Month: March 2026

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Memories of Music and Melodies – Part 2

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And that one Beatles song that for me is the best is… Well, before the song, some more scene setting. This is the image in my mind that the song often returns me to. A weekday morning at some point in 1967. It must have been a school holiday as me and my brother were not at school and dad was at work. In those days we had a duffle bag full of toy cars – matchbox cars, dinky toys, all sorts of motor vehicles, all shapes and sizes and many of them scratched and with buckled wheels. Newer cars … Continue reading Memories of Music and Melodies – Part 2

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Memories of Music and Melodies – Part 1

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In previous posts this week I talked about how the smell of freshly cut grass transports me back to a more carefree time – to the summers of the 1960’s and 70’s, and how those memories also bring my parents to mind. Today I am again… reminiscing. I have recently been listening to, and finished, a podcast series about the songs of Paul McCartney. Every episode covered a specific song each of which provided me a nugget or two about those songs that I was unaware of previously. But rather than talk about what I have learnt I want to … Continue reading Memories of Music and Melodies – Part 1

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The Storm Concerto

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High notes of the harp fine plucking against the window pane cascading ripples to the lower strings a volume increase a tempo change the timpani rumbles a warning grumble the black-grey opens with a rattling of sticks against the snare drums edge before the drum is beat hard as heavy rain falls and the xylophone joins the band with dissonant chords and cymbals clash adding to the cacophony. When tyres swish through the flowing mass then abruptly swept is an invisible baton bringing to an end with a sudden halt all but the cymbals and harp the fluttering of strings … Continue reading The Storm Concerto

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A Field No Longer

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Even the ash tree trunks standing on top of the bank at the gardens edge are unable to hide the expanse of rust-stained green from the window of the bedroom he slept in as a boy. From this same window a once pleasant view of fields and trees, farmers on tractors, cows that scattered when the neighbourhood kids played football where they grazed. He sometimes woke early in this boyhood room  to watch the sun rise from behind silent trees silhouetted on the horizon, the sky a warm orange glow. The sunrise seems later these days, it now has to … Continue reading A Field No Longer

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Grass – Part 2

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Those days were hot, endless, full of orange squash and jam sandwiches and fun. The morning I wrote this piece it followed a bright full moon and a heavy frost. On numerous occasions over the years I have watched the white-tipped blades of grass turn into lawns of dew and damp rotting dark brown oak leaves. When I walked across the grass earlier this morning, after the freezing air had caught my breath, the grass crisped beneath my feet. I looked back and saw my size nine prints in the frost chasing me. This was all far removed from those … Continue reading Grass – Part 2

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Grass – Part 1

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I have been thinking about grass (not that type – the stuff you mow when it gets too long). Not only about its colour, its smell, its feel, and how it evokes memories of carefree days when life was about playing in the back garden or out over the fields behind the house, but also about how it survives. It is one of natures survivors. Those halcyon memories of worry free days are even more poignant now that a key figure in my life and those memories, is no longer here and hasn’t been for a few years now. I … Continue reading Grass – Part 1

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Please, Mr Banksy

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Paint me another red balloon please, Mr Banksy paint it with a longer string and tie it around my wrist so that it won’t escape from my little fingers and float into the sky to become a tiny dot that disappears forever; and please Mr Banksy don’t paint the wind, let it be still so that my hair doesn’t cover my eyes and my dress doesn’t flap around my knees and if the string becomes undone my new balloon won’t blow away. Continue reading Please, Mr Banksy

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If I Were A Tree

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If I Were A Tree where would I spread my roots? where would I spend my seasons? where would my leaves shoot? In that field over there you know, the sloping one that the boy lays down in on summer days when the sun goes in and out, in and out and he makes creatures out of the clouds and sees crocodiles and dogs and wizards with pointy hats that turn into  into wisps of cotton wool nothingness. Yes, that is the field the one you can see from your bedroom window the field that slopes down to the stream, … Continue reading If I Were A Tree