Crawl

And tomorrow is just another day away

To loose again its meagre heat upon winter

Slithering away at the approach of dusk

Across the heavy rime of unforgiving chill

The orange spider crawls off the world

For now night and the cold holds sway

Time Bloom

We are a passage of innocence in a swift perfect chaos
Until we are torn asunder in time's irreverent perception

Looking back through the mocking occlusion of memory

All I remember is how extraordinary my awakening was

Memories of flowered sunshine under long, green days

Warm, careless fumblings and a burning to wreak change

Now innocent desire is lost in the slowing, reflective, days

But flowers remain as totems of remembrance to adventure

And if days shall darken more, they will scent the journey

For in the age of dwindling reason, hope blooms all the more 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 

Goodwill

To fully celebrate the Christmas fable

We light the windows, trees and gable

Pile delicious food upon a groaning table

But I cannot pretend I rightly know

Just what happened 2000 years ago

In the biblical lands without any snow

And I am now a little long in the tooth

For all the misplaced optimism of youth

So forgive me if I just pour a Vermouth

In the custom of trying to find a better way

In truth's light and our chance of sorry to say

I do understand this need for one special day

But for me in my doubt, it is never, very clear

When if we profess to hold this goodwill so dear

Why is the world still full of misery and fear

So let's absolve the past in hopes of a better time

But don't quickly forget once bells cease to chime  

For lasting peace man still has a long way to climb

So in these Christmas festivities be of such good cheer

But throughout the New Year keep this thought near

For peace to be real, we have to forgive 365 days a year

Panettone

I finally got around to making a pannettone this year. I bought the baking tin about 10 years ago but kept thinking it would be incredibly hard to make - Wrong!! It takes quite a while as it has to proved in the refrigerator, but it is simple to make and cook. Can't believe how good it tastes toasted with some real butter. The recipe comes from Paul Hollywood of BBC fame. Good baker and good recipe. I did not use cherries and added extra fruit to make the weight. I also did not use whole almonds and substituted flaked almonds instead. On the second rise it is OK to do this outside of the refrigerator so long a you put it in a cool place. This would also work in a large, standard loaf tin as a great fruit loaf.

Panettone

Paul Hollywood’s version of panettone is a recipe that sits between the classic panettone and a brioche. You will need an 18cm/7in panettone tin.

Ingredients

500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour

7g salt

50g/2oz caster sugar

2 x 7g sachets instant yeast

140ml/5fl oz warm milk

5 free-range eggs, at room temperature, plus extra for egg wash

250g/9oz unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

120g/4½oz dried cherries

120g/4½oz dried sultanas

120g/4½oz dried currants

100g/3½oz whole blanched almonds

Preparation method

1.Place the flour, salt, sugar, yeast, milk and the eggs into the bowl of a free-standing mixer fitted with a dough hook.

2.Mix slowly for two minutes, then increase the speed to medium and mix for a further 6-8 minutes until you have a soft dough.

3.Add the softened butter and mix for another 5-8 minutes. Remember to scrape down the bowl periodically to ensure that the dough mixes well. It will be very soft.

4.Add the dried fruit and nuts. Mix until all is incorporated.

5.Tip the dough into a bowl, cover with clingfilm and chill overnight until the dough has firmed up enough for you to able to shape it.

6.Prepare a 18cm/7in panettone tin by brushing the inside generously with melted butter.

7.Remove the panettone dough from the fridge.

8.Knock back the dough, shape into a ball and place into the tin.

9.Leave to prove at room temperature for a further 2-3 hours, until the dough just starts to dome over the top of the tin.

10.Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

11.Brush the top of the panettone with egg wash and bake for about 25 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 150C/300F/Gas 2 and bake for a further 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Check the panettone periodically in case of oven hot spots. Bear in mind that the sugar and butter in the dough could brown too much before it is actually fully baked.

12.Remove the panettone from the tin immediately and allow to cool.

