The big and the small Harringwrth Lodge & back by road

A walk across fields and tracks above the Welland Valley - around an old ironstone quarry, where the flowers and plants are miniature versions of those you find in more fertile soils, spotted orchids again, lots of them, birds'foot trefoil (eggs-and-bacon, when I was young), and brambles promising a rich harvest this autumn.

Masses of butterflies - gatekeepers or ringlets, I think, and moths such as the one in the picture. A gall on a wild rose bush - memo to self. Look this up. Then we were faced with some ferocious looking cattle with horns like highland cattle. They were so interested in us that we climbed the fence, only to discover that there was an open gate. Slowly does it, and they soon lost interest. My one regret - this picture was as good as I could get. So the beasts didn't get very near. Even when I zoom in it looks like a sub-impressionist pastel drawing. Shall I risk the same walk again for a better picture?
I'm afraid on the way back we decided it could be easier to brave the traffic on the country roads. Hmm. Well it was a shorter route, though probably more dangerous.

No kingfisher today, no visible fish in the river, but two fine swans.

some textured birch bark

and a picture which needs taking again, with white balance adjusting? It's a bird table with a roof like a gothic church.

WritersDock Poetry Competition Winners

1st - Sabita Banerji More Gardened Against Than Gardening

2nd - Grace Galton Awakening

3rd - Geoff Lowe Death Comes in Two Parts

You can read the winning entries here.

I act as a moderator for WD, but as someone who didn't enter or judge the competition, I'd like to congratulate the winners, and the judging team, and say how much I enjoyed all three poems.

Poverty, like obesity, is your own fault?

From Guardian article, today.
Or under this headline in the Times:
David Cameron tells the fat and the poor: Take responsibility

"I have not found the words to say it sensitively," said Cameron. "Then I realised, that is the whole point: we, as a society, have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people's feelings, to avoid appearing judgmental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. We have seen a decades-long erosion of responsibility, of social virtue, of self-discipline, respect for others, of deferring gratification instead of instant gratification."

Calling for an end to the "stultifying silence" about what mattered, he said: "We talk about people being 'at risk of obesity' instead of talking about people who eat too much and take too little exercise. We talk about people being at risk of poverty, or social exclusion: it's as if these things - obesity, alcohol abuse, drug addiction - are purely external events like a plague or bad weather."

Some truth in what he says, but I am worried that poverty has somehow found its way in there among all those variables we can control. Low wage jobs wouldn't have anything to do with it of course.

Pipewell, hares, a heron and a pillar.

When Marta and I go walking we end up in some odd places. This is usually because we haven't brought the map with us, and tend to talk and follow our noses rather than think about directions. Last Friday promised well - we saw a heron stalking elegantly across a field as we drove into Pipewell. We parked and walked across the fields, hoping to head for the WW2 airfield along a path I have followed a couple of times in the past.

This is what happens when I use a tripod on uneven ground.

But the trees, a pond in a hollow and a solitary phallic pillar distracted us, brought out our silly side and like a magnet drew us too far to the left.

The pillar turns us slightly silly. And I should have compensated for the lightness of the sky.

To be fair there was something like a path. A startled hare ran out from very close to us, a piece of summer magic. No sign of young or 'form' where it had been. Then we had to cross a field full of cows, calves and a bull. Unfortunately the animals seemed interested, so we decided on a non-confrontational approach, and headed for a gate on a diagonal to our original path.

There was a big well-kept farm house ahead, and next to it mown grass like a private bowling green, complete with pavilion. We skirted round it mostly. Then stood looking bemused. This is definitely not the route we should have taken.

On the way back via the road, we found this stunning wild-flower meadow.

It'll probably be a neatly manicured garden by this time next year, since someone is having a house renovated.

Roar emotion? Grrr.

Sport and emotion

I wish that I could ban the word emotion
from interviews with athletes on the box.
I like to watch them play with skill and vigour,
not hear each tick-tock of their inner clocks.

I’m sick of hearing – run us through your feelings
For heaven’s sake, what ever can they say?
Yeah, I was scared, or tense, or maybe joyful.
It doesn’t shed much light on how they play.

One day perhaps we’ll plant them with electrodes
and alongside all the stats and previous form
brain parts will light up clearly as they’re playing
so all of us can share the feeling-storm .

If all we ever do, is talk emotion,
it takes away the magic and the fun.
It feels as though we’re dripping vital fluids
and slashing mental veins to see them run.

Written rapidly after getting annoyed with Sue Barker's harping on emotions in her interview with Rafael Nadal after he won Wimbledon.

