Category: The Magnificent
-
A single flower . . .
Sometimes the beauty of a single, solitary bloom is enough to take your breath away. This lonely tulip in our new-to-us garden was one such. I’m reminded of the William Blake poem, Auguries of Innocence, of which I suspect most of us are aware only of the first quatrain: To see the world in a…
-
A morning enchantment
A roe deer was a welcome visitor to our garden at dawn today, and she looked directly at us while I fumbled for my phone camera, bringing it into play only in time to catch her white bum! So I looked for the closest image around that reflected just how near she was to the…
-
Joys of the unexpected . . .
After the heavy rains, and the extensive flooding throughout the Glen Kens around Loch Ken, the sharp frost meant that the ground was solid enough to amble along upon. So we ventured into the mossy wood just beyond the frozen fairways of the neighbouring golf course. As we moved deeper into the hazel generations, I…
-
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…
-
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…
-
The gleaming in the gloaming
My beloved tells me that ‘gloaming’ is dusk, to those of a Scottish persuasion, but the Oxford English dictionary suggests that twilight is also gloaming, and astronomical twilight is either just before dawn or just after sundown. So I hope today’s joyful title makes reasonable etymological sense, anyway. There are so many metaphors for that…
-
Ineffable delight of the alpine orchids
Orchids seem so exotic, and possibly because of that it’s a wonderful pleasure to find them growing wild on our own little patch of Eden. On such a sturdy flower spike, or inflorescence, put out by the broad-leaved marsh orchid that’s found an excellent habitat in these upland fellsides, upwards of 40 separate blooms cluster,…
-
BREAKING: Sunlight and rain create rainbow fragment
No matter that it’s a very common occurrence here, the appearance of a rainbow is always cause for delight. I must say, however, that it’s a rare happenstance to be able to record the appropriate juxtaposition of raindrops and sunlight in a single photograph. I feel as if I can reach out and touch those…
-
Reaching for the stars
We’re dazzled by the pictures from outer space that the gigantic telescopes reveal. Whenever we look up at the sky at night, however, it seems we’re as dependent on our natural eyesight as primitive humans were. Rarely do we bring out the binoculars, or the telescope to observe the stars more closely. Technology is, however,…
-
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…
Roads to Joy 