lambent evening light… seaford head, the distant cliff, but a lazy peach smudge, daub thumbed across the horizon the sea, a softness, ease in and out of being through the stillness, from the dizzy far below, sound rises like wood smoke trudge crunch as a man makes his way home across the pebble shingle splatter scamper of the mackerel, tails fork tongue flicker across the water…. these sea speakings Blackberries and Hawthorn Hips, knotted Red and Black… fluffed, the firework fiesta of Old Mans beard hollow sonorous knell of a wood pigeon look! my head! lumpen huge as some easter island moai Hoa Hakananai’a… stolen away to languish, across the sea, snug smuggled within the British Museum home now… lacking much (anything!) to say… greatly liking words, enjoying the fruitful unimportance of it all…i consult the motto on my Rose Geranium Yogi tea bag: ‘let us be kind and compassionate to remove the sadness of the world’
Wolf Spider with Rose Bay Willow Herb, Thistledown and ermm i want to say Tansy, but its probably just some type of cheerfully deluded Ragwort bleaggh i mean Wasp Spider… have Wolves on the brain at the mo! i thought wow, that must be a wasp spider, without even knowing such a thing existed, google agrees… such marvelous gold hoops, even along its legs beautiful the subtle interactions of nature… the web all soft eiderdown with the wind blown thistle fluff… lost its sticky!… no self respecting fly is going to fall for that!… they’ve got myriad amazement fractal eyes… tho possibly a slightly squiffy one might think of it as a suitable place for a lie down? kind of feel for the spider, all that miraculous effort, ruined! it’s a bit like when you hang the washing out… and immediately boot a muddy football splodge against it… futile fussball chore! beautiful this morning up Castle Hill… i managed to cycle and then hop up the last bit, foot on the mend, but not not skippable about on yet x
Al: I thought at first this was a poem by you.. Great pictures
ha, sorry to disappoint!tho all words yearn to poetry, just a matter of jumbling them up in a beautiful ordersomething like ‘myriad amazement fractal eyes’ is clearly a thespian type, fallen on hard times, embarrassed to voice over a dog food commercial purely for the dosh x
annual august tomato snap ‘blessings on this harvest, this food… thanks to the earth goddess, Rose Gold which wells up from below… the sky god, White Gold which surges down from above… to the cooling Wind, the sweet sorrow of Rain’ these fruits are corporate saba* branded! thats possibly the oddest thing about this photo, not that i have a gorgeous magenta burgundy daisy tucked behind my ear, de rigeur, but that i’ve taken to parading around in this swish, fashionable grey trackie… well fashionable in 1976 anyway its lingered in the warddrobe for a few years, but now seems to be its season?!… *saba a company i sporadically work for, except they’ve changed their name at least twice, possibly three times since then …………… Tomato blight… bleagghh… one theme of the summer, some of my plants are infected… but most look like they might just creep over the finishing line into full fruit… probably half a crop? a preposterously soggy summer… everything else…. courgettes, beans are but fodder for the army of slugs, the nation of snails… oh tho the lettuces in the loft have done well …………… it’s been a fun, fascinating summer! lots of dashing about, enjoying things! like most folk, just haven’t felt to share anything much of it on here hope yours has been equally brilliant! just been down to sniff the sea, high tide, in the rain… it smells of ooh plumpness, sunday afternoons… and not suprisingly damp bedraggled dawg… rather beautiful really
viper’s bugloss! preposterous and ostentatious, a flower after my own heart… and a total bee magnet you can imagine the conversation: ‘hmmm.. i want purple flowers, with a blush hint of pink’ ‘where?’ ‘oh EVERYWHERE, as tho all stuck over, be-sequined!… a hippy hairy trunk… and, i want to be irresistible!… and AND give me a name that makes me sound well tough, Rattlesnake Trumpet or something!?’ there’s loads of this plant around here, tho i didn’t know its name till today, better not mutter borage daughter gave me a wild flower book last year, and sporadically i remember to look them up! super useful wild flowers have gone Rain Forest crazy at the mo, fecund, their loving the warmth, perpetual rain and sultry mist. Juuune
