london – don't confuse the narrator

dusk

When the sun goes down on a clear day, there’s a very special kind of light – neither daylight nor moonlight, but somewhere in between: the two lights that meld into twilight.
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For reasons irrelevant, last night I stayed in a strange hotel in London. “Strange” in the sense that I had never stayed there before, and “strange” in the sense that it was not like any hotel I had ever stayed in previously.

some squirrels and a Wren

The squirrels in the previous post were photographed in St Paul’s churchyard, London. Like the ones I remember from the parks of my childhood, they were very friendly and keen to be fed by the tourists.

Nearer to home there are wild squirrels who visit and use the flower pots on the patio as storage jars for their winter supplies; they are not at all tame – which is why I couldn’t get closer for the next picture – but they do seem to have learned their kerb drill:

grey squirrel sitting on kerbside as if waiting to cross road — Tufty would be proud

October 20th was the anniversary of the birth of Christopher Wren, so it seems appropriate to make another post connected to his great work, St Paul’s. I made a brief visit there on a recent trip to London and sat in the churchyard, where I watched the squirrels and began planning a poem.
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towers & translations

I still haven’t explored all the functions of my new digital camera, which means that I occasionally press the wrong button and change the settings by mistake. Suddenly, for example, I find I’ve taken a whole series of pictures of a stationary subject, like this set of the Houses of Parliament.

Frustrating as this is, it has made me start thinking again about the different versions of a poem that arise from the translation process.
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life, death and points arising

Lion, sovereign's entrance, Houses of Parliament, London

Despite all succeed-in-social-media advice, I don’t have a regular schedule for blog updates, but this hiatus of nearly a fortnight is not the norm.

While travelling last week, I found I was doing my own impersonation of the Seven Dwarfs: puffy, sniffy, whingey, dozy, grumpy, busy… well that’s only six, but I tagged coffee onto the list, and kept going.

I grew up thinking the seventh Disney dwarf was Dock – a very dwarf-like name; listing my symptoms in an email, though, I had a moment of clarity: I was missing Doc.

So I went to the doctor and discovered I was rather more poorly than just a “stinking cold”. Dosed up with three types of antibiotic, I am now beginning to get back on track.

This means I’ve been out of commission for most of the initial furore surrounding Thatcher’s death, but am still just in time for all the fun of the funeral.

Although there’s little to be added to all the keen online wit and repartee, I do want to raise a few points:
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