Psalm 103 - The life of mortals is like grass

15The life of mortals is like grass,

they flourish like a flower of the field;

16the wind blows over it and it is gone,

and its place remembers it no more.

In memory of my uncle Bernard, who died on the Birma Railroad. He is buried in Thailand, I wonder if my aunt was able to visit his grave ever.

A very talented man, a tropical forest engineer. My uncle and aunt were so young, he was 39 when he died and my aunt 36 at the time, a prisoner of war on Java. My aunt never remarried.
War is so useless, so pointless, so destructive.
This week I visited an elderly lady. In her kitchen she had a huge handwritten note: peace starts at home. So true!

Today we commemorate the end of World War II in Indonesia.
Born after the war I only know my uncle from stories within the family. My aunt lived nearby and was my teacher in the early days at school. 

The grass shown here was a seedling on our terrace. It grew and grew and became very wide and large. It's forms were amazing. It is tough, it is there to stay.

Recollections of a holiday

It seemed such a good idea to buy a Campsis Radicans and plant it next to the wood shed.
In time it would nicely grow over the roof of it and we would enjoy its beautiful flowers was the idea. It feels happy where it is planted. Too happy, in fact. And instead of growing over the roof  (which of course I try to guide) it makes long shoots towards the West and tries to curl around the chimney of our heating system and everywhere where it should not go.
So, there was no choice. I had to climb the roof of the adjacent building and cut it back drastically, blooms and all.

The flowers bring back memories of a holiday I spent with my parents in Switzerland and Italy in my teens. We sat out on a tiny terrace of a restaurant on a rock in Cannobio at the Lago Maggiore. The view on the lake was beautiful, the apricot juice the waiter in formal black and white brought me was in a minute bottle, and the flowers of the Campsis so abundant around us. I loved the trumpets, the colour, it looked so exotic.
The tranquility of the lake, the small sips from the concentrated apricot juice, they are such nice recollections of that holiday. Amazing how certain situations you can recall like yesterday.

The cuttings I put up in a vase in the garden, but the flowers are not meant to shine in a vase. They should trumpet from the roof! And I just have to be aware of its abundant enthousiasm to grow all over the place.