blimey ! high summer already in eccles road ... let's go to spain to cool off

next autumn's grapes in formation in lavender walk

you can never second guess the many manifestations of human passion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcmJnNYAkFI&feature=related

setting the scene ... the anthony powell "method"

The noise of the cannonade round about was deepening.  An odour like smouldering rubber imposed a rank, unsavoury surface smell on lesser exhalations of soot and smoke.  Towards the far side of the town --- the direction of the harbour --- thin greenish rays of searchlight beam rapidly described wide intersecting arcs backwards and forwards against the eastern horizon, their range ever reducing, ever extending, as they sliced purposefully across each other’s tracks.  Then, all at once, these several zigzagging angles of light would form an apex on the same patch of sky, creating a small elliptical compartment through which, once in a way, rapidly darted a tiny object, moving like an angry insect confined in a bottle.   As if reacting in deliberately regulated unison to the searchlights’ methodical fluctuations, shifting masses of cloudbank alternatively glowed and faded, constantly redesigning by that means half-a-dozen intricately pastelled compositions of black and lilac, grey and saffron, pink and gold.  Out of this resplendent firmament --- which transcendentally speaking, seemed to threaten imminent revelation from on high --- slowly descended, like Japanese lanterns at a fête, a score or more of the flares released by the raiding planes.  Clustered together in twos and threes, they drifted at first aimlessly in the breeze, after a time scarcely losing height, only swaying a little this way and that, metamorphosed in to all but stationary lamps, apparently suspended by immensely elongated wires attached to an invisible ceiling.  Suddenly, as if at a pre-arranged signal for the climax of the spectacle --- a set-piece at midnight --- high swirling clouds of inky smoke rose from below to meet these flickering airborne torches.  At ground level, too, irregular knots of flame began to blaze away like a nest of nocturnal forges in the Black Country.  All the world was dipped in a livid, unearthly refulgence, theatrical yet sinister, a light neither of night nor day, the penumbra of Pluto’s frontiers.  The reek of scorched rubber grew more than ever sickly.  Bithel fidgeted with the belt of his mackintosh.

          “There’s been a spot of bother about a cheque,” he said.

to be read slowly, but not too slowly ...

... although i had to skim a half a page of conversation because the old fox had reported it in f-f-f-french !

trumble dips a toe into the molten lake of colour

http://angustrumble.blogspot.com/2011/04/some-thoughts-about-yellow.html

mystery object explained

a good friend was recently held motionless in this "tailor-made" cage for some desperate "last-ditch"  radiotherapy sessions

as she's now absorbed the maximum dosage, so the cage has become redundant

and because she's twiddling her thumbs at home a hundred miles away, so i'm showing a strictly limited amount of sympathy by taking her cage out on my rounds

mystery object re-emerging

blissfully unaware of the impending easter cull

stuff ... chez micawber

gimme shelter ?

are these the inappropriate catkins mentioned by plutarch ?

http://bestofnow.blogspot.com/2011/04/spitfire-nest-building-oak.html

poussin's dance to the music of time ... his drawing seems livelier than the finished painting

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/P/4381/artist_name/Nicolas%20Poussin/record_id/1954

dark money

strange fruit

cognitive dissonance ( my default setting )

Walking the dog erratically along Eccles Road towards Clapham Common, my view of a dreary row of shops was enlivened by the transit of an unexpectedly graceful figure.  A young woman entered stage right, walking straight-backed with the slightly extended straight-toed stride of a ballet dancer, this effect being enhanced by her black pumps and tights and by her straight fair hair hanging almost to her waist in a bulky silken plait.  An air of dignified sobriety was projected by a dark grey tailored suit, the skirt nicely tapered with the hem just above the knee, the jacket cleverly cut to a high waist and widening to accommodate an imposing superstructure.  An ornament of Battersea society !  The old dog paused by a couple of lamp posts and so I’d already half-forgotten the woman when we arrived face to face at the pedestrian crossing, myself and the old dog pointing towards the Common, herself facing the Parish Church.  And that must have been her destination, because only then could I see her light grey clerical vest and shiny white dog collar.  A lady vicar !

shadows playing at saint john's hill

morning hath broken ...

a little light reading ...

a dance to the music of time ... one and a half down ... ten and a half to go ... to be savoured, one sentence at a time

at brightling church ... the door was locked