Life in a small town.

Gorgeous George and Sneaky Pete.

Gorgeous George has three wives. He reckons he deserves them, for he really is the most georgous pheasant you've ever seen. He lives in our seven acre meadow, and as it is lambing time I see him and his wives three times a day as I do the rounds. There is nothing he likes better than to show off his golden feathers in the morning sun, to rattle his wings and greet the new day by crowing like a creaky gate. The three hens are quite unmoved by this ...

Its been a long hard winter, but today I heard a Curlew .They are back, haunting the hills with their strange cry. Not really a harbringer of spring, but a promise that it will arrive. A reminder to have faith.
The evocative cry, has inspired generations of poets and writers. They have tried to grasp its essence, they write about the memories it evokes rather than the sound it makes, like this from WB Yeats

O CURLEW, cry no more in the air,
Or only to the water ...

My Incomplete Reading List, I can't recall everything. My supply of new books has been curtailed through lack of space. The up side of this is that I've been re-reading books quite a lot this year. The list also shows a lack of focus on any particular genre. I seem to be leaving a recent Greek phase and looking for something else.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
The wind up bird by Haruki Murakami
2 Dan Browns (Unwanted ...

Mad Friday! The last Friday before Christmas, when all the local workers have their Christmas "do". All the pubs and restaurants of our little town are full of chrismas parties. The celebrants spill over onto the street and mingle with the local youth. A general pub crawl ensues. There is fighting, dancing, singing, fancy dress, snogging, throwing up and passing out. The girls from the Co-op hurl insults at the hairdressers from the high street, egged on by the lads from the tyre fitters. ...

Comedian's gardening thread put me in mind of my Mum. She's a gardener, untrained and instinctive. Her house is on an ex council estate that boasts an example of every kind of The English Garden within it. A common “look” there is overgrown-with-attractive-rotting-sofa-feature. another favourite concept is the weedy- lawn- full-of-kids- toys. Getting more and more popular is the flagged-over-for-parking, also the wooden decking-with-outdoor-pots-and-built-in-barbie mark the encroachments of ...