A birthday poem

My friend Dave sent me this for my birthday, from the New York Times, he often sends me interesting stuff from there - thanks Dave!

A SPEECH TO THE GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA
by Wendell Berry
SEPTEMBER 28, 2009
(With thanks to Wes Jackson and in memory of Sir Albert Howard and Stan Rowe.)

Thank you. I’m glad to know we’re friends, of course;
There are so many outcomes that are worse.
But I must add I’m sorry for getting here
By a sustained explosion through the air,
Burning the world in fact to rise much higher
Than we should go. The world may end in fire
As prophesied—our world! We speak of it
As “fuel” while we burn it in our fit
Of temporary progress, digging up
An antique dark-held luster to corrupt
The present light with smokes and smudges, poison
To outlast time and shatter comprehension.
Burning the world to live in it is wrong,
As wrong as to make war to get along
And be at peace, to falsify the land
By sciences of greed, or by demand
For food that’s fast or cheap to falsify
The body’s health and pleasure—don’t ask why.
But why not play it cool? Why not survive
By Nature’s laws that still keep us alive?
Let us enlighten, then, our earthly burdens
By going back to school, this time in gardens
That burn no hotter than the summer day.
By birth and growth, ripeness, death and decay,
By goods that bind us to all living things,
Life of our life, the garden lives and sings.
The Wheel of Life, delight, the fact of wonder,
Contemporary light, work, sweat, and hunger
Bring food to table, food to cellar shelves.
A creature of the surface, like ourselves,
The garden lives by the immortal Wheel
That turns in place, year after year, to heal
It whole. Unlike our economic pyre
That draws from ancient rock a fossil fire,
An anti-life of radiance and fume
That burns as power and remains as doom,
The garden delves no deeper than its roots
And lifts no higher than its leaves and fruits.


Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2009/09/28/090928po_poem_berry#ixzz0uS0qtYQC

Co-pilot bike seat

Luckily the seat can be removed with co pilot still asleep!

British 10k run - Carrying a 4ft inflatable banana

I wasn't feeling fully fit on race day (Sunday) so decided to give up the notion of going really fast and instead do a bit more PR for Fairtrade. I did the whole 10k run carrying a 4ft inflatable banana. I made it home in a time of 53m33s. This is my best time for a 10k carrying an inflatable banana but I do think I could go quicker in this event - race ettiquette on the day was very poor with nobody recognising the 'overtaking on the left' rule.

All good fun and surprising not too painful to carry a 4ft inflatable banana!

Thanks for all the sponsorship!

Carl
http://www.justgiving.com/carlmyhill

Sol's first birthday

The actual day of Sol's birthday was today but the party is on Sunday. Here is one picture from the day, showing Sol enjoying sitting on Helena's bike...



There are a few more pictures on flickr.com too.

We took a couple of videos as well, some showing Sol doing some pretty impressive walking!

Sol took 2 steps!!

Sol took his first steps today, walking from Abuela to Mummy!

He seems to understand quite a lot of spanish too, though he looks at me funny when I speak spanish (probably knows it is very poor Spanish!).

He seems to be almost able to say some words:
- MA MA means 'More'
- Dee Dee, is me!
- 'At' is cat
- 'Mu Mee' means everything
- 'bir' means bird

He understands a lot more words though:
- manos
- abuela
- get down carefully
- mummy
- daddy
- bird
- pajero
- cat
- water
- milk
- shoes (as in 'Don't touch the shoes!!!')
- kiss
- hands
- various fruits (English and Spanish)
- brushing teeth
- brushing hair
- put the lid on the jar
- close the fridge
- give a kiss to baby doll

Favourite books:
Nightime Maisey
Wide Awake Jake
Honey Hills Noisey Day

TV:
In the night garden - with iggle piggle (who he waves at)

He also hates going to bed at night and screams for a long time.

Oh and he squeals with delight when he gets to the swimming pool (a full body shake!).

He also waves at the flowers in the garden, since Abuela taught him to wave at the flowers instead of pulling them (he pulls them when nobody is looking).

And today he got his first pair of real shoes!