People watching: Co-op manageress:

  Face that of a self-satisfied Persian cat, unmoving while others scurry round.

People watching: Dog walker

Small stature,
voice much larger
and similarly ugly
as her knock-knees.

Truth universally, probably ruefully, acknowledged.

"That's men for you!"
Yes, but I thought mine was exceptional.

On my way to buy a morning paper, #46

Sash of bullfinch, golden edged,
raised high above indigo hills
declaring its allegiance to the dawn.

On my way to buy a morning paper #45

Not, as first thought, a man up a tree with a didgeridoo
but the scrape of a branch against the hat of a close-standing streetlight

On my way to buy a morning paper 44

Sweet-pea coloured dawn, contrailed grey-laces loosened, corset not yet removed.

On my way to buy a morning paper, 43

Sun behind sufficient cloud to render it hard-edged
I ponder upon the possibility of a solar system.

Still.

Morning mist
gradually losing its greyness
muffles the sound of geese
down by the river

6.30, last sunrise of August

Mile-high plane scratches two-inch white line
across a perfect gold-fade-through-pearl-to-palest blue 
morning sky
Oh to be sat in its cockpit!

On my way to buy a morning paper #42

Morning mist

Yellow, well-blown roses

and finger-writ in condensation, on a car:

I ♥ COCK

Potential for annoyance

What I momentarily took to be a large rising moon (in the wrong place) was a plastic bag caught in the high branches of a tree opposite my window.   I know it'll sit there for weeks, cluttering my view of the sky.

later than I thought ...

... but even so, the double-stacked,
mother and sheltered young,
crocodiles of cloud

blue-grey and pink bellied
heading north to south across the sky
look sleepy and benign.

After a week of hearing it ...

In truth, the hardy, strong-sung optimism
of the early-morning blackbird
deserves a medal

Sky

Sky - swept clean of clouds
- an early Spring clean?

Imagined alarm

Fallen small branch
lichen-striped
emulating adder
or some other poisonous snake

Compensation for the loss of light

Darker yes, but oh the joy of striding out
no longer feared of falling.

Overnight, again

Snow gone - except for the piles painstaking and laboriously cleared from drives by the super-dutiful (who seemingly never remember that it will go of its own accord as and when)

Overnight

So cold last night, the shed donned striped pyjamas

While doing the crossword

"Why have cotton when you can have silk?" the chocolate advert asks,
I conclude I'm just a cotton kind of woman -
too rough-fingered for the (perceived) luxury of silk.

From my window

Some sort of silent signal has brought seagulls swirling in from all directions to circle above the golf course - someone eating sardine sandwiches?

For those who don't have to go to out work

Thick toast crunching from the road beside the house
(where the sun never gets to shine, this month)
is good enough advice to stay in bed.

Involuntary overhearing

I wonder, after visiting four of them this morning,
does the calibre of shop volunteers' conversation
reflect the charity itself?

Seeing paintings

Without my glasses, and before the sun full rises, the scraggy dun poverty of the hawthorn hedge across the road is reminiscent of Luke Fildes' 'Applicants for admission to a casual ward'

A better class of observation

I'm reading Anne Enright at the moment - her observation of details, recollection of emotions, feelings responses, her ability to write down and recreate are such that I feel as if I've walked through my life blind.

Weather forecast

Having, less than five minutes ago, checked and found the north-east isn't due for snow today,
I've just seen three tiny flakes floating surreptitiously past the window.

Jewelled

Frost-encrusted spider's web
two feet long, or more
from gutter to the corner of the house
and another, much more obvious
white against the pinewood of the shed

From the bedroom window

Curtains, half drawn since December,
kitchen bllind now fully up -
my neighbour's returned from her Christmas in Canada.

Walk in the snow

Giant strides (bigger than mine)
and an apparently levitating dog
allow me to play detective.

Momentary confusion

Strangely fringed pink smudges,
on the far side of a pint of elderflower cordial
- my fingertips.

Cold feet

The light behinds the window blinds not sufficiently tempting to raise them and let in the cold

shaft, web, calamis, brachis and barb

An asymmetric feather, light and lying in the road, sent me searching for the names of parts thereof.

From the bedroom window

The upward curving branches of the ash tree
clamouring hopelessly toward the uncharitableness of the white sky

struggling today ...

When the wind is in the west
noise from the trains and the planes get louder

Deceitful:

The nearness of the slim C sliver of the story-book moon;
the non-slip surface of the night-black tarmac.

New writer

Oh the joy -the sheer unadulterated heart- and gut- and brain-lifting joy - to open a book by a new writer and know, within the first couple of (very short) paragraphs, that this is going to be a good one.

[Karen Campbell - Len Wanner's incisive inteview of her, one of many he did with Scottish crime writers, in 'Dead Sharp', led me to think I would like her writing ... so not too much writing from me today ...]

Rare reluctance to rise

Sometimes ideas for writing come when lying still, refusing to get up just yet.   Thus such activity is justifiable.

Have we met somewhere before?

Raising the kitchen blind I see a sky striped pink and blue which brings to mind, for the second time in twenty-four hours,  a ludicrous and thankfully long-forgotten song.

Early morning incident (or: too many crime books)

Velvet dark and total solitude between house and shop,
car parked, doors open, engine running - get-away?
Two black-clad men close before the window - break-in?
No.   Jammed shutters, yet again.

Mild response

My pleasure in the mildness of the morn not enhanced by being told what his car thermometer tells him in double figures.

In response to Dorothee's Facebook addition

Crossing the Tees on the bridge to Yarm, the red-stemmed shrubs measured in brown the distance the flood waters had risen.

Retrospective 2

Two:   to the gym, where too unfit (but I need to persevere)
[And a demonstration of homophones which I only learnt about last month]

Retrospective 1

Post-sickness, fragile, self-indulgence in books, both reading and ordering from Amazon