13. Serve toasted with butter or use for a delicious bread and butter pudding by spreading marmalade on slices, pouring hot custard over and briefly baking

Icon

The shrouded accomplice to imagination

Comes as spectre of our ghostly collaborations

The emissary of fear reverses our intelligence

And where a life imitates its art and withers

So broaches evil night upon the counterpane

A tangible icon of cultured terror to senses

A tarantula that paws the cover relentlessly

Hairy drumming made to a slow music of night

And it repeats in dreams of shadowed dismay

Or it is the rasping creak of danger upon stairs

The slow footsteps ever upon riser and tread

That falter briefly, ere they resume more softly

And then to fade like an echo of abandonment

To ask in earnest that we tell a different story

While we may still imagine a better world

Before we wake to another bloody dawn 

Obliquity

The days are ever renewed by small degrees and we shall say they are but the seasons. Short passages of changing wonder wrought by the writ of a cosmic science. And yet, this is indeed a glorious globe, a glittering orb of enchantment laid to full recline by winters crushing touch that readies to rise from her slumber. And marvel of this obliquity of a green-blue silk wrapping a starry throat. The soft rise and fall of this graceful body with her daily imperceptible changes. And is it not a wondrous thing that sated and coldly exhausted from her resting passions the softer, longer, light of a new spring, shall come.

Here's a graphic of the solstices. I made it - so a guide only.

Journey

Though this is no new day

I am made almost complete

A dawn born without night

Splendour has forsaken me

You may turn your eyes away

Focus upon the distant vistas

Pretend you do not see me

There is no clarity upon this

No empty space to ease within

Everywhere is taken and held

Save the cold, dark places

But who would venture thus

Unless the world was within them

And they were born incomplete

And so the journey begins...

Light

A light I made for Christmas from a sheet of A3 matte photo paper which I made into a tube and then lit with battery lights. It's reverse says Happy New Year so it's a 2 for 1 light. It looks good and bright in a dark place.

New Days

The new, unwelcome days ignite

But always where there is loss

New flowers will bloom the swifter

In blossom enough to change hearts

So remember if days sadden and fail

Buds will open to incense our sorrow

And leave trails of beauty to follow 

Glass

When iced breath of night is exhaled

Clarity is spun coldly about living things

Tis a seeing glass that wraps about growth

To set its glossy crust of harm on promise

Only to depart on the first kiss of dawn

This swift yet ruinous embrace of rime

Like lover's promises before ardour withdraws

All wilts under the early morning sun

The rigid stem is broken and droops

And only blasted leaves now remain 

What fools we were to think of more

To let patience usurp a wanton desire

That makes us cultivate too quickly

When still there is ever risk of more frost

Dream

The brief tapestry of dusk

Subsumes the last threads of cobalt

And the day closes shut again

Shadows run across desire

The orange weft comes swift

Upon a day yielding climbing skies

But where sun sails to darkness.

Just for a moment I see another place

Sitting below the rim of the world

It lies unfettered beyond reach

And nothing of this absurdity

That passes for advancement

Can touch its sweet existence

And if such illusion passes swift

As night's spider weaves dark webs

It is ever a good dream for sunset

Robins, Dogs and Faries

Entwistle Reservoir

The annual Christmas tree dressing is in full flow at the reservoir. Well I am not sure it is the right thing to do here, but it does no harm I guess as long as they remove them again. Oh dear my humbug is showing again!

Help

Today I saw an old man; he looked a bit like me

Or at least how I'll look, when I reach seventy three

He was resting on a bench, soaking up the midday heat

And all seemed well, till he tried to stand on unsteady feet

No one else saw his trouble, as he struggled to get upright

Mostly we pretend to look at the floor, than do what is right

I offered him assistance, but he dismissed it out of hand

"I don’t need help thanks, though it takes longer I can still stand"

"When I can't look after myself, that's a day to know I'm done"

"So save your pity for yourself, for you'll be here one-day son"

So if you see an old man who looks like he needs help in a crowd

Don’t bother to offer aid; let him alone and able to stand proud

A frosty morning at Entwistle

Story

And so the story goes

But not for the want of telling

And the ice still grows

Upon the dead of night

Waiting for the sun

To break its covetous fingers

And where is the unicorn now

When our time is all but spent

When sighs break like farts

Upon the new morning airs

And if there is no more hope

There is always tea and sympathy

And it is just enough now

To guide a star fallen to earth

Back up into the heavens 

It must be...

