Monster egg

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A big big egg.

As laid by one of Kaerens hens.

I think she feeds them on monster munch.

Its why they’re monster eggs.

I won’t eat it for a while.

Leave it there.

To mutate.

Wind sculptures

On the road out to Kings Wood i saw these:

“Sculptural” i think is the word.

Every tree sculpted by the wind into idiosyncratic, individual, form.

Like an installation placed there and shaped there by an artist.

Andy Goldsworthy would have been proud.

A silent soup

Up onto the Dam (Avon)

After a flask of homemade chicken and tarragon soup i took a few pics.

As when i’d been there back in Sept, the silence was palpable – as an absence.

A birdless silence.

Nothing moving – except as shimmers across the water.

Nothing noisy or extraenous to disturb the spaceousness.

Only Sound.

That soup tasted so good.

At the side of the road

Dropping off my Fiesta for its MOT i walked past these 2 caravans

They’ve been parked up here for years (for as long as i’ve been MOTing cars with Mike the Mechanic)

Scratching out a meagre mini life.

Who’s in there and how do they survive i was wondering? A homeless old farmhand perhaps? A diehard gypo traveller? A hermit? A wiseman?

The curly woodsmoke puffing up out of the little woodburner made me feel comforted somehow – quietly signaling their non-conforming existence.

Good on.

Returning later on the woodburner was still puffing away.

(Meanwhile the Fiesta failed its MOT miserably and beyond my means to repair. Time to retire it to the side of the road. Part of my mini life)

Piglet died

In Newton Abbot cemetery i saw this

Makes a change from the usual angel sentiments.

This baby girl died during the Second World War aged 6 months.

A little piggy piglet.

I smiled.

(and of course i was sad too)

This be Buckie Races

A Point-to-Point Meet in Buckfastleigh

We had £1 bets on every race.

I won £3.50 on “Rock with the Caveman”.

One horse wouldn’t stop running.

Half of Dartmoor was there.

This picture captures the friendly familiarity i felt

“Aboud taim fur ma mare tu gid ur skades on”

i think Uncle Ted is saying to Uncle Bob.

To Love, or Not to Love

Valentines day on a dull day in Plymouth.

Without love in existence for you, you are resigned to solitary compensations; sat alone outside Cafe Roma reading a big fat book (on “Post Modernist Conceptions of the Utilitarian Valence of… Valentine’s Day” say….Lol)

Or maybe love is in existence for you and looks like this:

A chunky black guy clung on to his  fat “babe”.

There was something slightly “special needs” about them.

Or maybe they were just being chavvy lovey dovey dopey.

They luv one another so much – he’ll get her pregnant in a minute, and they’ll end up living in a rubbish council flat in St Budeaux.

Claiming benefits.

Then he’ll leave her.

Or get sent to prison.

For beating her up.

Or dealing crack.

Oh dear.

Oh well.

Make of lurv what you will while it lasts.

It’s what makes the merry go round go round.

Dead jay

Big blue feathered bird dead in the gutter.

I picked it up and placed it on the wall. A man with his young daughter passed. “It’s a jay that is” he said

“I used to shoot them when i was younger, but not now – we gotta save them otherwise we’ll lose them”

It got hit by a car. Maybe it was flying low across. Or looking for a drink.

The daughter touched delicately it’s beautiful blue wings – the colour of a bright blue summer day. But now all too sadly drably dead.

Dead as winter.

Tree island

On the back road to Ashburton out of Buckie was this

Snow all over the hill but excluding this island of trees.

The afternoon sun was bright and brilliant. It was icy cold.

A cool oasis of calm.

Snowing in Buckie

I’m looking out of the bedroom window at 8 this morning.

It’s snowing all over the town

First time i’ve seen snow in Buckfastleigh, and i’ve been here 18 years.

Not as heavy or thick as in other parts of the UK – but it’s still real actual living snow!

I’m gonna go out and chuck snowballs at pompous people. Knock off their funny hats.