I've been staying away from the blogosphere lately as I've been trying hard to finish the pictures for this book so that I can go off on hols. Last night I finished the main flower section. Phew.
0524, dark outside, Shipping Forecast on the radio, shoulder stiff and creaky. Feels like autumn already. Silence outside. Only six weeks ago it was midsummer and it would have been light by now and the blackbirds would have been singing for an hour or more. Apparently, this is the time of year when the birds moult, so they skulk away and abstain from singing. I learned that from Geraldine Taylor's nature slot on Radio Bristol the other day. She speaks to the city on Tuesday mornings at 0520ish. Another early riser.
Well done...beautiful :-) (for once I am up almost as early as you!)
ReplyDeleteThey are beautiful. I must root out my paints..
ReplyDeleteIt's depressing when you realise the mornings are getting darker. On school days in summer, my alarm rings at 5, which is 4 to you, so that I can make a cup of tea to drink in bed and listen to the birds. In September it will be dark and very difficult.
Enjoy your hard earned holiday.
Haffun on your hols, Dru!
ReplyDeleteAnd fantastic flowers!
Hi Dru, I really like reading your blog and looking at your pictures. Your reflections this morning put me in mind of a wonderful poem by Emily Dickinson, full of liturgical imagery, about the sound of grasshoppers pressaging the autumn. Hope you don't mind me taking up wall space to reproduce it here (happy hols, btw!):
ReplyDeleteFurther in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.
No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness.
Antiquest felt at Noon
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify
Remit as yet no Grace
No Furrow on the Glow
Yet a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now
-- Emily Dickinson
Thank you all for your comments, and the poem, Phil. I'm sorry I've been so bad about replying.
ReplyDelete