It must be Christmas soon; all the lights are out and switched on. Is there any shop out there that is not having a 'Black Friday' sale. Methinks the frenzy is hiding some very weak sales. Here is a picture of the House of Fraser store in Manchester that I took last week. Very colourful but mid-November - really!

Heretics

Radical heads cleaved and conspirator hung

From out of dark, tortured confession sung

And never imagine our malice cannot return

That on high pyres, witches again may burn

After all, only eight christening gowns ago

Heretics were destroyed upon a fiery inferno

Now scarce we can believe that we did such ill

But remember in other lands, it happens still

Here they wait for the dark days to reappear

To hunt down the weak, the free and the queer

Liberty is a currency each generation must earn

Only vigilance can stop the archaic night's return 

Invisible

I need no longer hide in the world trembling

Lest I am discovered and asked to participate

Time has wrought this splendid thing upon me

I, decaying spectre of aged imperceptibility

A latent force; no longer any catalyst of chance

Walk slower now there is no fear of attention

I have time to watch rain fall in gentle elegance

For I am at last become invisible to all others

I move naked and unafraid through the world

An autumn wanderer among thickening mists

Where care and worry dissipate on resignation

I become a resting dove that shelters from cold

Stilled into such appreciative wonder and calm

Though it took a lifetime, I am in the end saved

With time enough for one last incorporeal flicker 

Well

And what is made well; endures

For we are not well provisioned

And now merry is as merry will

When our empty fields need no till

For now the winter finally holds sway

It is indoors we come to make play

Reflection

Some pictures from my walk around Entwistle reservoir the other day

Undone

Comes now the quiet time

In this decay of illumination

In the shrinking days

We flee to our comforts

To fires and hearty repast

But where firelight perishes

Where heat will not reach

To gloomy corners and nooks

Returns there the time of ghosts

That sit within quiet shadows

They brood and murmur regret

To prick late upon conscience

And look you well  

At what you have done

In the dark of a winter's night

When fairness was forsaken

And all they accomplished undone

Winter is Coming

Summery autumn is finally overcome

The eastern winds and cold have won

They take the days and shake the trees

Conceal the birds and kill all the bees

Under skeletons of bare wood we now play

Looking up into foreboding skies of grey 

Monica Waddington (1931-2016)

A shadow has fallen upon us

Naught can be made whole again

Though I am forever undone

No shadow will be upon you today

And though tis a sweet deception

All things grievous will seem repaired

And time will attest my resolve

When wood and fields yield;

Deep skies less blue than my mood

But now is not the time to feel sad

For all shall be ended well

I will wrap my goodbyes in gold

And lay red roses upon your carriage

For you have been remade

To be reunited with your love

And though this loss is bitter to me

I say goodbye knowing you are in joy

Gold

This is the finest gold though perhaps you do not count it yet as a worthy treasure. Yet when the days fall into ruin and the sea rises above your defences in the autumn of your existence you will see that the greatest treasures were ever about you; if you had, only but looked up. 

Red

It must be autumn as the Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric is growing in huge patches around Entwistle reservoir. They never get to full maturity as people always destroy them, but you would have to eat a lot to poison yourself. It is a hallucinogenic first and foremost, which thinking about it actually might explain a lot. I wish they would grow in my garden as they add a feeling of enchantment and colour to contrast against the decay of the season.

What grows in autumn between wall and wood?

