Slapped in the face and poked in the eye

Round and round in circles; face slapped; reversing; zig-zagging; poked in the eye; bounced around; shaken; wobbling; balancing; thrown round corners; bottom bruising; and sneezing and itchy, running eyes - the clue is in the last part and a is a side effect of what I spent the afternoon doing - all the joys of grass cutting on a small green tractor. And getting too close to the hedge (face slapping and poked in the eye); driving over rabbit holes; attempting unsuccessfully to nudge a football out of the way (oops!); hurrying to finish before it rained; and cutting the grass my way i.e. "a woman's way!"

Why are men so pernickety about things like mowing the lawn? While a man will mentally measure the distances between cut lines, calculate the minimum number of turns required and react furiously if he is disturbed by the phone, children, or having to pick up dog poo, a woman will get the same job done, at the same time as planning the evening meal, mentally writing tomorrows shopping list, noticing which branches of which hedges need to be pruned, designing the garden makeover of her dreams and directing any children that disturb her to put the kettle on, take Four-legged-friend for a walk and run the bath. Okay, she will probably use twice as much petrol, and the job will take longer, but she is multi-tasking and the grass will only look all swirly until the next morning. And who, apart from the man in her life, will notice the bits she missed? And if he wants to go straight out and cut them after he gets home ... that lets her have a longer bath.

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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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