Quelle est le date de ton anniversaire?

Tomorrow!

Yes dear readers tomorrow is my birthday - Hip Hip Hooray!

Below are some pictures of the delicious and pretty cakes my lovely Grandmother baked for me (and my sister, as it is her birthday too).






There was another cake with a tiny sugar bluebird on it but it mysteriously disappeared, naming no names (DADDY!).

Have a good day dearies!

Love etc
x

Fruit Market.

I went to the fruit market

And took lots of pictures

It was fun.

Have a nice day, back tomorrow with Poetry Thursday!

x

If I were a painter...

...I would paint a reverie.

But I am not.

My sister on the other hand is extraordinarily talented in the painting department and these pictures were taken of her paints and brushes.

Hope you are having a nice Tuesday despite the rain my dears.

Toodle-oo

x

Peekaboo

Here I am!

First I apologise for my lack of blogging yesterday of a Happy Monday post. Most of my lunchtime yesterday was spent checking alternative modes of transport home due to the bus drivers in my area being on strike. (turned out my bus was running (that route gets priority apparently - defo because of me I'm sure!), woop! and they let me on for free, double woop!). Plus I was watching the end of Emma which I missed on Sunday night. Consequently spent the rest of the afternoon feeling dreamily romantic and humming the theme tune.

To make up for it this is for you

Spent Saturday morning at a garden centre (which was lots of fun for me as I love gardening), having lunch with my Grandmother and playing cards in the evening. Sunday I went into town. I ate MacDonalds in the park surrounding the castle. MacDonalds was always a one-off Massive Treat when I was a kid so my sister and I felt a little bit naughty as we ate it, sheltering by the bandstand against the chilly October wind. I took photos and tried to overcome my slight embarrassment which I feel when I take pictures in public. Curious people stare, not with malice of course but I was always taught at school not to draw attention to myself, so I find it a little uncomfortable. Got some real nice ones of my sister though. Might put them up here if she lets me.

I feel I have little to write about at the moment. Like a wild bird my inspiration has flown.

Frightened away by other more mundane, everyday thoughts and concerns it has taken flight and landed elsewhere.

Do not worry, it shall return.

image via Sabino

I shall come back to you later in the week mes cheries.

x

Morning has broken...

Yesterday morning when I left the house the sky was the dark grey blue that spoke of the night just passed and the rain to come. This morning this had changed entirely and I was greeted by periwinkle blue overhead fading to dove grey touched by the pinks and yellows of boiled sweets on the horizon. The rain yesterday's sky promised did materialize and its touch had not yet disappeared today despite the contrast in this morning's heavens. Puddles reflected blue and grey and pink whilst raindrops still clung to cobwebs and flowers. As the train trundled further into the countryside away from my home town and towards London, the sky continued to develop - now yellow, now orange now the blue of forget me nots. The fields still covered by a blanket of mist, like children unwilling to leave their beds and wake up to the sun.

I sometimes wonder how so many people can sit on trains and buses and completely ignore the outside world. The sights I sometimes see when I look out of the window warm my heart! Sometimes I want to stand up and point "look, look at that, isn't it magnificent". I never do. Perhaps it is the photographer in me that looks and looks all the time, searching for something to capture, not wanting to miss that perfect shot.

I searched long and hard for a poem for todays offering and nothing quite seemed to convey the feelings I was trying to get across to you. However, I did find the below poem (which is quite long, for which I apologise) that I really do rather like:

MORNING SONG OF SENLIN
(from "Senlin, A Biography")
by: Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)

IT is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning

When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,

I arise, I face the sunrise,

And do the things my fathers learned to do.

Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops

Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,

And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet

Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine leaves tap my window,

Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,

The robin chips in the chinaberry tree

Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror

And tie my tie once more.

While waves far off in a pale rose twilight

Crash on a white sand shore.

I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:

How small and white my face!--

The green earth tilts through a sphere of air

And bathes in a flame of space.

There are houses hanging above the stars

And stars hung under a sea. . .

And a sun far off in a shell of silence

Dapples my walls for me. . .

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning

Should I not pause in the light to remember God?

Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,

He is immense and lonely as a cloud.

I will dedicate this moment before my mirror

To him alone, and for him I will comb my hair.

Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!

I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine leaves tap my window,

The snail-track shines on the stones,

Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree

Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,

Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.

The walls are about me still as in the evening,

I am the same, and the same name still I keep.

The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,

The stars pale silently in a coral sky.

In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,

Unconcerned, I tie my tie.
There are horses neighing on far-off hills

Tossing their long white manes,

And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,

Their shoulders black with rains. . .

It is morning.

I stand by the mirror

And surprise my soul once more;

The blue air rushes above my ceiling,

There are suns beneath my floor. . .

. . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness

And depart on the winds of space for I know not where,

My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,

And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.

There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,

And a god among the stars; and I will go

Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak

And humming a tune I know. . .

Vine-leaves tap at the window,

Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,

The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree

Repeating three clear tones.

Have a nice day dear readers

x

Finally,

finally, finally got round to uploading some of my photographs onto Photobucket. Still not entirely sure how the whole shebang works plus little angry boxes keeping popping up insistently warning me something may not be safe. But hey-ho, whats life without a little risk and mystery (although that I get this risk and mystery from my Photobucket account is more than a little concerning).

It has to be said I am a bit of a geek when it comes to birds and a low level amateur twitcher in my spare time (this basically involves me running about the garden, squinting up at various trees asking 'what's that? what's that?' as birds tweet elusively above me).

The blackbirds that visit our garden nest in nearby bushes and trees and are relatively tame. In the summer, when they get used to you being out in the garden, they will come hopping and pecking quite close.
Below pics are of a blackbird spotted on the flat roof outside my sister's bedroom window.

Hope you like them.
Until next time chickadees.

x