Month: February 2022
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Trees in the ‘forest’
I’m indebted to DEARA (that’s the Department of Agriculture, Environment And Rural Affairs) for the ‘reveal’ image of a mature hedgerow with specimen trees standing proudly out from the otherwise annually pruned hedgerow. I knew that our package of hedging included specimen trees, when we acquired the bare root saplings from TreesPlease and planted them…
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Shooting for the moon . . .
There’s a little watchword, in creative writing circles: during the creative process, banish that editing devil from your shoulder and just channel the flow. Shoot for the moon, in other words, and adjust the trajectory later. I have a friend who can’t get going until they hone the first sentence of their effort to perfection.…
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That stinging sensation
After the bright morning, while it was still calm, I put my John Deere overalls on, my new Christmas wellies, my normal work gloves and then the long leather gauntlets to protect my wrists, and headed out for a bit of hedge trimming. I was happily snip-snipping along (I’ve eschewed the petrol strimmer for super-light…
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Fragile, but joy enters
I’ve been spending far too much screen time doing puzzles, and they’re expanding: Wordle started me off; then the family suggested the math teaser Nerdle; Quordle is fiendish but fun; and lately I’ve been playing a Scrabble variant with a robot on Lexulous. Too much, and my brain is getting frazzled. I was going to…
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Sharing joy –> further joy
I could have used any number of icons to illustrate the concept of sharing, of course, but this one struck my fancy. In so many senses, we’re all part of a team, aren’t we? So if I share my joy, and that joy gets shared around with others, well well well, more joy accrues! And…
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Sunshine on Sparty Lea
I don’t often concentrate on Poets’ Corner, when I think of the hamlet of Sparty Lea. The tiny village itself feels as if it’s centred around the sub-Post Office and the old Methodist chapel, but in fact the designation Sparty Lea always encompassed a much broader swathe of the East Allen valley. Never mind all…
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Bunny Eden
They chose the sunshine to bask in, after long days of driving rain and blustery wind, and it was a fortuitous time for me as I’d embarked on a quick jaunt down to the bottom to pick up a package. Thought I’d take my camera along to see what delights the bright light might proffer.…
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Bit of a damp squib, here
My chagrin was just about everyone else’s delight, as the expectations of blizzard conditions here in the North Pennines reduced throughout the day yesterday. And now, this morning we have another light covering of what looks like wet, possibly slightly crunchy snow out there. Not a big blizzard blow at all! But the devastation down…
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Random acts . . .
Yesterday was Random Acts of Kindness Day, the 17th of February, as it’s been apparently since 1995, over a quarter of a century now. And this coming Sunday, another event in the calendar of the ‘Kindness’ movement, has been designated Random Acts of Poetry and Art Day, since its inception in 2012, a decade ago.…
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Tranquility before the storm
The electricity had flickered off twice already yesterday, and the rain was intermittent, with fierce gusts of wind blowing things around. The downspout from our guttering came adrift and banged around on the rooftop. The stormy weather was, however, interspersed with rather dramatic intervals of sunlight, and underneath the swaying branches, the little snowdrops were…
Roads to Joy 