Middlefocus

 6th April 2024   Newtownabbey Warning has been sent. Kathleen agitates the waves, Whipping up a storm. * 8th April 2024  Cultra beach Taking up the strain, Rocks piled against the sea wall Grunting, "We've got this!" * 11 April 2024  Newcastle Coastal strategy: Groynes contest the wave's advance, Divide and conquer. *

In 1967 when I had just turned 16, I got a summer job working in a fabric shop where my aunt was manager. It was a store selling dressmaking cottons and curtain material and my job was to brush and vacuum the floors. Before leaving to resume school I made it to the sales counter. After those first pay packets I thought I was "landed" - indispensable maybe? The workers there took me under their wings and I fondly remember one old gentleman who must have had a theatrical bent as he would share lines of poetry and plays with me. One day he declaimed the poem below. I can see him still, sure he was giving me a life lesson. I loved it and learning the words from him, I too committed it to memory.  Over the years since I have remembered its key moral message about indispensability.  I had occasion to recall the words recently and typed them in to a search engine. The result flashed back instantaneously. And there was the the poem at the top of the search and importantly the name o...

  Title: Amongst Women Author: John McGahern Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2008 ISBN: 978-0-571-22564-4 Paperback. Pre-owned My rating: 4* The back flap sets the scene: "Moran is an old republican whose life was forever transformed by his days of glory as a guerrilla fighter in the War of Independence. Now, in his old age, living out in the country, Moran is still fighting - with his family, his friends, even himself - in a poignant struggle to come to terms with the past." This is a relatively short book at less than 200 pages and it soon becomes clear that the title Amongst Women not only refers to the farmhouse home at Great Meadow in which the action largely takes place but also to the phrase in the Hail Mary prayer recited in the family Rosary that recurs often in the story. The writing is lovely and captures the mood as the story goes through various and sometimes repetitive phases. This seems to me intentional. There are no chapters but the text is broken into distinct p...

Title: Men-in-the-Middle Conversations to Gain Momentum with Gender Equity's Silent Majority Author: Kori REED Publisher: Pure Ink Press, 2023 Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9875866-5-5 My rating: 5* The media soundscape reverberates with discussions on gender issues often emphasising equity issues in the workplace. For some reason male voices seem to be silent on the conversations that need to be had.   This was one of the key observations put forward in this challenging yet engaging book by Kori Reed. The book's structure is built around conversations with men discussing various workplace practices and situations, which being familiar to me as a male rang true.   The premise was inviting and moments into the introduction I was hooked.   I think I realised right from the outset that this should not be a quick read - the ideas and challenges shared would need time for reflection and action.   So I took a chapter at a sitting.   You can read each of the eleven chapters i...

Wine art.  Portuguese Reserva 2020 with Fado label. Putumayo CD and Music from the Winelands. Drawing an evening to a close.

Routes: One of the things that has left a lasting impression from our recent trip to Seville was learning how for centuries Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together in peace.  The Jewish legacy can be discovered in the Caminos de Sefarad / Paths of the Sefarad - the term used by the Jewish community to refer to Spain.  Roots: We spent an afternoon in Seville walking the old quarter of the city tracing its multi-cultural past and there in a courtyard saw the physical expression of that living together - an orange tree and a palm tree growing from the same plot of ground.  Routes and roots.     

  I had long been wanting to visit this reclining statue in front of Centenary House, at premises of the Salvation Army in Belfast's Victoria street. Designed by Canadian sculptor, Timothy Schmaltz it portrays Jesus as a homeless person.  Even though most of the statue is covered by a blanket, we know exactly who the person is by the piercings on the feet. Wounds of the crucifixion. The sculptor intended to challenge onlookers and it certainly had that effect. Someone has left a rolled-up bundle of clothes alongside adding to the poignancy of the scene. There are dozens of copies of the statue around the world although, as this Wikipedia article   points out, reaction has been varied.  I think its challenge on behalf of rough sleepers certainly hits home.

  This is a much-loved book. My dad's. The pen was his too.  C.Tracey  etched in cursive script. Same details as mine. Heirloom.