Bye baby

bunting.

We're all adults here now.

Phew!

Poppies

and this post.

The end might be

nigh.

Dawn today, unedited.

Slightly scary.

Last light

Get out of that one

Well that didn't take too long did it?

Just most of Sunday,

with the aid of unhappy 'techies'

who don't normally do business with

a Mac if they can help it.

Thank you!

Tiddly, widdly*

I did a little tidying yesterday.

On the computer.

I really should have known better.

I seem to have tidied my photos beyond reach.

My son assures me that somewhere in the soft sandy passages,

amongst the roots of the hedges,

or in a distant storeroom,

my pictures are

quite likely

still extant.

*Mr. Jackson - Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse

Ooooh! Aaaah!

Newsagents don't put up displays like this anymore.

It was an altogether more sanitised affair in our local supermarket

with a fenced off area and locked cupboards

which we could only buy from on our way out.

But the names don't disappoint

Supernova

Ruby rose

Ginger Snap

Spider Flower

Jack in the Box

Turkish Delight

Jade Rose

Lemon Trail

Vaz Mataz

Zenith

Vineyard

Twist and Shake

Diamond Sparkler

Whizz Wheels

and neither does the packaging.

So the sausages are casseroling in hot chilli and tomato sauce,

the polenta is bubbling volcanically

and

the spiced apple juice has mulled.

Let the show commence.

Snippets

My first port of call for news and information these days

is the internet.

I can hardly remember how I managed without Google.

I have developed an almost insatiable appetite for snippets

and nuggets of this and that,

one thing leading to another in a dizzy dance

as I land lightly in the world wide web following a whim or a fancy,

an idea or just a momentary curiosity.

Click, click, clicketty click.

So when I uncovered this little book, lying in a cupboard,

it stopped me in my tracks.

News worth keeping?

Is any of the information I glean, worth keeping?

Inside, the pastel coloured pages are helpfully tabbed into categories:

General news, historical, biographical, literary, sport, politics, fashions, special articles.

Each page is divided vertically into newspaper column widths

for you to stick your clippings into.

Stick, stick, sticketty stick.

Ah. But we no longer take a daily newspaper.

A paper to read at breakfast,

a paper to hide behind,

to reach round for the toast and marmalade,

to peer over,

to doze over,

to jab crossly,

to shake,

to fold,

to read aloud from,

to look over quizzically,

to harumph at,

to linger over,

to lounge with,

to have delivered.

And then to cut up carefully,

and stick into your scrapbook.

I'm going to try it.

Possibly with a hat on.

Bleak Beauty

Beak beauty.

Bike beauty.

Rook beauty.

Roof beauty

Feeling good ...

on the way to Tate Modern,

in Miroslaw Balka's box of darkness -

because it was not very dark at all,

passing by Gerhard Richter's blurred scraped layers of oil on canvas,

waving goodbye to a tree,

listening to this on the car radio.

A credit to his parents

When a lovely friend from way back comes on a rare fleeting visit,

and she hasn't seen your wee bairns for a while,

naturally you hope that they will make a good impression.

So it was perhaps a little disconcerting for her to meet this one on the landing

on his way out to a Hallowe'en party:

So in the interests of redressing the balance

and with the faint suspicion that she might chance across this blog on her return,

I have been permitted to post this:

That's my boy.

But not for much longer.

There's an 18th coming up very soon.