don't confuse the narrator

bright beginnings

I usually only post to the blog at the weekend, and I’ve already posted this Saturday and Sunday’s updates. But I don’t think the picture of a mouldering red chili pepper that accompanies the last post is quite what I want to stay as the top image for the first week of the New Year.

So, in an attempt to brighten things up, here is a photo of a rather fresher red pepper that seemed to reveal an appropriately seasonal enthusiasm for life, growth and general personal development when I cut it open:

discoveries

The days after Christmas are always a good time for clearing up and throwing things out, ready to welcome the New Year into a clean and tidy house. In a fit of such domestic enthusiasm last week, I was checking sell-by dates and clearing out dangerous and suspect items from the kitchen when I came across this:

The chillies were clearly past their best, but as I went to toss them aside, I noticed the date: September 9th – with no year specified.
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unseasonable

There has been much talk of the unseasonable weather here in the UK, with swathes of bright daffodils blazoned across webpages offering a counterpoint to dreary rainscapes and flood destruction.

So my photo is hardly news, although it is at least a Welsh daff – taken yesterday, New Year’s Day, near Chepstow in South Wales.

Daffodil in flower on New Year's Day 2016

I did consider titling this piece: post early for St David’s Day. Whether there will still be daffs in bloom in three months’ time remains to be seen.

golden December

Sadly, the photo doesn’t really do justice to the glorious light that shone over the neighbours’ houses for a few minutes early this morning.

Perhaps, though, it gives an idea of a warm glow, which is the feeling I got when I discovered that an article I wrote about Critiquing Poetry, which was published on Writing-World in 2001 is still being shared and considered useful by complete strangers.

Over the years it’s been copied and re-published without attribution, rehashed and plagiarised all over the web and quite possibly elsewhere.

This time, though, it was properly attributed and credited by the Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas, who shared it on their FaceBoook page a couple of weeks ago.

perspectives

I’ve mentioned the children’s poem Dorothy Rose on the blog before now, and how the world can seem very different, depending on where you choose to look.

These photos, taken within a few yards of each other this morning, serve as a reminder that the bare, dripping branches of winter don’t tell the whole story.