Category: UK

a horse of a different colour

After I published yesterday’s post, I remembered that I do have other poems with horses in, including the very summery Before breakfast, which begins:

When the dew lies cool in the day’s eyes, beyond
the umbelliferous lace of napkin fields
morning horses toss and fret, and rooks stalk
among the stubble.

Those “morning horses” were not as quiet as the ones in the Ted Hughes poem, where the narrator “[…] climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark” before coming across the horses: “Grey silent fragments/ Of a grey silent world.”
Continue reading “a horse of a different colour”

new year, new luck

Somewhere on my twitter feed yesterday, I was reminded that cranes are symbolic of luck and good fortune.

Since I have no better idea of what to post today for the New Year bank holiday, I wonder if these photos, mostly culled from the archives, can be considered apposite.
Continue reading “new year, new luck”

stealth visitor

While Thursday arrived draped in pink chiffon, this morning I heard the muffled sound of an engine and Friday drove up in a car the colour of fog.

 
 

strawberry sunrise

After spending the night gadding on the other side of the world, the sun crept in on Thursday morning, draped in a gauzy veil the colour of crushed strawberries.

 
(This mid-week post is brought to you in a shameless attempt to increase the number of visitors and views logged on the blog before the end of the year.)

almost over

When I lived in Spain I used to complain about how long the holiday season lasted: it seemed to stretch all the way from the fiestas at the beginning of December until past Twelfth Night.**

Here in the UK, though, much as I was bemoaning the supermarket aisles crammed with marzipan, iced cake and mince pies back in October, Christmas seems to be a bit of a flash in the pan.
Continue reading “almost over”