Rivers are the most wonderful natural waterways. Here in the UK they have cleaned them up a great deal over the past generation and much of the damage done to them from pollution has been reversed, though there is still a lot to do. The freshness and sound of running water is one of the…
Month: February 2010
Galanthus Nivalis
The snowdrop has ever been the first flower of spring. Planted out by gardeners to cover whole banks with their seeds, our garden has hardly changed in ten years with most of the clumps of snowdrops staying where they were planted reticent to expand. Until I built the wooden shed and the earth pile from…
Once Upon A Time . . .
there was a dream and a dreamer for all dreams need dreamers and all dreamers need dreams. And the dream was in colour because life is in colour, only thoughts can be black and white. And the colours were all the colours you would expect because they were images of real colours. And all the…
Education
In the insightful book ‘The Boy Who Was Brought Up as A Dog’, Perry points out that in a lifetime of work he discovered the crucial importance of the first three years of life to the actions and reactions of the adult. It is in those years, when we barely speak, when we are putting…
Words Pander
As I have been writing this everyday I remember my mother telling me that words pander. If you are literate you can write and but just because you can write does not make you an artist of any calibre. Words will always flow. She explained this to me on many occasions telling me once that…
Photographs
are at once a joy and a deep sadness. We take them to remember, forgetting that as time goes on memory itself changes until it is more than just a moment or two of time, but a place we can no longer visit except in our minds. The people we can no longer talk to,…
Tables
Not that I mind having a new desk/table to work on or that it has a glass top but I was thinking how much of my life is upon it. All five feet(1.5 metres) of it. Take away the fact that my computer is all set up here, the A3 scanner is there specially bought…
Blackbird’s Song
A friend told me that she would kill her dogs in a crisis to feed her children. I once heard this said by another woman on the radio and have wondered what sort of crisis they mean. It reminded me of the Andean air crash where the survivors ate the dead to keep alive before…
In Writing We Trust
If it is in you the art will come out. You will starve, wear rags and let others take the plaudits but you will create no matter what. Because the most important thing is to create. Because you only have this time in which to create and once it is over the chance is gone…
The Coldness Of Bones
And so it is snowing again and across the fields and upon the trees the ancient white goddess shows her glory and her impermanence. She is fickle like all goddesses and cold to the touch and across her skin are my footprints and those of my dogs. And across two fields this morning those of…