reading practise & games of skill

you have to do a bit of reading, if only to remember how to spell

i'd been avoiding susan sontag for years, thinking she'd be too clever, maybe too heavy for me

turns out she's full of warmth & enthusiasm and her texts slide down as easily as good wine

the hopscotch was freshly drawn, the artist's broken chalks lay on the path not far away

in england, children throw the pebble or whatever into the squares

i've seen spanish children place a pebble on the starting line, then stand on one leg with their toe just touching the pebble, then attempt to flick the stone with that same toe towards their chosen square

i've tried it, & it seemed impossible !

and have you seen a spanish egg& spoon race ?

they don't carry the spoon, they grip the spoon handle between their teeth !

ouch !

someone's been having fun in wandsworth park 

tea-time reading 

it ... 

... must be ... 

... autumn 

from houns-tout towards the beachy head light house 

from beachy head towards houns tout 

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