Yellow

It struck me how appropriate yellow flowers are for Spring today. After the cold, gray,depth of winter the flowers appear warm and inviting in the sun, and yellow is clearly the best colour to reflect the sunshine. Those TV naturalists, nowadays frequently overexcited middle class women who bounce across the screen bathed in false smiles and bonhomie, such beings tell us that yellow is the colour insects recognise as a food source. As the year progresses flower colours change accordingly. Of course there are wonderful flowers of other colours around also, but there is a preponderance of yellow, and daffodils show this up most clearly. No wonder Wordsworth, a man enraptured with nature, and he had the cash so to be, wrote about daffodils, although the ones he came upon were of course wild daffs, and slightly different to these seen here. They would of course be seen clearer if the blustery wind had not kept moving the blighter's around! 

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:-
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

Dove Cottage: The Wordsworth Museum

Writing

Today, after completing my exercises, walking through the bright almost Spring like sunshine, and avoiding the seriously important jobs that I had to do, I sat down to write something. Inside my head there appeared that gray mist that often accompanies this desire, and desire it was at first. I had the fingers twitching over the keyboard and yet the gray matter remained misted over. No thoughts crashed into my head like a battleship cutting through the fog. Just mist and nothingness. Cynics may add at this point a comment that they can jolly well keep to themselves, yes Fishy I was thinking of you!  So I thought about this carefully and tried to come up with something original, practical, humorous, newsworthy or spelt correctly without the aid of the spell checker! Nothing came!  

There is of course the Edinburgh Derby at the weekend. The Heart of Midlothian will be taking on the Hibernian, a small Leith outfit of little importance, in a game which gives bragging rights to the victors and despair to the Hibs. Since the first meeting in1875 the Men in Maroon have won a vastly superior number of games than the Hibbys. That is why the Hibs wear green, it reflects their jealousy of the Heart of Midlothian, the Big Team! However our friend Mike has written perceptively about this game and the effects it can have on the individual on his excellent blog On the Terracing.

I could write about walking about in the sunshine, listening to the birds preparing nests and singing in the trees as I passed. This would mean noticing the way these English folks respond to the sun. You see I could tell that there was a chill in this bright sunshine simply by opening the window, yet these folks here rush outside in the sun in T-shirts and even shorts! Now I can understand this when youth is involved, it is not done to wear heavy clobber when there is a chance to show your strong or for the lassies to show off their bits.(Not that I'd notice) However a fat lass revealing her tummy as well as the reason she was chucked on the streets is unnecessary in my view! Most managed to get through the day happy in the sun brightening life and relishing the idea that winter may almost be over. I think we all hope so. This of course does not matter to those residing in warm climes with pretty girls and smug grins. They know who they are also! Bah!

How about the list of 'To Do' that sits beside me? There is a page full of things listed and requiring attention. It never fails to amuse me just how many have not been scored through signifying completion.

Clean the Loo 

Fix bike gears (still not done)

Visit Favourite Blogs (Yup!)

Make Oatcakes

Sleep (managed this one)

Exercise (Yup, that too!)

Found a job? (WAAAAAHHH!)

Despair (Yup, done that....)

Cook Mince

The excitement is never ending here.....

A sight of Spring

Digiscoped

A very interesting site with great pictures!

Today we had a taste of Spring and delightful it was too! The sun came out, once the rain had decided to stop, and the sky turned blue. I even heard the delightful cry of a Greenfinch at the window after it discovered the peanuts hanging there. I suspect he was calling to his mates to inform them of his find but none came to join him. This is a pity as I enjoy listening to the Greenfinches and Blue Tits chirping away at the window. On occasion I have had young Blue Tits come in the window disorientated, and had to chase the fearful wee birds out again. Alas one even flew into the front window and killed himself one year, apparently thousands do this as the reflection fools them. Now I have the plant there it does not happen. Actually a pigeon also managed this feat but got up and moved away afterwards, somewhat shaken! A but if this is merely a passing glimpse of Spring I am happy. The cold easing off just for a day is to be desired. Spring will soon be here! Hooray!

