It's been a very wet day - here's some panoramas from my walk 1 hour ago

Finally the last day at work today. They have let us go (with pay) a month early. I am officially redundant now (I have the letter) but I wonder if in 1 year I will look back with anger or gladness that this time of change will be the catalyst for better things. I can only hope.

When fleeting clouds trouble a blue sky

It is always not possible to understand why
The weather sets anew from fair to rain
Signals that now it’s time for change

We had a little art competition on holiday. Here we are stood beside our respective artworks. You be the judge but I think they are all rather good for a first attempt.

The three disgraces posing in Inverary jail (in the wrong order note)

Loch Fyne Scotland

A black crown stretches seamlessly across the heavens above

Holds an inconstant vastness of milky, starlight fed galaxies
That must ever grow and wheel in random, infinite formations
Intersected in time only by a bombardment of shooting stars
That quickly fades, falling northwards to the pole above Alba
 

© Edetric Vistal

The view at sunset last night

The view over the loch this mornig (5 minutes ago)

Here we are on holiday in Scotland - I took some panoramas. Hope they convey some of the scenery around here.

A new species of monkey has been identified in Africa, only the second time such a discovery has been made on the continent in 28 years. The identification of the monkey in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is significant as identification of mammals new to science is rare. Lesula (Cercopithecus lomamiensis) has a naked face and a mane of long blond hairs, and is described by the researchers who identified it as shy and quiet. It lives on the ground and in trees in a 6,500 square mile habitat of the lowland rainforests in the centre of the DRC between the middle Lomami (the inspiration for its name) and the upper Tshuapa Rivers. Its diet is mostly fruit and vegetation. There are already fears for the newly discovered species' fate despite its home in a relatively remote and underpopulated region, as it is hunted for bushmeat.

How could you not say we’re related genetically? Now it’s been discovered I don’t give it long - Good old humans eh

 

Doubt rises across the dusk at the closing of summer; Sunlight and the north-west wind do not make a good union. Totemic and unyielding under its guise are the shorter days and cooling nights. Now the cold seeps into the cracks between layers and enters all the hollow spaces like an invading army of frosty parasites. It touches the core of me and suddenly I realise what winter shall feel like again.

No more 5am coffee in the garden on sunlit mornings, no more butterflies or leaf filled trees. Here now come the hard times of enclosed spaces and biting rain from grey-washed skies. To welcome the looming workless days flowing from lazy mornings that may feed an active mind and perhaps make sense of it all in some kind of uneasy truce with the world.

 

 

In sweeping corporate strokes to make of clutter less thrift

My work shall go soon we have completed the last shift
Now in name alone a workplace shall only memory engender?
In faded thoughts of work and its tedious joys less tender
For whit shall I care if the world turns to ash and devastation?
The deed is done, the work over; now I enjoy my remuneration

One day we all take a leap of faith into a new journey. We will no longer inhabit the wake left by familial progenitors but finally be at the heart of enlightenment.  I place my feet on the silvered path, and follow the generational light of a million footsteps out across the bay. It holds my weight for I, now lighter than air, travel swift the silvered trail into a hundred outstretched arms.  But the sun sets and dusk emerges and the thought vanishes away into the aether; for I would truly stay here a little while longer.

That it should come here says sense has finally lost to sensibility

You may think that wind power helps the world; it does not
For what can result but a blighted world of tormented vistas
This erroneous quest to serve green business with dubious profits
That despoils and scars the very last pristine land of England
Masterpieces now repainted to an industrial blank canvas

I made this graph of the combined medals from the Olympic and Paralympic games -  I have to say the paralympics were done very well by everyone - simply inspirational.

The web wove the thread is wet

Across this glade the trap is set
Like Clytemnestra she will
Pour no libations on the ground
She will not honour the dead
Nor the beloved suitor calling
Nor her sister, nor her mother
Orestes will not slay this savage
For she is alone to time forever
Trapped between these lofty boughs
Between her larder and sunbeams
And the Erinyes singing so sweetly
Deep within her thoughts of harm  
Monster you cry, yet pity its isolation
Without her aid all comes to naught
But a bitter world of noxious flies

© Edetric Vistal

Look here for information on the Oresteia and the wealth of Greek classics and think how a pcture can inspire. I took this yesterday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia

More than 400 scientists in 32 laboratories in the UK, US, Spain, Singapore and Japan were involved in the most detailed analysis to date of the human genome. They've discovered a far larger chunk of our genetic code is biologically active than was previously thought. The researchers hope the findings might lead to a deeper understanding of numerous diseases, which could lead to better treatments.

Note the use of might and could in the description. What’s the betting that we’ll just end up with cosmetic treatments and drug company money-spinners? Perhaps if they could find the part of the human genome responsible for greed we might begin to get somewhere. I wont hold my breath. My genes made me write that.

No more to say then, the autumn has made his entrance

The first willow leaves now swerve down into the water
By stealth into the shorter days, he will weave his noble rot
Upon the heady green days; on views we have lovingly shared
He will take the bluest canvas of a richly oiled landscape
Repaint it in pastel watercolour scenes of gold and russet
Yet his unwelcome embrace will bestow the northern world
Bounty on branch and earth and stream to moderate gloom
The autumn shall not be stopped and we will give him room

Monday 3^rd Sep 2012

Bright and warm day (at last)...highlight (I that is the right word,) was a swarm of flying ants setting off into the evening sun. They hovered in the sunbeams and landed all over me like the scene from Avatar where Jake is covered by the seeds of the great tree and then just like in the film they all lifted off again in unison.

I think from past experience they are a little later this year than normal but with the poor summer I guess that is to be expected. They always emerge on the first sunny day after a spell of rain. I guess it is so the soil is soft enough for the new queen to excavate a nest after the marriage flight. That so many emerge and so few make it to adulthood to establish the queenly realm is a wonder. I guess that’s the difference between them and us. They must make thousands to ensure just one will survive. Perhaps less is not always more. Think of the workers having to contain the seething mass of young males and females bursting with purpose within the nest till the weather was right.

I also took some photos of a yellow coral type fungus bursting out of an old tree stump like a small tongue of flame and a couple from my walk around the lake yesterday.

The quality of light changes as we head towards the autumn. It becomes less brightly solid and vistas take on a watercolour appearance as objects blur and become closer than they should. I am sat here in the late day sun with the scent of rosemary and thyme on my hands and the aroma of lemons in the air. It mingles together to give the scent of baking bread and I wonder am I in Darwen or Provence?

I recant my guilt from all I have done before

Having learnt too late alas, that less is more