Once again, raided the freezer for the duck and there was a cabbage in the fridge.

M&S Duck a l'orange, braised cabbage and rice.

What are we going to do when the freezer is empty? Out with the calculator, paper and pencil, the bus pass and the ruck-sack and down to inspect the pricing policy of the local supermarket.

Quite looking forward to doing that.

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Kenny Ken:

Suspending all purchases from iTunes and instead looking for free musical acquisitions. Some months ago, I remember really enjoying the drum 'n' bass of London DJ Kenny Ken.

A quick search through Google proffered a website that offered 50 minutes of continuous music  from Kenny Ken - first rate.

Kenny Ken

Drum 'n' bass seems to be a crude musical genre, but I love it.

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Tango update:

Have continued to attend the Beginners' Tango classes on a Wednesday evening. A great decision to repeat the Beginners' class rather than progress to the Improver's.

No longer do I spend the day dreading the evening's class: the embarrassment, the feeling of holding everyone back, of being the dunce and not understanding the teaching points (rather like a little child sitting uncomfortably at his desk and not understanding anything of what the class teacher is explaining).

My position now is firmly in the middle of the class. My posture and gait are still laboured and graceless but my technique is pretty accurate. Also, I understand the teaching points when they are expressed in terms like: shifting weight; making one's intentions clear (to one's partner); making space etc. Last time round these concepts were alien to me.

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Bill's reaction to my mission:

Informed my Friday squash partner, Bill, of my mission. As expected he was fully supportive.

Continuing to read Thomas Merton.

I find the terminology and the concepts to be difficult and therefore instead of starting at page 1 and working through the whole book chapter by chapter, have been dipping into the book, more or less at random. Once, I have a feel for things, then I'll approach the book more systematically.

Merton was a monk and therefore is influenced by the great Saints who founded monastic orders or were the heads of monasteries eg St Benedict; St Gregory and St Bernard of Clairvaux.

Clairvaux Abbey  is a Cistercian monastery in Ville-sous-la-Ferté, 15 km from Bar-sur-Aube in northeastern France. The original building, founded in 1115 by St. Bernard, is now in ruins; a high-security prison, the Clairvaux Prison, now occupies the grounds. (Wiki)

Presumably part of the original Abbey

 Here is a quotation from the start of chapter 8 in Merton's book.

"In the monastic life one could find, according to Bernard, three vocations: that of Lazarus the penitent, that of Martha the active devoted servant of the monastic household, and that of Mary the contemplative."

That forms today's point for my contemplation.

Explaining my mission

Over the next week or so, features will be added to the walls of what has been referred to in this blog as the Boulevard Haussmann building - in HO scale, of course.

 

At present the 4 walls have still to be stuck together and some kind of roof added - probably made from card.

 

The walls  look very spartan indeed at present. Plenty of features are required.

 

 

 

One possibility would be to add shutters and a dark card background with a white window frame painted thereon.

 

 

 

 

But, the strips of wall between the windows would be cluttered if shutters were added in the way illustrated above.

 

One sometimes sees in France shutters that are folded in on themselves when open thus covering the inner edges of the window aperture. See the bottom picture below. I'll try that approach. That will add some texture to the walls.

 

I'll make the shutters from folded coloured card.

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Currently listening to:

Needed my spirits lifting so...........

Teenage Fanclub:

Songs From Northern Britain.

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Last night's dinner on a shoestring:

Vegetable soup and bread.

With this machine one just chucks in the vegetables, closes the lid and presses the button. 25 minutes later, the soup is ready.

Washed down with milk.

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Explaining my mission:

Spent much of the day explaining to my soon to be ex-clients why I'm taking an open-ended sabbatical to pursue my religious project.

Didn't do a very good job of it!

I'll have another bash at it here:

However, I want to keep things to the minimum of text each day.

Basic aims:

1) Not to retreat from the temporal world but to embrace it with enthusiasm in the knowledge that because God created it, it must be worth embracing.

2) To embrace it in a Christian fashion.

3) To discover the pre-conditions and implications of 1) and 2).

In my opinion, this is the most beautiful painting of a church that exists. "The Church at Auvers" by van Gogh.

Ceramics update

Worked continuously for almost the entire three hours of last night's ceramics class.

Two projects are on the go a ce moment.

Firstly, a long continuous building frontage - basically, a load of working class apartments atop a row of dismal inner city shops.

This is a ceramic rendition of a cardboard mock up of same.

