mare’s tails

Starting Handles

On this brighter, balmy, day, the returning sunshine was welcomed by all; by me; by Roger’s newly sown fields; by ferns and mare’s tails on the bank of the stream; by basking cattle huddled behind the corner cottage; by a young man, with the customary electronic device, waiting for a bus; by slithering slugs andContinue reading “Starting Handles”

A Rose For Retirement

Early this morning Jackie resumed a task she had first undertaken more than forty years ago. She cut my hair, thus putting Donna-Marie out of business. Its colour was rather different first time round. The dark bit must be a trick of the light. After this I placed the beach stones between the slabs inContinue reading “A Rose For Retirement”

The Pizza

10th July 2014 Yesterday evening I finished reading Cicero’s Orations. The two final pieces are not forensic. The first, ‘Pro Marcello’, is a panegyric, and the second ‘Phillipics II’ an invective. Marcellus is not really the subject of For Marcellus. It is a document of forthright praise for Caesar, whose generosity in pardoning one ofContinue reading “The Pizza”

To Sir, With Love

Just after lunch we drove to Ringwood to shop, then delivered a present for John and Stephanie to Helen and Bill’s at Poulner. The earring no longer adorns the information board in the car park. I do hope it is now happily reunited with its partner and dangling from one of a pair of beautifulContinue reading “To Sir, With Love”

On the train yesterday, with Kenneth O. Morgan’s ‘The Twentieth Century’, I finished reading ‘The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain’ in the 1992 edition. Ten university historians have each contributed a section in their particular field, from Roman times to 1991. Written for the layperson it does neverless assume a certain amount of prior knowledge, theContinue reading “Mare’s Tails”