A Mosaic of Meditation

At the bottom of this article you will find an 11 minute video detailing how you too can make your own mosaic at home. Why not watch it and then give mosaicking a go? It could change your life.

**A small detail of the 8 metre mosaic that changed my life.**

Life throws a huge amount at us, and yet we cope remarkably well. Sometimes, when we are being brutally honest with ourselves, we do not want to cope, we want to live, to have the freedom to go where we want and do what ever we please. A chance to be truly happy, or perhaps, simply contented. Coping, with it’s subtext of busyness, pressure, deadlines and the pleasing of others is not a positive state, even if it often makes us feel noble. I am pretty sure feeling noble has never made anyone truly happy with their life.

There are many reasons why we do not manage to take the time to do the things that we dream of, even when that dream is perfectly achievable. Instead, we battle on in coping mode, losing sight of our hopes and wishes as they slide away from our grasp to be come distant memories. Unable to do the things we really want to, we end up juggling, spinning plates, pleasing our audience, looking and sounding the part, whip in hand, assuming the posture, the perennial ring master controlling the circus clowns, when the only clown is us.

**Bring on the clowns!**
(Giffords Circus, 2018)

So what of Wally and I? Did we harbour long lost, buried dreams? Yes, of course we did. For many years Wally and I have dreamed of having a voluptuous mosaic in our courtyard back garden. Our retaining wall had a horizontal strip left un-rendered, ready to be filled with a work of art; no pressure. We had seen the mosaics made by Gaudi and decided that creating a little corner of Barcelona in our home would suit us. The problems were legion and until each had been defeated, we could not get started. The main difficulty was accepting that if I devoted an evening a week to the project, it would take me about eighteen months to complete. If, instead, I decided to get started and keep going until it was finished, it would take about a month of working full days. Both of those options were daunting. We also suffered a complete lack of any great idea for a design. Nothing we sketched out ever really pleased us. This process must be the same as getting a tattoo, because it will be there forever, it must be exactly right, causing delight whenever glimpsed and that is a huge amount of pressure. There is no easy way to get rid of a tattoo or a wall mosaic, so you had better be confident that you will always love it. We thought about having Lizards, about playing with advancing and receding colours, with garlands and sashes and plain tiles. We could not whip up any enthusiasm to get started, because we did not have a stunning design.

**The retaining wall waiting for a mosaic to fill that horizontal gash.**

In the meantime, I headed off to an evening class to learn how to it was done and asked my friends to give me their broken crockery. At home, I mosaicked an old table top and was now confident that I had the basic skills needed to make a mosaic for our home. If only we could come up with a design we liked.

**The Crockery collection, colour coded and ready for action. All we needed was design inspiration.**

Suddenly, there it was; the design we had been searching for, the one ‘we would know when we saw it’. It was in a small photo of a living room, in a building magazine. The image was a couple of inches square and in it, was the tiniest picture hanging on the blank magnolia wall; it was perfect! I blew up the art work and took a screenshot. This was to be the basis of our seven metre long mosaic. We checked the long range weather forecast, it was due to be hot as far as the eye could see. We were unable to go anywhere, or see anyone because of the Covid19 Lockdown. There would never be a better time to do this. We could not find any reason to delay getting arty and it was all systems go.

**The picture that inspired us to get on with our mosaic project.**

Three weeks later I finally stood up, shook off the shards of pottery that covered me and walked into the house a changed woman.

The days had merged into one. My thoughts, unable to meander too far from the task in hand, had settled in the here and now. For three weeks I was in a state of mindfulness for seven or eight hours a day. I would creak as I stood up and my joints were agony. I am pretty sure that I have never spent so much time sitting still, very very still, with a simple repetitive task that totally consumed me. I fell into the rhythm of drawing a 50cm section of the design, cutting and laying out the shards of pottery, moving to the wall, sticking the shards onto the wall and then cleaning up the current section; and repeat, sixteen times.

**The completed mosaic. Now all we have to do is the rest of the hard landscaping …**
**luckily, I can cope.**

I had started, just under a month before as a very busy person, who was, I thought, coping perfectly. I emerged, serene. Mentally, I was smooth, nothing jarring, everything slow and clear; as if my mind was on casters, rolling along, observing passively, with absolute calmness and without concern for irksome details. My body, usually flexible, and under control was ravaged, painful and weak.

For those few long weeks I had floated in my bubble of freedom, my life suspended, my mind fully focussed and alert and yet totally relaxed. It is a condition which I want very much to maintain. I know that with a little effort my body will return to normal, but I do not want my mind to leave it’s new home and that will take effort too, of a different kind. I no longer want to cope. Coping is not for me.

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A Quiet Moment to Reflect…

Us Wallys have spent the last three weeks in a frantic whirl. We have worked very long, hard days; stopping at dusk only to find the food fairy has not fluttered in and prepared a meal for us, which means that one of us has to don the sparkly wings and things and set about being the chef of the day. This evening the fairy kit goes to the lovely Wally. While he creates a culinary masterpiece, I am writing this for you, and me, of course.

At last we Wallys are coming to a point in our struggles where we can have a day, or even two, off work. My mind has wandered onto the things we might indulge in. Well, we can dream, if nothing else! Of course our reality is that movements in the UK are still restricted. What a bore this is for everyone.

