Count That Day Lost

by George Eliot

If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That felt like sunshine where it went
Then you may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the livelong day,
You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay -
If, through it all
You've nothing done that you can trace
That brought the sunshine to one face -
No act most small
That helped some soul and nothing cost -
Then count that day as worse than lost.

Spring in my step as our little family goes back to my root

As I left for work the morning after Marion and I had made the decision that I would give up the cinema life and return to the one job that I had always been proud of – that of a journalist – I felt a new spring in my step.

The previous day I could have told Tom Roberts that I would take the reporter’s job on Anglesey but that was not the way Marion and I operated. Big decisions affecting the family, which moving from Basildon to Anglesey certainly was, had to be considered together.

When I got to my office that morning I called Tom and said I would be delighted to accept the job as district reporter for the Chronicle, based in Holyhead. He took details of my address, and the telephone number at the cinema, and said he would send written details of the job but as far as he was concerned, and myself of course, it was all signed, sealed and dusted.

My next job was to call my area manager and give in my notice,

From then on everything was like a whirlwind,

I was still working but at the same time the house had to go on the market; we had to find a place to rent so we had somewhere to live initially before we found a house to buy; most of our furniture would have to be stored because our first accommodation would be furnished; and all the other things that needed to be done before our little family of four could head up to North Wales.

As it happened Marion’s parents and other relatives found room to take our furniture until we could arrange our permanent reaidence.

The next four weeks, well slightly less as I had leave owing from Rank, quickly passed and our departure from Basildon dawned and we headed to North Wales and a bungalow we had rented in Valley. The house had been sold but there was still all the legal niceties to be sorted out.

It was spring, 1977, and it was the start of a brand new life, home in my beloved Wales with my beloved Marion and our girls.

On the Monday I would be in the Holyhead office at a desk with a notebook, pencils, a typewriter and a phone – plus a stack of copy paper.

I was happy.

The Knife

by Keith Douglas

1920-1944
Can I explain this to you? Your eyes
are entrances the mouths of caves
I issue from wonderful interiors
upon a blessed sea and a fine day,
from inside these caves I look and dream.

Your hair as explicable as a waterfall
in some black liquid cooled by legend
fell across my thought in a moment
became a garment I am naked without
lines drawn across through morning and evening.

And in your body each minute I died
moving your thigh could disinter me
from a grave in a distant city:
your breasts deserted by cloth, clothed in twilight
filled me with tears, sweet cups of flesh.

Yes, to touch two fingers made us worlds
stars, waters, promontories, chaos
swooning in elements without form or time
come down through long seas among sea marvels
embracing like survivors in our islands.

This I think happened to us together
though now no shadow of it flickers in your hands
your eyes look down on ordinary streets
If I talk to you I might be a bird
with a message, a dead man, a photograph.


On The Disadvantages Of Central Heating

by Amy Clampitt

cold nights on the farm, a sock-shod
stove-warmed flatiron slid under
the covers, mornings a damascene-
sealed bizzarrerie of fernwork
decades ago now

walking in northwest london, tea
brought up steaming, a Peek Frean
biscuit alongside to be nibbled
as blue gas leaps up singing
decades ago now

damp sheets in Dorset, fog-hung
habitat of bronchitis, of long
hot soaks in the bathtub, of nothing
quite drying out until next summer:
delicious to think of

hassocks pulled in close, toasting-
forks held to coal-glow, strong-minded
small boys and big eager sheepdogs
muscling in on brutish profundities
now quite forgotten

the farmhouse long sold, old friends
dead or lost track of, what's salvaged
is this vivid diminuendo, unfogged
by mere affect, the perishing residue
of pure sensation

The Destruction Of Sennacherib

by Lord Byron

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset was seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,
But through it there rolled not a breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating turf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on the ground and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broken in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

O Love! Thou Makest All Things Even

by Sarah-Flower Adams

O Love! thou makest all things even
In earth or heaven;
Finding thy way through prison-bars
Up to the stars;
Or, true to the Almighty plan,
That out of dust created man,
Thou lookest in a grave 0 to see
Thine immortality!

Hopalong finds a pal

I am amazed that after three months my three-legged fox is proving himself to be a trier. I mean to say he has four legs but as regular readers will know one of his back legs just dangles from the knee joint.

Since Christmas Hopalong has had me on edge day after day, or rather night after night. The really stormy cold weather we had recently meant there were nights he (or for all I know she) did not turn up at all, although others did, and I feared the worst.

The next thing is Hopalong’s back and going like a good ‘un on three legs and even getting there soon after I put the food out meaning he gets first dibs on whatever’s on the menu, from the remains of a chicken carcase, decent dog food, even eggs and often cheese.

Not long after midnight Hopalong turned up for a snack and soon after a “friend” arrived

It wasn’t just a one-off with a second fox arriving and then leaving Hopalong to his meal in peace. Soon afterwards they were onscreen together again with no trouble at all.

Once Hopalong had eaten enough and headed into the vegetation the “friend” popped back for some titbits.

I am no expert on foxes, I just know I like to see them doing what comes naturally (which does not include men and women in fancy dress on horseback riding out with a pack of dogs to chase them and for the dogs to rip them to pieces).

I can make suppositions, however.

Foxes are usually lonesome animals and once a dog and vixen have mated the dog departs leaving the vixen to birth and raise the cubs. The vixen will then teach her cubs how ti find food and remain safe.

Sometimes a last cub will stay with the vixen until it is time for mating and she heads off, leaving the cub to go off and find its own mate and start the process over again.

I haven’t figured out how to differentiate the sexes but I would think the Hopalong could be a vixen and the larger companion could be her grown-up cub. They certainly seem to get along.

This earlier scene may explain why I have named Hopalong’s “friend” Scaredycat. The clip below was taken just a few minutes before Hopalong turned up.

It appears the big fox had gone ahead to check the area and had a bit of a nosh before Hopalong turned up. This is a very nervous young fox trying to get a feed before somewhat bigger, or more important, arrives.

ScaredyCat gets a quick nibble before Hopalong hops in.

The British

by Benjamin Zephaniah 

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.
Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.

Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians, and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Sudanese.

Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankins, Nigerians
And Pakistanis
Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians and Bosnians,
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghan, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then add to the melting pot.

Leave the ingredients to simmer

As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.

Allow time to be cool.

Add some unity and understanding, respect for the future,
Serve with justice and enjoy.

Note: all the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain.
Give justice and equality to all.

Memento

by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Like a reminder of this life
of trams, sun, sparrows,
and the flighty uncontrolledness
of streams leaping like thermometers.
and because ducks are quacking somewhere
above the crackling of the last, paper-thin ice,
and because children are crying bitterly
(remember children's lives are so sweet!)
and because in the drunken, shimmering starlight
the moon whoops it up,
and a stocking crackles at the knee,
gold in itself and tinged by the sun,
like a reminder of life,
and because there is resin on tree trunks,
and because I was madly mistaken
in thinking that my life was over
like a reminder of my life,
you entered into me on stockinged feet.
You entered - neither too late or too early -
at exactly the right time, as my very own,
and with a smile, uprooted me
from memories, as from a grave.
And I, once again whirling among
the painted horses, gladly exchange
for one reminder of life,
all its memories.
1974