When I visit my elderly mother, word puzzles are the main evening activity; our newspaper of choice is The Independent‘s “i“ as even the more expensive Saturday edition provides an evening of entertainment for two for just 30p, which really can’t be bad.
Yesterday we spent so long over the word wheel – our combined words ranging from leat for a mill stream to the Hawaiian luau and the mineral laurite – that we decided to leave the cryptic crossword for today. By the end of this morning’s first cup of coffee, though, it was already half done and I was sent to the village shop to splash out on a Sunday paper.
Despite the weathermen proclaiming that Friday was the first day of spring, we have grey skies and a real feel of autumn in the air. There are a few daffs about, but the most interesting blooms I found were almost as colourless as the day:
These, I think must be the helleborus niger – the Christmas Rose. (I said it didn’t feel like spring.)
I don’t have much in the way of poetry to post, just a couple of notes that I hope I can incorporate into something later on:
Rooks rag and flap
against grey skiesmist pecks my face
“For Sale” signs
brighten gardens.
(In particular, one local estate agent has great round signs in yellow and orange that peer from the gardens like giant sunflowers.)
Incidentally, in case some readers don’t recognise the post title, it’s from Noam Chomsky: “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.”
I believe it was also Chomsky who used the sentence “visiting aunts can be boring” in his discourse analysis. Perhaps he should have bought a newspaper with lots of word puzzles.
don't confuse the narrator 