Sunday 22 April 2012

Bright sunshine to a violent hailstorm and back again in 10 minutes

It just doesn’t feel like British weather but I expect we say that every year. And it is April. April showers and all that. However, we went from bright sunshine...



... to a violent hail storm with ear-splitting thunder - the garden was white over for a while, the hail stayed on the roof, until the storm turned to torrential rain and then passed on all within a few minutes.

It made the Jawbone Gang walk very muddy. The boots accumulate mud so you get taller and taller the further you go.


No sinister finds this time.


Sunday 8 April 2012

National Poetry Month

I’ve only just been told that it’s national poetry month so I thought I should mark the occasion with a couple of recommendations. I won’t go for the classics because everyone knows what they like in that respect. If I did, though, I'd mention Emily Bronte’s poetry, dark though it tends to be.

Nearer to home – geographically and timewise – how about physician-poet, Robert Jaggs-Fowler whose collection, A Journey with Time, is a delightful mix of styles and subject matter, light and serious.



Or this collection, Old Playgrounds, edited by Sue Knight, a family memoire spanning the decades from WWII.