the white house-martin 

honestly ! 

the railway viaduct at borde hill 

marvels of nature and engineering

from bexhill to brighton, diverting via beachy head because the sky was so very bright

astonished to find the cliff edge between beachy head and houns-tout was teeming with hundreds of migrating house martins

even more astonished to see, for the first time and probably the only time, an all-white one; absolutely white as far as i could tell in the brief two or three seconds of focussed perception

hoping to catch him or her on camera, i just held it at arms length and scanned the cliff edge for a second glimpse, with my eyes wide open

i was lucky, but the image you see is just a much enlarged detail in the wider scene

i had a third glimpse but the wings were folded back and the image too non-descript

later, making good of some spare time, i took an unscheduled diversion to see the marvellous brick railway viaduct at borde hill near balcombe, on the london to brighton line

badly camouflaged cats 

jacques tati 

orgasms in yer mouth 

greater love hath no woman ...

we stayed in this afternoon and watched jacques tati as monsieur hulot, on holiday

i'd seen & enjoyed it nearly forty years ago in the little theatre in bath but suddenly it makes me squeal out loud with astonishment, with huge jokes sandwiched between moments of surreal beauty, and a marvellously inclusive tenderness for the world and for people

then she gave me a chocolate, my sixth from a box of ten ...

walter crane's red riding hood: it is saturday ! i think i'll just take a stroll along the riverbank ... 

young oak in ashford forest 

autumn acorn in ashford forest 

clever lantern at cuckfield church 

in cuckfield church porch 

undecided starlings at cuckfield 

prejudiced ? moi ?

i had a brief conversation with an even older cheese driver, shaun, about the merits of high-speed film noir dialogue, having just seen a dvd of otto preminger's fallen angel, made very cheaply in black & white in 1945 & currently available from the nft

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037691/

we didn't have much time to talk after too long a day, so shaun ended a condensed diatribe on modern film by saying, "i'm an intellectual snob, really !"

"no, shaun !", sez i, "you read the daily telegraph and that makes you a reactionary snob; whereas i read the guardian and that makes me an intellectual snob !"

putney cormorants hanging out at low tide 

battersea boatery 

kent sheep and oak 

kiss spain for me ...

spanish civil war memorial by the church at the north side of putney bridge

sweeter than average

aaah!

a very nice bit of sign-painting

not far from chelsea

belt & braces, horologically speaking !

putney church beside the tidal thames, the sundial is now o'ershadowed by tall buildings

i wonder if any of these are the right size for quarsan ?

drowned trainers at battersea

conker collecting in post-capitoline retirement ...

geese on sedlescoombe green

dear diary ...

04.15 am - ish

am narrowly missed by three drivers in near collisions at succesive T-junctions as i cycle towards nine elms ... glad to be alive !

08.15 am

arriving in kent, slip while stepping out of cab and fall backwards from truck onto concrete but effortlessly achieve optimal landing on both buttocks and both shoulderblades simultaneously ... followed closely by back of skull

emit roar expressing mixture of shock, pain, and embarrasment ... energised with fear of permanent injury and inability to pay the rent

one second later realise that i am still lucid and nothing is broken

concrete apparently undamaged, kentish onlookers mildly amused, and i am mighty pleased to be alive

recovery fuelled by huge rush of adrenalin

11.00 am

as adrenalin rush subsides, buy bacon lettuce tomato and mayonnaise sandwich from a spotlessly clean road-side stall outside tonbridge

theatrically, whilst i wait, an inspector enters the stall uninvited, wearing a white coat and bearing a clipboard

watching the proceedings he enquires of the pretty lady with the "philadelphia cheese" accent, "have you washed that lettuce ?", to which she rarther candidly replies, "i've never washed a lettuce in my life ! ... i just trim off the outsides !"

17.00 pm

arriving home, discover that the girl at the supermarket checkout where i bought my spring onions has "generously" over-changed me by five pounds

18.00 pm

whilst reading today's wiltshire gazette on-line, discover that school-hating fourteen year old nephew tom has been sectioned after a foolhardy encounter with cheap drugs

my brother argues that young drug abusers shouldn't be protected and thus encouraged by confidentiality

there but for fortune go you or i


18.30 pm

check last night's national lottery results and am now a further ten pounds richer !

and so to bed ...

chocolate tears

we went to the airport and i bought a box of anthon berg strawberries in champagne chocolates before we flew to bilbao

there, in our hotel, whilst i lay staring at the trendy purple ceiling, she discovered a safe that could be programmed so that only her credit card would unlock it

and that was where SHE hid MY chocolates

there is no justice ...

173 years old ... 

... and complicated 

the jill windmill on the downs near brighton 

the bourgeoise spider