Feel the rain on your skin

Just a quick note to say I'm not dead, I've been ill, and mostly trying to get parcels together:

1 for SP
1 for John who's doing war
1 for Mel of "The Latest Cast Off"

And also tidying up the house for Ally Pally KSS next week.

Furthermore the camera is on the blink. Have finally ordered new one (Canon Powershot G7) from Amazon but postal strike has delayed it.

Have had a haircut and I look like someone's mum...or maybe Jess from Holyoaks...

[...jumping is easy...]

[...all things must have a beginning...]

Since all things must have a beginning I think I'll start with the stanzas from The Mask of Anarchy by Shelley (Percy Bysshe) that my tarot journal profile includes quotes from.

When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air;

'My father Time is weak and grey
With waiting for a better day;
She how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

The lines about Hope and Despair remind me of a painting by George Frederic Watts that hangs in the Tate Gallery in London. There are actually two versions of this painting. The one you see here is the second and final version.
The first version had a lighter tone, the image took up more of the canvas, there was a star in the upper left corner, and the girl's foot was touching something below. The overall image was more hopeful.
The painting itself is called 'Hope' but another artist of the day commented when he saw the painting that 'It looks more like Despair than Hope' and that the second painting, the sadder one, was far superior to the first.
Having seen the second in life, and the first in print, I still agree. The message here is MORE hopeful because she has farther to go and less to work with, because there is no visual sign of hope in the painting, and yet her attempts to make music from one pitiful harp string seems more hopeful because of it.
Although I think it also speaks a lot about despair, and futility, which are both closely tied in with hope as a concept.