Month: October 2022
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The joys of flexibility
Different people have different perspectives; these differences are something to revel in, aren’t they? What’s one person’s garden shed is another’s man-cave, is another’s family shebeen, is another’s bespoke glamping cabin by which a self-sustainable lifestyle could be financed. We’ve had people looking around the place for the past fortnight or so. Often the eventual…
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Joys of sharing . . .
I reckon that folks throughout the Allen Valleys have been loving James Little’s photographs for at least the past five years, if not longer. The very first one I clocked was his drone image of the enchanted setting for the Cricket Ground, and I loved it so much that I knew I wanted him to…
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A slight discombobulation . . . perhaps a good stimulus
So I began the day on a different schedule: quick coffee, then a dash to the dump (aka Household Waste Recycling Centre) in Allendale so as to get back for my beloved to have time to return to the village for choir practice and the knitter-knatter group. But the rain was pouring down, and it…
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But umm, now what?
Ah yes, there’s a reason why all that stuff was up in the loft, out of sight and out of mind. Apparently, there’s nowhere else to put it! But up there, it was more than just out of mind; it was also inaccessible. With a little perseverance, and diligence, we can sort things out and…
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The joy of clearing
Today I shall extract the remaining bits and pieces from the loft room that you enter as you climb the steps. Our hedgerow wine bottles will be slowly consumed, or divested, thereafter. Although I don’t really have any idea where the last of this first stuff will go, when it all comes down, I can…
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Morning in the rural idyll
The swirl of the clouds, illuminated from the east as the sun rises below the horizon, the field of sheep and the neighbour’s great beast calmly munching the soft grass behind the grand tree, the leaves turning in the garden, and the fallen branch on the ground. Every component of this scene has been etched…
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Like a murmuration of sunlit clouds . . . ke-e-ep dancing!
The dance of starlings is awe-inspiring, as they gather together to swoop and dive, in a display that ostensibly befuddles predators. I thought that the clouds the other evening, as the sun set behind our sheds, seemed very reminiscent of that floaty swirling activity. Not to mention the lovely dance put on in honour of…
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Love and devotion . . .
What else is there, when you’re fed and warm, but to be enjoying the moment? Kali often curls up on our laps in the evening hours, happy with the company of our warm and comfortable bodies, as she snuggles in for a long snooze. In cat years, she’s probably about our age; her hunting exploits…
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The sunny side of the street
We had a lovely evening yesterday, as we walked through the rain to the local arts centre to listen to a duo of jazz musicians, Bancroft and Lyne, offering up standards and newer songs. One of the numbers that Sophie Bancroft sang, Tom Lyne accompanying on double bass, was On the Sunny Side of the…
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Invention delight
As I mentioned the other day, I’ve taken on a challenge to re-create a myth in poetic form. This in honour of the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, itself an homage to Homer’s Iliad in which the Odyssey is recounted. My chosen myth over the past weeks has been the Inuit tale…
Roads to Joy 