They make Me Smile

They make Me Smile

Well yesterday was most certainly a very mixed day of surprises and thoughts. It began with me deciding that I was feeling a lot better than I had in a long time, well enough to maybe even consider getting ready to take part in a race. I thought the best way to test this out was to go forth on my morning run and do a measured distance of a 10k run, 6.2 miles. My thinking was if I could do this in a reasonable time with a bit of training maybe I could manage a not too bad race around my birthday time. I did just that and was happy to discover that I could in fact do it in a reasonable time for my age.

In the process though, I very nearly got killed. I was running along a country road with no pavements. I was tight into the edge and running towards oncoming traffic. I was wearing bright yellow gear so could be seen for miles. Yet a car sped towards me the driver in a dream as he passed I felt the car rubbing along my leg and side. The driver awoke with a shock and had the nerve to blow his horn at me and wave two fingers at me. Amazing how such an experience makes you want to take stock.

Later in the day I got a message to tell me the painting I have used here sold. Another reason to stop, and take stock of what I am doing. There are still one or two people who seem to like my artwork.

The title of this painting came to me from a lovely remembrance of a dear old lady who lived in my parish. Let me share this with you.

I had a large, and I do mean large lawn when I was a minister. Like most people I spent a bit of time cutting and cultivating it. I had a neighbour who did the same with his. One day he was passing and commented that I had a not too bad crop of daises on my lawn. This prompted me to work even harder to have the kind of lawn you could putt a golf ball on.

Around about this time my wife said to me that the old lady in question had a lot of daises growing in her lawn and that it was getting long. She wondered if maybe I could find time to go down and give it a cut for her. I liked the old lady and was more than willing to do just that. I went down to see her. When I arrived she was sitting in the back garden. She invited me to join her and to go pour myself a coffee. As we sat, she began to say, “My the daises are so beautiful, how they open out and almost smile at you. They fill me with a feeling of love and happiness. It is such a shame all you folks spend so much time trying so hard to just get a green lawn. Look at what you are all missing.”

I did not offer to cut the lawn instead I say and enjoyed the daises. I have never had the same need to have a pristine lawn ever again.

This painting I sold was not of daises but sunflowers, but they reminded me of my dear old friend and her daises. So I called it, They Make Me Smile.

My old friend when she died she was buried in the local graveyard. In the summer there is always a lovely crop of daises on her grave. They remind everybody of her love.

When is a daisy a weed? Only when it is in the wrong lawn.

Have a nice day.

I am no longer linking to my other blog because I intend to stop writing it hoping that those who read it might come and join me here.