Category: dates & time

hiraeth

The round-shouldered cobblestones nudge
at my sandalled feet. They are smooth
as the pebbles that sang on an Anglesey beach,
as the present-from-Beaumaris paperweight
whose faded dragon still parades
across my desk. They are warm
as cottage loaves fresh from Powell’s,
or bakestones from the griddle. The gulls
shriek with the same harsh voice, but the river
is an unfamiliar olive green and runs
beside a motorway that leads me
away from you.

 
 
(Not a new poem, but appropriate for March 1st, the feast day of Dewi Sant.)

new year

Orion
greets the new year
with open arms

 
One thing I love about writing, is that it forces me to learn. I’m limited to my phone camera at the moment so was looking for a copyright-free photo to put alongside this piece, and I’ve ended up discovering lots of things I probably should have known about Orion, but didn’t.
Continue reading “new year”

Boxing Day

on a foreign shore: icing-tipped waves
toss tinsel into the clear air. We play
at Wenceslas in the sand, taking it in turns
to be the page. We look for sea holly and sing
carols under the curious gaze
of a parrot in a palm tree.

happy hollydays

holly berries

Yesterday was the solstice, the shortest day, and, officially, the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere.

When I get back to the village, maybe we’ll burn a yule log to encourage the sun to return.

logs

broken bridges

One of the things inherent in Spanish culture is the idea of fiestas. Yesterday, December 6th, was el Día de la Constitución, and tomorrow is La Inmaculada Concepción. Both are usually bank holidays, and, depending how they fall, there is often a ‘puente’ linking the two.

I’d expected today to be declared a national holiday to compensate for the fact that the Day of the Constitution fell on a Sunday. No such luck.

It occurs to me that the refusal to link la Constitución with la Inmaculada could be an affirmation of the separation of church and state. And I think we should be having a bank holiday to celebrate that.