Agreed ?

 

I have gathered sea holly from the wilder parts of the estuary . Just enough to mix with the traditional holly from the garden . The sea holly is blue grey and has no berries . The garden holly has lots of red berries . The two sit oddly well together . 

The sea holly has sharper points and they come off invisibly . I climbed shoe - less on furniture to put the two hollies over picture frames . I need not , I am sure , go into detail of what ensued . 

The butcher in the village nearby does the very best herb sausage meat to compliment a bird . The ride home goes into the wilds and just after the goose farm four firs sit on a bank . 

A cry went up "back up ! " , "back up !".

The thick branch I choose was , the saxophonist said  , too  thick to come off clean . I looked disappointed and it came off clean .

I went to the recycling centre for a new tea pot and some paperbacks .There , amongst the bric a brac was a gold and opaque glass sphere . Flat bottomed and open necked . 

They never slaughter the geese at the goose farm. They are a constant feature  of the landscape ,  year round  .

I am writing this by the " tree " in the sphere nursing " sea holly feet " . A pile of paperbacks sit enticingly nearby and a large brown tea pot sits on the draining board . 

Life can be water and dry bread . Or it can be a mug of good strong tea and thickly buttered crunchy toast .I believe you can choose and probably a lot more than you suppose .

The geese have no reason to disagree .

Comment verification nonsense !

 

Blogger had put on comment verification I gather . Assume this is standard on " new blogger ".

I have taken it off .

Gammon and Larkin .

 

Larkin , in his poem " An Arundel tomb " makes the point that

" They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would turn to soundless damage ,
How soon succeeding eyes begin
to look not read . "

When the monuments went up ,  the person it commemorates and the person who paid for it were known to the viewer .
Now , we don't read it like that , we concentrate more often on the skill of the maker , the boggling amount of children on the plinth or the beauty of it and what it unexpectedly reveals says Larkin , or something like it .

These lovely things can be a record , a form of respect , vanity , resultant of a promise kept .

A rewriting of the history of a man who was less than he might have been in some areas of his life .

A humorous or political point made and now lost or partially obscure now .

The monument to Sir Anthony Rowley sits in a church I sometimes visit in Suffolk . The poem " a frog he would a wooing go "is about him . 

"A frog he would a wooing go

Hey ho says rowley

Whether his mother would like it or no

With a rowley , powley , gammon and spinach

hey ho says anthony rowley .

There are local families called Rowley , Powley , Gammon and ( unusual ) Spinach .

On Sir Anthony's statue he wears an earring . It is of a frog .

The full significance of the poem and the frog earring are not known .

The Larkin poem is ( of course ) very good  - if you don't know it , have a look .

Serenity .

  

As the light fades the sky is overcast with peach and dark blue clouds . Here and there the sunlight and sky blue of the day show through . On the dull blue water sea gulls sit swaying on the tide . 

When the sunlight breaks through it rests on the white backs of the gulls . It makes them golden and lit up .

In the fading light they look like so many fireflies . 

The way the sun sits .

 

The way the sun sits this evening gilds the birds . There are silver seagulls on the wing . Their gleam will only be extinguished by the night . 

Meanwhile I wait for Friday when , they say , the heat will abate . 

Till then I languish . A melting ice lolly . languorous . lazy . Letting the book on my lap fall shut . 

By the end of the week I should be able to watch the rain wash the dust from the blackberries and elderberries . For now though the preserving pan and my attendant plans can wait . 

There is silence and a slight breeze to keep me occupied .

Swan or shorn ...........

Such is the nature of the fields around the estuary that what , from a distance , looks like a field of sheep is sometimes a large flock of grazing swans . 

I love to look at the white origami of the shapes in the distance and as we draw near take further clues . 

It can be a puzzle ,  like one of those photographs of a familiar object taken from an odd angle .

Which is better to discover sheep or swan ?

Along the way some fields have been cut and the  stubble ploughed in . The soil is a rich brown and could only be improved, you feel , by some custard and double cream .

Before lock down I had my hair cut by a " ladies hairdresser " and not a " good cutter " . A " good cutter"  is more often to be found in the city whilst a " ladies hairdresser"  would only be there for the  Ideal home exhibition .......

So , bad cut , dye growing out, split ends and hair generally indicative of much sea . salt and beach time spent post lock down .

Then , last Saturday ,  on one of those impulses , I dashed through the rain to a " good cutter "  . 

I took a chance never having been there before . 

I mentioned Annie Lennox , he nodded and cut . He cut and razored down the lengths until they were all gone and there was my natural brown hair minus the "stubble " of the split ends , dye etc .

Which is better swan or shorn ?

I smiled into the mirror, paid him a fortune and sashayed out into the rain .

Do I look hot ?

Yes .

Sand .

Little boys run up and down the beach like sand pipers .

The vivid green of the sea holly is that of pea pods .A small dog with a red collar raises his head and sniffs the salt in the air .

I collect a bag of bladderwrack . I love the smell of seaweed as the best of smells . 

I shall hang it by the back door tomorrow . 

It is not , as some would , hung as a weather barometer . for any fool knows that if the seaweed is wet it is raining ! 

No , it hangs there so that when I open the door on a damp morning I smell the shore again and mentally cancel what can wait . 

It is always good to listen to what the waves have to say .