(More from the Matlock Bath Tourist Board …) So, here we are again, in the middle of the annual rolling Fire Festival – Halloween, Diwali, Bonfire Night – with which we try to ward off the arrival of Winter. Like the Blackpool of my youth, Matlock Bath gets in early on this one with its [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Autumn’
Arrangements In Black And Gold : Venetian Nights in Matlock Bath
Posted in This England, tagged Autumn, Boating, Derbyshire, Funfairs, Hearses, Illuminations, Light, Matlock Bath, Toads on November 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
“Something To Wear Against The Heart”
Posted in Arts, Flowers, Fruit, Nature, Poetry, Trees, tagged Autumn, Brampton Valley Way, Poetry, R.S. Thomas on November 2, 2011 | 3 Comments »
November’s poem is brought to you by R.S. Thomas, the austere Welsh priest. A Day in Autumn It will not always be like this, The air windless, a few last Leaves adding their decoration To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening In the lawn’s [...]
Stump Watch for October 2011
Posted in Nature, Trees, tagged Autumn, Little Bowden, Stump Watch, Trees on October 30, 2011 | 2 Comments »
This month, we see the Stump in the evening, illuminated by flashlight. It continues to suffer depradations (i.e. having bits broken off it) – perhaps because it’s now at a convenient height for people to snap branches off to throw for their dogs to chase.
Freak Autumn : a Poem for October by Anna Akhmatova
Posted in Arts, Poetry, Politics, tagged Anna Akhmatova, Autumn, Communism, Poetry, Russia on October 2, 2011 | 4 Comments »
A poem for October, which seems appropriate in the light of the unseasonable weather. It’s by Anna Akhamotova, from her collection Anno Domini MCMXXI (originally published in 1922), in a translation by Richard McKane. The freak Autumn built a high vault in the sky, the clouds were ordered not to darken the vault. The people [...]
Stump Watch for September 2011
Posted in Nature, Trees, tagged Autumn, Leicestershire, Little Bowden, Spiders, Stump Watch, Trees on September 28, 2011 | 2 Comments »
As the number of posts in between the monthly Stump Watches seems to be dwindling a little, I sometimes have the suspicion that the Stump is turning into some kind of terrible Triffid-like thing that is determined to occupy and colonise the blog completely. One day I shall log on and find that the title has [...]
Out Of A Misty Dream Our Path Emerges For A While …
Posted in Arts, Cricket, Football, Poetry, Sport, tagged Autumn, Cricket, Ernest Dowson, James Taylor, Poetry, Summer on September 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Gone! So, I suppose we have to admit that the cricket season is over and the football season has begun. A little known fact – at least I’ve never heard Alan Hansen allude to it on Match of the Day – is that the earliest use of the word “soccer” recorded in the O.E.D. is in a letter [...]
Cheerio, Cheerio, Cheerio!
Posted in Cricket, Sport, tagged Autumn, Cricket, James Taylor, Leicestershire County Cricket Club, Middlesex County Cricket Club, Northamptonshire County Cricket Club on September 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Leicestershire v Middlesex, Grace Road, County Championship, 14-15 September 2011 It’s an indication of how quickly the darkness of Autumn seems to descend that although this, the last match of the county season, only took place a week ago it seems to belong to another season altogether. My expectation when I booked the time off was that [...]
Crop Triangle in Lubenham
Posted in Nature, This England, tagged Autumn, Crop Triangles, Harvest, Leicestershire, Lubenham on September 17, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Another in the series The Curiosities of Leicestershire in Photographs. A perfect triangle of wheat in a field near Lubenham. Local historians, folklorists and UFO spotters have offered various explanations for this phenomenon. Prosaically, there is a drain concealed at the base of the triangle, and I suspect the combine couldn’t quite get around it. [...]
Summer Pleasures They Are Gone …
Posted in Arts, Cricket, Poetry, Sport, tagged Autumn, Cricket, John Clare, Loughborough CC, Market Harborough CC, Nick O'Donnell, Poetry, Summer, Tom Wells on September 7, 2011 | 2 Comments »
A little later than usual, a poem for September. This rather chose itself. When I was at the Chesterfield Festival the other week, fielding in front of me on the boundary was Jon Clare, the promising Burnley-born Derbyshire all-rounder. In September’s issue of The Cricketer, which I happened to be reading at the time, there was an [...]
Stump Watch for August 2011
Posted in Nature, Trees, tagged Autumn, Cricket, Little Bowden, Stump Watch, Summer, Trees on August 31, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Ain’t it funny how time slips away? Well, not especially – but here we are at the end of the month once again, and so it’s time for Stump Watch. It’s not quite visible here, but it was raining gently when I took this photograph. In the far distance, the eternally optimistic groundsman prepares the [...]
