Big Mama: THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY

Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Whenever I need to find some appropriate poetic words for my musings and emotions, or for any occasion for that matter, I turn to my best friend Bill - William Shakespeare. The above is one of his most popular and well known sonnets, and of course I feel - as always - that he speaks directly to me. Not only does he tell me here that I'm lovelier than a summer's day, in all aspects, and that I will never get old (well, I'll live on in the lines of this sonnet) - but he speaks of my favourite month - May.

I identify completely with my birthday month. I was born on the 21st. I consider everyone who was not born in May very unlucky. Okay, according to Shakespeare rough winds may shake those darling buds of May, but come on! The beauty of the greenness and the flower explosions and the rejuvenating of all nature - the rebirth of all that was dead and hibernating…. that's my month! And which of the views below do you prefer? I know which one I prefer!

My spiraea - heavy with rain today. (Every time I look out my window and spot it I jump because I get associations to snow! That's how much this white winter has affected me…)

I usually throw a party on my terrace on or around my birthday every year, but this year it'll have to be postponed. The days after our return from France have been filled with clearing out, throwing away, packing and storing our stuff. We came home to a freshly painted living room and kitchen (redecorating for the buyers I'd say, but it was necessary). Yesterday I had a visit from a property stylist, and this was very useful! Her advice was not to go out and purchase a lot of new items in order to perform a total make-over of the house, but to use things I have already. She was impressively observant and spotted objects that were tucked away in the background: "Ooo - there's a sweet little pink stool you can use - just place a small flower on it" - or "I love that blue picture, matched with the blue-framed mirror and those silver coloured storage boxes - that'll give the impression of a boy's room!" And she suggested using my huge tea mugs for creating a cosy kitchen atmosphere. But the best thing she told me was not to move everything out for the photo session - simply push superfluous furniture out of the camera angle. Brilliant! This trick provides me with some extra time to get rid of more stuff while the estate agents process the property portfolio, before the house goes on the market at the end of the month.

So - believe it or not - now I'm actually looking forward to pimping my house!

Another brilliant idea (I really appreciate them these days - anything to make moving easier) is this invention: Mobile storage! They drive the storage container to you, leave it right outside your house for a couple of days, then pick it up and store it in a hall where you have access to it all the time. Not that I think I'll need the access - with the help of best friend Grete I pretty much filled it to the brim, including Christmas tree!

My mother was also born in May, and we visited her in the home where she lives on the 1st of this month. She has Alzheimers and definitely did not realise it was her 88th birthday. But she's very responsive to caresses and hugs and is always glad to see my husband. They've had a special bond ever since they met. In her cupboard I found an old photo album where unfortunately most of the photos had been ripped out - and most of these were of me as a child in New York City. Anyone who has been to an Alzheimers ward knows that the residents frequently make visits to the other rooms and help themselves to other people's belongings. Happily living out what must be the ultimate experience of "what's yours is mine!"

Or perhaps someone thought I reminded them of their own child.