UK – Page 87 – don't confuse the narrator

positively logical

It’s not all fun spending a week in a house with a pedant whose current reading matter is the biography of a logical positivist (or that of any other philosopher, perhaps). I was told yesterday that describing someone as “a good poet” was meaningless, it was a value judgment, that what I was actually saying was, “she is a poet; hurrah!” (As opposed to “she is a poet; boo!”)

Guard dogs — No dogs or other animals - clustered or otherwise - were harmed in the writing of this post

We did however manage to see eye to eye – or was that hear ear to ear? – when the news was on the other night, reporting on a disease affecting dogs in the UK recently. The disease remains unidentified, but the reporter said that some progress had been made after vets observed clusters of dogs dying all across the country from the south west to the north east.

It is probably sad but true that in the course of their work vets observe animals dying. But to observe clusters of them dying and not take action – as opposed to noticing the clusters of reported dog deaths – seems heartless. I think any vet who did so would be a bad vet and deserve to be booed.

no movement but sound

I went out early today, but the birds must all have been awake long before me and when I left the house the noise in the street was startlingly loud for a Sunday morning. I suppose they were busy discussing air pressure and wind speed, temperature and flight paths or whatever it is that birds talk about before they get moving in the morning.

There was so much sound, but no movement and not a single bird to be seen even though the trees are bare of leaves and they must surely have been visible as dark blotches among the branches.

Telegraph pole silhouetted against sky at daybreak

I remember thinking as a child that the insulators on telegraph poles were birds perching; I reckon it was a reasonable mistake.
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work in progress

Although I understand that the UK weather was dreadful over the holidays, I’m not sure that it was really cold; certainly there are already signs of spring about. Of course we’re bound to get some real winter weather later, so I hope Nature has the good sense to be patient.

Chrysalis

Tight as apple pips,
 buds spiral around
a moss-supple stalk
 anticipating spring
when they will split  
and shake free
 tissue wings.

That’s a draft, and questions remain:
Continue reading “work in progress”

circles

Black jacket & red scarf — ready for the revolution

“Bad governments bring bad weather,” says my aged mother, complaining that she hasn’t been out of the house for the last ten days. “Roll on the revolution.”

“So, what are you doing to further the revolution?” I ask.

Mainly, I’m trying to distract her from her woes, but I do think that if you’re nearly 90 and want the revolution to come in your lifetime, it’d probably be a good thing to be pro-active about it.

At first, she doesn’t think there’s much an old woman like her can do.

Then, “I could carry a placard.”

This is good: she’s no longer thinking – or complaining – about how cold and wet it is.
Continue reading “circles”

groundhog day?

In the UK, when Christmas falls at a weekend, there are compensatory holidays; this means that if you invite friends over for Boxing Day, you need to be absolutely sure they all turn up on the same day.

This year, with the 25th falling neatly on a Wednesday, there was no potential confusion: Boxing Day was the day after Christmas, it was Thursday, December 26th, it was St Stephen’s Day, and no one was likely to dispute that.

Except Amazon, it seems, whose constant messages flood my inbox: