Tuesday 24 January 2012

winter pass

 Busily painting birds just now. Nursing a sore throat, listening to the rain on the skylight which means that there's no point in going up onto the roof to look for an aurora - apparently there's some solar activity going on just now, which means that an aurora has been spotted as far south as Tyneside.

And I can't overhaul the brakes on the Moggy. Why do my cars' MOTs always need doing in the middle of winter? -I hate working on cars in the cold, and utterly loathe doing it in cold rain. One of these years I'll get a second MOT in the middle of summer, so the whole cycle gets moved on by six months.

The robins are all singing away in the pre-dawn, here. There are daisies and crocuses flowering on the Downs. Friends down in Devon have already seen primroses; I remember arriving in Poole in late February 2002, after sailing up from Tasmania, and seeing a splash of primroses on a muddy bank, as the train approached Warminster, and feeling the first stirrings of spring. That feeling has come for me already, this year. Looking forward into the new year, no longer back to the old year passed.

Over the land half freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed,
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as a flower of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass

Edward Thomas

7 comments:

  1. I'm seriously off robins at the moment, since they are just dive-nbombing most of the other "garden" birds [I know it's programmed in and they can't help it] but the painting is beautiful and that poem stirs something inside me, too.

    Thank you for once again adding a delight to my first-thing-in-the-morning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice bird. I like how you have just hinted at the plumage on is breast. These are one of my favourite birds but I know thy are a bit aggressive.

    I heard about the Aurora Borealis too but even without a sore throat I do not fancy standing in the cold, cold night waiting for a crack of light. (I can be really boring sometimes).

    - Hope your throat is good again soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shame on me. I gave up breaking nails on the greasy bits which are now such a mystery compared to when Moggy was built.

    The latest one would be due it's MOT in the middle of winter but I don't even like the mechanics working on my motors when it is cold...

    Priority is to separate MOT and services to spread the pain. Even a set of spark plugs now costs more than I paid for whole cars in the past!

    You are early working on next christmas card...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can't help wishing that spring wasn't arriving quite so quickly, I haven't finished my pruning!

    With you on inappropriate MOT timing. Been there, and it ain't nice. Know anyone with a handy garage or barn?

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's a beautiful painting Dru. Stunning.

    ReplyDelete
  6. thanks, everyone! -sorry not replied sooner; was lurged up here. Tricky one, isn't it, about liking birds that behave i a way that would be deplorable in humans. Like the local murderous and riotous magpies, who are also loving parents and rather beautiful too.

    ReplyDelete