Mist rolls down from the hills. A slate grey pine stands out in front of the ghosts of other trees.

bricks caught in the slanting sunlight. uncountable shades of colour. glissando from umber to orange.

On the drive home...

it is autumn and the hedges are on fire
yellow ash leaves dance on the road in the wake of a rattling truck
a mottled grouse furrows a path through the sky

The boy kitten lies on top of his sister. They fit together like a round peg in a round hole. He holds her ear in his mouth.

a watercolour cloud - puce and slate grey

My sympathetic nervous system: A wave of hot blood rises through my face. A blush and my heart races. A bead of sweat - I have forgotten your name.

The after-rain smell of ozone, and warm damp earth.

A hoard of fat daises spring up from the horse cropped grass.

Dusk

It's a long way to space. The sky darkens on the horizon, and the evening star wakes up.

Fat candle

A pool of wet wax around the wick. A softening of edges. It all grows hard and cool.

Bramble wraps around a young conifer hedge. Weave and weft. And oh - the rain.

the pie-bald kitten pats my hand with suede-soft plantar pads

Early morning drive

An almost cliched dawn. Blush and bright lavender clouds. The glare of sun on metalled roads.

Saturday morning

-the rain comes in rattling waves -

Seen at noon.

Against pristine white clouds, the silhouette of a red kite, with wing-tips like splayed fingers.

the beginning of autumn

Like a small green coconut, the horse-chestnut on the side of the road whose body has been worn smooth.

...looking for places to eat

There is nothing more English than enjoying a fried Fish and Chips, which was originated in United Kingdom in1858 #found

Tea

Like the green Ulva seaweed I saw in glass-clear rock pools last week, the freshly picked leaves of lemon balm swim in the hot water of our glass teapot.

in the highstreet

An old guy, with a shock of white hair, pushes a bull mastiff past me in a 1970s mothercare pushchair. The dog has one leg up over the handlebars and his head lolls to one side - just a hint of pink tongue showing. 

Two groundsmen prepare the cricket pitch. The first, with grey hair, whizzes around on a small red tractor. The second, with white hair and a string vest, paces slowly behind a heavy old petrol mower.

a money spider scuttles behind the clock in the shrine room

chores

There are rust spots along the edge of the needle. I rub them off with my thumbnail, as best I can, and hold my breath as I push the thread through its eye.

Get well soon...

Last night I dreamed a washed out photo of my brother. Light had escaped onto the film, like angels glowing around his face. In the photo he was ill, grey skinned in a grey Maclaren pushchair. This morning I found out he's in bed with the flu...

first light

dew like scattered diamonds on the imperial-purple petunias.

The wind turns the birch leaves over showing their slate-green backs. The tree's white bark is spotted with black, like a snow leopard hiding in the foliage. 

Sunday afternoon

the sun-dried grass, in our short cut lawn, feels like the scratchy hair on the pig I stroked this afternoon.

I breath in...

I breath in - bowls of pink champagne on the rosebush. 

PC repairs

My hands shaking, I try not to touch the sensitive copper parts of the DIMM. The copper flashes like gold in the sunlight.

the thumb print of God

 on the weathered bird feeder

 a spot of lichen

 bird shit

 the thumb print of God

she opens her arms to the sky
"so this is outside?"
this beautiful evening light, these beautiful slate grey clouds
edged with gold
this is outside

The rain beats...

The rain beats, tattoos, on the conservatory roof. It explodes into a mist on my nieghbour's slate roofed porch, and obscures the sky.

In the Cambrian mountains

In the Cambrian mountains, a keeled over apostrophe of mist floats in front of dark, pine covered, slopes.

a hole in the clouds

a hole in the clouds - suddenly the sea-front houses glow

The Eucalyptus tree leans as if swept by gale

The Eucalyptus tree leans as if swept by gales. A blackbird stands, and sings, in one of its bright, ivory-white branches.

blossom on the wind

blossom on the wind -
behind the line of fruit trees,
a line of sheep

tomato seedlings:

tomato seedlings:
the gardener pulling up weeds
in the afternoon sun

How still her face is

How still her face is as she applies gold-leaf to the statue...

spring green leaves on the plum tree;
its delicate branches wave like kelp in the ocean

Yellow tulips!

Yellow tulips!

Seen from my window:

Floating like incense in still air - lavender blue smoke from my neighbour's chimney.

Next-door's summer house

Next-door's summer house,
its faded wood - the colour of moisture starved soil.
Leaves of the cherry laurel tremble in the breeze.

on the bathroom windowsill

a bud as big as my thumbnail,
the embryonic orchid flower,
a sliver of its pink heart shows.

Found at the bottom of the fridge...

like tufts of white down: mould on the bottom of the swede

Blowing in the wind...

Growing between the concrete step and the concrete path - three bunches of dandelions!

At the edge of the field

At the edge of the field: the "hiding in a hedgerow in my childhood" scent of hawthorn blossom.
Yellow anthers in the centre of small white petals.

We thought she said *passion* flowers

Pasque flowers - their Mountbatten pink heads closed - cloaked in silver mist

Gardening/Noticing:

Tiny clots of earth on the head of the worm.

In the garden...

In the garden
burying her head in chives
our agoraphobic tabby cat!

she smells like the inside of apricots

After a hard winter

Green dried out and died :variegated browns, and black and white mold on the rotting palm. 

