Category: Rural Idyll
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The joy of surprise . . .
I’m not a great fan of surprises. I feel confused by them, not sure how to react. But when I’m somehow complicit in the surprise, the dénouement can bring great joy. So it was yesterday. We thought we’d see what all the work has been about, down at the Ken Bridge, where we’d seen diggers…
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We have a ‘slow worm’ resident in our compost
This limbless lizard certainly lives up to its name! When I lifted the old carpet section laid out on our compost box, I revealed this fellow. I ambled back to the house, retrieved my phone and ambled back. He was still there, looking around with his little eyes. I don’t actually know our slow worm’s…
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For International Haiku Day, what else?
Our new-to-us garden faces west, so that the sun rising in the east illumines the space beyond the shade of the two extension peaks. I’m sure that there must be a quiet haiku to develop, as a kind of textual representation of the early morning scene before me. Oddly enough, I was writing haiku earnestly…
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When the entire garden is open to explore . . .
I could never feel right by embarrassing her, except by relating the tale, but we have never seen a cat in such excited ecstasy before, and when she’s happy, well, she drools. Three months on, and since we’re finally settled in our permanent home, it was time to introduce Kali cat to the garden. As…
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The epiphany
sunlight and shadow two deer bounce through the marsh spiked gorse in yellow dress seed pods brown and empty moss-laden branches, beardy wisps rusty tin can hazel strands droop by the dyke willow herb curlicues broken crockery bits vibrant green rose leaves empty whisky bottle white village on a sunlit hill water mirror dazzle clouds…
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The bagpiper at Hexham Abbey
We did a little twirl of the Sele in Hexham, Saturday morning, in a persistent drizzle, so the opportunity to duck into the Abbey was welcome. I renewed my acquaintance with the ancient piper whose carving is part of an irreverent series of nine in the fifteenth century Leschman Chantry Chapel, positioned up to the…
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Green, verdant, mysterious wood
And yet, it’s deep winter here in the Glen Kens. But it’s really quite mild, as the days pass by with temperatures in the upper single figures. My thoughts have tended toward the poetic, these days, as we amble through the ageing woodland. I would like to believe that the poetic form is not only…
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Snow on distant hills . . .
My beloved says, of snow, that she enjoys it from far away, in a scenic setting. Up close and personal not so much. Perhaps you have to be born into a snowscape to love it for itself, for the feeling of it. However the context, its presence heralds the cold. We passed below many snow-covered…
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When life’s fraught, and there’s a momentary break in the clouds
It’s been a busy couple of days, but mostly filled with increasing anxiety about the immediate future. Will the house sale go through? Will the anticipated surgery actually happen, for our own surgeon daughter, so she can keep working for the NHS? Will we get everything ready for the imminent arrival of family? Will there…
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Joys of Christmas present
The tree is ready for dressing . . . when the time comes, we’ll move it from the jammed-in corner and centre it a bit. The star will point the way to Bethlehem, and we’ll figure out a proper angel, or perhaps a stand-in, for the peak. The stories will be told and re-told: religious,…
Roads to Joy 