Overtaken by events

Of course I have dozens of pictures from our New York trip.

Parks, museums, streets, meals, family outings,

Trick or Treating, iconic buildings and bridges, wildlife,

autumn colour, quirky sights.

You can probably imagine most of them.

I should put them up, as a reminder of an intense and amazing experience,

but what with my computer struggling to upload said pictures

while Photos fights with iPhoto

and me struggling to imagine what's going to happen now,

the following is the best I can manage.

It's bathetic I know.

Big Bird takes a moment in Central Park.

Dead bird lies on a Manhattan pavement.

Flowers in and out of the house and country

Peonies à la Jane.

Roses in the garden.

Naturalistic wildflower planting

in the Jardin des Tuileries this weekend.

A florist on the Quai aux Fleurs, Isle de la Cité, Paris.

September

The lighting of the first fire since early Summer

now usually takes place.

And how pleasant it is, as the evenings close in,

to draw up to the hearth with the feeling that

the fire is not yet the only barrier

between us and extreme cold and discomfort,

but is merely an excusable luxury

letting us down gently and easily

into the chilly months to come.

How delightful, too, to be able to carry in

odd pieces of wood and fir cones 
found lying beneath trees -

all of which, when much heat is needed,

are not of great value -

but which now give a feeling of thrift,

and the idea that one is saving coal

for a time when it will be essential.

And lastly the woods now take on a quality

unknown in any other month.

After the dull, monotonous green of late Summer,

it is a relief to see the leaves beginning to thin a little,

and the form and shape of trees -

hidden from us since early June -

revealed once more in all their bare beauty.

The dead green gradually, very gradually,

lightens and faint yellows,

tinges of red, russet 

and copper appear.

One last pleasure September has yet to give -

perhaps the greatest or at least the most thrilling of all.

It is towards the end of the month that the gathering

of the first autumn mushrooms is almost a certainty.

Nothing quite comes up to the picking of 

the first September mushroom,

partly, no doubt, because in doing so

one has got the better of one's neighbours,

partly, one must own, because one is

getting something for nothing

and partly, one must own,

for gastronomic reasons.

From Garden and Hedgerow by Ethel Armitage

published 1939.

No walk in the park

In August, two years ago, while walking in Greenwich Park,

I noticed tiny white tufts growing at regular intervals in the grass.

I bent down to examine them and found that they were plastic.

How strange.

Only later did I discover that they were markers 

for the Olympic cross country event.

 Yesterday, we attended the first equestrian event

of the Paralympics at Greenwich Park.

Great Britain's Natasha Baker posted the highest dressage score, 

riding Cabral in driving rain, 

which started just as she entered the arena.

The penultimate rider, Barbara Minneci rode Barilla,

an Irish Sport Horse, sidesaddle.

It was easy to forget why this was not just a walk in the park

for any of the competitors, 

who performed with poise and precision

on their light-footed horses.

 The commentator repeatedly asked for no applause

until the horses were reunited with their handlers,

so I'm clapping loudly now.

50 things

The National Trust has compiled a list of

50 outdoor activities children should try

before they reach 11¾ years.

I asked my son to check the list honestly

and he found 42.

He probably didn't achieved this score 

in the allotted timespan but I was happy with that.

Then I wondered how much of the list I could tick off

and found 38.

Swimming under the Pont du Gard at night

into a cloud of white moths rising from the surface,

is one of my more surprising memories.

Swimming in a Welsh tarn 
was certainly the iciest.

Running

Went to the park for a run
for the first time after a long break,

channelling my inner Ueli Steck.

Fair weather or foul

Even though we are officially suffering from a winter drought,

and I should be glad of the rain,

I'd like this weather back please.

I'd also like to have this back:

insured for £500,000, melted down for scrap worth £750,

I rather took it for granted as I ran past it most mornings,

but now that it is gone, it does indeed feel as though,

 'a finger has been chopped off'.

Barbara Hepworth said that she related her large works

to her diagnosis of cancer in 1966.

'It was the same in 1938. If war is imminent, or you're very ill

or something's threatening, you want to put something down

for big work while you can.

I was an absolute fever of ideas, without much hope of fulfillment.'

Some more big work is urgently needed.

Urban river

 This river is in a surprising oasis of rural tranquility

in a less than idyllic urban desert.

We're very glad that they cleaned up the abandoned

supermarket trolleys and burnt out cars,

but the ducks have the right idea, 

you feel safer in pairs.

Dreads and panics

   

Gulls and terns are closely related.

They seem to fly like embodied spirits clad in grey and white,

though some have black hoods,

and some have black on their wings.

The long-winged, long-tailed terns

are altogether more volatile and dainty

and less aggressive than the larger and heavier-built gull tribe.

Terns, even when undisturbed by man,

will rise up suddenly from their breeding ground 

and leave it deserted for a while as they float together in the sky,

moving silently and in a compact cloud over the sea. 

These movements have been called 'dreads' and 'panics',
but it is obvious that fear is not always the impelling motive.

Whatever the cause, the result is inimical to the survival

of the species, as the nesting ground is left exposed

to the attentions of predatory neighbours.

  

Collective flight in birds often appears to be so instantaneous

that some writers have suggested it is governed by a form of

thought-transference taking place over the air-waves

or vibrations of which we know little or nothing.

Taken from

   

King Penguins Birds of the Sea by R.M.Lockley.
                                                                

Duck therapy 3

I used to run with a friend in the park

five early mornings out of seven.

We ran in all weathers, for years.

We never got any faster 

and we never ran any further than one circuit.

Actually we didn't even run all the way,

the track was handily marked in 100 metre sections

which we ran and walked alternately.

It's called fartlekking apparently.

The object was not physical fitness,

or weight loss,

(the cappuccinos in the cafe afterwards took care of that)

but it certainly helped with mental wellbeing.

We took it in turns to offload whatever was on our minds

from the preceding day's events.

Big or small, they got a thorough airing.

And on the way we noted the changes

that the seasons brought.

The change that the last season brought,

was the end of our running.

I walked the circuit in the late afternoon sun.

It seemed very long and the light was all wrong.

So I was the mad woman talking to the ducks

and being cold shouldered by the pigeons.