Collection

 Dear Reader,

I am not fully recovered so  it is just a poem this week.

                                                                              *

Collection

The little girl waits
peers down the road
sees the other children
collected

as mothers hug them
help them into cars
drive away for family teas
to houses where
warmth and love abounds

she puts her satchel down
takes out a sweet for comfort
a small tear rolls down her cheek
someone will remember surely
she thought

but the dusk gathered
and nobody came.

                                                                               *

With best wishes, Patricia

Questions

 Dear Reader.

I have been under the weather so no blog this week.  Just a poem.

Questions

 

 

Were the summers different then,

did the sun shine more, when

wet and cloudy days were few, when

butterflies took wing, and warm winds blew?

 

Did the bees collect more honey,

did we laugh more, were more things funny,

was the sea less rough, more azure,

did finer shells bewitch us on the shore?

 

Did roses fade so soon, wind or rain blown,

or were hedgerows so rich and pretty, grown

when all the summer days were bright,

not awash with rain, but drenched in light?

 

Were the days so cold and dreary,

and did we ever feel so weary

of days of heat and sun and sea,

picnics, sandcastles, flasks of tea?

 

Did dreams then, sometimes, come true,

when love would find us, hold us too,

and make our whole world seem completely new,

when butterflies took wing, and warm winds blew?

 

 

 

                                                                                           *

With best wishes, Patricia

Transformation

 Dear Reader,

Guinea fowl originated from West Africa where they have been bred and hunted for food for centuries.  They have been part of our lives for a very long time, there are even drawings of them on walls of pyramids.  The most popular being the Helmeted guinea fowl. 

Guinea fowl are adapted to roam in any kind of habitat.  Most of them prefer grasslands, thorn veld and agricultural land.  They do well in open areas. They are not migratory birds but the do move around more during the breeding season.  Their lifespan is the same as chickens, turkeys, pheasants, partridges, grouse,quail and peafowl.

Their lifespan is up to 12 years in captivity, 5 years in the wild.  The loud guinea fowl call makes them excellent "guard birds".  Guinea fowl are monogamous and mate for life in the wild.  The birds are friendly and make excellent watchdogs.  If kept alone they like to sit with their human keeper, but in flocks they will usually prefer their own types, like many animals.

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From Dorothy Wordsworth  November 10th 1800 in Westmorland

'I baked bread.  A fine clear frosty morning.  We walked after dinner to Rydale village.  JUpiter over the hilltops, the only star, like a sun, flashed out at intervals from behind a black cloud.'

 

From Thomas Hardy  November 13th  1872 in Dorset

'The first frost of autumn.  Outdoor folk look reflective.   The scarlet runners are dishevelled;  geraniums wounded in the leaf, open-air cucumber leaves have collapsed like green umbrellas with all the stays broken.

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Transformation

 

Years later

I walked up to the fields

I held so dear to me,

in it, then, were two horses, ever close

ever grazing,

plump chickens, guinea fowl,

and in the summer months

a profusion of wild flowers

buttercups, daisies, clover, cowslips,

meadow sweet, grew there,

a small stream gurgled by.

 

But it had all gone.

 

Houses dotted the field now,

washing hung out on the line

flapping in the breeze,

children played in the gardens,

cars everywhere, litter in the street.

 

And is this progress?

 

people have to live somewhere,

 but nature is the sacrifice,

 

the loss,

the undoing.

 

                                                                              *

 

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

Small moments of warmth

 Dear reader,

I have often wondered where the saying:  'enough blue in the sky to make a sailor's trouser' comes from.  Apparently it was believed by sailors that if they saw two patches of blue sky in a cloudy morning, the day would bring good weather.  Dutch sailors wore wide trousers the same blue as the sky, hence the saying.

It is thought that British and American sailors first wore bell-bottomed trousers in the 19th century because it made it easier to snag a man who had fallen overboard.   The wide legged design of flares made it easier for sailors to remove the trousers when wet and roll them up when working in  muddy conditions.

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My sister and I loved going to Yarmouth beach for picnics and my mother would only take us if she saw a little sun and a blue sky. This, I have to say, wasn't very often as the Norfolk weather was not tropical, in fact I seem to remember lots of rainy days. In those days we lived in a small cottage near to a river and spent much time capturing tadpoles and riding our ponies.  And of course trotting through the lanes with Joey in harness. Joey was rather fat and not too keen on those expeditions, sometimes he refused to go ahead at all and needed coaxing.

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From Richard Jefferies  1878 November 3rd in Surrey

'The horse-chestnut buds at end of boughs; tree quite bare of leaves;  all sticky, colour of deep varnish....Still day: the earth holds its breath.'

 

From James Woodforde   1795 November 6th in Norfolk

'There was a most violent gale of wind this morning early about 3 o'clock, continued more than an hour.   It waked me. It also shook the house.  It greatly frighted our maids in the garrett.  Some limbs of trees blown down in my garden.  Many windmills blown down.'

                                                                                   *

Small moments of warmth

 

 

I remember a little warmth,

Joey trotting the family through Norfolk lanes,

the small yellow trap swaying in the sunshine.

 

I remember picnics on Yarmouth beach

with enough blue sky ‘to make a sailor’s trouser’.

We ate cucumber sandwiches, Penguin biscuits.

 

I remember dark evenings,

the small warm flame from a Tilly lamp

lighting the kitchen, and sometimes for supper

we had chicken, chocolate mousse.

 

I remember a warm holiday in France

squeezed into the back of a car,

singing old thirties love songs.

 

But will these small moments of warmth,

at the end, be enough to heat and split

the heavy stones that circle the human heart,

allow salt tears to trickle through the cracks?

 

                                                                                           *

 

With very best wishes, Patricia