A gust of wind tears
yellow birds and russet butterflies
from autumn trees
or, possibly:
A gust of wind
tears all the yellow birds
and russet butterflies of autumn
from their treetop perches

Continue reading “widdershins around the reservoir”
Like Christopher Robin, I have been “BISY” and there haven’t been as many updates to the blog recently as I’d have liked.

I found this feather while walking to the village the other day. I assume it’s a woodpecker feather, though I suppose it could belong to a hoopoe – we certainly see the abubilla more often than the pájaro carpintero, which I hear sometimes but catch sight of only on very rare occasions.
The feather markings made me think of the Spotted or Herbaceous Backson, although, of course, the Backson isn’t the only mythical beast that is spotted.
Continue reading “bisy; backson”
After yesterday’s “race day“, it seems only fair to spend a few moments thinking about winners. Specifically about Nobel prize winners. And, more specifically, about mathematicians who have won Nobel prizes. (Note that there is no Nobel prize for mathematics.)
Sundays newspaper (El Público) ran a story on Echegaray, who they rightly said sounds more like a street name than anything else. He was a mathematician, but he won the Nobel prize for literature.

Today is doce de octubre: la fiesta nacional de España, celebrated in Spain as el día de la hispanidad – ‘Hispanity’ day – although it used to be called el día de la raza – the day of the race.
Although I’m not in Madrid to see the parade, I did catch part of the desfile militar on the TV this morning. There were certainly plenty of horses in attendance, but none of them seemed to be making much effort to win the race.
And, sadly, there were no glorious Ascot-style hats. Indeed, as can be seen from this photo from El País, none of the royal ladies wore hats of any sort. A poor sort of race day, if you ask me.