A different way back from the gym

and ditches I've never seen before
full to the brim

On my way to buy a morning paper #38

Since walking downhill to the river is even more likely to be slippery
I can report that the paper shop windows, and all the fridges,
had been attacked by a man with axe.

Highs and lows

High sky, a kind of Constable-lite

and the river calm to think by

but oh! the copious fly-blown ginger dogshit

perched atop the boot-print mud.

The ugly truth

My reason for not going to the river today?
I was too bad-tempered.

To and from the Tynemouth bookfair

Over the Tees and the Wear
under the Tyne
five books bought
(one duplicate:  I should have checked my list)
a pizza lunch, a look at the sea
then same rivers in reverse.

Circular non-walk

The problem with eating chocolate digestives
thinking it'll be OK cos I'll walk them off when I go down to the river
is when it rains and hails and rains again
and I do nothing but sit at home
eating chocolate digestives

It IS April after all

The sky belies it now

but the sun was shining
and it was warm
two hours ago

Rain again! so here's one I took earlier

Another day I'll not be walking to the river!
 It's not the rain I mind so much as the mud
and the likelihood of me slipping on the downward slope
and landing ignominously in it!

(and I was amused by a letter in yesterday's Telegraph
asking whether this was the 'wettest drought on record?)

Two minor deceptions

No walk to the river today - too wet

and the red jagged skyline of the distant houses

has been well and truly cropped

Small fantasy

Delinquent
and supplanted
fence-posts
enter into a conspiracy
against the fine
upstanding
one.

Noisy today

Golf-course groundsmen
mowing and blowing and rolling
machines unloaded from a tractor-trailed cart

Sun but showers threatening from the north

A single magpie
much more mud
and the sharp white crack
of golfers’ balls

On my way to buy a morning paper #37

Not a day for walking to the river, and a bit bigger than a small stone, but this true tale was what I posted on Six Sentences this morning:

I’ve seen him, not quite daily, but often enough over getting on for nine years now, coming round the corner with first three then two Welsh springer spaniels.

Maybe five years ago we started to say ‘Good morning’ – no smiles and his gruffly abrupt from beneath a ragged grey moustache.

Five weeks ago when warmth retreated back to icy, he commented on the change in weather and I on his brown woolly hat, not seen through all the snow.

Since then maybe a couple more laconic comments on the day.

In today’s unpleasant northern wind and icy sleet I said it was a day to stay at home and he said he’d be required to go to Morrisons for shopping, then added  ‘and I’ve five paintings yet to finish.’

And my view of him was instantly rejigged.

Late for the hairdresser

Contemplated the arched reflection of the viaduct

and tried again to remember how many bricks it took to build it

(the answer’s seven million, and a half)

Dailiness

Two-note bird
in the dog-leg copse
same tree, same song
invisible.

Strong wind roars

Surface of the river ripples black
like an animated evening beach
sadder thoughts spin across too frequently.

Wild garlic flowers look like early Spring

skylark sounds high summer

and the south west wind sprinkles cold April rain

Walking in the hope of aiding thought

A lying-down tree, a fisherman’s pier
and a three way pointing signpost
none of which help to resolve
my current plot dilemma.

No walk but plenty rivers.

Crossed the Tees, the Wiske, the Swale
west along the Ure to Sedbergh.
Returned north along the Rawley
crossing Eden, south of Brough,
eastward over Argill, Greta,
back to Tees.

Aural impressions

Grey, grey today and reminded it's half-term
by a trio of  treble-pitched voices from behind the hedge
talking of bogies, birdies and beating scores

Lack of forethought

Stupidly, I hadn't anticipated that the hills would still have snow on them

we had so little here

The path's dried out and the only sign of the wind and the weather that was

are the dozens of cones and the hawthorn leaves now stuck in the mud

Tees at Yarm

Too wet, too cold, too muddy
to take the scenic route
so down the hill to cross
from what used to be County Durham
into North Yorks

Black wet branch

Baby blue speedwell don’t come out in the rain

new hawthorn leaves glow luminously

made the more so by the blackness of branches

and the white rump of a sheltering robin.

And my camera works today!

Still today       so better reflections       and more flies

Down to the river

Bruce in my head, bone-hard underfoot
noting changes
high hawthorn to my left where twiglets were
exaggerates welcome openness to my right.