Why little weed

One of the things about getting older is the accumulation of connotations to every word. Like "Coo up" the image of a man with a crooked stick pointing up from his mouth like a megaphone and cows coming over the hill towards him - on Pipworth Lane, past the house that looked like a railway carriage.

Like the lover mentioned in the last post who gave me the nickname Ragwort - I never asked why - but it goes with Little Weed and here I am as her at some Miners Welfare do. Anthony and Alan were Bill and Ben, Tricia was a coolie, Vivienne = red riding hood,her mum the nurse (and she was carrying on with the local GP too - playing doctors and nurses, ha-ha) Bessie Kay's Ellen = the fairy and Susan the Hawaian - just look at that hair.

Ragwort - bright and cheerful if common

a persistent little weed poisonous to domestic animals that eat it - I wonder what he had in mind.

Getting old

As a label it might seem a bit down, covering as it does (so far) forgetting and excessive remembering but it is an awful lot better than the alternative. I will use it I think to references to memory and personal history.

Going wheeeee

A March wind
A hare boxing
Magpie gossiping
Aeroplaning round in circles going
Wheeeeeeeeee
wind.

Doesn't it sometimes seem a waste of time to be articulate? One of the sounds I wish I could make but can't is a soprano ululation (lovely word) and I'm too timid to practise. Next time I'm on the moors maybe. 'Coo up' is the closest I come to it. And Angel comes running - down the near vertical 30foot slope she'd chased a Jack Russell up this morning.

We were in Miggy woods and the pond in the park was seething with frogs.

And they do make a noise (I thought it was just foreign frogs that did), though I don't think it's 'rivet' I don't think it's 'meep' either, it's more 'merp' with a sore throat, some alto, some tenor. There were blackish/brownish, yellowish and greenish with black markings, at it like the clappers in the shallows round the reed stalks and spawning like froth. Further round they were walking along the bottom - does that mean toads or just too knackered to swim?

My camera has broken,

pointing away from the window

pointing towards the window

the replacement suggested by Pete is saving-up price so it is going to have to wait a while.

Angel was one yesterday. Some Angel delights (Do you remember them or are you too young? there was a mint flavoured one - mmmm.) are:

• a massage of squashed worm applied by a tarmac surface;
• grown up dog food that is just too big so you can throw it around and bite it and kill it till it is squishy enough to break up;
• being in the garden on your own so you can dig where you want;
• dancing on the settee to get the dirt from between your paws;
• snuggling up and having behind both ears rubbed at once ( the advantages of a small head are numerous).

Communications she understands are:

1. sit
2. down
3. take it outside
4. bugger off
5. the fridge door opening (there is food on the way)
6. 'Angel' /'Coo up' / a chirruppy sound ( if you don't come now, you're going to lose sight of me and then you won't be happy)
7. a silent putting on of socks (I am going out without her - time to hide)
8. a raised finger (shut up)

Communications I understand are:

1. barking in the garden (something in the garden has altered / what is that)
2. barking in the garden (hello barking dog somewhwere out there)
3. barking in the garden (open the fridge door and tempt me in with food)
4. barking next to furniture (you need to get my toy out from under this)
5. barking on the bed (you need to get my toy - I daren't jump down this side and am too scared that it will run away while I'm not watching it/unable to link both sides of the bed in one concept/idle to think about walking round from the side I can jump down from to get it myself)
6. ringing the chimes on the back door (I want to go out)
7. jumping at me with a mouth full of toy (I want you to play)
8. pulling at the lead hung in its place (you were planning to take me a walk, honest, you just forgot)

Forgetting was big in my head this week - I think I've got the end of winter SAD in an odd way - lethargic and slightly woozy but I woke up after a dream about a lover from long ago and could not remember his name. This led to lots of other 'testing' and names I couldn't recall (though for one I've still not identified, I could remember the fictitious name I gave him in a novel I put him in) Anyhow it finally did come to me and I got the idea of googling him (- I did this with an old friend some months ago now and e-mailed her and found she had 3 teenage daughters and a job lecturing when she replied - I gave her my news and she never got in touch back - ho hum)and found out he'd had a stroke 4 or so years ago. The first thought was 'should I get in touch' and then I thought 'what would I say?' and, and I do feel hateful about this, the answer was, 'whew, aren't I glad we didn't last'.

Still hibernating

Yesterday was a 'rest' day on my 28 day plan and after the canal side I thought I'd spend it in the garden - so, of course, the weather was not so good and I spent the day indoors, mooching. Did a few hundred words on Gladly, finished cutting the bull for printmaking and splodged some tissue for a leafy backing for the fox, read my dose of Luke and did some research, if I can call it that on Wikipedia - which I love. I found my first misuse which was so obvious it was entertaining - an Accounts student at the University of Essex is now made more famouse by being included in my blog - there you go Adnan Shafiq.

Because I'm still trying to find my way around my belief I find the kingdom of God talk both confusing and stimulating and, a bit like pubescence, I'm not sure if it's just me with some horrendous deformity. Wikipedia lets me know I'm not alone! Not only do others share my doubts there is documentation and commentary on them. So there is a place for my views and one day I'll get up the confidence to ask David if that place is the Church of England.

My DVD of The Penguin Cafe and CD of Appalachian Spring arrived yesterday too and both lifted me.

Then we got back from the dinner time walk and while I was coated up, I photo'd what flowers were in the garden.

I don't know how to tell if the brocolli is ready, it seems to be getting more than sprouting and developing a head. I suppose once the flowers open, it's too late!


These are growing in the greenhouse, not planted, just forgotten about when I moved it.

Now we're off up Miggy woods while it's still fine. I've got to do half an hour today in either 2 or 3 lots.

Spring sprung?

I woke to snow again, yesterday but unfazed ( and unphased) we set out at 9:30, once the bus pass was valid, for the canal side.

It wasn't particularly eventful, but it was lovely to be out under a blue sky and warm and able to look around without considering the direction the weather was coming from.

It was a day for swans. I don't recall seeing them on the canal before.


Angel isn't too sure about the canal, especially when she sees things floating, whether it's rubbish, moorhens, ducks or this swan which she watched pass as if she was at least half sure that she could and should join it. As I explained to a dog walker we met later, I'm going to have to be a lot surer either of her water sense or her ability to swim before I let her off the lead canal side.



She skipped through puddles so she must have been warm enough too and for the whole six miles was happy as Larry, as Mum would say and if it's Larry as in Larry the lamb, particularly so cos she skipped and frolicked no end! Her only reluctance was at a Japanese I forget what who she didn't want to pass, even though he was tied up and on the other side of the canal.


This rhodedendron was so shiny and green and sort of civilised in among the tat that hedges the path.We were passed twice by Ben from round the corner as part of a school party on bikes, he looked proud as Punch. (Happy as Larry, Proud as Punch, Cliched as Chloe)

Near the end, I'm not sure where the church tower is on the horizon or who put down the peanuts-for-the-birds on the bench, but it is dog walker country at this end of the walk rather than jogger trail.

It seems I take about 22oo steps to a mile - there are 1/4, 1/2 and mile markers up the tow path - and kept up an average of 3 miles an hour not counting the baegel break after 4 1/2 miles. I can't think and walk it seems. I would have thought it used different parts of my brain but it obviously needs to be more automatic than it is at present, I slow to a saunter once I start thinking about writing or printmaking.

I was done in by the time we got on the bus at Rodley, so no room for complacency.