Cotswolds June 2008

I didn't post anything about this at the time. While I was in Bristol we had a day out to the Cotswolds, where Esther took part in a triathlon. We didn't arrive in time to see her. A 6am start from Bristol seemed a little excessive. Not a real dragonfly
T'lass didn't do badly, especially in the running part - see her report for Southampton Tri Club.
Not Esther swimming

We had coffee and then lunch at a waterside pub, before going for a short walk along the Cotswold Canal, dry in places, but in the process of being restored.
It's a grand part of the country which I hardly know at all.

Rosie Swale-Pope

Rosie has run around the world, including Russia, Canada, and the US and should arrive home in Tenby, Wales in late August. On June 18th, she landed in Scrabster, Scotland, to start the final stretch.

She started the run in 2003, when she was 57, to raise money and awareness about prostate cancer, after her husband's death from the disease. She has long been an adventurer, and has many sailing achievements to her credit.

I don't often do hero-worship but I think she is a remarkable role-model to all women, and to older ones in particular. I shall think of her next time I have doubts about trying something new or scary.

Poems and meanings

I've had an interesting experience with a poem I posted on Writers' Dock.

Dream on

She used to live as if
as if it really were,
in spite of lacking evidence
or truth.

She lived in wish-horse land
a beggar finely mounted,
on a wild white stallion
riding
windy stormscapes
in a sordid little house
she didn’t see.

When she died she left the sadness
of a life of might-have-beens:
a pile of clothes unmended,
of stories never written
and a bookcase full of stories of escape.

As I wrote it, it was the simple tale of someone who lives inside her head, ignoring the reality around her, and dreams her life away without attempting to act on either dreams or reality. The saying 'if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride' is behind the second stanza.

Of course there are inelegant parts, and the repetition of 'stories' was pointed out, with justification. Other words could be removed, though I want to keep the rhythm I feel when I speak it.

Then, someone saw it as being about a heroin addict with the references to 'horse' 'white' and stormscapes'
'...horse as heroin, gives wish-horse as the illusory dreams of the drug, a beggar gives me the feel of a desperate person, and again the white stallion as the white powder of the drug itself, windy stormscapes reminded me of references to taking the drug as riding the storm with the sordid little house being the body which she no longer feels a need for as rides the drug-fuelled high.
The last line now reads more as a reference to her secret stash of the drug which still holds all the dreams she never got to have.'

I claimed that my subconscious works in mysterious ways, but am surprised how well the interpretation fits the poem.

One of my daughters on the other hand, looked at it and said - 'Oh no, it's one of your get off your arse and do something poems again.' Time I did, then?

Wind and woodpeckers

Out at Eyebrook reservoir on Sunday - the day of the strong winds
On Tuesday Marta and I went to Fineshade
and admired the green roof complete with poppy, which you may be able to see by clicking on the photo below...
a Spotted Orchid (not , as I thought, an Early Purple Orchid)...
a rogue grey squirrel - foiled in its attempt to steal the bird food ...
an interesting entry in the wildlife hide's logbook ...
a woodpecker - I really need a better zoom ...



I didn't manage a picture of the jay, which we also saw close up. Oh and I bought a slightly sad tomato plant for 50p - photo may follow.

Family history

Occasionally, out of nowhere I get an email from someone researching family history. Yesterday I had one from a previously unknown third cousin. We share great-great-grandparents.

As interesting as the topic itself are the reasons why people start looking into their origins. For me it was around the time of my mother's death.

Years before, she had compiled a family tree from information gleaned from her own parents and in-laws. At that time further research would have involved a lot of leg-work, travel to record offices, and parish churches across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. As she had had no car since divorcing my father, and we three 'kids' were spread out across England, she didn't follow this up. I'd been fascinated with the idea that a name with a bald date of death represented a person, who might, just possibly be someone like me. Rather unlikely, as I spent much of my youth trying to be as unlike anyone else in the family as possible. The fact that some of them lived in a picturesque and rugged part of Derbyshire added to the enchantment. Some of these guys seemd to head for the highest point and settle there.

In the weeks before she died, my mum helped me to identify a few people whose photographs were lying loose in an old black box. Her death eventually gave me the impetus to start looking into the family myself.

In 1995 this still involved a certain amount of poring over microfiche readers in Nottingham and Matlock County Record Offices, though internet newsgroups were springing up, and made the process much speedier - you could usually find someone with some of the information you were looking for.

