on her way to the sales

we waited until we had watched the first forty-five minutes of singin' in the rain before we opened the prosecco ... at 0945 GMT

last minute shopping ... phew ! ... thank goodness they still had a few of those giant bars of carbolic soap at the pound shop

saint martin in the field's ... upstairs, downstairs

reflections at clapham junction

cast a giant shadow ...

kool for kats

dance, dance, dance ...

preparing for christmas ...

as instructed ...

i've hoovered under the bed

can't see why all the fuss about a little bit of fluff

it isn't as if you could lose your wallet down there or a fifty pound note ...

look at the hand ...

is a strangling imminent ?

has the six-foot girl leprechaun mistaken the little angel for a turkey ?

pious colonials at mayfield ( i )

pious colonialists at mayfield ( ii )

a tale of two tattoos

At a farm in Surrey where good cheeses are oak-smoked, there is a workaholic gardener called Ian … deaf, arthritic, full of fun, and covered in tattoos which probably date back to the days of National Service in the British Army.

We tease one another.

Then one day he jabs me in the chest with a work-worn finger and demands “Some respect, with a capital R”.

I reply “Why don’t you have the whole word in capitals … and you can tattoo it across your arse ?”

Later, I tell this story to Doctor Litchfield, the psycho-topographer.

Her amusement seems disproportionate until she explains that she’s recently had her initial written as a capital letter on her body at a trendy tattoo parlour ... capital R for Rebecca.

I don't ask her where it has been written, but it is fun to speculate.

A few days later, despite the insult … Ian presents me with two very promising bottles of his home-made wine … and this jar of home-made piccalilli, which he calls chilli-lilli.

a friend ...

... and his forebears

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

basic philosophy for six-year olds ... discuss

'Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.'

if the only tool in the box is a hammer, then all of your problems will begin to look like nails ...

on the way home after a nice easy eleven-and-a-half hour day !!!

apropos de nuffinque

long winter nights, long-winded rituals, and the earnest hoping there'll be enough stamps left over at the village post office tomorrow morning

polite society ... in a little back street antique shop

... although i wouldn't be surprised if she'd just told him a really filthy joke

oranges are not the only fruit

someone's going-away present ... the divill makes work for idle hands !

to wiltshire, where ellen generously gives us a rarther posh new fruit bowl ...

... complete with fruit ...

... and a battle-hardened new interloper ... "to keep those other naughty little cats in order"

wonderful

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/bronze/

http://zoolander52.tripod.com/id22.html

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1982.220.8

etc, etc.

in preparing my liver for the imminent excesses of christmas, i might just go for a simpler diet for a couple of weeks

A lovely cold day in Sussex.

Brrr !  A Turner sunrise, looking from the high part of Ashdown Forest as I drive from East Grinstead to Crowborough, seen through distant veils of falling snow.  Hills beyond hills, and their crowning woods, are silhouetted as if on fire and shrouded in smoke.

A spotted fawn and his mother nibble the icy grass on the snowy first tee of the golf course as I slowly descend the drive to the hotel at Ashdown Park.

A gaudy woodpecker swoops right past my windscreen, a flash of emerald green and yellow green, and settles less than five yards from the kerb on a sunlit bank of grass as my truck rolls slowly through a roundabout in, of all places, the busy North Terminal of Gatwick Airport.  For a moment I look down on his tightly folded wings and the great scarlet flash on his head and neck, and he looks back at me.

laydeez an jennermen ... let's big it up for ... schrodinger's old tom cat !!!

besides the thames at dusk