“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver
A single boat glides silently through the waters below me. And I ask myself: who can fail to appreciate an afternoon such as this?
These passing October days have been crisp, clear and calm. Invigorating. Life-affirming. All that was wonderful about this October was encapsulated for me one afternoon mid-month when I walked a stretch of the coastal path. Continue reading “The View From Here: Lansallos to Lantic”
The view from here is wide open
It is the first day of September and I have climbed the stairs to a perfect, golden, early-autumn morning. The cows are back; they’ve returned overnight and are strung lazily across the valley: sturdy calves quieter now: smaller forms of their placid mothers. Their burnished hides glisten as the sun warms them; their shadows long across the pasture. Continue reading “The View from Here: new day, new month, new year”
Fields have been cut and now lie quietly: yellow, dusky browns and soft ochres permeate the view
Title unashamedly stolen from Nicole at An Entertaining Mess.
August has not been great. It’s had some wonderful highlights to be sure, but it’s also had some stress and energy dips and significant upsets. Opportunities for posting have been few: either through other commitments or through lack of brain power. Although I have a few posts published in August, as the month draws to a close I have others as yet unwritten from July. I’m feeling muddled: on the blog; in family relationships; in the house, the garden, the car…. I’m just one massive befuddled muddle!
It will pass. And meanwhile, September approaches. I love September. Continue reading “The View from Here: anticipating September”
As I drive along, after the farmers have performed their nightly shearing, I feel like I’m driving along a motorway
As July closes, the farmers are busy. There is relatively little arable farming here: the fields are often too steep to make it sensible. But there’s plenty of hay to gather in. Harvesting by day – and shearing the banks by night. Continue reading “The View from Here: we have been shorn”
… an English summer’s day is such a joy, how can we not yearn for many of them?
How do I remember June? She certainly gave us a performance of two halves.
Her early exploits were dry and warm, with blazing days of open skies, freshness and bright sunshine. Summer was splashed all over June’s opening scenes. Continue reading “The View from Here: rose-coloured June”
On a sunshine-filled day in May, the view from here is exhilarating.
It seems that when it rains in Cornwall, it rains properly. Often it’s a soft, gentle rain, so fine that it’s almost invisible – unless you’re standing in it. And sometimes it’s hard, heavy and unforgiving. We’ve had entire days of rain, and even more long nights of it. But looking back at May, I think we did pretty well on the weather front. Continue reading “The View from Here: exhilarating May”
Like the trees in Larkin’s poem, we are beginning afresh.
Quite a few years ago I had a pen-friend in Saskatchewan and she used to refer to ‘green up’. In her corner of the world there was snow for many months and then – suddenly it seemed – green up. I often think of her and that phrase at this time of year. Continue reading “Green Up”
