Whatever name you prefer to use for it – the Cold Moon, the Long Night Moon, the Oak Moon, the Wolf Moon, or simply the Moon before Yule – I’m afraid I don’t have a photo of last night’s full moon.
I do, however, have a number of poems with the moon in them.
Here’s one of them:
Continue reading “cold moon”
the sun flowers
and sheds its petalled light
into the corners
of our unswept lives
I said this morning that yesterday was grey, with little to recommend it. Today has not been much better, although I suppose it must be slightly brighter and less grey, if only because it has been a day of domesticity: I have been washing and ironing, sweeping and dusting, scrubbing, mopping and polishing.
Continue reading “lighter, whiter, brighter”
My mother mentioned that yesterday was St Andrew’s Day, adding that this meant that there would be no more “special days” until Christmas.
Well, I may have been brought up a Protestant, but I lived in Spain long enough to know that that couldn’t be right: every day seems to be the feast day of a dozen or more saints in the Catholic calendar, so I headed off to Google to find out more about St Andrew, as well as what other dates may be coming up that I should pay attention to.
Continue reading “ordinary days”
It’s said that glossophobia – the fear of speaking in public – is high up among the most common fears, so I’m slightly surprised that it’s not something that has ever particularly bothered me.
Perhaps I read the lesson in church as a child or at the school carol service often enough for it to cease to be really frightening, although that raises the question of why, as a very timid small child, I was willing to volunteer to read – especially as I remember on at least one occasion having to stand up to a terrifying schoolmaster in order to be allowed to audition for the carol service: he thought I would never make myself heard – though I proved him wrong.
Continue reading “in the dark”
Some time ago I read one of those ‘motivational quotes’ to the effect that you shouldn’t laugh at someone who pronounces a word wrongly, as the chances are it means they learned it through reading, rather than hearing it spoken, and no one should be mocked for trying to better themselves.
It’s true that I am still likely to laugh when I hear an American say someone made a “fox paw” when they mean a faux pas but, essentially, I think there is a lot of truth in the sentiment.
Continue reading “worrying about stress”
don't confuse the narrator 