Detox and Juicing

It going to be a bit quiet on my blog for a while. I have a backlog of drafts to edit and upload ( been a might busy 'doing' things..ha ha) as well as - now we are in Germany for 7 weeks, its nice just to sit still for a while, not go out and madly rush about.

I've taken this time to do a detox with the kids for a week. So its 100% juices for a week for all of us, then the following week juices and raw foods; after which we will see how we are feeling and introduce a few things at a time. ( I know the wonderful German bread will be the first thing!! oh my..its so good)

After doing my juicing for 60 odd days last year, I know how good I felt - despite the dreadful atmosphere and circumstances. Slowly over the year, I've allowed bad stuff, junk food and the like, to once again enter our diets. Though I can say its difficult to maintain a super healthy food lifestyle while travelling round day after day, its all choices and most often, the takeaway sandwiches, boxes of crackers and dips and milk drinks are the easiest to procure.

Though I am feeling pretty positive, this month last year was an incredibly challenging space, ultimately ending with Adrian's death, the circumstances surrounding it and the events afterwards; all things I need to allow to flow, accept and not allow to influence the incredible life I have now.

I am blessed and feel the love from round the world, wrapping itself round me as September rolls round.

The origin of the word "loo"; and at Shugborough Hall

If you, like me have ever wondered where the word "loo" comes from, then wonder no longer! It originated in the late 1920s.

It would seem that the late Lord Lichfield had a wicked sense of humour. On one of the weekends at his estate, the young Dikes of Abercorn and he replaced the name place which was affixed to one of their cousins doors, with that of the toilet - which is known as the WC ( water closet). His cousin, Lady Lousia was by all accounts a "contrary young lady", so I'm sure the joke was well meant.

All that weekend, the bathroom was called the "Lady Lou", an in-joke with they took back to London... and well.. now we all call the bathroom the "loo".

Its these wonderful human stories which makes history gleam and leap out of the floorboards at me.

The Recruiter - a painting at Shugborough Hall

There are a number of the 'same old same old' paintings in National Trust houses. Lots of paintings of stoic men and pained women in stiff or silly outfits.

Paintings of hunting scenes, lots of bowls of fruit, plenty of dead pheasants ( ikk, I know.. why would you paint a dead pheasant?) and even more of large cows th the prices they paid for them. ( from calculations one cost 112 guineas, which in the late 17th century amounted to over $2000.. so I guess its worth painting a picture of that sort of cow)

I found this painting in a hallway in Lord Lichfields private apartments. I asked the attendant who the painter was an anything they kew about it. All they could tell me was that they thought it was an O'Neil and it was called the Recruiter. I've done a search on the paintings in Shugborough Hall and on the painter, but nothing comes up.

It may have been an Irish painter called Bernard O'Neil, but having looked at his paintings online, this one is not amongst the ones attributed to him - though that still doesn't discount it being one of his. Anyone who knows the painter - please let me know!

I stood and stared at it for a good 20 mins. The amount of detail and emotion etched into each characters face breaks my heart. It reminds me of the painting "Evicted" by Fletcher - one of my all time favourite Victorian Realist paintings ( Its in the Brisbane Art Gallery for any of my Aussie mates)

The painting depicts the press ganging and coercion happening during one of the many wars the UK fought, where young men were given the Kings gold - or it was slipped into their drink and once they touched the tankard, it was deemed they had accepted the role in the army. Some went willingly, others - not so much.

Interestingly , about the only character who has dull eyes and it unmoved b the events, is the main character - the young man whose sweetheart pleads with him not to go while his mother begs the sergeant to leave him home.  I wonder too about the little boy in the forefront as he measures something with his hands - he appears to be separate in all aspects to the events and other characters.