Joys of Winter

Butternut, what is that cake? - 'Mam's Boiling Brooney' - please?

The fuchsia outside the back door is still in bloom, and the rose at the front is having a final fling. But the birches are shedding their leaves now, and on a beautiful day like this, with the sun dappling the grass, it is peaceful.

"I thank You God for most this amazing
and for the leaping freshly spirits of the trees
and a blue dream of sky......"

(ee Cummings)

The quality of light is so beautiful this morning. It's glistening through the golden leaves of the trees outside my window and filling my room with light. The rooks and the seagulls are having shrill arguments, teasing one another and enjoying aerial bombardments - all the while being ignored by the garden birds below who are busily filling up from the peanut feeder and bird table.
I wish I had time to walk down to the sea this morning, but alas my first student will arrive shortly.

and

Would it be a good idea, in due course, to make a collection of our Word Pictures' and investigate whether or not they could be published in a small paper back book?

super, you have just made me so nostalgic for the West of Scotland - born and bred on the Firth of Clyde! Love that 'chattering, scattering...' and the description of the gulls - you have caught their movement so graphically. You are writing with an artist's eye.

to everyone who contributes such beautiful word pictures for us all to share.

Smoky grey sky -
The perfect backdrop for
The ghostly granite shapes
That loom out of the teal green sea.
A buffeting wind
Blowing candyfloss-like spume
On to the chattering, scattering pebbled shore.
Up-rise the screeching white gulls
Swirling, twisting, turning - before
Plummeting to the dark waves below
To be cradled in the ocean's liquid arms

Lucky bunny - we don't get them here which is a pity because they're so delightful - especially when fluffed-up.

The redpolls are back in force! Flock of about thirty today, whizzing between the silver birch (they go for the seeds in the samara (just looked that up cos I didn't know the name of the fruit)) and a spruce tree. Lovely little birds!

Thanks Annobel - it is very yummy!

Oh, Butternut I can almost smell that cake! What a lovely picture you draw.

They are a delight to watch each day aren't they? The birds are really stocking up for winter, we seem to be re-filling the seed containers every few days. There are lots of lovely berries on the hedges everywhere too, so I hope we are not going to have too hard a winter. Looking forward to Spring!

I love a stroppy robin and we had one after the cake crumbs!

It has been a beautiful, crisp late autumn day - robin on the doorstep again, nagging me, and I've been laughing at the starlings trying desperately to peck at the swinging half coconuts. And 35 miles from London!

Green finches, Goldfinches, Bluetits & a very stroppy Robin. Two very interested pussycats, that my hubby chased off with water pistol! They always move too quick for him. Very funny!

Our woodpile is stacked at last
Full of browns, greens and dusty creams
which match this day of mists,
So our log basket's fat and full
...for a while.

I made a cake - Mam's Boiling Brooney
With cardamom seeds, walnuts
cinnamon and raisins
Full of spiced browns, and deep sepia sugar
For the top.
I ate it sliced with a spread of butter
By the fire.

That was lovely,supernana - just lovely.

bagitha I shall do my utmost to purchase the book for Torben. It sounds delightful.
From time to time I write short stories in which wee man and I go on adventures. I like to bring the local wild-life into the tales. He has a special box in which his Mummy stores the stories for when he can understand and hopefully, enjoy them.

super, do you know the storybook Wet pebbles under our feet by Manya Stojic? You and the wee man would love it.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! He would indeed! I still have the pile of 'treasure' that my wee man brought up from our pebbly, musselly beach when he was here last month.

Such lovely word pictures since I last paid a visit

The islands are sheltering behind a curtain of mist
From a brisk rain-heavy wind.
The sea is gun-metal grey
Over which the playful waves scurry.
Gulls, like kites, cling to the air -
Dipping and diving without fear of falling
To the sharp-stoned beach way below.
And then there are rock-pools
Deep, dark and mysterious.
If only our wee man -
Cocooned in the concrete city
Could fly on the wind -
How he would relish
An hour in this magical place...

Yup, after 6 months it is beginning to be enjoyable... some days at least.

Delightful, JessM.

Out jogging?

Some of you obviously live in beautiful places. But I am lucky to live on the edge of the suburbs. OK here goes:

I found some PE teacher trousers
With zips in the legs
And a sky blue tee
New trainers and I, on our third date
Met by saturated air and trees
Parkside birches, shrugging off their glittering tears
Oak, still cloaked in tattered green gold brown
Hornbeam, raising its torch aloft
Ash, stripped to the grey blotched bone
The wood's leafmould paths rise enticingly
Hawthorn berries damp and darkening
Bare blackthorn twigs, green lichen, fat blue sloes
And my legs, willingly up the slopes

Thank you Butternut. I have.