'With tuppence for paper and strings, you can have your own set of wings'

Taking a few days out in a New Year visit to a dear friend and I'm catching up with myself and chilling out properly. Not only am I getting work done for my PhD, I'm also watching some telly (Mary Poppins) and continuing to eat luscious food. And I am keeping up with my two resolutions: meditation every day and a good walk.

Today I finished reading Alice Oswald's stunning collection, Dart. Years ago I heard her read from it and over these years I've dipped in many times but I'd never read it through until this week, start to finish. There are pretty much no words to describe how sorrowful, how celebratory, how moving and wild the voices of the river are, but here is a very brief quote from my favourite bit...

o I wish I was slammicking home
in wet clothes, shrammed with cold and bivvering but

this is my voice
under the spickety leaves,
under the knee-nappered trees
rustling in its cubby-holes

and rolling me round, like a container
upturned and sounded through


Today's Remarkable Things

1). Watching the rain pool and eddy in squared shapes on the neighbour's patio

2). How late I can sleep in the morning, left to my own devices

3). reading about a drowned canoeist in 'Dart' and then an hour later seeing a headline on the news about a drowned canoeist

4). Toast with honey and goat cheese

Yummy day