Walking along by the canal the other day, I paused to take a photograph of what I initially thought was a bee.
This meant stepping off the path a little, and I waited to one side as a dog walker was coming along in the opposite direction. He could see that I was taking photos and told me to watch out for an orchid that was in bloom some twenty yards back along the way he’d come.
Continue reading “telling tales”
I’ve left it late again before writing this blog post. And I was wondering what on earth to post. Then I realised it’s the first blog post of June. And June, of course, rhymes with moon.
Last night there was an eclipse of the strawberry moon, but that’s not where my thoughts went: as soon as I thought “moon” and “June”, I didn’t start thinking of eclipses, but of the words of the Joni Mitchell song “Both sides now”:
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way
Of course, I misremembered it and skipped over the Ferris wheels, heading straight for the fairy tales.
Continue reading “moons and Junes and fairy tales”
We had another Live Lit event last week. The theme was “Once upon a word” and, once again, the decision about what to read proved problematic.
Naturally, given the theme, my mind turned to stories and fairy tales; but fiction isn’t my strong suit and I don’t usually write what I would call narrative poetry.
It’s just occurred to me now that I could have told the story about little Johnny in class when the teacher is explaining the four elements of a good story:
Continue reading “decisions, decisions, decisions…”
I mentioned recently that there are certain words and phrases that I use over and over again: “rather lovely” occurs in a dozen posts here, while a search on “glorious” brings up 11 pages – over 50 posts. But it’s not just language that repeats; it’s also the topics.
There are daisies and dandelions scattered across these pages almost as liberally as the actual flowers occur in the neighbour’s garden, while bees bumble between posts, swallows swoop down and swans glide through at irregular, but fairly frequent, intervals.
Continue reading “more dragons”
I had already written yesterday’s post – four days late for Candlemas – when I realised that it was National Libraries Day and I probably should be writing about that. Instead, I am doing so today, which is why this post is “late again”.
When I realised, it was nearly four in the afternoon, by which time I suspect most UK libraries are closed on a Saturday. (I certainly know of at least one local independent library whose Saturday opening hours are only 10 till one. I wonder how they crammed a whole day’s celebration into a mere three hours.)
Out of interest, I checked to see what the opening hours of my local library were and was surprised – and impressed – to find that it’s open until 17:30 most weekdays.
Continue reading “late again”
don't confuse the narrator 