Not quite May Day

05:45hrs this morning

Driving

     Most of us do it. It is a cultural rite of passage especially in the USA. How many take the responsibility seriously? I get a little nervous when I think about driving in England. Narrow roads; high driving speeds; new road layouts; different road signs and markings; so much more traffic compared to when I learned to drive. My driving instructor all those years ago was very pleased when I finally passed the driving test. He told me after the fact that it was the head examiner of the test centre who took me out and he had feared a different result.

     My brother-in-law showed me how to drive in a short wheel base Land Rover on a disused WWII aerodrome when I was about fifteen. I didn't really have a great interest in cars then and relied on push-bikes and public transport to get around. Only one of my friends drove. He had an old Ford Prefect at first then an Anglia, this was in Essex after all. My first car, an Austin A40, I shared with my sister.

     To prepare for the trip to England I'm boning up on The Highway Code.

      25 April Addendum: I passed the theory practice test two for cars so I think I know enough about the Highway Code not to do anything too egregious. I lost my copy of "Roadcraft". I'll take the other practice test in a couple of days to make sure.

Keep left.  Mirror - signal - manoeuvre

Dulcimers

   Dulcimer Players News took a poll last year asking readers when they first saw or heard a dulcimer of either kind, hammered or mountain/Appalachian. I did take a snap-shot of my first occasion at a renaissance fair in Agoura, California in May 1986.

In full spate

No, not the meadowlark. But the Little Colorado.

On the 

left (below), ice on the river a few months ago; and on the right, the same stretch of river today.

And the pussy-willow was in its prime a few weeks ago

Friday evening

Those two pictures were taken minutes apart. A rain shower passed over.

Serendipitous Morning.

     Watched an aerial tour of the south cost of England from Goonhilly Down to Dover on HDTheatre, another Discovery satellite channel. We'll be there in a few weeks walking terra firma, not flying around in a helicopter.

     The Sunrise Earth segment which followed was from Iceland. No clouds of ash or flowing lava, though. Plenty of geysers.

     Some of our cats like to bask on the kitchen window-sill in the early morning sun; but to catch this particular quartet in the window was quite unusual.

Stubbers, Leo, Tigerlilly and Marie

From the bookshelves 85

Greek, and occasional Latin, on the verso pages; English on the recto. 

I opened randomly at

Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing,
for the known way is an impasse

From the bookshelves 84

     This is number thirteen of The Aperture History of Photography Series. Frank Meadow Sutcliffe is associated with Whitby as Henry Taunt with Oxford.

From the bookshelves 83

     The Folio Society has published two facsimiles of Eric Gill's work:

The Four Gospels
and

Canterbury Tales

Note to self: I lent this book to Charlie A.

From the bookshelves 82

     Smuggling on Chesil Beach in the eighteenth century. Our teacher read this story to us in our last year of primary school.

Siddhartha Gautama

Buddha

I was smitten by the inner light of poet Jane Hirshfield as she appeared in this film. Perhaps it was the way she was photographed but I find her absolutely captivating.

From the bookshelves 81

     And to continue the theme. If you could travel back in time and meet a child called Adolph Hitler, knowing what he would become, what would you do or say to that child?

From the bookshelves 80

     Am I in a morbid mood? Another book about events which should not be erased from from the collective memory. And yet . . . Pol Pot, Dafur, Sadam, Sarajevo . . . ? Read also: The Periodic Table, If this Is a Man and The Truce.

Half of Round Valley

      Still playing with this feature of the camera; can't keep the horizon on an even keel

Listening to the radio

sent me to the bookshelves once again. Michael Horovitz at 75

From the bookshelves 78 and 79

     Soon there will no longer be surviving eyewitnesses to the aftermath of the dropping of the atomic bomb on the morning of 6 August 1945 at 08:15.

     Masuji Ibuse's powerful novel was also made into an equally moving film. Do NOT confuse this with the Ridley Scott movie of the same name and released in the same year.

No Title

       but you can call me 'Sir' or just plain 'Mister' but I prefer Alan. I've been rummaging the bookshelves again and found some more books I either read long ago, didn't finish or haven't even begun reading . . . 

       Stay tuned as is said in radio land . . .

