Monday, October 18, 2010

Help, dinosaurs and leaves.

1. Two boys -- maybe seven and eight -- in sunglasses sit waiting on the edge of the Pantiles. The bigger one helps the little one untangle the cord of his headphones, arranging it behind his ear and down his neck. The little one looks rather like a kitten, or a young chimp, submitting to a thorough grooming.

1a. Katie brings Baby Badger a yellow and green t-shirt from Ireland -- it says "The leprechauns made me do it."

2. Nick comes back from his gaming show at Crystal Palace. He took a walk around the park while he was there -- he said rather wistfully that it was full of dads and babies -- and came back with photos of the Victorian concrete dinosaurs. They are strange creatures lurking among the tree ferns -- they resemble crocodiles with dinosaur heads. The palaeontologists who designed the display believed that dinos were rather more primitive in the leg joints than we give them credit for today. The display makes me think of 1950s illustrations of the future, but in reverse.

3. Children in our park treat the fallen leaves like snow. They fling them at each other, hide under them and marvel at this strange new world.

Bud vase, tomato and the poem I needed to hear.

1. Among the faded cut daffodils that I'm putting on the compost heap there is one that will do for another day in a bud vase. 2. For th...