muesli

Lovely weather here. I took a break from the accounts and took a walk along the Severn with John, who hates this picture of him, but I like as it's lively and I like the light.

This was an exercise in writing a triolet in between putting the coffee machine on the stove and it making bubbling noises.

I munch a bowl of muesli
Though there's bacon on the shelf.
Last evening passed quite boozily.
I munch a bowl of muesli.
Today I shall eat choosily
And worry 'bout my health;
I munch a bowl of muesli
Though there's bacon on the shelf.

(as Suzzy pointed out, the shelf is an odd place to keep the bacon. I replied that it's hard to find a good rhyme for 'fridge', and the fridge has got shelves in it anyway)

poetry at Halo

David Bosankoe, who does technical stuff at Acoustic Night as well as playing a mean mouth harp, kindly sent a recording of me reading two poems at Halo on Monday. So here they are. Thank you, David!

rise up singing

Today I finished this picture for Katy-Louise, who kindly gave permish for me to post it up here. Hi Katy-Louise!

As a bit of a pagan myself, I feel rather untouched by the Easter malarkey. Not that I felt particularly affected by it in my innocent youth; we'd sing "There Is A Green Hill Far Away" and we'd get a Cadbury's Cream Egg at Sunday School, and I at least would feel rather sick by the time I'd finished eating it.

The idea of a great outbreak of self-flagellation followed by rejoicing, as practiced by the more enthusiastic Christians, seems a bit excessively theatrical. Though I'm happy to join in the celebration of rebirth, which is a pretty pagan notion too. So I was glad to be invited to join some friends for lunch yesterday, Easter Sunday, which was a very happy occasion. They're Catholics...

There was another of those odious spokesmen for the Catholic Church on the radio this morning, mistaking criticism of the Church's leaders' history of failure to act upon child abuse by priests, and the continued presence within the Church of people who are at least guilty by their failure to act when they could have acted, for some great anti-Catholic campaign.

Funny lot.

I quite like my Catholic friends, and they are good and decent people. It's a shame that their Church is apparently being run by a bunch of men who seem more interested in power than in truth or justice, and who seem to think that they occupy ground of sufficient elevation to allow them to make pronouncements about People Like Me. Silly arses.

Never mind. It is springtime, and not everyone is nasty. Rejoice, therefore!

Off to a poetry reading this evening, where I shall read out my Egret triolet, which is possibly fairly spiritual. And possibly just a poem about birdwatching. Decide for yourself, gentle reader! It's in the next post down.

chiffchaff revisited

I went out looking for a robin to photograph this morning, but the robins were being shy. This chiffchaff just happened to be in the way, though. Life, eh? -go out for a robin, come back with a chiffchaff.

That sounds vaguely smutty. I have obviously spent too much time among literary types....

more Idris Davies

A Victorian Portrait


You stood behind your Bible
And thundered lie on lie,
And your roaring shook your beard
And the brow above your eye.

There was squalor all around you
And disaster far ahead,
And you roared the fall of Adam
To the dying and the dead.

You built your slums, and fastened
Your hand upon your heart
And warned the drab illiterate
Against all useless art.

And you died upon the Sabbath
In bitterness and gloom,
And your lies were all repeated
Above your gaudy tomb.

I got an e-mail from Bernie, who wondered if I could find this poem (at least, I hope it was this one you meant, Bernie...) -and I couldn't, but I know someone who can (thank you, John!). It reminded me a bit of Alabaster Thomas , at least in the gaudy tomb sense.

some people are cyclists, some people wish they were

More Advanced Stop Zone fun in Bristol, this time on the Gloucester Road.

chiffchaff

summer wind
a sparrow re-rights itself
at the peanut cage

Alan Summers

I did this pic to accompany Alan's haiku, for one of the events he's organising in Bath. You can find out more if you follow the link above...

This morning I was sure that I heard a chiffchaff as I wandered around making my first cup of tea. So I took the tea and sat at the open window in the front room.

I heard:

a green woodpecker
wood pigeons
a wren
blackbirds
robins
blue tits
greenfinches
goldfinches
a starling
...and the chiffchaff.

I spotted it a few times, as it flitted from tree to tree; it landed in the plane tree outside the house, the tree that the magpies nested in last year; and gave a burst of song, then came to a branch very close to the window.

I kept perfectly still.

But it decided not to risk it anyway, and bobbed off to the next tree.

At one of my early morning wildlife-related meet-ups at the Downs cafe with Geraldine, Keith and Nick, recently, I met Myles Lucas, who was looking into why birdwatchers watch birds. My explanation was, or would be, something along the lines of 'because they are wild creatures whose space overlaps with ours, and it's interesting to get to know their characters and habits'. There is a lot of wildness going on close by, and it's just as wild as what you see on an African safari (and less likely to eat you too...). And the more you look, the more you see.