Sunset

Amnesty International

A new campaign is highlighting the censorship of internet content in different parts of the world. Amnesty is asking people to show their awareness of this in different ways - every action taken adds to others and makes change more likely.

Click here, please.

Graphics tablet thingy type whatsit

Prepare yourself for an influx of bizarre doodlings - I am in love with a small piece of plastic (for once, one without a motor), and cannot stop being artistic with it, daaaaahling.

I may have to embrace my inner muse a bit more before going too public, however...

It's not great, but it was fun to do!!

The Littlest Chick

He (for he appears to be a he, of course) is just the most beautiful and tiniest thing ever. FACT.



His broody mum loves him so much, and is caring for him brilliantly, even while she sits on the eggs that she was supposed to be hatching all along. They're due in about another five days. It's like a bloody maternity ward here at the moment!!

(Did I mention the fact that Buffy is now sitting on thirteen eggs at the moment?)

Ahem!

Chicken wish-list

Last night I was perusing the lists of available chickens and hatching eggs and started to realise that I was getting a little over-excited and that perhaps professional help might be appropriate. However, that's not as much fun as getting more chickens, so here's my wish list:

She's a millefleur. Which takes me forever to type correctly, but I WANT one.

One of these, but brown red and a girl (clearly - I'm a one cock kind of a girl) - unfortunately the only picture of what I actually want is restricted.

Check out this gorgeous gentleman!

He's the male of what I want, and he's lovely!!

I can't resist the pekin shape - maybe it's a case of pets and their owners...

T

This is a picture of the typical pekin female - she's gorgeous.

I always wanted a black one and now we have one, and she's full of character. Most of it psychopathically deranged, but I can live with that...

That's a wish list of precisely TWO. Hardly excessive... I'm almost a chicken puritan.

The Nature of Blogs

I have been engaged in blog contemplation for the last couple of days. Having thought for a while that I would like to indulge in the activity, and then having taken the plunge, now I am aware of a tiny band of readers to whom I would like to send an affectionate




before informing you (in the nicest possible way, of course) that I'm going to ignore you, because I'm not convinced that blogging should be a self-conscious exercise.

Morning

When I woke this morning it was 5am and the sun was shining. In a wild surge of enthusiasm, I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes and set off on a walk to start the day.

The weather was beautiful and the countryside here is lovely - there was so much large-scale pleasure for the eyes, but what struck me were the tiny moments of beauty everywhere I looked. Snails scurrying slowly for shelter under the hedges as the sun came up, birds looking afronted that I'd invaded their time and space, even the small feathery tragedies of fox leftovers across the fields. It was beautiful. It all reminded me of Marge Piercy's poem "Private Bestiary" - lines about snails and dolphins and wild love-making... Maybe I'll edit that in here later.

A lovely start to a morning. Now, a couple of hours later, it's gloomy and cold. I think I might have just seized the day while it was there to be seized.

I just moved an old bloody oven and dropped the bloody thing.
Just thought I'd share that.

Brian Patten

I have to confess that I heart him a bit. Quite a big bit, actually.

Here are some of the reasons why.


Simple lyric

When I think of her sparkling face
And of her body that rocked this way and that,
When I think of her laughter,
Her jubilance that filled me,
It’s a wonder I’m not gone mad.

She is away and I cannot do what I want.
Other faces pale when I get close.
She is away and I cannot breathe her in.

The space her leaving has created
I have attempted to fill
With bodies that numbed upon touching,
Among them I expected her opposite,
And found only forgeries.

Her wholeness I know to be a fiction of my making,
Still I cannot dismiss the longing for her;
It is a craving for sensation new flesh
Cannot wholly calm or cancel,
It is perhaps for more than her.

At night above the parks the stars are swarming.
The streets are thick with nostalgia;
I move through senseless routine and insensitive chatter
As if her going did not matter.
She is away and I cannot breathe her in.
I am ill simply through wanting her.


Doubt shall not make an end of you

Doubt shall not make an end of you
nor closing eyes lose your shape
when the retina's light fades;
what dawns inside me will light you.
In our public lives we may confine ourselves to darkness,
our nowhere mouths explain away our dreams,
but alone we are incorruptible creatures,
our light sunk too deep to be of any social use
we wander free and perfect without moving
or love on hard carpets
where couples revolving round the room
end found at its centre.
Our love like a whale from its deepest ocean rises -
I offer this and a multitude of images
from party rooms to oceans,
the single star and all its reflections;
being completed we include all
and nothing wishes to escape us.
Beneath my hand your hardening breast agrees
to sing of its own nature,
then from a place without names our origin comes shivering.
Feel nothing separate then,
we have translated each other into light
and into love go streaming.

Brian Patten


The Bee's Last Journey

The Bee's Last Journey to the Rose
I came first through the warm grass
Humming with Spring,
And now swim through the evening's
Soft sunlight gone cold.
I'm old in this green ocean;
Going a final time to the rose.
North wind, until I reach it
Keep your icy breath away
That changes pollen into dust.
Let me be drunk on this scent a final time,
Then blow if you must.

Brian Patten

Sort of happy birthday

Today would have been my mum's birthday. I think - but I'm not sure - that she would have been 78 today. As it was, she died when she was 56.

I don't have any pictures of her to post on here as part of a rather strange birthday card, but here are some pictures of some of her favourite things.

Little men - in praise of

The man of the house - Titch! He's been in the house since 5.30 this morning, because the sun woke him up early. Usually he sleeps quite well and only starts to grumble as it comes up to 7am. This morning, however, he wanted company.

He sat in my lap for a while, enjoying the attention and the stroking, but then decided he wanted to make some NOISE!!!!!

Here's my little beast, pausing during an extended period of running up and down the piano, enjoying the ensuing noise and chaos:

The horror!! The horror!!!!!!!!!!

Broodies. Hundreds of them!!
Oh, alright then... two.
Two.
TWO!!

Sweetie:

And Buffy:

Buffy only just got her strength back after a marathon hatching session last autumn, so this is something of a disaster. She is also sitting on nothing at the moment. Instinct is stronger than sense all the way down the line with chickens. Probably why I love them so much!

So in a couple of days I shall be popping three hatching miniature silkie eggs under each of my broodies, and in a few weeks time (fingers firmly crossed) we shall have a little sextet of baby mini-dinosaurs. Like this (my favourite chicken):

Just don't tell MrRainy...

Hurrah!!!!

I braved the aggressive cockerel, the protective mother and the burgeoning broodies (two now! Bugger!!)


Here they are! You can see Lemony at the back - he's so lovely.

This is their broody mum with some of her six babies. She loves them madly. Emphasis on the madly.

This is my cockerel - Titch.

He objects even to the implied presence of other men in my life and crows like a loon whenever there's a hint of male company. He looks fierce, but he's actually only the size of a large pigeon. Actually, a medium-sized pigeon.

Chicken Not Very Little

Today we named some of the chicks. We've got as far as Lemony Snickett, Delphi and Blossom. The rest are all cockerels and we'll have to pass them on once they start crowing - it feels like it might be easier to give up animals without names, after shedding tears in the past over well-loved little personalities leaving our happy, chicken-overrun home.

I'm going to try to add a picture here of the chicks when they first hatched - unblurred photographs now they can fly are something of a miracle.

Ooh! There it is (I'm such an obvious Blog-virgin!)

Watch this space - I may tackle the scary chicks, broodies and camera combination later this evening!