Ode to Late Summer

October’s clock strikes but a song!
I will not call you “Autumn”
for your season is not of change but continuation:
plentiful the scene - serenity of sky and
full green leaf without the inclination to fall.

What if spiders have snared the hedgerows
and reddened apples lisp with wasps?
While you your warming pardon shine,
that ( Read more... )

Admirable puddleshark who posts faithfully, even in trying circumstances, has put some seasonal Wordsworth poetry up on LJ, which made me feel very guilty about NOT posting some photos from my July visit to Wordsworth's Grasmere cottage.  The light conditions were unusually harsh so the photos are a bit glaring (to my eye) but that is certainly true to life ( Read more... )

On the coach journey to London, the greyness of the sodden landscape took its usual toll on my mood.  As a way of deflecting the gloom, I scribbled a brief piece of self-parody - my dislike of any months which aren't July or August is such a cliché!  Let's send it up:

AutumnLeaves fall and spirits drop ( Read more... )

As many friends are just beginning a fresh chapter in their autobiography with a new course of study - veterinary, Japanese, law, music - I thought I would post a haiku (written for my most long-standing LJ friend in 2009 but not previously shown here, I think) to wish everybody well with the challenge of learning.  I hope that you all enjoy a ( Read more... )

Finally I have seen the fourth BBC production (broadcast a few weeks ago as the last of a series of four Shakespeare history plays televised to celebrate our Queen's diamond jubilee) with Tom Hiddlestone as King Henry V, John Hurt as the Chorus and Anton Lesser as Exeter.


( Read more... )

I'm slow in catching up with these BBC Shakespeare productions but, at last, scrounged my way in front of a friend's TV to watch King Henry IV part ii, whost cast included Jeremy Irons, Julie Walters, Simon Russell Beale and Tom Hiddleston.

I found this a more satisfying episode dramatically in the 2012 BBC series than the first part of Henry IV.  ( Read more... )

Despite the unseasonal and relentless rain of this summer so far, the soft fruit (means fruit without a stone in the middle e.g. strawberries, raspberries, currants) has been delicious.  Between us, my mother and I managed to buy more raspberries than we could sensibly eat so I made a typical English trifle - raspberries and crumbled meringue in ( Read more... )

Did anyone see the BBC's adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II last night?  It was the first screening of four of Shakespeare's history plays, newly adapted for television as a celebration of our queen's diamond jubilee.  There are some well-known actors in the cast lists - Jeremy Irons, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale come to mind but I'm ( Read more... )

You maybe saw at least a trailer for Kung Fu Panda?  If so, you will have some idea of these animals.  Sorry that there is no mantis;  I've never had any experience of that style of kung fu even though it is quite well-known.

RL is quite frustrating at the moment so anything creative needs to fit into very, very small packages - like haiku.  ( Read more... )

When I visited Japan in late March 2009, I was fascinated by the cherry blossoms and the habit of hanami (friends and family meeting to look at the blossom and to eat and drink beneath the cherry trees as they flowered and shed petals over the food).  It was a very metaphorical experience.


( Read more... )