popped in to angus trumble's for a spot of enlightenment

http://angustrumble.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/captain-lunardi-mr-biggin-and-mrs-sage.html

and then ...

http://angustrumble.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/mrs-sage.html

one of my grandfathers was a coal miner in wales, the dust finished him

this old radio classic is available on the bbc for a few days
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00lm92q

the loved one has gone oop north for a few days ... just enough time to get her lipstick stains out of my dog collar before the sunday sermon

off to walk the dog again ... i find it helps to have the appropriate music in my ears when i'm skulking on the common

put yer headphones on and get yer ears ravished 1973 style

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Pa_FxaoAU

what better way to spend a day ? that most felicitous writer who can and usually does make me laugh out loud

they're laying new pavements around clapham junction ... but will it make it any easier to manoeuvre the water cannon ?

just like that ...

3BT

As the truck roars by the edge of their field, two wild rabbits sit up from their breakfast, and their pricking ears are illuminated with the early sunlight.

In the smart new kitchen at Ockenden Manor, I make an early delivery which coincides with the moment when Murielle, their wonderful French baker and patissier and chocolatier, is handing out some little slices of a cake she’s made with walnuts and oranges.  It is probably what the Gods eat when she’s at home in those southern mountains.

At the bottom of Horsted Keynes village, I approach the chicane-cum-crossroad with a caution born of experience.  The hedges make it a blind junction and there are aged pedestrians in sight.  As I slow to about 20mph for the left-hander, so a brand new Range-Rover coming from the opposite direction, and driven by a woman young enough to be my daughter, cuts across my path at about 50mph.  I stand on the brake and the truck demonstrates the efficiency of its electronic traction control with a brief skid, the tyres squeal but there is no sign of a wobble.  She shoots by with a look of terror on her face.  In the mirror I am pleased to see nothing but a little cloud of blue smoke illuminated with the early sunlight.

and later ... three more illuminated and beautiful things

The first yellow butterfly of the year flitting past an oakwood.

A green woodpecker flying along side a dark bank of cypress trees.

A huge spherical bumblebee, with long black hairs and a bright orange bum, hovering besides a metallic purple car.

we are not amused ...

http://downtherabbithole.posterous.com/guinness-st-patricks-day-commercial

i loved this short radio programme ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01d0rtl

time to spare at sheffield park whilst our office workers are still rubbing the sleep from their eyes and feeling their way to their desks

here's a feller asking to know what i'm photographing holding the camera above my head ... i turn the camera and capture him

the new interloper ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x62pEAgAdTM

a sordid and vexatious scene of domestic debauchery

I arrive home late after a long and arduous day at the end of a long and arduous working week.

I slump on the sofa for half an hour waiting for the brain’s energy system to regain some of its charge.

The Loved One slumps on the other sofa.  Her arm is mending quite well, 65 days after her fall, but she still has a lot of pain.

I have been moving some very heavy objects up gradients and over resistant surfaces, and so I have a few aches and pains of my own.

Eventually I make some tea.  Earl Grey for the Loved One.  English Breakfast for myself. 

We take a few deeply comforting sips on our respective sofas but then I go to the kitchen and return with a bottle of very good Spanish brandy and I pour in a generous quantity to top up my tea.

The Loved One looks at me knowingly and reminds me in a very level tone that as a matter of fact the bottle is hers … I had offered it to her as a gift when I returned from my last but one trip to Spain … skint.

In turn, not wishing to lose face entirely, I cheerfully suggest that she should look on this action as one which amounts to my doing her a favour.  The bottle is currently too heavy for her injured arm and I am hastening the time when she will once again be able to help herself.

... putney bronze

burwash rose ....

http://www.traditionalcheesedairy.co.uk/news.htm

clearly, it must be said, they're all bonkers down in kent ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seQDXPDa0J0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypi-sDKUQRo&feature=related

howard hodgkin's collection of indian paintings on show at the ashmolean

i was never deeply interested in hodgkin's own work although the colours are often really really nice, but this collection of his is simply marvellous ...

http://www.ashmolean.org/exhibitions/mughalindia/

http://jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/collection/6980/9577

http://www.howard-hodgkin.com/gallery/

souvenirs of the alhambra ... not !