For three or four years I was totally obsessed with this, following leads, wandering around Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire taking photographs of gravestones, chapels and farms, writing half fictionalised stories about my ancestors.

Since then I have let it lapse, but each time someone emails me , they rekindle my interest. Now I just need to make sure that particular file is in order, and start to expand it a little more.

Bristol - cycling city

From a BBC article

Bristol will receive a share of £100 million in order to

Create the UK's first on-street bike rental network

Establish a 're-cycling' scheme that repairs bikes and provides them free of charge to deprived communities

Build state-of-the-art facilities for cyclists commuting to the city centre

Create a dedicated cycleway to link the suburbs with the city centre

More than double the number of children receiving cycling training

Develop a Personalised Travel Plan programme, focusing on changing the way people conduct short journeys to work.

Excellent news for the city which started Sustrans, and well done all those hill-climbing cyclists in the town. It will certainly encourage me to cycle more when I'm there. Last week's score - 2 rides of about 30 - 40 minutes.

Other areas which will receive funding for cycling include York, Stoke, Blackpool, Cambridge, Chester, Colchester, Leighton, Shrewsbury, Southend, Southport and Woking.

I reckon that Leicester should be in there. They're pretty keen on encouraging cycling as well.

For further interesting comments on Bristol and cycling look here

Nurses 'to be rated on compassion'.

A very quick reaction to a piece of news on the BBC website today:
Of course it's only part of what their new initiative will do, but it seems to me that there's too much admin, too many initiatives, and not enough support for those who do the work.


What price a smile?

So you’ll rate me on compassion,
give me grades from one to five?
Wanted – one compassion rater
to make this thing go live.

Never mind the fact we work hard,
we must look as though it’s fun.
Now, how much do you earn ,pray,
for getting this job done?

So you tick a set of boxes
as you follow me around.
Am I smiling and polite
though my feet don’t touch the ground?

Is my sweet smile smooth or plastic -
does it reach into my eyes?
Is the measurement elastic -
can I try it on for size?

Will you interview the patients?
Your job could take all day -
will it really solve our problems
and make them go away?

A mixed curse on our throwaways.

Litter lurks in scenic lay-bys -
plastic ghosts of drinks long drunk,
cardboard memories of fast-food feasts,
packaged to go for the car-borne.
Carefree, they cast their cans
for others, less carefree, to carry.

I curse their castaway ease -
may their dross return in dreams
and wrap them in tendrils of plastic,
bitter blossom on so many hedges.

May they all be reborn as cleaners,
pittance-paid for the shit-work.
May their cars be recycled as cycles,
and their legs be blessed as they ride.



This looks like more purposeful dumping of rubbish...pic taken at end of Feb.

OK, all write? Keep write on, etc...

Someone posted a good comment on WD this morning, not on a poem of mine - I haven't posted one since The Old Tart - but this could help when I'm dissatisfied with things.
'...don't expect every poem to be better than the one before. Few poets are consistently good. Some of the best produced very ordinary stuff along with their brilliant work.'
It fits in well with Stephen King's advice that you need to be there working regularly, to stand a chance of the Muse dropping by.

Naked old ladies of the world, unite!

I bought a copy of the Big Issue this morning. It advertises today’s
Naked Bike Ride ‘to protest against car culture and oil dependency.’

I have no problem with that …, but then it adds
‘herds of naked cyclists will be scaring old ladies around Britain’.

My hackles rose – hang on folks, I bet some of those ‘old ladies’ will be joining in the ride! Less of the sexism and ageism in your 'humour', please.

(Copied from my post on our women's blog... )

At any event the thought of it got me out, fully clothed, and on a borrowed bike, to hone my urban cycling skills for forty minutes this afternoon.

I couldn't persuade Tilly the dog to take up naked cycling.

Summer means swifts...

Independent, 14th June 2008

According to an article in the Independent today, swifts are declining in Britain, because houses no longer have eaves where they can nest - one remedy is nest boxes like those pictured. (From the newspaper) It would be a great pity if we could no longer experience the shrieking of squadrons of swifts between May and July. Maybe that's why we noticed them so much in May at Montebuoni , where there were nest holes in one of the walls.

We have housemartins at home now, although they arrived quite late in May. The same nest has been used for four years or so.

More from Clevedon

We walked along the seafront as far as the pier then all the way back to where steps start a path along the cliffs, called Poets' Walk.

This goes past St Andrews Church,

a field with donkeys and

a small river mouth, where the scenery reminded me of Norfolk, because of the intermingling of land and water.

At the top of the hill were these pieces of wood with cryptic bits of words on.