*Red Hot, Sizzling Spanish Beach Umbrella*

What I fancy is a trip to a beach-side cafe. I would love to sit under a big, bright beach brolly, with blue sea, blue sky, and a golden beach stretching out, lazily in front of me. Any beach will do for me, after all we live on an island; the one thing we have in plenty is beaches. I feel like using my time to watch folks as they saunter by; families with their kids over excited and fully tooled, buckets, spades, ice cream and their parents, wishing they had stayed at home; young fellas out to spot a toothsome someone and make a pass, if they have the bravery, and the oldies, plump with billowing clothing and waney gait, glad to see yet another summer. Almost every single person sharing that same, one thing on their mind, fish and chips, accompanied by a sea view with the delicious waft of vinegar breezing under nose.

We do not need to to go far, maybe something simple and close to home would give us a lift on a day off. A chance to hook up with friends for a natter would be a boon. Nonchalant, care free, normal.

Soon, all this will be acceptable again, but will we take it all for granted? For us, having access to ordinary activities should not be a luxury, it should be something we do without a second thought, as long as we all keep washing our hands and wearing our masks, oh, and, as long as nobody gets within six feet of us. In the meantime, we will consult our list of tasks and plan tomorrow’s work. Yes, it will be another day in paradise for the Wallys.

We hope you enjoyed this little peep into our world of sparkly wings and things. Let us know what you think of it by using the buttons below. We love to hear from you. All the best from us Wallys. xx

Mystic Boris Says …

***Boris Johnson’s speech to the British nation, Sunday 10th May 2020***

How much did his parents spend on his education?

Scraping the Bottom of the Fridge

Us Wallys are a frugal pair. We never throw away food: food! Why throw it away? Do something with it; re-imagine yesterdays meal. To us it is no different to throwing away hard cash and that is another thing we never do.

Another thing we do not enjoy is shopping. It is time we begrudge throwing away; time that we could better use to do something truly memorable or creative, or simply to sit and stare at the walls. Choice is a great luxury.

Where is all this heading we hear you ask? Clearly if we do not waste food and do not shop, unless we have to, it is inevitable that, from time to time, we find ourselves ‘eating the fridge’. That is, we pull out anything lurking in it’s darkest recesses and in the bright, well lit, front and we attempt to use it all up at one sitting. Sometimes we do this with friends; usually we stretch it to 3 courses. Only then can we truly say that it is time to go to the shop.

You would think now we are all embracing coronavirus, things would be a little different, but, for us they are not. Now, more than ever, our meanness with waste and time is proving to be a life saver. If we are not out shopping for food, then we are not exposed to the present danger that scares us.

Right now, life is undiluted, time is undisturbed; the weather is hot. We may be in lockdown, but there is food in the fridge, some simple vegetables and herbs in the garden, and plenty of things to keep us occupied. Life is good.

Short and sweet was the order of the week simply because we are putting together a longer piece for the near future. In the meantime, please let us know what you think of our work by using one or all of the buttons below. All the best, stay safe. The Wallys. xx

Bad Belly or Bad Battery?

How to tell when your leisure battery needs replacing.

One deep dark night, as we slept, all snug and warm in Barri, a massively loud and penetrating alarm sounded. We jolted awake. What was it? Where was it?

We had to scramble; it was so loud that it felt as if it was inside our heads, stopping our minds from functioning. Naked and disorientated, we fumbled for light switches, both horrified that the neighbours must be waking up too, and unstintingly cursing us. There was no way they could sleep through this, as the teeming noise forced it’s way, pell-mell, out of our open windows and ricocheted into every crevice in the campsite. We had to track down the source of the noise; and kill it.

We grabbed the obvious suspect, a carbon monoxide (CO) sensor from it’s home on the shelf. Held it close to our ears. No. It was not that one. We had another one at floor level. We grabbed it. Yes! Turned it off. Put it down and it started screaming at us again. We ripped out the battery and opened all the windows and cracked open the door, just a little. Back to bed. The next morning, we replaced the battery. Over the next couple of weeks it went off a couple of times.

The final straw? We returned from a night out, it was 2am, and the windows were closed. Even before we saw the van, we heard it. Some poor soul had gone into Barri and shut the windows. That bloody alarm. Those poor neighbours. Our shame. We let ourselves in and gutted the alarm, again.

The next morning Wally consulted Dr Google. Batteries can give off hydrogen and CO alarms will sound when they sense this gas. Well, that was news to us. We have no bottled gas in the van when we are parked up and we do not burn gas in Barri, so we knew our problem was not CO. So why had our alarm gone off? The batteries are leisure ones and should be sealed. Barris batteries live inside the vehicle, unlike most modern motorhomes, where the batteries are held in an outside compartment. As hydrogen is explosive in air, we decided we definitely wanted this gas out of our Barri. Wally vented the battery cupboard to the outside air.

Everything was fine. We thought we had solved the problem, until one evening, as sat in Barri happily sketching and writing, we were hit by an appalling odour; rotten eggs. It floated across my nose in waves. Wally said he felt fine. Really? Were we breathing pure methane? Better not strike a match.

The smell was still drifting around the next day. Once again we asked Dr Google for a diagnosis and it turned out that the distinctive smell of stink bombs is a sign of a battery breaking down. A few checks later with a multimeter and we had our answer; one dead-ish battery.

We teamed up with another person on site who also needed to replace his battery and secure a minute discount for a ‘bulk’ purchase.