For reasons not relevant here, I have been reading the sonnets of Shakespeare.
Of course, someone who claims an interest in poetry probably shouldn’t need a particular reason to read poetry, but I’m afraid I do find “the sonnets” uphill work – not all sonnets, but Shakespeare’s in particular.
Continue reading “six sonnets”
En route to the station, I pass by these lovely purple flowers:
The plant must be well over six foot in height – the flowers tumble over a fence too high for me to look over – and I think it must be growing in the garden of a pub that has been “under offer” for at least the last six months.
Continue reading “identification and limitation”
I don’t have time to write very much today, so am settling for posting a picture of a busy bee.
Bees are familiar visitors to the blog, so if you want to read more, click that link and check out some old posts.
About ten days ago I was running to catch a bus to get to a meeting when I passed a huge may tree in full bloom. I hadn’t time to do more than pause and then rush on, but I thought it’d be a good idea for the last blog post of this month: how we have two bank holidays in May, and yet neither of them are May Day; how the English say Ne’er cast a clout till May be out – whether that be the month of May or the blossom – while the Spanish with their far balmier climate say hasta el cuarenta de mayo no te quites el sayo – don’t take off your coat till the 40th of May; how taking may blossom into the house is supposed to bring bad luck…
Of course, I then forgot to go back and take the picture.
This morning I went across the park and there are plenty of trees and other plants in bloom, but I didn’t find any hawthorn.
The park was frothing at the hedges with cow parsley:
“There is pansies, that’s for thoughts”
(They may, in fact, be violas, in which case my mind and this blog post are equally empty of thoughts.)
don't confuse the narrator 