Category: nature

eat more flowers! be a lotus eater… well thats been this years motto… yet another summertime experiment… honeysuckle iced tea with a sprig of garden mint
the taste is kind of watermelon-esque, with a bouquet of pumpkin, well at least to my hayfever addled probiscus
most of the fun is gathering the blossoms, an abundance up castle hill, thanks to sarah for pointing them out
appartently honeysuckle (woodbine!) flowers contain salicylic acid… aspirin! so good for all sorts of fever and footie induced hangovers
oh and probably for love charms too… i should coco

Steven: Looks like you’re naked Richard 🙂 Are you prepping for Buddhafield

aw, as well you know, to preserve its magical properties, honeysuckle must always be plucked whilst naked and cavorting in the dawn dew… you coming to the field this year? xx

brutal bone gnaw withering cold… i set off on my bike across the tundra twixt b&q and bishopstone… still air, yet brrrr the wind chill from the velocity of my own whizzing, had to slow down to lessen the shriek shatter ice cream head
passed a poor little dead shrew on the path (i love the word shrew, none of that Roman flounce, a simple country saxon name befitting the creature)
no bigger than a teasel, i could empathise with its last words frozen to lips… ‘unloveable. too small. big cold’
lacking gloves, i’d gone with a stripey sock on each hand, zig and zag, berated by puppets as i pedaled
forever sartorially flummoxed by winter! summer it’s sandals, cargo pant shorts, a 10 year old moth eaten t-shirt, what could be better?!
nowadays it’s all about layers, chunky knit colourful sweaters… ‘cept i don’t have any… jumble sale strewn, lurid acrylics, something of the dressing up box… widow twanky at the tour de france
even the sea can’t be bothered, usually a hurly burly, giving it a ‘bit of this, a bit of that’
but today a half hearted lap, lap, the sound of someone gently closing a patio door
dreaming of a giant knicker elastic powered catapult to hurtle me to the tropics
rhythm of the seasons, means i can write the same post every year! and not worry about it
yet… headed home… thinking of a friend from the prairies
each leaf, every bush, frost licked to brittle needle diamonds
a tree with arms flung up, fractal, exultant, here midst the whisper beauty light
winter

‘windfarm’, just a phone snap from a few weeks back, shakily taken from the top deck of the bus, as we wallowed along, on the cliffs near saltdean
i love this pic! they’re building the windfarm out of the port, so always a few bright orange windcats bustling about, joe the boy down the road is a big fan,
i don’t know how practical the project is, gotta be a good start, and makes sense that affluent, progressive, pleasant brighton should be wind powered (plenty of lentils, pulses and opinions, so fart and hot air powered somedays too!)
but photo more about hubris, just a minuscule speck lost in the majestic ocean, turner-esque, enthralled by light, the sea in all its power and majesty… a capricious mutable beauty

tho today its a bit of a pea soup out there, i can’t even see the sea, so am loitering pointlessly on here, when i want to be out on my bike!
oh and i poured the holy well, blessed water from the festival into the ouse yesterday… said a few simple words whilst watched over only by a white egret, no doubt singing cohens ‘bird on a wire’
it was around high tide, so i quite like the notion of not knowing whether the spring water would head upstream to lewes, else to merge immediately with the world straddling sea… water is oneness
‘love like water always flows to the sea’

darkness dwelling, a world engulfed within the palpable grey
huddle closer, fellow skull faces, gnawed at, gnawed at
so stuff my ears with cotton wool, well headphones on, listen to some sun drenched calypso
buy a psychedelic poncho off ebay… and a book on buddhism
gnawed at, season of harrow and wither, gnawed at, she is coming

spiderman! apologies for all those of the yeucch persuasion… she really is beautiful!
words of course nowt much to do with pics, nor that intriguing… beard looking a smidgin Ross unKempt… dad took his strimmer back recently
dial d for dali, apologies for the endless stream of selfies, rampant egotist… of course… ha, i just should have sufficent gumption and subtlety to portray myself otherwise
enjoy the autumn my lovelies! x

season of the nettle… early morning (before work) foray up the hillside to snip some stingers!
sacred to mars, robust and bristling with vigour, midst the sweet succulence of spring… Red with Iron, they always flourish on disturbed ground… and love being around man… apparently the Romans brought them over… along with the sweet chestnut
can just see them trudging up Watling Street, through puddles, whilst munching on a nettle sandwich… ‘oi spartacus, youv’e got spinach, no nettle, stuck between your teeth… again’ … off to grapple with some celts (‘the long and winding woad!’)
anyway, midst the early morning dew i assumed the appropriate stance, beat my chest three times …. then gave them the finger… they appreciate such theatrical bawdiness
donned the sacred gauntlet, unsheathed the ceremonial knife (marigolds and blunt rusty scissors) and clipped away!
only the toppest freshest tips… a few years back i inflicted nettle soup on the kids and greta… gruel… so today its gonna be penne with nettle and walnut pesto
washed down with a swig of whiskey (doesn’t count if its straight from the bottle)… and some montezuma chilli chocolate. kinda yum! x

The Brute throttled Red of Tulips, do like a splash of colour in the park, drawn even deeper with the lack of sun
of course, the hillside plump with gorse, canary yellow, refulgent with the summer pong of coconut butter
over the brim, yes, the wild, wild grey dirge of the sea

Knight of Cups
……..

this morning, whilst daydream pottering over a cup of Mint and Liquorice tea
found myself being stared down by a cat through the window, Obsidian stillness, killer gaze
curious, goes deep, this the knowledge of being watched, for once we were hunters… and the sometimes hunted
i would prefer wolves? yes she will come, and there will be many
but before, face you down, a moment of stillness, you will know it will happen, you will know
but a leopard? face in the bush? part of that the nameless dread…
dropping silently from above, else stealth pounce, all claw, fang then rend… the candle wick of life, snuffed to nothingness
….

yeah yeah psssssht, shoo… go poo in someone elses garden!…
ha, gosh gibberish, fortunately don’t get many leopards, or for that matter wolves round these thar parts