merry christmas, darling ...

... there just wasn't the time to wrap everything you wanted ...

... but i'll still have just enough time to hang a few more baubles before you chain me to the kitchen sink !!!

if you are female, look away now ...

in the park with the dog ...

getting dark and starting to rain but i'm in my work boots and storm proof coat so mustn't grumble

i discover a size three plastic football ( kids soccer ) and i kick it towards a tree

it bounces off with a satisfying thump

i feel smugly self-important, ( to paraphrase lucy from ponty, more like wayne rooney than george clooney )

however, my second attempt misses by about twenty feet and i slink away furtively

but i hide the ball beneath a fallen tree trunk with the intention of regaining champions' form before the new year

doll smallridge

doll was my mother-in-law for a while

she was full of energy and kindness and laughter

possibly the least complicated person i ever knew

she died yesterday and i've been thinking of her all day

i feel privileged to have known her

the lover's complaint ...

when intelligent extra-terrestrial life-forms eventually re-discover our dead planet and break open my mausoleum and reverently unlock my secret diaries, their lexicographers will ponder with some incredulity on the regularity of the compulsory hoovering in my brief and tragic existence, and they may even feel it is necessary to re-define the meaning of the word “suffering” for the ninety-ninth century

double dyslexia

i stand on the threshold of a shop with a clear glass door

on the inside of the door they have stencilled the word PULL in block capitals, at eye level just above the door handle

i read the word in reverse, and then pull

nothing

the girl behind the counter gestures incomprehensibly

eventually the embarrassing truth dawns

the girl behind the counter says lot's of people do that

john wilkes in fetter lane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes

australians in the strand ... i'd welcome any interpretation of the ?allegorical? narrative

i was supposed to be christmas shopping but it was a fiasco and i bought NOTHING .... instead, i ended up amongst all the old familiar faces ...

sadeler's engraving of an allegory on death, portraying his friends bartholomaeus spranger and the recently deceased frau spranger ( christina muller ), in whose home sadeler had lodged

i had wanted to know more about spranger's bizarre paintings to begin with, but something intrigued and mystified me about sadeler's technique, and then i learned that he had engraved some of durer's drawings, long after durer's lifetime, works with which i had long been familiar ... and then, just to annoy me, i spotted the name of another sadeler family member in the lower right corner of this engraving ... so i was still flummoxed, and none the wiser, for a while ... was this engraving from a drawing by spranger ?

ah, here seems to be an answer to my question ! yes ! but thanks to sadeler it seems uncharacteristic because it lacks spranger's usual extravagant mannerisms and lurid colours

http://www.evbaeyer.com/pages/catalogues/sadeler.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadeler_family

http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/4%20Durer%20Model1.pdf

( they're on the phone at ) two temple place

http://www.twotempleplace.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Temple_Place

http://www.bulldogtrust.org/

we're gonna hang out the washing on the siegfried line ...

just fab ! full of mysteries and delight

no photography allowed inside, so not my picture ...

three levels of difficulty for the sleepless

quietly pouring a fizzy drink by moonlight in the darkened kitchen

whilst

counting the remnant oak leaves fluttering on the tree outside

then

failing to count my remnant virtues on the thumbs of one hand

with

eyes tight shut

brrr ! let's pretend it's a lovely autumn day like yesterday ...

hey-nonny-no ! tra-la-la ! only four months 'til spring !

microclimate at an altitude of two hundred and sixty metres in the woodland on botley hill

TRILINGUAL ACROSS SEVERAL OCEANS AND CONTINENTS

Yesterday, as I waddled from a posh supermarket towards my bus stop at Clapham Junction with several heavy shopping bags, I was overtaken by a trotting girl who emerged from a phone shop and was laughing in to her mobile phone in a language that might have been Cantonese, BUT, her narrative was frequently punctuated with brilliant mimicry of a South London Jamaican lady that she’d just been arguing with about her phone contract, and she was totally convincing on all levels … vocabulary, syntax, and pronunciation.

