bleaggh garlic and apple!… won’t be snogging any vampires (today) decided to add some raw garlic to the already insane tumeric ginger lemon concoction but the flavour hung around for the usual silken balm of apple juice… hmm alium oops ally oop.. gonna hop on bike for a cycle extravaganza… been forever leaving the house! make a change from skulking under duvet listening to the rain pattering on the skylight, interspersed with ladle dosage of maudlin pop ballards, a hobby i guess? wishing all you peeps a deeply joyful day x
audio of text… apols for blackbird singing, may 21 when i recorded audio!
Granny (Edith), Uncle Harry, Aunty Annie I was fortunate enough to have these 3 (and several others from that generation) as substantial presences in my childhood It’s a blessing to actually be able to stretch out ones arms and almost feel 100 years. four generations, them, the folks, us, the kids. Here they are, younger than i was when they died, and indeed younger than my kids are i really like this photo of a photo, i was up at mums last week rummaging through some of the many boxes and found it in an old album, probs grannys, don’t remember ever having seen it before? tho may well have done. you can somehow see much of their personalities that i knew so many decades later… youthful radiance
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a slightly off kilter (and a little bit muddled!) honouring of the armistice… a catastrophe. the consequences of which have reverberated down through the years, a trauma that stays carried within our bodies, whether we realise it or not i feel reluctant around any official remembrance and all the myths, symbolism and narratives that entails Not even wishing, except with factual brevity to say much about their lives (with honesty we can only tell our own stories?) but two of their older brothers died during the war, one as a soldier, one from consumption, annie worked in an armoury factory Harry volunteered when 15, tho that sounds impossible, and was captured, then a prisoner of war in France Their lives also spanned the great depression, another war and the post war austerity. Staggering. My somewhat calmer impression of remembrance day was of being a cub, standing outside on esher green, always a cold grey drab November morning, shorts and the astonishing skimpiness of jumpers in the 70’s! the extraordinary silence of 2 minutes before the bugle sounded Tomorrow I’ll put on some elgar, as thats what mum and dad always did, and think fond thoughts of these 3, and all my ancestors but also spreading out from that in a spirit of compassion… may all beings be well, may all beings be happy and free from suffering. Love
mel: I love this. I haven’t seen this photo before. Also love your words. Captured the feelings perfectly. Also remember standing to attention on Esher Green !!
RB : it’s a great snap, suprisingly warm and casual by the formal standards of the day, but that might just be that we know them well xx
larkin
The Explosion – by Larkin On the day of the explosion Shadows pointed towards the pithead: In the sun the slagheap slept. Down the lane came men in pitboots Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke, Shouldering off the freshened silence. One chased after rabbits; lost them; Came back with a nest of lark’s eggs; Showed them; lodged them in the grasses. So they passed in beards and moleskins, Fathers, brothers, nicknames, laughter, Through the tall gates standing open. At noon, there came a tremor; cows Stopped chewing for a second; sun, Scarfed as in a heat-haze, dimmed. The dead go on before us, they Are sitting in God’s house in comfort, We shall see them face to face – Plain as lettering in the chapels It was said, and for a second Wives saw men of the explosion Larger than in life they managed – Gold as on a coin, or walking Somehow from the sun towards them, One showing the eggs unbroken.
a poem for the armistice, always loved this one by larkin, tho not about war at all, elegiac and beautiful, with, possibly, the most transcendent last line in poetry… gives me goosebumps anyway x
prize pumpkin! me, not the squash… overboard, a man …and his marrow… curious orange… three of these plucked from the garden, daddy, mummy and baba bear sized hope to carve tomoz when daughter here last year one of my green courgettes became engorged to harrowing marrow proportions… had a disaster cooking it, never ever ever bake a squash with rice inside, whatever that prig jamie oliver says took 4 hours!! whilst kids fought maliciously, anyway i saved some of the seeds, planted them out… and lo and behold the progeny of an elongated green thingumibob is orange and bulbous… who’da thunk it! happy halloween… hopefully a more seasonal serious post later x
Audrey: Gourds and squashy type things are really naughty they’ll cross pollinate with any other members of the same family so you never know what you’ll end up with 😉 xx
RB: frisky! i had no idea, kind of approve of the libidinous diversity… at least it didn’t end up as a mushy pea… thats about the only veg i struggle with… that, brown sauce and bead and butter pudding. yuk! why! xx
Audrey: I’m with you on the bread and butter pudding – gadz – but brown sauce? What do you have on chippy chips? In Edinburgh it’s salt and sauce – has to be 😘
RB: chips? lumme eck, no! i am one for a biodynamically fried organically grown sauteed king edward spud … carries on making things up by stringing together words i don’t really understand… but artisanal in truth: tomato ketchup! or when i’m feeling sophisticated and continental, tres belgique, mayonnaise! x oh and for some reason i can’t remember what that beer is you drink in edinborough (see i’m posh none of that burgh nonsense), was it thruppeny bit? shilling ha’penny? who knows! x
lol: Oi, where’s our autumn extravaganza and accompanying poetic post 😉
lol
RB: ha! careful what ya ask for, i shall go for a stroll atop the cliffs and compose, stumble upon, some words in a profound poetic reverie… ode to lol those snaps of us from the other week are lush! fab day. my posts tend to be solipstic selfies, mostly as the kids hate it when i add pics of them! anyway thought ya’d lurve the day of the dead mexicano pic, plus the juice is so tasty, will bring some tomoz xxx
Johnathan: I love you Richard 😁
thanks darling! hope the massage and cannabis potions are going down a storm in brizzle may not be the official party line, but the mantra i always come away from buddhafield with is along the lines of ‘go to beautiful places, do amazing things, with wonderful people… with love in your heart’ not always whats required, and not always possible, but gotta be a good start!… oh and boast fluffily about it on here, of course, ha xx
comment on lous post from samhain into the wild at emerson!
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wow! such an enchanting light on your pics… leaf monster, earth engulfed, season of yield and surrender… whilst colour is so sweetly slurped from the world… who’da thought brown could be quite so sumptuous? aw such lovely moments, thanks, all that yak and guffaw, i thoroughly enjoyed being submerged neath leaves telling you a snippet of that beautiful celtic tale and… with the aid of google… it was a tulip poplar! ha, the insatiable needs of a know it all hope your dance was groovy! xxx
‘but but it’s not bowie, ooh but but but it is space’ a few years later re-share for this ‘oddity’, i am left but with the curious reflection… theres a moustache in space! a moustache just floating forever, somewhere serenely in the void! given a choice which karaoke song should be sang in zero-g? i’d probably go with another very obvious tash… mr fahrenheit, don’t s-t-o-p me now! just coz i loved leaping round the bedroom hollering it back in 80 … prompted by listening to the astronaut chris hadfields autobio which is still on bbc iPlayer radio last night… hadfield not whigfield all astronauts are by the nature of the job a little dull (with the exception natch of cheerfully doolally buzz aldrin) driven, meticulous and able to thrive in the weird quasi-militiarised world of astronutting… but chris came across as fundamentally canadian, warm and decent and he sang bowie in space!! astonishing!
singing and screenprinting nun, sister corita kent dentistry! aaaah – me exhibiting astonishing compliance on our trip to ditchling museum selfie aside really enjoyed her pioneering screenprints, lush vibrant colours, intriguing caligraphy and powerful messages plus we got to see Zoe ball crossing the road… allegedly with a pig
‘your name is a golden bell hung in my heart i would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name’
we so must do something soon xx
