Joys of Winter

Had some broonie with my early coffe and it was lovely! I was generous with the walnuts. Next time I make it — and it will be a regular now! — I'm going to add a little malt.

Watched as Rory -
Big black feral cat
Stood aside for
Smaller tabby cat
Whilst she ate
From his tasty dish.
Under the hydrangea
Weeny tabby watched -
Waited for her turn
Eager to sneak a morsal.
Earned a gentle "clip around the ear"
From father-figure Rory.
Mother cat nods and thinks
Manners matter -
Patience pays dividends
Eventually!
Off the trio strolled
Full-bellied
Into the depths of the ancient wood.

Pleased to hear you liked it, bagitha. The Broonie is certainly a winner.

Bagitha Can you spare a wee portion to enjoy with my afternoon tea? And, just in case I should be doing my duty at the big house on your birthday, I would like to wish you lots of fun and laughter and a good deal of spoiling...

super - another great poem - again wonderfully visual. We really should have a GN anthology.

Butternut, I am going to buy the ingredients for the Brooonie right away. Bags has made me hungry which I have no right to be, after a bowl of leek and tattie soup thick enough to stand on.

Annobel Ooh! Yes please...a GN anthology would be utterly luverly

Turdus merula is the blackbird. Whoever named them didn't think a lot of them... Maybe resented being woken up by the little s...ts at 4 am on a spring morning?
I like troglodytes troglodytes - its the wren. Likes little holes in walls hence cavedweller cavedweller
Quite unrelated - pan troglodytes - the chimpanzee - cross between the god of the woodland and a caveman!!!

Just been on a lovely Welsh walk and saw choughs (pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax - i am guessing this means red bill - any Latin scholars? or is it Greek?) doing their aerobatics in a fierce southerly. Swooping, nose diving and trying to push each other into a mid-air stall. Sound like a jackdaw with laryngitis when they call. Never seen more than one in Gower before. Bring 'em on.

i meant firebill as in funeral pyre...

In 1974 I was teaching in Birkenhead and I entered this poem in a Christmas verse competition on Granada Reports (the 6.30 pm. TV local news and magazine programme). It won, out of 50,000 entries and that did more for my standing with my pupils than any of my qualifications!

Christmas, 1947.

Christmas was apples, nuts and tangerines,
Sweet and juicy, in tissue paper,
Scarce enough to be a treat,
A yearly miracle.

Christmas was a book, a jigsaw and a baking set
Not well hidden in mum's bottom drawer..
Christmas was playing with them carefully,
But still believing they came on Christmas Eve.

Christmas was a party in the classroom,
Hard ice buns, free milk and sticky sweets.
Father Egan's voice behind a white beard
And Mother Anna's tight mouth, smiling.

Christmas was 'The Vimto Book of Knowledge'
Proper books for school-fund bringers,
A childish bitterness, not forgotten,
Shaping a childish mind, resentfully.

Christmas was the smell of whiskey on the milkman's breath,
Mum with an unaccustomed sherry flush
Midnight Mass, believed profoundly
Candles, incense and a swelling choir -
'Gloria in Excelsis Deo'.

I think it won because it was different from the usual saccharine views of Christmas

Greatnan for a wonderful poem. Love it because it reflects the Christmas I knew and enjoyed so much.

jessM, corax is, as far as I remember, Greek for crow, but I'm puzzled about the 'pyrrho' prefix - don't think it means red billed because the yellow billed one is also pyrrhocorax. If it had to do with 'fire' it would be 'pyro' as in pyrotechnic.

Wikipedia says "The genus name is derived from Ancient Greek πύρρος (purrhos), "flame-coloured", and κόραξ (korax), "raven"" but as you say, the Alpine or Yellow-billed Chough is Pyrrocorax graculus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chough

Good work, Elegran! Have you got Greek characters on your computer?

Greatnan your winning poem evokes such lovely childhood memories for me, and one I had forgotten until now - that of my mum making mince pies on Christmas Eve, flinging flour everywhere but in the mixing bowl, with her second glass of annual sherry placed quietly at her side by my bemused dad. We four children gathered round, giggling as dad signalled us to 'shush!'

This'll clear it up. One of our Latin dictionaries says graculus means a jackdaw, "from its note gra gra". The Latin name for jackdaw is Corvus monedula. The other Latin dictionary says graculus means a jay also "from its note gra gra, and probably also a jackdaw", and this one mentions Pliny. The Latin name for a jay is Corvus glandarius. So, there you are, clear as mud.

No Annobel, I just copied and pasted that from Wikipedia. I believe you can get a Greek font, but remembering which key does which letter is probably tricky.

Bagitha mmmm We are all much wiser now.

Broonie is in the oven and I'm settling down to a while I watch Strictly, and before I tackle the chaos of the kitchen. Did I ever mention that I am the world's messiest cook? . Smells fantastic, btw.

I'm just about to bite into another slice of broonie.

My slow cooked chicken and vegetables are ready and the smell is delicious. No potatoes with them, just some chunks of fresh baguette.

We have a freshly swept chimney, so have a roaring fire this evening. Leeks and potatoes from the allotment turned into delicious soup with home made bread rolls warm from the oven for lunch - and a dinner of meat and veg casseroled and washed down with a few glasses of bubbly alongside my favourite person in the whole world. A calm oasis in the sea of life. (If you don't mind me mixing my metaphors - blame it on the bubbly.)

A chameleon-like day
Constanly changing -
Moody grey clouds
Spurred on by angry winds
Nudge each other across
A sullen sky.
Mighty white-topped breakers
Seek refuge on the silent shore.
Bronze bracken clings fast to razor-sharp rocks
A brooding burn
Cuts a dash through banks of heather.
And then -
Clouds drift away to other corners of the endless sky -
Now baby powder-blue.
The ocean pales and glints with sparks of light
Bracken shimmers
The burn chuckles -
A chameleon-like day
In bonnie Scotland.

....a bonnie picture, supernana.