Late this morning, in the space of one minute, driving the bright red truck past Sidlow Bridge, I saw a big old buzzard.flapping languidly from one solitary golden oak towards another that stood some way off in a big stubble field, then I disturbed a pair of sparrow hawks who rocketed away in different directions from the tangled hedgerow, and then after I’d blinked, a green woodpecker crossed the road in that swift undulating trajectory that typifies their top-heavy flight attitude.

On the way to Gatwick in near freezing conditions at five thirty this morning, the stars glittered and the space between us and them was filled with newly arriving intercontinental planes stacking and circling for their landing slots at Heathrow and Gatwick, and all their clockwork motions seemed compressed in to a smaller distance, their lights being so clear.  When the sky eventually turned orange, the silhouettes of the incoming jets at Gatwick were pure black, even the ones that were dipping and banking fifteen miles away.

the sky ... chez micawber ... photographed whilst drinking the day's first cup of tea

somewhere to relax on the way home ... the cafe in the old ticket hall at queenstown road station

... its a great place to write, the coffee is very good and there's always another train to putney in ten or fifteen minutes

ce matin chez micawber

The Loved One only wakes when I’ve been reading and writing for two hours.  She whimpers for tea but her voice is so faint that I fail to hear it through the wall and two intervening doors.  She whimpers just slightly more loudly and so I rush to her side, ever attentive ( there’s no soccer on the radio this early on a Saturday ).  

She needs a cup of Earl Grey tea.  I point out to her the practical advantage of our both owning mobile phones.

three beautiful things

Driving through the mist just before sunrise, after a very rainy night, down the long gentle hill in to the pretty village of Hartfield, on the north side of Ashdown Forest.  Each surrounding grey hill, each grey wood, and each of the grey hills and woods that lays beyond them is clearly silhouetted against the morning mist that flows among the folds and valleys.  So too, are outlined the roofs of houses and the steeple on the church, even the weather cock is distinguishable in the semi-darkness as the sky shows its first colours.  Towards the far end of the village, some teenagers, who I often pass as they wait for their school transport at the bus stop, have seen my truck first and are leaping up and down to greet me, themselves grey silhouettes.

Talking to a laughing customer whose pretty little twin daughters may have inherited his dyslexia.  If they also inherit just some of his quick intelligence and razor wit, and his unstoppable energy and infectious optimism, then everything will be alright.

On the hilltops of Ashdown Forest in mid-morning the sky is now very bright, and you can see the undulating line of the South Downs stretching far away towards Hampshire.  But the valleys are crowded with dark dripping trees and their colder air remains brim filled with mist and woodsmoke, and a few sunbeams.

of course, i realize there are some unfortunate deviants who don't like marmalade ...

tight parking in our crowded yard

great wishford church

3BT

1. From the passing bus I watch a young woman standing at a crossing.  She's dressed in black.  Black shiny shoes, black shiny tights, black dress, black raincoat, black sunglasses, black ribbon.  Silent.  Expressionless.  Her hands are thrust deep in her coat pockets.  She's trying to hoist her knicker elastic back up around her waist.  The front of her skirt and her coat twitch slowly up beyond the modesty line.  Then she stops fidgeting and shakes her whole body to regain her composure.


The Loved One and I re-enter the flat after our short holiday, and realize before we even switch on the light that the air is full of the powerful sweetness of the newly flowering hyacinth.


On Gelligaer Common, I drive slowly across the moorland towards a bunch of galloping ponies and stop for them to cross the road.  One, the smallest and hindmost, veers off and turns back.  We move for a minute or so in parallel, he is only ten yards from the car.  On the other side of the car, besides a high ridge, the same distance from me and less than ten feet above the ground, a red kite hovers, wings and forked tail working and twisting as she fights to maintain her position in the wind.

aunt mavis trying on her mother's glasses