 

So the press have won! John Terry made the mistake of attempting to block publication of his private life, and the press do not like that. The stupidity of a judge, possibly jealous of Terry's earnings and low grade occupation, supported the media's clamour for information that had nothing to do with them. Since then there has been a witch-hunt based on supposed morality, and this from the gutter press?  I suppose it is true that had Terry offered to drop the captain's arm band the power may have been lessened, but once the combined low level media attack they do not let go. Today the manager, Capello, removed the captaincy from John Terry in an act of sheer cowardice! A cowardice already noted when the English F.A. passed the buck onto him rather than deal with it themselves. 'Suits.' who can rely on them? A disgrace!Terry ought to walk away from England now, much as I have normally no time for him it cannot be said he has been well treated and he ought to walk away and let the press see the damage they have done. 

Funny how his, estranged, wife was photographed wandering about quite obviously posing for the cameras on a Dubai beach. Maybe he had a reason to go after a better woman? Who can tell in any marriage, and who can tell when the man earns £150,000 or so a week? Did she marry him for him or the cash? Would she be with him if he played for Rochdale? The whole thing stinks of hypocrisy and the media stinks most of all!

Now I am not one to complain as you know...

However there are occasionally little things which can interfere with my normally quite, demure, reticent attitude. Today it was rain! It threatened to rain last night, the weather girls (who never return my letters, except that one who sent her lawyer and two police officers round) promised big black clouds and abundant rain all day and all night. They lied! When I arose the clouds were gathering joyfully overhead, attempting to rain but failing to fulfil their potential. By eleven of the clock when I eventually squeezed my corpulent stomach under the steering wheel of the imitation Maserati in which I endeavour to learn the rudiments of safe driving the sun had come out! Now normally this is good, and while appreciative of the situation we were soon to find problems.

While coursing through the back roads of the county, round bends and sharp turns on roads that grew over hundreds of years possibly because of the drunkenness of the locals, taking in with the corner of my eye the ancient timber framed, brightly coloured houses, fields of bright yellow rape crops, and the woman driver three inches from the rear my boot, "Why don't you just sit in the back seat dear?" While doing this it started to rain. Here it comes as promised we thought, heavy downpours, flooded slippy roads, and the occasional daft motorcyclist (twenty seven were killed on these roads last year!) ahead. Wrong! It merely left big drops of rain on the windscreen which grew in number until I had to switch on the wipers. Normally this has been no problem, however Spring being Spring and the seasons specific delights revealed themselves and we discovered just how many dead flies had met their maker on the windscreen! As the wipers made their weary way back and forward, back and forward, back and forward, we not only found ourselves falling asleep, asleeeeep, asleeeeeee BEEP! BEEEEEP!!! but we also became aware that we could see nothing for the streaks of fly remnants everywhere! This mucky blemish naturally occurred as I reached tight right hand bends hidden behind high hedges and aged buildings or hindered the view as cars appeared from narrow lanes that emerged behind Inns that had encouraged Englishmen for centuries to misshape the roads as they made their weary way home. Squirting water onto the screen helped for almost minutes as the blades worked double time and helped in no way as I struggled to go through villages whose roads were not built for more than one bullock cart and three drunk Englishmen. The drunks remained but the Bullocks have long since been turned to soup. As we neared home two hours and much sweat later the instructor, somewhat too eagerly I thought, mentioned that the sun was showing itself again. I was glad we were on the long, almost straight, road home as it allowed me to glance upwards and glower in the skies direction.

These trips not only educate me in the way of the idiot driver, and we have met a few out there, but I can glance at the centuries of history that we pass in between crunching gears and ignoring speed limits. The picture is of Long Melford church and the red brick 'Trinity Hospital' (Old folks home to you & me) an ancient loooong village that was there when the Romans passed through, contains two huge Tudor houses and masses of red brick walls and rich Suffolk folk. This area was once the breadbasket of England (that's England as opposed to the UK folks) and wool was the reason for the wealth. The people of this area not only provided the occasional king, many nobles who thought they should be king but they also enjoyed the god Mammon so much they have managed to keep their grasping hands on much of the wealth ever since. They also eat bread, as there is always a bread van parked in an awkward position when we pass through.

