AND A BLOGGY NEW YEAR

Starting at dawn here are three miserable images from the kitchen door, well, the first one is not so bad.

To move on to the garden where shapes are the thing - like this spreading cherry tree silhouette. 

There's a dead rat under the Magnolia stellata - a very long dead rat - shovel out and shift somewhere away from the house.

So how are we to come to terms with poseurs at the helm in both USA and Russia. There they are ranting away at one another and increasing nuclear arsenals and world instability when they should be getting together to engender world peace and saving the natural world.

Said my bit for the nil effect it will have.

Move on - it is Christmas, it is dark and gloomy outside albeit mild - 10C. Inside it is coloured lights, too much food (that is both inside the house and inside me), Mr Claus has been, the sherry and mince pie have been consumed (have, has?) and the carrot shows Rudolph's teeth marks. The presents are clustered under the tree, the grandchildren have opened their stockings. (They were told that they could wake etc when it was light enough to see the pond. Unfortunately with the ambient light in the sky this meant our grandson could see the pond at 3 am!)

And suddenly it is all over, all gone, the house quiet as a church woodlouse. R gave me a gardening book with lots of labour intensive ideas :-( .

This is not of now but an old photo I discovered - and not used before. I thought it would cheer us up in days of dreary winter.

We woke this morning (Tuesday) to skeins of geese flying east from the Duddon to Morecambe Bay, their cries always seem to call us to the window to watch.

Talking of looking, DNA is a funny thing - looking in the mirror this morning I was surprised to recognise the lower half of my face as that of my Great Grandfather at the same age!

So, after the gales, it is back to pick-up-sticks time again in the garden - ash trees are dreadful shedders of dead twigs.

Wednesday and a still, cold morning, woken before 6 by a parliament of tawny owls in the ash trees. Later the dawn was greeted by a mistle thrush - a harbinger of the new year to come.

Went for a walk across the River Leven at Greenodd and round by Mearness Farm (where they were shooting pigeons and pheasants). Coming back along the old disused railway the gorse was in full flower. 

THE CYSSAN BUSH 

(cyssan - O.E. - a kiss)

Gold gorse,

the kiss thorn,

with soft keels

and knives drawn,

spikes doused

in flaxen fire,

branches bound  

with barbed wire,

Gold gorse,

the wild whin,

one flower

and kissing’s in

but no bloom,

kissing’s out

and love drowns -

a kiss drought -

but kiss of life,

kiss of death,

saw, saying,

shibboleth?

Kiss the rod?

Scourge the punner?

Kiss the daughter

of the gunner?

Gold gorse,

the crackling shrub

with brittle pods

and bodkin scrub,

with linnet nests

of woven grass

wrapped in shards

of broken glass.

Gold gorse -

paper of pins,

that’s the way

it all begins,

that’s the way

to love and bliss,

one flower -

one kiss.