It is never lonely in our garden; there is no despair or desolation, just the solitude of green. Even in winter, I am embraced by green: the bending of the grass to my feet; the fresh shoots of snowdrop and daffodil braving the frost and ice; the murmuring of branch and leaf although, at this […]
Tag: Haibun Monday
Lonely Magpie
On a never-ending January day, the whole garden drips with silent grief. There are a few sparse, dried-up leaves clinging desperately to the willow, now pollarded and looking sorry for itself. No birds alight on its branches, not even the magpie, which has taken to haunting the silver birch right at the end near the […]
Waiting
I am waiting for the rain to stop. When it does, I will pull on wellies, shrug on a well-worn waterproof jacket and wrap a woollen scarf around my neck, ready for a walk in the woods. Raindrops trickle down the window pane in a race against time. I am waiting for the rain to […]
Changes
I remember how hard it was when I discovered I was pregnant and experienced so many changes that I wasn’t expecting. When I gave birth, then took my baby home and had to look after her on my own for the first time; I was scared I’d get it wrong and terrified I we wouldn’t […]
October Apples
Some of the windfalls have been collected and piled on a plastic garden chair. There are no signs of wild-life bites or nibbles, and only one green apple among them. They blush with October colours and scent. Among them, one is more than half russet, almost bronze, a bruised rogue among the beauties. It must […]
Morning
Since I retired and as I get older, I find I need less sleep. I frequently wake around three, four or five o’clock, unable to return to the dark cocoon that enveloped me so cosily when I was younger. When the cats chirrup from the bedroom door, I no longer turn over and burrow back […]
No crickets here
I’ve always been attracted to the sound of crickets. As a child, I was enchanted by their presence in American films, when characters sat on the porch in the evening to a soundtrack of crickets chirping; and then, when I visited Italy several times during summer, I was amazed by the constant background noise, even […]
Hiroshima Spores
I wasn’t alive in August 1945 – I arrived eleven years and a day after Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. I knew nothing of the horrors of those atomic bombs until I saw ‘The Bomb’, Episode 24 of ’The World at War’, a documentary series I watched with my father and, more recently, with […]
Under the Table at Grandmother’s House
Although my grandmother was quite open and modern in her outlook, her tastes were old-fashioned. This was reflected in the house where I grew up: in its solid furniture, embroidered cushions and tablecloths that hung low to cover the table legs. For a small child, the dining table was a house or a tent, where […]
Dragonflying
It’s the vivid season when colours are like splashes from an artist’s palette: ochre fields untold shades of leaves and grasses […]
writing in north norfolk 