Spring being the best time of year it is wonderful to see the white flowers growing at the side of the roads, the green fields, some of which appear to be well ahead of schedule, and the views over the gently rolling landscape as I miss the turn through watching the gently rolling landscape and plough through Farmer Jones bright yellow crops. Small birds attempt suicide as we pass by flying low over the roads, large one dominate the sky, rooks and crows jealous of their territory and a Kestrel high above watching minute movements of rabbits or voles or anything that spells lunch! At least today, being a holiday, there were no tractors with their huge tyres pushing us into the verge, no women driving huge 4x4's as the schools were closed and dad, if he is still around, drives his expensive vehicle, and we managed to avoid those who headed for the coast or the big garden centres that attract shoppers on such occasions like the instructors windscreen does.

A good day in the end, we survived!

A Problem Solved

I had cause to drag my weary bloated body outside into the sunshine today. From the north facing window I laughed at the English attitude of wearing shorts and T-shirts simply because the sun is shining. The cold biting wind howling up the street appears to go through them and they don't notice this! I have to laugh. However I put on my cap and jacket and made my way to the computer shop. I ignored the dank, cheap looking PC shop round the corner, the one with the dubious employees, and went to a safe reputable company. I was after a filter. I was assured by one of said company talking on local radio yesterday that this was the answer to my problem. The problem was that I could not use the PC and phone at the same time, one or the other was OK but not both together at it ought to be on broadband.

The shop was expensive, and the man there as cheerful and helpful as I would be had I spent the night sleeping rough in a railway station in mid January! So I disturbed you fixing someones machine, no doubt at great expense, and you had to sell me £4:95 worth of filter, which cost the company 66pence I presume, so sorry! As I questioned why it was different from the one I had in my hand you could have explained they came in a variety of shapes rather than be dumbfounded as I clearly was. Sorry I asked! However, in spite of my ignorant doubts and much confusion, it works! Now I can use both PC and phone at the same time. Nobody calls of course! I will set up the ansafone tomorrow and discover just how few people actually call! Not counting spam and bailiffs.

On the way back I wandered around by what we here call a river. Now having been brought up overlooking the Firth of Forth, which is well over a mile wide directly in front of me, I have to call this burbling stream of six to ten feet wide, a river? Tsk! Certainly during winter it helpfully bursts its banks and floods those houses thoughtfully built in the flood plain, but really to me it remains a wee burn, not a river like they ought to be. Still, as the sun shone and I began to sweat a little, I got a couple of snaps of the water, managing to avoid the plastic bottles, 'Costa Coffee' cups and floating bodies that pass by. Once again i could listen to the birdies sing in the trees, the water gurgling by and the splash as another urchin falls in when mum sits there smoking funny cigarettes. All part of life's rich panoply I guess. Crivvens it was warm when I got back mind. I was sweating like a pig, and here I was with my cap on and the jacket, cold in winter air, proving heavy and clammy in the sun. T- shirt tomorrow!

Another Spring Morning

Another chance to wander through the park and enjoy the aroma of wet vegetation. Another chance to watch gray clouds scud by. Another chance to watch drookit squirrels chase one another through soggy wet leaves and frighten the birds happily ensconced there. Another day in which to wonder why the shoes on the feet are on the feet considering the holes in the soles of each one. Still, you can tell it is Spring as the weather is warmer and the people passing by are wearing thin shirts and Spring fashions. Naturally they are soaking wet but being English they have not realised it yet!

Spring is coming

Some say it is here.
Little blue and yellow flowers are appearing on the verges. The milder weather enables lighter clothing, only three jumpers and two jackets, sometimes no gloves are required! Today the sky was blue and only the last of the dirty big rain clouds darkening the sky as they head towards the continent irritate. The trees are beginning to bud and the birds are pairing off and nest building happily in the rather chilly sunshine. Their cheery songs brightening the day. Lassies wear less and do the best to make the boys look and the girls bitch. I expect the clocks will change once again (Spring forward and Fall back?) and the 'Daily Mail' will bitch about these changes costing the UK money. Ah Spring, when young men's fancy turns to thoughts of love, as if they had been thinking of anything else anyway? Young women had naturally been concentrating on domestic skills, developing business knowledge and complaining that men had it easy. They never looked at the boys, ever.

