Friday, April 04, 2025

Path, stars and wisteria.

1. The Common has dried out a lot since I was last out. There is a dusty path beaten smooth across the spot that is still rutted and ridged from when it was winter mud.

2. It's pretty late, but I'm going to sit outside and match the goings on in the sky to my star map. We've wheeled round since I last looked and there's an entirely different view. I'm only really out here because I'm responding to a prompt from Amy Bowers' Poetry Jam.

3. Even in the dark, I can tell the wisteria is about to bloom in its bare stems.

Thursday, April 03, 2025

Magnolia, no coat and weeding.

1. The drifts of pink and white petals drying in the gutters and flattened on to the pavement suggest that the magnolia on the corner of Belgrove in bloom.

2. It is warm enough that I forget my coat and have to go back and buzz myself in again.

3. Putting my fingers among soft leaves and soil and guessing which are weeds and which came from the packet of wildflower seeds.

Wednesday, April 02, 2025

Acer, proof and orange/blue.

1. The little rags of budding acer leaves, each one pencilled round in red.

2. We go through a maths revision worksheet about areas of shapes. I still marvel at how the area of a trapezium could be a+b divided by two and then multiplied by the height. I think I missed the lesson where we covered the proof, because I remember being allowed to 'discover' pi with a piece of string at the start of circle theory; and cutting up paper to show how the square of the hypotenuse can be made to fit into the squares of the other two sides. 

3. The warm sunset colours on the horizon fade up to night, and in between you'd be hard pressed to say whether you were looking at orange sky or blue sky.

Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Jackdaws, hot cross buns and listening to music.

1. Jackdaws are nesting in a capped chimney that I can see from my desk. They hang on the brickwork and fold their blue-grey bodies into an opening the size of a playing card.

2. The tiny variations in the basic range hot cross buns from different supermarkets. 

3. Turn and turn about, waiting for bedtime, we listen to each other's songs, and end up with Lightning Seeds Pure on a loop.

Monday, March 31, 2025

End at the beginning, whistler and no pressure.

1. To start the day by finishing a book.

2. I'm sure we knew that the emergency kettle is a whistling one; but we'd forgotten since we last had it out, and it's a pleasant surprise to hear it calling from the stove top.

3. Sunday afternoon pause: no pressure to browse and buy.

Friday, March 28, 2025

Cold remedy, simultaneously and delivery.

1. Decongestants are a modern-day miracle.

2. As I wave her off, two things happen: our neighbour's daughter comes out of their front door; and a blue tit stops to investigate the tree in our front garden.

3. Watching a lot of builders in orange hi-vis and plumbers in matching T-shirts and a truck driver in green hi-vis negotiating the wheres and hows of a large delivery of boards and insulation.

Thursday, March 27, 2025

Working coffee, dog violets and green tea.

1. Coffee with a few editor friends in the bright and airy auction house. The hour vanishes among a good brew and useful talk.

2. Suddenly, there are dog violets growing under the door step and between my herbs.

3. From among the washing up, the scent of the green tea I drank earlier.  

Path, stars and wisteria.

1. The Common has dried out a lot since I was last out. There is a dusty path beaten smooth across the spot that is still rutted and ridged ...