Looking out the office window.

The shadow the downspout casts against the rough red/orange brick wall of next-door's house, like the shadow of tall dark pines on the distant hill, is almost plum-line straight: its edges follow the bumps and grooves in the wall's surface - from the gutter to the drain.

On the lichen spotted paving slabs
discarded leaves
fulvous, chestnut and burnt umber

My desk: Rolls of parcel tape and Chinese lions. Secondhand books and tangled headphones. Still hot coffee steaming in the green pear mug.

overheard

They were catching up. He was leaning against the door of the train and said "He was like 'I was so drunk, on the trampoline man...I was like "'baby, get in there!"
His friend nodded, and then noticed the sky. "Man, look how purple that is"
"Red sky at night, shepherds delight."

Next to the radio in our office: a Tori-Amos CD, a Christmas decoration and a letter addressed to someone who doesn't live here anymore.

Made more orange by the street lights, the ginger tom watched me walking by, his head moving like the the second-hand on an old watch.

January's last stone

Cliffs and crags and striking peaks. Dark valleys. One stone, and another and another.

This could be equally about the garden wall I noticed, as about your words.

suprise

Before we arrived the Christmas tree had shivered and covered the carpet in dark pine needles. Our friend's hoover sits quietly amongst them.

oops...

Claw marks, from a stretching cat - the marks on the bumper of the car I reversed into.

Friday evening

Your silhouette, inside the silhouette of our car, at dusk. 

Thursday evening

In candlelight: the golden statue on the shrine, and our five faces. 

Dictionary: ḥijāb

ḥijāb (hɪˈdʒæb, hɛˈdʒɑːb) -n
   between Marks & Spencer and the Sony shop - she has her home wrapped around her...

Fatty welcomes me home

A smudge of black, in an already dark room, and a thin meow. 

On the way home

Act I. 

The delayed train to Birmingham sweeps to one side, revealing a crowd on the platform opposite me. A hundred individuals, faces lit by strip lights and mobile phones.

Sunday morning

Three burnt matches, withered, lay on the red leather top of the table beside me. There is a golden singing bowl next to them, which reflects the whole room.

Saturday

Orchids and green leaves at the feet of the Golden Buddha.

Friday...

A few inches of sky caught between the buildings-
someone has covered it with fuschia.

walking...

The shell of a blue tit in the centre of a muddy path. The bright yellow of its tail feathers. The dark brick red of blood.

The path is patterned by footprints in the mud, some five inches deep.

Last night

A clear night and the full moon. The full moon.

17th January 2011

The angel floats high above the door of the church, frozen in stone.

Sunday at work

A teenager pulls down a book of the shelf. "It's by three priests..." he laughs, throwing the book aside. He throws it onto a table of other books.  Its position upsets the square lines of the other, laid out, books on the table.

listening....

In the train, on the table next to me, a daughter, perhaps in her twenties, does impressions of other family members for her parents. After a pause her mother sighs and says "I wish I was a Grandmother".

Friday evening

The high water of the Wye, rushing underneath a 600 year old bridge: there are strange currents and eddys forming patterns on the surface. The odd shapes, like brush strokes, are made by the water squeezing around the pillars of the bridge, and meeting itself.

yesterday's stone

Through the bare branches of hazel and buddleia,
the bare branches of a crane in the builders yard -
lit by a low sun.



(recorded in a notebook, on the way to the train station)

Waiting for Fiona

rain on the conservatory roof
the orange phosphor glow of a street lamp -
next-door's cat sits in the window

11/01/11 - Wednesday's stone.

The laurel hedge shakes in the wind, each leaf almost torn from the branches. The young bamboo bows. The television aerial shakes and I imagine the picture breaking up. This side of the window all I can hear is the tap, tap, tap of fingers on a keyboard.

Monday evening

Dark and light ribbons of savoy cabbage overlap and tangle in the pan.  Steam mists the glass lid. The cabbage looks like bright camouflage on a child's jacket.

Sunday evening

the sky is like an indigo curtain
 hung behind the set of the cityscape

a chorus of pigeons are waiting
 for Terpsichore

Saturday morning

The other side of the hedge, someone pushes a bicycle past; its wheels a squeaking nest of young grouse.

What did I notice today?

the white creases in the red carrier bag

holding an unwanted Christmas present

he held it like a secret

Thursday evening.

The golden Buddha is lit by a single candle. We chant his name, Amitabha, over four notes. There are two of us. Her voice is smoother, and higher than mine. In front of the Buddha are three blue coffee cups with gold rims, from a market in France. They are each full of water: this morning's offering. The empty white jug, heart shaped, next to them, was the first thing we bought together.

Wednesday morning

mushrooms sliding across the pan
on a bed of hot olive oil
bursting in bubbles beneath them

On the eleventh day of Christmas...

On the eleventh day of Christmas two chocolate boxes sat on the piano.  There were also two Christmas cards, and a bees-wax candle dyed sea green. The chocolate boxes were empty.

3rd Jan

When you reach and turn off the alarm, the only light in the room is the blue glow of the wireless router.

2nd Jan

Twilight. My belch echoes around the almost empty square. A child chases a pigeon and I can't tell the difference between its hoots and the sound of its flapping wings.

Jan 1st.

Against a denim sky, the Cathedral is lit by soft electric lights.