Clevedon, June 7th

the elegant pier
I liked the colours
From the east side
Not on a boat in spite of the sloping skyline.
wrought iron patterns

Aspects of Bristol June 5th-6th

A pub on Gloucester Road The observatory? and camera obscura?
The Clifton suspension bridge
Looking down to the river. Then over the bridge...to the Leigh Woods area where there are some unbelievable houses. Hmm - Victorian Gothic?...You can travel from the heart or rural England on a grand scale... ...to a Swiss chalet, an outsized cuckoo clock or a gingerbread house called Alpenfels.
When I feel inspired I must correct the lean - it's the photographer's fault, not the builder's.

Birdlife in Eastville Park

A country walk in Bristol

My niece invited me to go along on a health walk with her and her son, with a group of people, meeting up outside a supermarket at ten in the morning and following a couple of leaders. It was an interesting route, past the Barton Hill Settlement - a local community centre which has lots going on, along a path by the Feeder Canal, to the river Avon.

We passed this tree with a wall in the middle of it, and lunched at a bar and tea-room by the river. Unfortunately the river was too high and fast for the tiny ferry to be running.

Then we had to give up part way through as Finn was not well. One moment he was fine - the next refusing to eat and too quiet for a three-year-old. One minute he wanted to be held upside down, the next he was miserable. Turned out he was developing an ear infection, though it was almost two days before this was clear. He's fine again now.

Since we were with a group we hadn't bothered to bring a map, so our return walk on our own was not the most direct route.

Wainwright and his Lakeland guides

We watched a TV programme about the legendary Alfred Wainwright, a man of mystery until very late in his life.

He worked as Kendal Borough Treasurer for years, but once he had decided to produce his guides he was a thoroughly methodical obsessive, and spent every weekend walking the Lakeland Fells, on his own, and every evening handwriting and illustrating his guidebooks.

Eventually he used the money he earned from the books to fund animal rescue centres.

From Florence to Rutland Water

Last night, we watched some of the camcorder shots from Florence - a lot of them taken by Harry while we were wandering around the streets in the evenings. The 'old tart' put on a pretty good show. Plenty of street entertainment - from a bizarre act (hypnotism?) involving audience members behaving strangely, accompanied by the crowd's rhythmic chanting and clapping, to music from a brass group, and more from a solo classical guitarist.

This morning, the sight of the sun after three grey and wet days had us out at Rutland Water, roller-blading by nine o'clock. Esther, who was here for the weekend, took the opportunity to fit in a run. Back home for coffee and breakfast at 11.

A place, not a person

The old tart

She hasn’t changed her knickers
since the glory days. She’s locked her finery
away in display cabinets,
but her everyday wear is shabby and worn.
Her make up artist hasn’t changed since the '70s
and the cracks are showing.
Old habits live on.
Her grubby palm stretches out for pennies
and snaps them tight into her fist.
Yet as night falls and she is backlit by a softer glow
her old magic returns to draw the crowds.

An explanation:
It's Florence - no, not Nightingale, the city.
The display cabinets are the museums and art galleries, which are brilliant.
The make-up is the shabby appearance of some of the frontages and public spaces - even parts of the well-known ones. It didn't help that there was constant dust from building work, I suppose. The reference to the seventies is something quite unconnected - I've been watching a DVD of the 1976 TV adaptation of I Claudius and was thinking of the make up worn by Sian Phillips as Livia.
The grasping for money is a combination of the expense (perceived by me and of course with the exchange rate so poor), and the (immigrant?) beggars in public places. Even the car hire had an extra charge for being in a historical area.
Old habits die hard - well, I've recently read some bits about European history, and so much seemed to be about the money and power.
Yet at night, with less traffic, and softer lighting the place is magical to walk around in spite of all this.

And I'm still not sure the whole thing isn't sexist, but with a name like Flo' ...

Social housing

Headlines scream, '1 million more on housing waiting list' but how do our figures compare to Europe?

How much 'council housing' is there here? Apart from, clearly, not enough.

And in Germany or France or Spain? Is it such a disaster to live in social housing? It used to be a respectable part of the housing stock until Thatcher and following governments decided to institute the 'right to buy' and helped to turn the less desirable council estates into something like sinks for the poverty-stricken, the feckless and the hopeless.

Procrastination and all that

http://www.slate.com/id/2190909/

a whole load of stuff including why Truman Capote didn't finish his great novel Answered Prayers. Just the thing to browse through when you're trying to put something off.

