February was mild and Nature got a bit ahead of herself.
The English countryside is now bright with blossom: in the trees, in the hedgerows and underfoot; walking across the park you have to take care not to tread on violets, primroses and celandines.
Continue reading “spring snowfall”
The year got off to a slow start for me.
Business had slackened in the run-up to Christmas and the year was essentially over mid-way through December. Then we went through a strange kind of limbo over the holiday period: I knew there wouldn’t be many new projects coming in from clients, but I was too tired to do much work on my own stuff. Finally, realising that no one else was likely to get back into the swing of things business-wise until after the school term started, I decided to actually go away for a proper break and try and recoup.
Continue reading “a bit of a blur”
Yesterday was the solstice – the shortest day of the year.
Despite this traditionally being considered the start of winter, the days will now begin to get longer and the evenings will be brighter.
Then again, according to the Time and Date website today was less than a second longer than yesterday; I guess we’ll just have to wait a bit before we notice much difference.
“Spring forward; Fall back.” – the mnemonic my father taught me to remember which way the clocks needed to be altered at the beginning and end of British Summer Time.
Fall back is also one of those marvellous English phrasal verbs – known by many EFL students as “frazzle” verbs, presumably because of the effect on the mind of trying to memorise them – where a main verb is combined with a particle (adverb, preposition, or both).
Continue reading “fall back”
Undecided what to post today, I had a quick look on twitter, only to find that it is International Translation Day.
It’s actually been quite a while since I did any translation and nothing came to mind immediately as suitable for posting. But I remembered a long time ago using Google Translate to find inspiration for creativity and thought I’d have a dabble and see what happens.
Continue reading “a green scream”
don't confuse the narrator 