Spring, the Sweet Spring

from Summer’s Last Will and Testament by Thomas Nashe (1600)

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king, Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing: Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! The palm and may make country houses gay, Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay: Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! The fields breathe sweet, the daisies iss our feet, Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit, In every street these tunes our ears do greet: Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!

Saturday Weather

Ah Saturday! A day to get away from the stress of the work week and enjoy the world around us!

Not much change for me then.

However, today the sun shone, the sky was blue and, dressed appropriately I entered the outside world. Immediately I almost froze to death! Someone forgot to turn the heat up! Why O why does the sun shine so brightly yet not give off any heat? Is it because the energy folk have turned it down in an attempt to save money for their shareholders? However I wondered along part of the old railway enjoying the Finches singing in the trees. How lovely to see the little birds singing as they chase among the branches, often stopping to drop little messages on you as you pass. A blackbird sang to me as I walked so I sang back to it. A little woman walking her dog accelerated somewhat as I responded to the bird, and I thought she was moving rather to quickly for someone her age.

When in lived in London I used to fantasise about walking through the country.Being surrounded by houses and streets gets to you after a while. One job took me on a hundred mile drive and yet we never left the built up area. The driver was worn out at the end of that particular route. I was OK. Out here I am close to the countryside and that need for greenery has lessened. I can actually drive through the country once a week, and sometimes catch glimpses of it over the tightly gripped steering wheel.

As I turned back at the far end of the line I saw high above the industrial estate, a flock of pigeons hurrying around in a large flock.They were concerned about the sparrowhawk, or was it possibly a Kestrel, not far off. That hunter was itself accompanied by a large black crow. The pair reminded me of a Spitfire chasing a Messerschmidt, the two of them circled around, a mere foot from each other, until the dangerous had been escorted out of the area. he was very lucky as usually there are a large number of crows (or could they be rooks) in that area. For him this could have been very dangerous! The Saturday hordes, intent on saving their cash in these recession hit days, carried on regardless of the trauma overhead.

Later I noticed it was after five in the evening and the light was still good. Almost like Spring! So I wandered around, looking for left over veg from the emptying market place, and returned home disappointed with my meagre finds. Ah me, another week at the soup kitchen then.

However as I got home I managed to note the pic above. It does not convey how pink the sky was at the time but the idea was there. The best time of the year is when the nights get shorter and the days longer. The girls wear less to attract the men they fancy - and then walk with their noses in the air if you look at them, especially if you are not the one they fancy. Some indeed react very strangely if you suggest ways in which they could pass their time, at least that one near the robins nest down the old railway reacted somewhat strangely to my suggestion today, I am not sure whether there was the need for all that screaming as she ran off myself.....

A Mixed Saturday

Getting up early this morning I decided to wander around Sainsburys for the weekly fruit and veg. I knew that with it being a holiday weekend, and with snowflakes attempting to fall, that the market stalls would not turn out today. Naturally, as I left the store, I could see the usual veg man trying to erect his stall in spite of the wind fighting valiantly against him.
I then attended to the clean up and washing and all the other things that must be done on a holiday weekend when some folks are enjoying a break and I am plodding around looking for Somerfields own brand washing powder. Well it is actually a kind of purple liquid but you know what I mean.
Smugly satisfied with myself I then turned to the main project of the day, attempting to complete the reinstalling of XP that I began yesterday. All day I spent downloading, installing, scratching my head, installing, querying, and installing till the candle was near the end of its life. Naturally my work had not been completed, I still had to connect to the web and reinstall OE. Today that was accomplished, and some hours later Outlook Express finally allowed me to use it. It is one of the wonders of this computer world that instructions for a wide variety of computer hard and software come incomplete! However I had wisely kept the secret hidden away and, once I remembered this, Success was achieved.
The word success does not include sound of course. No sound whatsoever can be obtained at the moment. 'No audio device' it claims, although I do get a buzz every so often - not like that - so something makes a noise. Oh yes, and the 'floppy' still wants a disk inserted in 'A.' So that is lost also.
However I managed to make an almost uneatable soup out off a wide variety of near penicillin veg that I had lying around. That I used tonight to take away the taste of the 'Flanders Curry' that I had for lunch, with oatcakes. The dole office have never suggested I take up cooking for a living, which is just as well. I once fed beautiful young lass who worked for the environment folk at the council. She closed down my kitchen! While doing this I listened to Sky Sports as the season begins to draw to an end. My ears were anxious to hear the good news of our mighty hammering of Falkirk at Tynecastle today - it never happened. It seems instead we had a dreary nil-nil draw which does not suit us at all. There will now be a moment for sympathy.