There's even an article on the compulsion to play Spider solitaire and Freecell. Oh, the hours, the hours.

One from three years or so ago:

SOLITAIRE
(Wasting time)

On my computer screen
I deal out the cards
Three two ace , ace two three
I make patterns,
Jack queen king ,king queen jack
I connect chains,
black red black red black red
I build up suits
Clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades
I order the screen world
I win some I lose some.

On my television screen
Instead of cards I see
Disasters , murders, bombings
One two three, three two one
Warlords presidents party leaders
King queen knave, knave queen king
Different cultures opposed
Brown white black ,black white brown
And shades in between
The world is disordered
Some win, and most lose.

Two wheels good

First time out on the bike for a while ( for me, not Harry). Perfect weather, sunny, warm, a slight breeze. The scent of pollen - cow parsley along the roadsides, wallflowers, lilac blossom - some lilac seems to have escaped to live among the wild hawthorns too.

across the hillside
splashes yellow paint
oilseed rape

Wisteria hangs theatrical fringes
Round the cottage window
Ready for the summer show.

I lick salt sweat from my lips,
Mixed with the taste of fresh brewed tea.

Writing 60 words

I sometimes post on a WD forum - 60 word fiction. Today, the prompt was 'Launderette'. I thought of several. Most recently in the US - in Brooklyn with Leonie while they were living in rented apartments before moving; in Eureka, California, during a holday in a rented RV; in New Hampshire last autumn, again during a holiday. All different.
Go back to student days, bedsit days, the days before tumble driers or disposable nappies.

So I wrote the notes, and gradually changed them to fit the format of 60 words fiction. It's not dramatic enough to satisfy me, but it's interesting (for me) to see the thought process.

Notes
Travel in an RV – the luxury of carrying your home around like a clumsy snail – but without the mod cons. You daren’t use the toilet since you don’t want to be stuck trying to empty the tank. And you certainly don’t have a washing machine. Much better to use the facilities in a campground. So why do they bother fitting these behemoths with bathrooms?
Then the laundry piles up until you find a launderette – well Laundromat if you’re stateside. We found one in the small college town of Eureka on the Northern Cali coast.

Condensed
Laundromats attract all sorts.
Families without a washing machine.
Tourists – the kind who don’t stay in hotels and pay them to do the laundry.
And another kind of wanderer – whose life, complete with dog, fits in a supermarket cart.
I put the money in the slot.
On the wall: Nothing in driers unless it’s been washed. Including sleeping bags.

Half way to fiction (and it is sixty words)
They parked the RV. Wide street, a laundromat, a thrift store.
Sal put the clothes in the machine, quarters in the slot. Like the locals, she bought a coffee from the automat.
A woman came by, pushing her life, and dog, in a supermarket cart.
Sal read the notice: Nothing in driers unless washed in our machines. Including sleeping bags.

Striding out

Three people in two days have greeted me with the words, 'You're striding out well today.' Do I really walk differently from other people?

But it has meant a conversation about walking on or off roads, alone or in company, safety considerations and the state of village to village roadside footpaths (almost non-existent). Then somehow we touched on composting as a communal village activity, allotments and recycling.

I shall continue to stride out.

I hope it's a haiku.

two short weeks away
skimmed milk of blackthorn blossom
turns full cream of may.

Siena in the rain

Perhaps the least enjoyable day of our holiday. But still, the less successful visits are often more fun to write about. This poem is evolving daily.

Siena sotto la pioggia

(I hope the Italian is correct - it's supposed to be a silly dig at TS Eliot's use of other languages, just to show I'm not a monoglot.)

The guidebook shows
sunlit postcard views
the campo from the torre,the palio.Twelve horses career around the sloping square
for glory and honour,
Flags blazing gold and red on black,

sharp shadow shapes.

Today

we park.
Five escalators
clatter and clank

us up to steep streets,
narrow
cobbled and
gleaming dank

tall buildings
huddle

to hold the sun at bay
although
today

why bother?

The campo
reflects the palace tower
in hints of light and shade.

Umbrellas sprout,
generous fungi
bright, determined, cheerful
despite the clinging drizzle.

They wait in lines
or play a game of dodge
along the streets.

Washing at high windows
so picturesque
above the tourist throngs
so wet.

The duomo's marble is fresh washed,
its glorious gilded frontage,
backed by a crane.
They are everywhere
in Tuscany this April.

A covered market place,
shelters crowds from the drips;
kids run and throw food,
or wait for a bus.

Below a sign
via dei malcontenti
I stop and pull a face.