Toad in need of a croak

Tyskie

Cheap lager from Czech Republic (i think)

Cheap and not cheerful.

Bland. Like all the lagers you get in pubs. Nothing to recommend it.

Wouldn’t drink it again.

Toad’s Croak

Nor would i drink this again.

Toad’s Croak

Nor would i drink this again.

The only exceptional thing about it is it’s name.

A pale ale.

“Pale ale” as a category for beers doesn’t inspire me. Insipid sounding. The drink of pale spotty filing clerks.

Toads need something stronger, darker, and deeper than this to get them croaking.

I’d have thought.

(Well, this toad does)

The Monster Munch

Look at this sweet little chap lapping and licking

Couldn’t get enough. Yoghurt!

(he’s gonna back-flip into that cup of coffee in a minute)

He was greedy for it, avid. Like a little baby sucking off his mother’s tit.

Later, he changed from cute kitten-baby into aggressive, biting, fighting, beastie-boy

Little Monster Munch!

In his head he thought he was a puma.

What he is – is a lovely pest.

Fresh and ready

To start on every day.

Wish you were here

What do you reckon? Fancy it?

To sit here in this sumptuous leather green armchair listening to Stars of the Lid on your ipod, flicking thro the book of Burmese proverbs you’ve just bought in Harlequin, glancing thro the great pics you took this morning of hidden wooded deer, blogging on your laptop (about sitting in a cafe) the lovely you feel life is just to be alive in.

Sipping a pot of strong Italian coffee.

The cold rain outside slashes hard across the window. You’re bug as a snug. A fire is gonna be lit soon just behind. A real fire. It’s crackle and glow will make you want (in a minute) a big mug of creamy hot chocolate. And a huge slice of Black Forest Gateux.

You’ve got 2 hours of long slow worry-free afternoon to slide and sink into. No pressure, no stress. Nowhere to be getting to. Nowhere to be getting away from.

Just being here. Is all.

All there needs to be.

Duckspick

Ok, i know – another bleedin duck picture. It’s been a slow week.

They’ll spickt you and spuckt you, with their pecky little beakies.

Or obstpuct you.

Right up your back passage.

Careful now! – they’re in a mood.

The unbeautiful

Mostly this blog is about me adding words to pics I’m taking.

But life is not always picturable. Sometimes the moments you want to picture pass too quickly by, are too transient to be “captured” (and sometimes they aren’t transient enough) Or what is happening is too private to go public on. Or the experience too dense with inner meaning to be made visible.

I see people around with kinky looks, quirky walks, story-filled faces, but i can’t go up and and start snapping my digital at them – that would be too disrespectful; they aren’t exhibits.

Which perhaps explains – so far – the lack of people pics in this blog.

I’m doing the usual “picturesque” pictures. Animals – ducks, cows, horses, sheep etc – get picked on all the time to come up with something predictably cute to add to lovely landscapes.

But. You can only have so many “darling ducklings”.

I need to start looking “elsewhere”. At the unbeautiful

- which is where you find the unusual.

Usually.

Happy to be here is all

Watching a Japanese film – “After Life”: newly dead people are choosing the most memorable and moving moment of their life – which then gets re-enacted by “helpers”, and recreated like a scene from a film.

If you had to choose A Moment that defined your life on earth what would it be?

Hmmm. I wonder….

Perhaps “defining” moment is too difficult to comprehend. Too many things in life are seemingly so significant (being born premature, shaving my head, recovering from life-threatening illness, having this or that relationship etc)

Maybe what is meant is a moment of rapture, or a moment of “grace”, or sudden illumination, or profound realization about what this all means (to be here, to be here at all)

Maybe it’s as simple as looking for that “Happy to be here is all” kind of moment.

Still, I’m finding it difficult to find the One, Singular, Momentous, Moment – that could possibly say all of it about life as the “me” – the me I’ve been.

So I’ll keep looking and see if anything drops into place, that feels just so.

But it feels great – yes “great” – to be even attempting to look.

As if I were viewing this life from a place of wonderful freedom.

Mr “Bandylags”

Deano “bandy legs” Moxey clapping and being clapped off the pitch after todays match against Grimsby.

I don’t know why anybody is clapping. It was a very unclappable event. A dull nil-nil draw, with very little incident or excitement.

Hardly any “byootiful balls” were being made or terrible tackles tackled.

Grimsby’s cheeky No 3 got booed for diving in the box (“Cheat!, cheat!, cheat!” we chanted)

Two cans of pop (ours) got stolen from the turnstiles (cus we weren’t allowed to take them in – and lob them at the linesman)

Exeter’s biggest crowd of the season (5, 167) turned up to sit

quietly – and watch a pile of poo.

But please turn up to the next home match.

A herd of wildebeest are being driven thro Deano’s legs.

Ducks in the road

So we’ll waddle-widdle fiddle-faddle along here

right in the middle of the road

- and you’ll just have to wait.

We’re the car-park ducks see.

We rule this town.

(We’re gonna change the name of the dump too:

“Duckfastleigh” – yeah, sounds loads better that!)

It’s Xmas folks!

Look what we’ve got here in Torquay this Sunday afternoon

Flabbergasting. Or am i appalled?! Or am i dismayed?!

It’s only October for gawds sake!

Earlier in the week – while queuing to pay for a camp airbed – Father Xmas was chortling and hey ho-ing at us from the checkout.

Shops and pubs with backs to the wall, and their arses in the ringer.

Not celebration – desperation.

Stillness so straight and true

Into a tall stand of conifers at Stover Park i go

I laid down flat on my back and looked up this pine.

To get something of it’s quality of straight uprightness, it’s strength and solidity.

Wherever up you looked, these tall trees always seemed to be leaving some space in the canopy, a hole for the sky to fall through, and the sun to glance a glint.

I took pics, but none really did justice to what i was seeing and experiencing.

You could hear a pin – or pine needle – drop it was so silent in there.

And still.

Total stillness. Going up as far as the eye could see.

Straight and true.