The cardboard mock up.

In situ

Next to the ceramic version.

The ceramic slab had been painted with a criss-cross of Shellac which is water resistant. The next stage was to use a very wet brush and rub away the unshellaced areas ie the windows and doors, so that they would be indented and thus emphasised.

I quickly manufactured a gable end for the building and etched on it a billboard poster advertising a fictitious brand of cigarettes, "Fume".

Those two pieces will now dry out over the next few days and then be fired in the kiln. At that point, the golden-brownish shellac will burn off.

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The second project is the HO scale facade of a Parisien church, based increasingly loosely on St Paul-St Louis.

Last night was spent continuing to etch out details, imprint patterns with the plastic ends of felt tip pens, and stick on additions to give the whole thing depth.

For example, this is how one adds on a little rectangle of clay. One must etch cross-hatchings on both the surface to which the rectangle will be stuck and to the rectangle itself. Then one paints both surfaces with "slip" which is liquidised clay. Note, the state of dryness of both pieces of clay must be the same. Otherwise, they shrink at different rates and the adhesion fails or the add-ons crack. Rather like the parable of the wine in the new wine skins - I think.

The surface on the body of the church.

The rectangle to be stuck on.

The rectangle in position.
  



Gouging out some features.

 

 

Current state of play.

 

Fairly pleased with it so far. But am too aware of those 4 rectangular troughs, so to speak. Might have to stick on some clay bits and pieces within each of those sunken sections. Also, will have to make the pillars more prominent in the central sections, top and bottom. I've already gouged out clay between the pillars in the middle section. 

 

 

The real thing.

 

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Currently listening to:

 

Beethoven's 'Eroica' Symphony.

 

This was broadcast yesterday on Radio 3. But of course one can use the BBC iPlayer to play it back today.

 

The conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra - Daniel Harding

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Last night's dinner on a shoestring:

 

From today, the plan is to save money on food without compromising quality/pleasure.

 

Today's approach was to use up the contents of the freezer. Therein lay a pack of beef sausages. Not supermarket produce but ones from a local butcher.

 

These were stewed with onions and gravy and served with mashed up potato and turnip. Washed down with milk.

 

 

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Thomas Merton:

 

Attended morning Mass at St Paul's Whiteinch. Walked there. On way back looked in on a new corner shop of Arabian persuasion. No customers. Very small selling a mixture of Cornflakes, Walkers crisps and exotic Arabian produce such as stuffed vine leaves and flat round breads. Hiding at the back was a tiny Halal meat counter.

 

On the way out the chap at the till asked me how I would be voting in the forthcoming (a few years away, in fact) Scottish Independence referendum. I don't feel that strongly about it but I told him I'd vote No.

 

"Why", he asked, "reasons of finance?"

 

"Yes, there's that", I replied. "And, also I'm English."

 

He seemed to find that reply very witty and gave me the thumbs up.

 

Of course, I'm half-English/half-Welsh and have lived exclusively in the Glasgow area for 55 years.

 

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So, to Day 1 of my new super-charged prayer life.

 

In Catholic and intellectual circles, the American Thomas Merton has always been held up as a clever writer on the subject of prayer.

 

I'm not looking for cleverness; I'm looking for honesty and a direct line to God.

 

I'll give him a go though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Blog resumed

The main drawback with this blog is its mediocre prose.

But, with one exception, little can be done about that so I'll press on. The exception is that I'll try to use the 1st person pronoun less often. Eg the first person pronoun will be used less often.

From today, the blog is going to become more personal (despite what was said in the preceding blog).

This will not be to everyone's taste: some will find what I have to say, "pathetic". Others will find it, "naive". Some will wonder why I'm bothering to report banalaties dressed up as insights. Some will despise and mock; others will patronise and pity; most will ignore it.

But, I believe that somewhere in the ether there will be a  soul who, being at the same stage of spiritual development as I, will be sympatico.

As of today, I've given up my employment and intend to survive for as long as possible on my savings.

The trips to Europe and the consumption of European food and wine will continue but on a shoestring budget. Success or otherwise in achieving these economies will form part of the blog.

Reports will continue to appear about music listened to and books being read.

Because there will be more time available, more work should be done on the French model railway and thus there should be more to report on in the blog regarding same.

The biggest change will be in the space devoted in the blog to my prayer life.

Finally, the balance between images and text is going to remain the same ie as little text as possible.


So, roll on tomorrow.

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