From the bookshelves 77

What is it about Oxford academics writing for children? But this is not a book for children.  It is a dark tale concerning missing pilgrims and an abbot dissecting cadavers in an effort to find the human soul. John Fuller also published quite a few books of poetry. This is a first American edition published by George Braziller in 1984.

Tempus Fugit II

     On the Welsh coast somewhere near Aberaeron August/September 1991. We made a week long camping trip around the coast of Wales. Now I think there must be lots more pictures of that journey for we stopped at many castles and Kathy was still using her Nikon quite a lot. Here is a shot she took of me in 1982

Somewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains, California

Sometimes I sits and thinks . . .

     . . . sometimes I just sits. Here is a blogger, Pranabk in Pune, India, who has been plugging away at this for nearly four years. He is a reader as well.

     And for poetry there's Trinath .

Nothing like a long drive

Salt River Canyon this morning

To Tucson. Why? Why not. To take the recorder to The Folk Shop for repair. I stopped to take pictures on the way mostly of the wildflowers. Some weren't so wild as near Dripping Springs, between Globe and Winkelman on route 77, Arizona Department Of Transportation (ADOT) had seeded the roadside as well as widening the road in places. It's been at least two years since I last drove that road.

Saguaro, cholla and eschscholzia californica

And cottonwood trees by the Gila river in Winkelman were 'snowing' their seed.

Salt River Canyon this evening

Lazy (quarter) day

Chloe is growing . . . fast.

Whiled away the morning browsing Facebook and this great bellringing app. I can brush up on the blue line of methods I once knew and learn a few more useful ones.  The muscle memory for handling a bell is like bicycle riding, once learned never forgotten though it may not be quite as smooth and the listening skills will need brushing up.

I am become . . .

a signpost in the forest called Weblog . . .

A Change of Life. Be sure to read the blog-within-a-blog Papillon's story linked from the sidebar. 

From the bookshelves 76

I shall console myself . . .

with a mug of Earl Grey. This is Frederick the Literate by Charles Wysocki. The humour is in the book titles, and authors.

O, woe . . .

      I have been lusting after a new treble recorder recently and now I have reason to search in earnest. Playing my ebony alto/treble recorder/blockflute at church today I noticed a crack near the wind-way. Oh, I have not been caring for it as well as I should. Has the block swelled too much? Did I knock it in a moment of inattention? Or am I just unlucky? I shall have to consult a recorder expert for a prognosis. Or perhaps a kind reader can offer an opinion from this picture?

Click on the picture for a scary enlargement. The crack ends adjacent to the top of the window (at the moment)

Words

     I finished reading Michael Frayn's novel Headlong which will be discussed at the next Round Valley Book Group  meeting in April and took the time to find out a little more about these words:

soteriology;  
irenic (I've already mentioned eirenic here);
tipstaff, self explanatory really;
lapsarian, the OED quotes a heading from the Dictionary of Christian Theology edited (?) by my theologian name-sake.

     And another painting term to keep chiaoscuro company: grisaille.

The Book of Changes

     The drift of time .  .  . I have been thinking about a period of my childhood after searching a name on the web.

     I was last at The Orangery in Kelvedon to see the Kelvedon Players production of Lystistrata in, I'm guessing, 1965. Dad was in it of course and Cy and Mary Bartlett. I'm assuming it was directed by Kate Collingwood, one of the founders of the group.

     The Orangery, in the grounds of Felix Hall Park, was converted to a house as were the stables and carriage house, now the Clock House. The ground floor rooms were tall; I was always amazed by the height of the staircase to the regular sized bedrooms upstairs. My sister was employed there as live-in help for a year or so in the late 1950's and I would walk up from the village to play with the children she helped care for. I remember the geese, the oval swimming pool, great shady cedar trees, the spinney, the fruit cage; I remember a Christmas party with tea and magic show and a huge tree with candles. I remember Thomasina the ginger cat catching a  mouse which my sister disected to entertain us children one summer day. I remember playing croquet. I remember the long walk from the village . . .

     The name I Googled was:

Nigel Richmond

Silence

Meet Chloë

     Kathy decided I need another husky . . . oh the joys to come. It has taken us two days to decide on a name. Too much like Zoë? Eh,eh. She's about seven months old . . .