ping pong

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Ping Pong! Sport of Kings! a game of kaleidoscopic genius and waft spin nifty pzzazz!… went with new christams pressie paddles (…and offspring!) for a game in seaford
i’m a black belt! there was a puddle bog down my end, where’s Walter Raleigh when ya need him? but nowt can cramp my style, it did tho make for a few arm windmilling stuck in the mud comedic lunges
my top spin overhead pummel smash is a pulsating thing o’beauty… a rare thing of beauty, only works once in ten attempts, but, boy, bedazzle good when it comes off… kersplatt! phooo weee!
braggadoccio*… lets face it apart from chess, juggling, tiddlywinks, petanque… none of which will feature in the olympics… i’m not good at many sports, so best applaud myself for what talent i posess.
stepping aside, momentarily, from the brouhaha of words… spent way too much time on my own this year, obvious reasons, gratitude for any fun and connection
if there are any new years resolutions to be had, best we are all supportive, patient and kind to each other xx
crikey, this drear lockdown winter is a longwinded slog, obvs if boredom and glumness is all i’ve got to complain about, then things are going very well
inertia, i tend to oscillate twixt a comfortable soporific sloth and a lacklustre, docile apathy… almost, but not quite the same thing… tho, yes, interspersed with the occasional yelp pang of dismal loneliness… rubbish
still new year, same old me… i’m going to take up a new hobby! body popping! esperanto! hula hooping! didgeridoo! wearing silk cravats! writing left handed! the peruvian nose flute! speaking only in iambic pentameter and limericks! all of the above?
nope cannae be bothered, back to bed, wake me up when tis spring
*braggadocio, oh, i’d always assumed it was italian, and that the docio bit was some smoothe sweet talking to oofset the preening arrogance, but nope apparently ‘of pseudo italian coinage, from spensers faerie queen (1594)’…dictionaries are brill

christmas day swim

soggy solstice

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solstice yawning… woken at 5:00 by a bird singing, both stridently and lost, outside the front window.
stupid bird. beautiful bird. notes flung up, an offering to the wind howl… ‘blackbird singing in the dead of night’
half heartedly meditated, looked to the buddha statue, just a brood, a bulk, darkness and exhaustion amongst the shadow… but, yes, always there
went out to snap the dawn. gung ho optimism, mingles with a love of murk and drizzle. not far. not daft… these pics, the best i can conjure… extraordinarily impossible to photograph luminous gloom. look east
rightey ho… joys of a hot shower, head down, dull, forget everything, yet pleasant enough, work
seed of light born in the depth of darkness… the promise that days of ease, the light, will return, yes!… ha, gritted teeth, better than bated breath
go easy on yourself. solstice blessings one and all x

a good year for indie chanteuse covers of Radiohead… the bends, such a glorious, sorrow stuffed album, great to hear new(ish) artists exploring its charm

look to the south west, out over the sea at sunset… or turn the gentle fuzz focus of your mind to it, as all is fog in these thar parts… an auspicious time x

shower cap

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early christmas pressie, i have splurged on a new shower cap… pig in blanket, pink with aplomb
pink is one of my favourite colours… along with green! purple! orange!
one of the heart chakra colours, i do love to wear it, yet it is hard to look good in… i had to use a bilge wash filter on this snap… fashion tips from a decrepit hippy heart throb?
back when i was renting and boogie boards deckchairs in ocean city, i spent every day snoozing on the beach, under an umbrella wearing a pink hawaian star shell smock…
miss that top! an astonishing sense of accomplishment, just from putting it on

aaaw the 80’s, such a duff decade x

comments:

flaps: The pink wings are a nice touch too x

me: angel delight?

from jenny: All you need is a smile!💕

me: Ha! Your right of course… A study in glumness. Trouble is that I’m so blessed with wrinkle-age that when I smile my eyes disappear. Eyes or smile! what a choice? Hope your well and groovy, missed the happy festie massive last summer xx

ancestor

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shapeshifter, changeling child… rainment summons essence and spirit?
no other creature wears the skin of the animals its killed for food… mammoth, auroch… vast tundra sweeping herds of Reindeer
on december afternoons impossible not to ponder the ancestors… hairless ape, far from africa, a mighty long way from home
following the rich pickings of the herds, ever northwards, across the land bridge, to this, the gloomiest, dampest corner of north west europe… ha, no going back now
gleaning, the rending of flesh from skin, curing, tanning…. then bone needles, gut for thread… to stitch a surrogate second skin
viscera
what a mucky business, hide swaddled, grease smeared, lousy with nits, beneath a dripping canopy, huddled close to the warmth of a dung fire… winter gruel
surviving on what, yes, some strength of arm, but mostly guile, fire and stories?
yep, that, a few berries, some fungii.. and a huge dollop of love for each other… you’d hope
brown, dowd of the season, yet sometimes, at sunset, a colour almost swollen with luminescence
down on the beach, i snivel gratefully: thankFuckForHouses, yep, THANKfuckforHouses!

not been working much this week, so a higher than usual quota of aimless pondering!

comment (from hannahw):

Nice hat, on the mundane level, where’d you get it

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me: Kathmanduuu! hurrah thought nobody would ask… all these long winded words, just a peg to hang my hat on, as it were… an excuse for sartorial elegance xx

wool from a rare pink flamingo yeti… they hang around standing on one leg on the peaks of the Annapurna range

had this one 10 years, seem to have mislaid my more yellow-esque one somewhere? keep thinking i must go back to Nepal get another one… far more fascinating than a jaunt down kensington gardens!

mum knitted the scarf

mink

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mink! i saw a wild critter on the banks of the River Mole whilst up at mums yesterday
my mind divided into one of those curious schisms… one thread was in awe of this astonishing, curious, beautiful, genius creature!
whilst under my breath i started singing ‘psycho kiler quest que ce? ba ba ba ba ba ba’
minks are one of the weasel-oids (not a technical term!) yet sadly not british natives
this one had a glossy glorious sable coat, and was across on the island about 20 yards away, out playing in the daylight … you’d seldom see an otter at this hour, distinctly nocturnal
half tail, it did that bounding lope, where the body arches through the air and the tail sine wave follows through… nessie serpentine?
it reminded me most of the black malabar squirrel i was fortunate enough to see in munnar back at the beginning of the year
anyway it scrabbled down to the river, eased itself in, sleek swam down stream, then wriggled back up through a nest of branches, looked around, then launched itself into the water again.
A Riparian delight… a changeling soul, at ease both on land and in the stream… just beautiful
Of course a complete disaster for the humble water vole!
a quick google shows that mink were first bought here for fur farming back in the 20’s (thankfully banned in 2000!) think Dame Edith Sitwell in furs cigarette holder clenched betwixt teeth
they escaped and have been wild since 1960… most introduced species, however well meaning the intentions, end up being an unmitigated disaster! systems that have evolved into hard fought balance, thrown completely out of kilter by any interloper!
anyway heres a pic of a tree at sunset from the same amble… possibly the only post you’ll view this week that references, weasels, edith sitwell and talking heads? but mbe not