@gembo - firsty sentence worthy of Larkin.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7221 posts)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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"Family find the stick too much."
Sounds like stick is more supportive.
Time to choose - family or Tiso.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I am non binary on the stick. I take it on the longer rambles on my own but leave it outside the holiday house when going to beach en famille. That still sounds binary, but you know what. I mean. Here is a joke that works better written down:-
Apparently there are 10 types of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.
North Norfolk does have an elegiac days gone by feel that the miserablist Larkin would have tolerated. Out on the coastal path yesterday at 7a.m I was totally alone in a landscape of marsh between Burnham deep dale and Burnham Norton. Could have been 17th century, just one jogger intruding from the modern world. Obviously the villages have been bought by people from Chelsea knocking down the houses and building huge piles. I was chatting to a former local of Burnham Norton who still tends land on road corner and he sys he knows no one in that village now. He was growing butternut squashes.
Posted 8 years ago # -
CCE challenge. Rewrite @gembo's first line in the style of different poets. I'll kick off with Chaucer;
Ner the wynd-melle at Burnham over Staithe
Ane smal spar-hauk
Twai dai ded or ther-abouten
Fresh blosmen and ane crois
Of stikken and blak ribanPosted 8 years ago # -
I'll take the easy option of Shakespearian rhyming couplets...
But lo! The Sparrowhawk doth die
Near the windmill at Burham fore'er to lie
Adorn-ed the spot with flowers and cross
In time twigs and tape be o'ercome with mossPosted 8 years ago # -
i've got a dodgy hip and episodic vertigo / balance issues. have graduated to 2 sticks. looks daft but keeps me moving.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Raymond Queneau;
Pres du moulin de Burnham gît
L'épervier qui ne chassera plus
Qui ne chassera plus.
Fuent-il ces moineaux futiles
Qui ont érigé une croix?
Qui ont planté des fleurs?
Qui ont mis leur ruban en berne?Posted 8 years ago # -
Thomas wyattt
I gave my love an 'hawk
But she doth smote it dead
And I am sore forsake
As she hath left the bed
Flowers crossed and gangreny
Scribed Noli me tangerePosted 8 years ago # -
Robert Burns
Ode to a Deid Gled
Wi' wicked speed an 'glowrin een
Ye skim'd the dykes an' birlin' birks
Reavin' the spurdie raceSae weel acquaint wi' Death ye've been
Yet now sic fate has thee befallen
A humble corbie's denner!Posted 8 years ago # -
Posted 8 years ago # -
On holkham beach ten cormorants flying in formation. I did not know they did that and thought they might be geese but saw them again today through bins and in bright daylight.
Also reed bunting singing loud and proud.
Old twitcher on the path said he had seen a bittern in flight on same stretch which is rare.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Sub-Milton:
Oh hawk though art dead
The mill sails fly where once you flew
And in their turning sing your epitaph.Posted 8 years ago # -
Mary Campbell Smith:
Why dis the hare no rin aboot?
Is it stuck tae the meltit taur?
No it's no, it's deed ye ken
Hit by that bloody caur.Posted 8 years ago # -
Longfellow:
Neath the mighty Burnham windmill
By a cross of twigs and blacktape
Found by Gembo, gently panting
Panting with unwelcome effort
Caused by pain picked up in Dumfries
Pain not helped by tribal doctor
Lay the bird of Nelson's birthplace
Spotted by the limping Gembo
etc.Posted 8 years ago # -
Matsuo Bashō
Summer birds sing loud
On the meadow lies a hawk
Whose nest is quietPosted 8 years ago # -
Wordsworthish:
The sparrowhawk stopped me in that moment
And in that moment silent save for the sound of the windmill's gyre
I heard the oft thought, oft felt keening of the summer air
Lifting my heart to the heavens in a tumult
Mix'd through with love and sorrow.Posted 8 years ago # -
Sylvia Plath
O sparrowhawk
You died before you were a daddy
Your cross to bear
The flowers strewn
And corpse alll maggotyPosted 8 years ago # -
Coleridge:
He was a limping odd garbed man
And he stopped me from my walk
I am Gembo cried the wretch
And I found the sparrowhawk!Its beady eye
Its pointy beak
It lay quite still yet made me feel
Its death deserved some mark.I fashioned up a cross of twigs
I laid them by its head
I gave the bird a gentle poke
To make sure it was dead.Posted 8 years ago # -
Milton again:
Fie you hyperboreal gods
who rend the sky with your diurnal gaws
And fill the miller's sails with Aeolus breath
You baulk at death's dark realm
Feign to gather back its prize to earthly life.
The sparrowhawk is dead.Posted 8 years ago # -
@Cyclingmollie, Coleridge: Outstanding.
@kaputnik, wherefore art thou?
Posted 8 years ago # -
Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings:
The dead sparrowhawk lay near the windmill.
Nearby sat an improvised memorial, which it ignored.
It lay, decaying,
Its shape changed in response to putrefaction and bloating.
Fly larvae tunneled within its flesh.
It wouldn't catch many sparrows in that state.Posted 8 years ago # -
The light was illuminating the bottom of the canal quite nicely in places this morning so I was able to see shoals of fish grouped into various sizes from hundreds of tiny fry to smaller groups of reasonably large adults. There were also a few road signs and the odd shopping trolley.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@jdanielp I was going to put this in the rubbish cycling thread, because I've been so distracted by the clarity of the canal and all the interesting things you can see in it, that I've nearly ended up in it myself on a couple of occasions.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Greenroofer I was aware that I might be starting to veer towards rubbish cycling, but kingfisher scanning practise perhaps helped prevent me from actually crossing the line.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Female brambling and a squadron of coughs (Pembrokeshire)
Posted 8 years ago # -
Predictive text strikes again!
Posted 8 years ago # -
Aah!
Posted 8 years ago # -
Another female sparrowhawk heading up Blackford Glen, same place as the last one. This time carrying a sad little bundle of feathers.
The Pentland peregrines have fledged and gone.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Stonechat and a large crowd of goldfinches
Posted 8 years ago # -
@iwrats when you say sad little bundle of feathers do you mean a sparrow?
Posted 8 years ago #
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