Thank you.

An unusual thing did occur tonight mind, I laughed at 'You've been Framed!' One of the sequences had me in tears of laughter and that has not happened for a long time, tears of woe and despair oh yes, but laughter - no! Mind you some folks blogs have come close to it in recent days. Usually deliberately!

But as I looked out of the window I realised just how much I love Spring. The birdies flit cheerily through the trees, singing happily while they begin the breeding season, maybe that's why? The chaffinches and robins, dunnocks and blackbirds pour out their song brightening the dawn. One advantage when I was a postman was to hear the dawn chorus beginning as I cycled to work, marvelous that was. High overhead a kestrel may circle or hover while seeking out the tiny speck that is a mouse or vole far below. Wood pigeons coo irritatingly loudly outside folks windows long before the alarm clock has threatened them into life. Massed ranks of rooks or crows,(who knows the difference?) caw loudly high in the trees, and somewhere a thrush takes time off from listening intently for the worm and instead sings beautifully while announcing that this is his patch so clear off. Among the trees covered in budding leaves are masses of bluebells showing through the darkening floor. Daffodils can be seen in many places, and snowdrops and little blue flowers begin to appear. Lovely, just lovely. The sight cheers the heart, a lightness within accompanies the lightening of the skies above, and the sun climbing higher each day, ensuring the sky is that little bit deeper blue, and the whole world appears a better place. No wonder folk in Norway and Finland who suffer six months darkness each year go bananas! That is enough to turn anyone into a Viking invader!

Admittedly, being Easter, the weather would turn a tad chilly. There is a slightly cold front moving from the north, starting at the north pole and passing through Iceland picking up snow and ice on its way. Kind hearted as it is the front is leaving Spring snow all across the highlands and down the east coast of England. Some of it has been plastering itself against my window all afternoon! To be honest it is bright and sunny at the moment but I can see in the distance another huge dark gray cloud heading towards us. From the light blue sky above small sleet like flakes are drifting by, doing their best to grow up into snowflakes. Now in my humble opinion, if the ice flows are melting, glaciers shrinking, and the Maldives and other places beginning to flood maybe it would be a better idea to keep all this white stuff up there in the north where it belongs? Could we not persuade the weather folk to do something about this?
Clouds have always fascinated me in some ways and I can see why Constable put them in his pictures so often. I doubt he realised just how large a cloud could be. In the far distant past I flew home to Edinburgh and the whole journey was above cloud. Later that night the weather forecast showed the size of the cloud. The picture revealed one single cloud that stretched for thousands of miles from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic to the centre of Asia. What a size! Add to this the variation in the clouds, what the meteorologist will understand from them, and what they comprise, it just leaves me wondering in the same way I do when confronted by other elements of creation such as the sea, or mountains. Fascinating. Wonderful stuff, but I would really rather get sunburned somewhere in the Mediterranean!

I am however suffering that guilt that turns up every so often. The guilt caused by talking to my mother! My Mum is a wonderful person and does so well for someone who is 93. However while I want to keep in contact I really find less and less to share with her. My conversation is limited at the best of times, and she is trapped indoors too much at this time of year, and after discussing the weather, the 9 year old, what she eats, and nothing else really there is nothing to say. Women need to converse in a way men don't, and all to often this is plain boring, and add to that my life being very different for the family up north, and indeed everyone else on the planet, it is a very trying time. Until my sister died things were OK, she would call and talk for hours about nothing, and she was just around the corner, not 400 miles away! It is so frustrating, and made worse by here deafness. I am not going to spend all night shouting down a phone!
So nearly every time I call I end up full of guilt, and angry! I want to do more, and I don't want to spend time talking about her dinner for an hour-again! Excuse me, I am just off to gas myself!