blah blah blog

I have picked a series of random photographs to go on this month's blah blah blog.
Mostly of animals lying around because that's when they are the easiest to photograph

Pixie waiting for the postman


But this picture of Pixie- who looks as if she's waiting for the postman, reminds me of the poem I wrote when I was quite young, hoping I would win a pony. The poetry competition was in a National Newspaper (Daily Mirror I suspect) and the poem had to be entitled The Postman. I've already written about how unethical it was to have a pony as a prize but as I was desperate for one I put pen to paper. This is what a remember I wrote:

I stand and watch through the window pane
 the scurrying leaves and the pattering rain.
I'm waiting for the postman - oh where can he be?
It's not for the parcels I'm hoping to see
but because he's my Daddy coming home for his tea."

Hardly Keat's season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. I obviously didn't win the horse. But I don't know where I got the idea from. My Dad was a brain surgeon.

Nancy flopping around by a newly planted climbing rose. Completely unaware that a badger cull is going to take place.

Pocket (quarter Bengal) exhausted as thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

I wonder what Shakespeare would have written and whether or not he'd have won the pony.

double, double toil and trouble
letters come and postmen bubble
fillet of a fenny snake,
in the post bag boil and bake
eye of newt and toe of frog
postman bitten by a dog ......

It is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness - this is the view from our road. I think the rounded bales  look like an art installation. Sadly none of this was thrashed by bare torsoed men a la Poldark.

The two naughty garden ducks. They have the whole run of the back garden. Meanwhile in the poly tunnel area motherduck and her two ducklings are all doing well and growing fast.

Probably Beezle's last picnic in the garden for this year. As he and Wittgenstein would say, "Wherof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

I love dahlias! They keep flowering through to the frosts so the house can always be filled with flowers.
Pixie's interesting fact is that when hippos are upset their sweat turns red.
Sounds a bit eye of newt to me.

Meanwhile Dear Reader - Stop the Badger Cull!!

The Coombe

by Edward Thomas


The Coombe was ever dark, ancient and dark.
Its mouth is stopped with bramble, thorn and briar;
And no one scrambles over the sliding chalk
By beech and yew and perishing juniper
Down the half precipices of its sides, with roots
And rabbit holes for steps. The sun of Winter,
The moon of Summer, and all the singing birds
Except the missel-thrush that loves juniper,
Are quite shut out. But far more ancient and dark
The Combe looks since they killed the badger there,
Dug him out and gave him to the hounds.
That most ancient Briton of English beasts.