Cornucopia of musings: thoughts on a blustery walk

Dog and I nearly blown away.

So windy that couldn't hear what I was thinking, or couldn't focus on one thought for long enough before it was whisked away. One or two held on tenaciously and are here written below ...

Note to self - take antihistamine tomorrow! Although can't understand how there is any pollen left outside! In this gale, it should all be heading straight for Northern Europe, or maybe it is hanging around to mix with the volcanic ash heading our way, so creating a really toxic mix for our eyes and lungs over the next few days.
Poor farmers. While the grass in our garden is rapidly turning brown, the fields around here are so cracked, you could lose a child's foot down the holes. The only consolation is seeing the nettles clearly struggling, and hanging limp - heard the other day that the Romans used nettles to 'cure' arthritis, tho' can't see that going down well with ancient relative - "Here Mum, I've brought you your nettle wraps" - think I'd be sued for geriatric cruelty.
Ran a bit today. So WTD is good for me after all, or might be if I keep it up. Actually, have a date with a rather nice dress in twelve days and would really, really like to be in better shape, and then there's our holiday in eight weeks and the annual embarrassment that is pool-side wear. I've said it now (or blogged it) so will have to keep it up - if I never mention it again you can safely assume I'm sad, fat and ashamed.
Need to write more fiction ... watch this space. You'd think getting a rejection email this morning would halt me in my tracks but for now it has done the opposite. Don't groan too loudly, please! Need to resubmit - with fingers tightly crossed - but also need to write.

That's nearly all. Dog dizzy with the wind, ran himself into exhausted heap and is now collapsed on the kitchen floor. Snoring! So comatose that he ignores the builders who have finished tearing our house apart and are now putting it back together again.

Finally, I surprisingly slept quite well last night (no nightmares!): see Exams! blog below.

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Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn&#

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful. Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten!

Curlews, summer skies and walking in circles.

Summer skies over the Yorkshire Dales and my mind is set to rest mode. But that rest is not totally restful; there is a niggle ... a memory, a hint of childhood, something that unsettles slightly - a light brush stroke of discomfort; a gossamer breath of discombobulation and a 'Woah! Wait a moment!' moment of 'that's-not-right!' - we're about as far from the sea as it is possible to be in middle Britain and yet, I can hear the distinctive Peep! Peep! of oystercatchers and the piercing cry of curlew. Here - in the blue skies of the North Yorkshire dales and along the footpaths - and above the endless miles of drystone walls are birds that should be at the coast. Oystercatchers, with their distinctive red pliers attached to their heads feed on - you've guessed it - oyster beds. All along the coastline of the British Isles, their distinctive cry is the call of summer. Drowned out somewhat by the banter of seagulls but sharp and

Walking The Dog

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