BIRDS, BIKES, BOTANICS and more in the RAINBOW NATION. With Barbara’s sister to visit and our daughter to meet at the end of her African adventure, South Africa beckoned. Our timing proved to be fortuitous for while we were away the whole of the UK was gripped by a prolonged icy blast and carpeted in […] Continue reading → 
FOOL ON THE HILL FOOL ON THE HILL “Day after day, alone on a hill The man with a foolish grin Is keeping perfectly still…… ……….The fool on the hill sees the sun going down And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round” So sang Paul McCartney on the 1967 Beatles E.P. […] Continue reading → 
HIKING AND BIKING with a little HITCHHIKING During breaks from painting our kitchen, Scott the decorator and I chatted about our mutual interest of cycling. He is an avid mountain biker with a strong Strava App digital record to show for it; all along the top of Helvellyn being just one example. When recounting such […] Continue reading → 
HARVEST “ Every one of us is now in the position of the indigenous Americans when the Europeans arrived with guns and smallpox; our world is poised to change vastly, unpredictably and for the worse.” (1) This statement by Jonathan Franzen on the consequences of global warming pulls no punches. Just how shockingly apt this […] Continue reading → SWEET SUCCESSES In a recent book review, Alex Preston made this observation of the work:(1) “here there’s a rigorous honesty about the disappointment that so often lies at the heart of nature watching (and makes all the sweeter our fleeting successes.”) There is a lot of truth in this remark as I’ve discovered during some […] Continue reading → 
NEW HORIZONS TWO “I got my new horizons out to see” With the Moodies already in the back of my mind, it was no surprise that this lyric from a classic Hayward track hummed away as we drove down the M50 to mid Wales.There we were to spend a few days at Garddfady Farm home […] Continue reading → 
NEW HORIZONS ONE “The thing is”, writes Annie Dillard in her essay ‘the Weasel’ (1) “ to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse.” Reading this, as I went about my daily post hip-op exercise routine, spurred me on. […] Continue reading → 
METAMORPHOSES From ‘singles’ to ‘albums’ From caterpillars to chrysalids And some lessons learned. Reflections on Metamorphoses With a little imagination metamorphosis can be applied to diverse forms of life from the obvious to the unlikely. Anyway that is what I will try and show. Let’s start with a reflection on the latter. Back in the […] Continue reading → 
WHAT’S NEXT Buttock scrunch times ten Ankle flex and knees depress, This is rehab.Yes. Many repetitions and chanting of my rehab mantra see me well placed five weeks after my hip-op. The downtime between each of the daily four sessions has been devoted to reading with the Dave Hepworth review of the music of 1971 […] Continue reading → 
“Music is playing inside my head Over and over again My friend, there’s no end to the music…” (1) And so it was, as 2016 was being brought to a close, with the launch of a new supergroup. (See previous article entitled “My back pages” ) Specialized was joined by two new partners courtesy of […] Continue reading →