There are few things more glorious than the feeling of being in an oak wood on the cusp of it coming into leaf. these trees have belonged in my meditations most mornings recently Oak, old dodderer, lop-limbed, engrained in gnarl, but now the moment of unfurling of fresh leaf flourish almost ripped asunder by this wyrd meld… ancient, yet erupting in buoyant exuberance… soul alchemy aw i’ve missed the oak groves of surrrey (ha, people mbe not so much), round here what trees there are, tend to be beeches, at home on the chalk uplands frugal fagus, a delight in their own right, yet not much grows beneath the dark shaded canopy of a cathedral of beeches oaks tend to be more generous, sprawling haphazard euphorias of life! ashtead common is dotted with old old oaks, most of them are ooh 400 years, for the first few centuries they were pollarded (top branches lopped off) so grew portly stout, then immense since then, with peaceful neglect, huge limbs have grown up… occasionally these collapse from their own preposterous weight, but the oak, harrumphs, just gets on with it, genteel, beautiful dereliction others, half burnt, in a fire, throw jagged nightmare scare shapes a mix of woodland and also more open bracken savanna, guess the ruminants keep the young trees in check? pleasantly mixed and diverse I suprised a Red Deer in a woodland copse, up close, a substantial beast, it startled, rose from its haunches, then, bounding over branches, gallumphed away… proper medieval! tantaloo! soho! tho not sure in truth which of us was the more suprised? a strong, benign, warm gold, masculine energy… the deep grooved bark of quercus, bewhiskered oaks, trees which rumble with thunder (oaks are the species most likely struck by lightning) aw the colours of the new leaves, vibrant lime, yet tinged with oak apple brown, tannin, there to be seen, a unique harmonious blend of hues ha, enough of my half ruminated on woodland idyll! [traditional] our lady of the wood, the goddess, she glides, forever out of reach, assembled, in the soul, from this collage of fleeting sensation… a feeling, soft feathered touch, a glimpse of hair, green mantle glides past, wood anemones flower beneath her feet. blessings
tree of stars, tree of kisses, woven from bird song and delight the humble blackthorn, its majestic explosion, through blossom, into glory prunus, yes, hmm prunus what? latin genus neglected, for me it shall be: prunus flagrante! five petalled, eternal symbol of venus aphrodite the waft of almond and cyanide, underscored by the aroma of Ransoms from the island… fetid, fruity a dangle-age of catkins, the riverbank is home to alder, hazel, willow alders still stuck over with last years cones, chameleon prismatic tree, observed from most directions, it is sparrow brown, cheerful, yet something of the dowd yet, walk close spun around, suddenly it catches the light – pouts purple… a soul which blinks indigo by the river all is the fresh foam, bubbles, the drift of maya hazel, quicksilver skittish, ever bright shining whilst willow, the first in the race to leaf, grass snake medusa green yes, but poke a willow wand somewhere in the earth, it will leap to leaf, such the regenerative potency spring is a current, flowing, flowing through the land and i? why, whilst washing up, mired in thought, my litany of sorrows, the ledgers of resentment, strictly tallied and yet my body, a swift jitterbug staccato, gyrate, pirouette then body pop!… caught up by cadence and foible… the river of spring flows even here if you could know music, you would whistle an unheralded tune… but i glory more in dance … 3 times, i repeat the physical refrain… a spell in sinew, a postulation… this, the importance of acting out a half smile, my mind dwells momentarily on it, as though following through a chess strategy ‘hoppety knight jostles reluctant bishop?’ then, well, shake it off… shake it off baby! hunched over desk, mind quagmired in code yet somewhere, i am walking, this pilgrim stride, onwards, onwards to avalon brow turned upwards to the light eyes of stars, eyes of kisses, woven from bird song and delight it is spring
Aw such a wonderful, beautiful, profoundly intimate story of a relationship between two genius creatures (man and octopus) and the nuanced, calibrated world of the kelp forests… If you love the sea, or are just cephalopod like curious about the world watch it! Thanks to the many friends who recommended
puff nettle, puff daddy, puff the magic dragon! on sunshine shady days nettles emitt this weird mesmeric spool of smoke… its actually pollen… as NOT evidenced in the photograph… but trust me, was happening… they are wind pollinators i never knew of this curious phenommenon till, a couple of years back, elise and i observed it in the woods at the reservoir and deduced what was happening gandalf-ian smoke rings! something profoundly satisfying to curious close scrutinise nature, to wonder at a few of her beautiful mysteries and mechanisms this nature photography lark is tough… requires buckets of patience and something more sophisticated than my rubbish phone… spent at least 5 minutes trying to capture it, for nowt if the loch ness monster and big foot have a moonlit tea party waltz around the back yard, you can guarantee i’ll just have a fuzz grainy shot of cup cake crumbs… sigh