Rises from the night in a fresh-dewed awakening

Tis a red opulence that blooms like fortunate treasure

A scarlet caveat and yet welcome sign the world is well

And is there not a comfort to see such dangerous things

For if, we are to be made safe from everything harmful

Then tomorrow may wait for its protected correlation

For no wonders in crimson disguise would ever come  

War

I think, therefore I am

But if I would use flesh to live

I become a thinking fiend

And thinking makes untruths

And I have thought up such lies 

With my dimming finite sentience 

Infinitesimal and vulnerable

Ere compassion could coalesce clarity

And we could never live long enough

Not even if we had a thousand years

To see what monsters we are become

And this is the tragedy of man

In his war against the animals 

Surely it is time to make a peace

Halloween

Hollywood enters  Halloween

Theatre meets its theurgy

And tis a horror best left unseen

For who can make such a fun

Of these frightening things

When by terror are we all undone

Yet I cannot suppose we care

If evil should indeed be seen

Already in our world it is there

So if you will enjoy the evil day

Make sure you have a mind

Your pretend dread will go away

Wither

Time now becomes witness

To a splendorous withering

The flowers are all fading

Desiccating as autumn leaves

Naught can restore their colour

For their vibrant instance is over

So let the wind blow and rage

Cast sepals and petals to earth

For what remains is ever, intact

The seeds endure and can wait

For new days that come again

And spring occasion births them

Flicker

The honey has dripped away

Bitter is this winter to come

The sharp days dull like pain

Blur around a growing dark

Beauty withdraws its grace

We are become winter bees

Inside fragile hives of dreams

With only flickering firelight

To draw memories of better days

To Rest

Rest now upon the ages

Night has come

For a child of the sun

She withdraws her light

That shone upon us all

And our days shall become darker

But in this unwelcome gloom

This unlooked for quiet

She may find sleep now

Become a ship becalmed

Slumbering through ages

On an ocean of flowers

She may take her rest

On her long missed lovers arm

And wait for sweet reunions

That one by one

Will come to her

When our winters' fall

Fury

These days come upon us wet

A feral water crashing in fury

Upon the tall, wooden cliffs

Shore and tree line lock to furious battle

As the wild seas break like awakening

Winter comes home from the west

Skyward look as leaves fall like comets

Shadowy snowflakes slide down glass

Liquid stone rupturing upon heat

New days are made to slumber in

As wasps crackle and wither in starry airs

Wit

Granted it is a sharp barb, but no blade of dignity is this lesser part of courage we choose to call wit. It is the refuge of the scoundrel who would seek to usurp reason with jest and inconsequence than be ennobled by kindness. 

Mermaid

Today was made for the mer-people. Water swirls around my feet as though it would wish to make a fluid knot and slowly unbalance me; drag me down into a mermaid's arms. Is it not told that in the rain they come to the surface and watch us but that all we humans ever see are signs of decaying ripples left by these aquatic fairies. Expanding circlets of wonder left as they dive in their silvered robes, flashing long tails of black lined scales. Moreover, if you could hear them, they sing of the perils of the sea. A long slow lament of deep water and fading light within bottomless oceans. Though I must confess I have never seen a mermaid the legends makes their possibility all the more real;  for as science expands it seems only the mysteries that remain hidden and unexplained are the greatest enchantment still.

Kate in Manchester

Some pictures of Kate and William in Manchester last week taken by Mike and others. She looks so different in the top and bottom pictures.

Casualties

When I put the kitchen light on this morning, I could hear a tapping on the window. I opened the blind to see about thirty wasps flying aimlessly against the glass in an attempt to get to the light. The nest is breaking and anarchy is the queen now. The males have been evicted and the workers wander aimless and lost.

I make a light in the night and then shrink back

And tortured, purposeless they come to the window

Winged warrior queens in a vain and futile fluttering

The wasps are fading into the dawn in swarms of pain

Raging yellow- black stains on late summer's glassy page

Their summer almost done; they curse the new days

They now reject its unsolicited options like a tragedy

And were they to touch me they would surely strike

In a jaundiced ill that seeks only to assuage its pain

Piercing me with a sting, I could not draw out again

So I damp the light and retire into shadows once more

Let them rage and batter the glass for I cannot help

These bittersweet casualties of winters war against us

Halloween

It's a little early but i'll probably do another later. I made an animation to go along with it. 

