Where be the birds?...

A day's birdwatching today - but the birds had obviously not been informed. Or maybe it was just too hot for them? Who can say. Anyway, our first port of call was Moor Green Lakes near Camberley, which Lord H has joined as it's near his work. A lovely place, but the birds, as I say, were few and far between. Though, to be fair, the herons are out in force. Still, a nice walk. Though the place could do with a loo. Do these nature people have kidneys of iron??

After that, we went to The Vyne in Basingstoke for lunch and a walk round their new wetlands centre and hide. Good grief, it was bloody hot! Though it was obviously where the action was: six or seven herons on the lake, and then one of them decided to eat a young duck. Mother bravely attacked it in a bid to rescue her hapless chick, but really a duck is no match for a heron. Not only that, but a second heron stood in as a threatening look-out and drove away the duck every time she came near, while the first one tucked into its Sunday lunch. Nature: red of tooth and claw indeed. A walk through the woods ended our day - though I must admit the walk was rather too long for me. Lord H's comment: you've had enough of having fun now, haven't you?... Yes, you could say that! Still, we managed to revive ourselves with an essential choc ice at the kiosk. Bliss. Though, unusually for us, we didn't buy a chocolate mouse in the shop. Goodness me, the heat must really be getting to us ...

This evening, we'll be glued to yesterday's video of "The Mummy Returns" - camp horror is probably the best description. But, ye gods, it's three hours long!!! We'll have to start it now if we're going to get to bed before we turn into pumpkins. What is wrong with film directors these days? Have they forgotten how to yell "cut"??

Oh, and I had a small kitchen crisis today, which inspired a poem:

Opinions

Bumbling round the kitchen
at breakfast

I toss a glass of water
in the sink.

The damn thing
throws it back.

Good God, these days
even my house

has opinions.


While I'm thinking about poetry, I'm also enjoying my Cromwell book, and wrote something about it last night:

Musing on history

The best love
lies in the heart’s history.
A life fulfilled. Not one
in the waiting.
Now I read
of Cromwell
and wish I could have met him.

Not for the battles
but more for the slow
unfolding of a life.
The little-by-little understanding
of the spirit’s
darker corners,
the way perhaps to light them.

I long for a sense
of what might be right
in the time’s bleak culture.
The power, passion also
to do it. While, like him,
I carry the weight
of the mind’s strange labyrinth,

one difference remains:
my journey is yet
to be done.


And let's not forget "haiku Sunday":

In the heat, words stick
to my pen, crowding the nib.
The page lies empty.

Today's nice things:

1. Birdwatching (of sorts!)
2. Poetry
3. TV.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Pink Champagne and Apple Juice
Goldenford Publishers