UK – Page 53 – don't confuse the narrator

fair weather flowers

I don’t know when I first heard the saying “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December”**, but it made sense to me as I was brought up in Britain and grew up thinking of the rose as the perfect symbol of English summer.

Later, I realised that I was wrong to think of the flower as typically English: I’ve seen the Rose Parade in Pasadena and elsewhere on the blog I’ve pondered the character of Spanish roses. But I still tend to associate roses with better weather.

That said, I took the above photo earlier this week.

True, the blooms are a little the worse for wear – if I was remembering a rose, I think I’d picture one in rather better condition. Frankly, though, I don’t think they should have been there at all.

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** The quote is attributed to J M Barrie, though when he used it in a rectorial address in 1922 he seems to have expected his audience to be familiar with it.

reflections on perspective

Yesterday I wrote about details and concluded that what you see depends on your perspective. This is not a new topic for this blog: I think I’ve made it clear over the years I’ve been posting that I think we have a lot of choice about which lens we choose to view things through and that Hamlet was right when he said:

there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

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autumn birds

A gust of wind startles
all the yellow birds of autumn
from their treetop perches

The idea of autumn leaves as birds is a recurrent theme for me, and I’ve posted several variations on the blog over the years, though not that exact phrasing, I don’t think. But it isn’t just flying leaves that are notable at this time of year.
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