“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver
This was once a lonely, forgotten place and people who came here did so because they wanted the lifestyle that went with it: private and elemental
Under the looming geometry of the power station, small shacks were dotted about untidily, as if they’d been dropped accidentally from the back of a lorry. In recent years, the millionaires had arrived. Some huts had been rebuilt as luxury houses with big glass doors and shiny flues. Others still looked like they were made from scraps pilfered from a tip.
The Birdwatcher (William Shaw) Continue reading “Dungeness: dropped from the back of a lorry”
I am away this week – where the internet will be rationed. (Sharp intake of breath.) This means that finishing the run of posts that I’ve been tinkering with, which date back to a trip made in February (yes – don’t judge me) will have to wait a bit longer. It also means that I can plug the gap with posts that I seem able to produce more quickly. What is it about book-related memes? I just can’t resist… Continue reading “My Blog’s Name in Books”
The panorama is surreal, alien, unique
The view from here is harsh and it takes no prisoners
I may have been eager for what has seemed like an especially long winter to end, but a small part of me has been glad we have had to wait for a run of reliable spring days, because I have been writing about Dungeness in winter. A task which doesn’t sit easily among vistas of skipping lambs and primroses, soft blue skies and playful breezes. Continue reading “The View from Here: Dungeness”
The view from here on this soft and mellow April afternoon has been filled with small and simple joys
We have sunshine. I took a longer walk than usual, striding along the top road with the warm wind in my hair, skylarks singing in the heavens and solitary seagulls hanging at jaunty angles against the clear blue sky. I checked the wires for newcomers. The wires were empty. Soon, I thought.
Soon. Continue reading “The View from Here: on an afternoon in April”
It’s been a busy couple of weeks and this month’s Six Degrees of Separation caught me by surprise. Hosted every month by Kate at books are my favourite and best, we each begin with the same starter book and link a further 6 books to make a chain. Each book only needs to link to the one immediately before it. Being late to the party this month, I managed to resist reading any other chains until I’d got my own links in place. Continue reading “Six Degrees of Separation: from Memoirs of a Geisha to …”
Painting with Words
They were displaying all day: soaring on the updrafts above the fields across the valley. But now comes something quite different. Continue reading “The View from Here: Buzzards in March”
The third of three
The fire was warm; the chairs were comfortable
Reverend Baring-Gould’s A History of Dartmoor would have looked perfect, lying carelessly on this polished table. Continue reading “A Triptych on Dartmoor: patience is its own reward”
