... of the seven deadly sins, the eighth and most horrid is emotional blackmail ... whilst for this blogger, the only sacred thing is life itself
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
HEROES
In the mid-afternoon heat of last summer our bus was creeping up West Hill towards home and we were passing the Wandsworth Fire Station at walking pace.
All of the windows on the bus were wide open and so it was possible to hear clearly that a telephone was ringing in the gleaming fire engine that was parked in a big puddle on the forecourt, having just been washed.
A tall and slender young fireman in ceremonial uniform appeared in the shadows of the garage wearing his shiny peaked cap and a high-waisted jacket with a double row of large silver buttons, smartly creased trousers and gleaming shoes. He’d probably just come from his graduation ceremony and must have been despatched from the rest room in some haste to check the call. He moved forward purposefully in to the light.
A movement on the roof of the fire station caught my attention. Two grinning firemen in yellow waterproofs, surely the ones who’d just cleaned that fire-engine, were leaning forward and were already tilting their buckets, about to drench the new graduate … but just at that moment our bus turned the corner.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
a disused pub, "the neville crest and gun", awaiting renovation at eridge green
the neville family was already rarther posh in the 15th century and eventually became the earls of abergavenny ... hence the capital letter A
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
easy when you know how
there was a fabulous free concert in the national gallery on friday evening featuring violinist joo yeon sir, cellist jean samuel jaeger, and pianist maggie ho
http://www.rcm.ac.uk/?pg=5591
the problem for the next few weeks will be choosing whether to go to the national gallery or to the victoria and albert on friday evenings
http://www.vam.ac.uk/activ_events/events/friday_evenings/index.html
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
waiting for the night bus to brixton
Barely awake after a sleepless night with Sarah Waters' novel, The Night Watch, I sat in the darkness waiting for the four o’clock bus to leave the little terminus that is just across the road from The Green Man, the small pub at the edge of Putney Heath.
A big red bus from central London rumbled up Putney Hill and drew to a halt. The driver silenced the engine and put out all the lights and then, from the shadow of the bus, there appeared a large girl with shiny black hair, huge dark eyes, skin the colour of roasted almonds bursting voluptuously from an ambitiously tight white dress, and wearing what were probably the most uncomfortable shoes in the Universe.
She began to limp towards the bus shelter with an agonizing hesitancy and two seconds later there appeared just behind her, one by one, five more girls, all in little black dresses, and each encumbered with the same tortuous footwear.
They wobbled this way and that, they stopped and they started, they held on to one another, they yelped and they groaned; and then one by one, they sat down on the six plastic seats, gasping and sighing with relief as the pain in their feet faded, but then shrieking as the icy cold from the thick red plastic groped them.
Once they had whimpered a bit and got used to the shock, they noticed the condensation on the big glass panels and were soon twisting and turning and stretching to write their names. And guess what ? Everyone was a Princess !
And then they began to sing … like angels !
A big red bus from central London rumbled up Putney Hill and drew to a halt. The driver silenced the engine and put out all the lights and then, from the shadow of the bus, there appeared a large girl with shiny black hair, huge dark eyes, skin the colour of roasted almonds bursting voluptuously from an ambitiously tight white dress, and wearing what were probably the most uncomfortable shoes in the Universe.
She began to limp towards the bus shelter with an agonizing hesitancy and two seconds later there appeared just behind her, one by one, five more girls, all in little black dresses, and each encumbered with the same tortuous footwear.
They wobbled this way and that, they stopped and they started, they held on to one another, they yelped and they groaned; and then one by one, they sat down on the six plastic seats, gasping and sighing with relief as the pain in their feet faded, but then shrieking as the icy cold from the thick red plastic groped them.
Once they had whimpered a bit and got used to the shock, they noticed the condensation on the big glass panels and were soon twisting and turning and stretching to write their names. And guess what ? Everyone was a Princess !
And then they began to sing … like angels !
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
my sympathies are entirely with the dragon
... having been influenced by stan freeberg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBcASC9VqzY
thanx to linda for reminding me to do my patriotic duty
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
a curious co-incidence in ashdown forest
monday night i copied this Richard Avedon photo from the informative Art Knowledge News website in to my voluminous scrapbook
tuesday morning, less than twelve hours later, i stopped to investigate a standing stone that is just visible from my route through ashdown forest since the last big clearance of brambles and bracken ...
and after leaving the truck at the nearest lay-by, this is what i found ...
tuesday morning, less than twelve hours later, i stopped to investigate a standing stone that is just visible from my route through ashdown forest since the last big clearance of brambles and bracken ...
and after leaving the truck at the nearest lay-by, this is what i found ...
which made me contemplate that curious feeling we get whenever we unexpectedly share an experience with people who were always distant and are no longer with us
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