Shadow on ceiling, window and wall

Monstrous silhouettes to chill and appall

Flickering shapes that form in the night

We hide under the covers; shake in fright

For what might slither from under the bed

Or lurk within a closet to fill us with dread

Vampires and werewolves, ogre and witch

A bestiary of monsters to our reason unstitch

And once the fiends your own eyes have seen

You will begin to believe about Halloween 

Fall

This folly, this whim, this optimism of day

Till dusk when I settle still to fade and fall

And so I lie, as the night flies soft about me

But still my dreams burn and rage against time

These hopes and wishes set ablaze in the hearth of day

To now be consumed in such disenchantment by night

Yet still I settle and still and I fade and fall

And in such a state am I revived again to rise

To rekindle the sweet anticipation for tomorrow 

Early October

Endgame

The last new hornet queen leaves the nest to make her way into the autumn as two of the workers watch by the entrance.

Vespa:   Well that's the last of them gone; finally we have some free time for us. It has been a hard summer getting all the new queens raised. You'd think we'd get a bit of gratitude from the old one, but no; might as well wish for jam everyday instead.

Crabro: If you think there will be any free time then I suggest you make the   best of it. Have you not noticed how cold it is becoming, or that the light fails ever earlier these days?

Vespa:   Hey I've been busy you know. Feeding these ungrateful new queens was pretty hectic. So what if the days are not as warm now.  We will fly only on the sunny days and spend the other time here at home among the family. Though I have to say the mood of the hive is so much gloomier of late. You think everyone would be happy to see the end of our great work.

Crabro: And there you have it. It is the end of our great work and also it is the end of us. You do understand we won't see another summer sister? We have completed our task in the great scheme of the world. We are not fertile and we cannot feed in the winter. We are expendable; there is no food and even if there were, we cannot survive its cold. We shall linger a few weeks more and maybe the frost will come late if we are lucky.

Vespa:    It doesn't seem to be very fair then. We do all the work and then die.

Crabro: Fairness is immaterial. The queen is worn out and ready to rest as are also most of us. The new queens have mated and will feed and then sleep till the days of spring return. Then completely alone they must begin all this again. Do not envy them sister for theirs is the hardest task of all.

Vespa:    What of the males then. Will they survive?

Crabro: The males who mate die soon after and the rest well they follow pretty soon after. They are bred for a single purpose and once they have left we do not let them back again.

Vespa:    How come you know all this happens to us sister and yet I do not?

Crabro: Because sometimes due to chance one of us workers will survive the awful winter and emerge again in the spring. I remember I fed and then I slept among the paper cells till the new queen awoke and then I was able to serve her.  This is my second year. I am older than the queen herself.

Vespa:    You know I always thought your wings were ragged. But I didn't like to say.

Crabro:   May I tell you a secret sister.

Vespa:    Of course

Crabro: I layed a single egg once and watched it for weeks till it hatched. It was a male and it was raised and in the autumn it flew out to mate and I never saw him again. I remember it had silver antennae which is very rare for us wasps. Normally they are completely black.

Vespa:  Can we lay eggs then? I thought only the queen could do that.

Crabro:  Normally that is the way of things but sometimes if we wish it enough we can produce them.

Vespa: I wonder what happened to your boy?

They sit on the paper comb silent and the old queen comes over.

Queen:    Come on girls, you know the rules; no loitering at the entrance. Away with you both; there is still some nectar to be had yet. She flicked them playfully with her silver antennae and they bowed and flew off into the dawn.

Vespa:  did you see; her antennae are silver

Crabro:  I always wondered about that too.

Forget

But I could never forget you

Like mist on a summer morning
Softer than all my whispered lies
Memories wreath my footfall
And if I stumbled and fell
I would not stay down
For you taught me to rise up
And disperse into dawn's bliss