Parsifal Cupcakes

My friend Peter and I went to hear the Mariinsky Opera presenting a concert performance of Parsifal. After the second act, there was an hour long interval, and we settled down for a picnic. Peter provided wine and delicious sandwiches, and I was in charge of dessert. What would Wagner have liked, I wondered - and decided lemon drizzle cake, and PARSIFAL cupcakes. Delicious.

Amaryllis Red Lion

Growing an amaryllis is a great treat.
An enormous, stout stem springs up,
followed by huge flamboyant flowers.
  









 This one is Red Lion. It has lit up the kitchen.

Household Guardians 1

Here is Amon Ra, sitting by my computer. He was a Christmas reindeer soft toy, but I took off his festive bow tie and attached a Suffolk Puff (fabric constructed shape) to his antlers. Now I have an Ancient Egyptian guardian for the computer.

I am thinking of moving him however, as the cat keeps batting him with his paws, and knocking him onto the floor, and I don't think it shows the proper respect.

This winter's first big frost

 I found these silvery fern leaves growing on the car windscreen this morning

buying a typewriter

Hitch hiking - How to Cope WIth Mud

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 if ever you’re standing

before a big mud patch

and you need to cross it

but  you’re wearing the wrong shoes,

it’s possible to stick out your thumb

and so attract the attention of

a passing hippo

who will give you a safe ride on its back.

However, as payment

it will bite off your thumb,

so you can only ever have

two hippo rides in your life,

and if you take them both,

you’ll need to cope without thumbs.

Blue Moon at the Map Shop

This is the first of a series of poems about what happens when there is a blue moon. Can you see the man in the photo, tiptoing away with his hands above his head?

 

places

the map shop owner is a collector,

pencil whispering into his notebook

 Brobury Bredwardine Blakemere

he breathes the boredom of shopkeepers past,

 Kingstone TybertonTurnastone

in paper dusk the maps wait on crowded shelves,

Wormbridge Winforton Whitney

nothing happens here until the blue moon,

      Lower Welson Stretton Sugwas

            Pipe and Lyde

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Ahoy shipmates - Tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I will be celebrating by wearing a banana round my neck, as I don't have a bandana. It's a little early to have a tot of rum, so I thought I'd have a bagel and some fruit instead. Anchors aweigh.

Harvest Time

 I remember the year the fullstop harvest failed. No conversations were finished, and not one novel ended. Anyone found separating an ellipsis faced a heavy fine, and letterpress practitioners were hunted down and robbed. 

Everyone was exhausted by the end of the year.

Poets survived best, and babies were unaffected.