Category: Poetry

Spring haiku #3 + my 1st video: close encounter of a foxy kind

Cornered by brown dog,
fox cub acquires fighting skills.
Boundary dispute.

This is my first video ever, so please excuse the quality. Today’s learning curve — transferring a video from my camera on to my PC, converting the file from AV1 to wmp, and uploading it on to YouTube. Now I know how to do these three things, I can dream about making a book promotion video in the next couple of years. (note: that last statement is an example of positive thinking)

You’ll see from video that my dog and the cub begin by having a long staring contest, followed by a confrontation that’s all bark and no bite. From watching this feisty cub close up, I’ve decided wild animals, even when they’re five-weeks’ old, are not sweet and cuddly things. Just nobody put their fingers near a cub’s mouth, or you might come away minus a few digits.

I telephoned the local animal rescue people to check whether they needed to move the cub to safety, but they said leave it for 12 hours as the mother vixen is probably moving her litter one-by-one and has deposited her cub in a safe place (bad choice) and will return to collect her cub later. Good news, she collected her cub by midday, so I don’t have to contend with another sleepless night while my dog overturns chairs in the kitchen and bays through the kitchen window at foxes crossing her territory to move dens. Let’s hope the vixen has finished transporting her cubs now, and doesn’t decide to deposit another one behind my garden shed this evening. And just so you can all go “ah, isn’t it sweet” here is a still I took of the cub.

foxcub

Allotment haiku #2 plus planting update for spring

RhubarbLeaves

Nephrotoxic leaves.
Thinking of rhubarb crumble,
pink, heaped with sugar.

#

As some of you will remember, we inherited an allotment last September, which was full of weeds and rubbish. The heavy clearance and digging is now complete, thanks to my husband, Victor, and son, Joshua.

Since then, Victor has gone on to plant all sorts of goodies, the rhubarb being the soil’s first edible offering of the year. The garlic is also coming along well, so I’ll soon be able to stink out my fellow singers with my Mediterranean-style breath.

Everything is probably a month behind, due to the recalcitrant weather, and something ate our strawberry plants, but we are looking forward to potatoes, broad beans, peas, parsnips, carrots, onions, shallots, asparagus (no dead cow buried underneath), radishes, rocket, parsley, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, artichokes, sea kale, raspberries, redcurrents, blueberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries (replacement plants), apples, hazelnuts, figs, and red grapes.

Over the next few months, we’re hoping to see a reduction in our monthly grocery bill, as well as enjoying the restorative effects of a diet rich in freshly picked produce, with all those superb extra vitamins and minerals. And I’m going to have to learn to make jam and chutney.

Allotment: April (Year 1)

Tanka #11 / Novel Writing/ Early Music Concerts

foxytail

Lost in her tale,
the writer became a fox
leaping boundaries.
See that bushy red tail
vanishing into the blue.

#

This tanka is a surreal explanation of why I’m being less attentive to my fellow bloggers than usual. Please bear with me, as  I’ve reached the halfway mark with my work-in-progress started on January 1st. My speculative novel has removed me to a different time and place, but I should return to relative normality by mid-July.

At present, our town’s annual cultural festival is taking place. It opened on 30th March and runs until 21st April. Although this festival is eating into my writing time, it does stop me becoming surgically attached to my computer. Last week, our early music chamber choir, LuxAeterna, gave a recital, which included in the programme a fiendishly difficult, not often performed Mass by Giovanni Animuccia (c 1500-1571).

LuxAeterna1
LuxAeterna Early Music Chamber Choir

For those who are interested, here’s our programme (all music composed before c 1630):

The Curtain drawn – Giles Farnaby
A little pretty bonnie lass – John Farmer
Il bianco e dolce cigno – Jacob Arcadelt
Le Sourvenir – Robert Morton
Though Philomela lost her love – Thomas Morley
Thus said fair Chloris bright – John Wilbye
Flow not so fast ye fountains – John Dowland
(Organ – Canzona Ariosa by Andrea Gabrielli)
Au joli bois – Claudin de Sermisy
Chambriere – Jean Planson
Il est bel est bon – Pierre Passereau
Ave verum corpus – Solesmes
Sacerdotes Domini – William Byrd
Adoramus te – Jacob Clemens non Papa
(Organ -Variations on ‘Mein junges Leben hat ein Eng’ by Jan Pietersoon Sweelinck)
Hymnus ‘Condiro Alme Siderum’
Miss ‘Conditor Alme Siderum’ (Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, & Gloria) – Giovanni Animuccia

My husband, Victor, also gave a harpsichord recital on an instrument he has restored and re-strung. This was a nerve-wracking experience for him, as this was his first full length recital on the instrument and he didn’t know if the strings would hold up to prolonged use. Fortunately, he didn’t have to stop playing to re-tune the instrument and there were no embarrassing loud pings in the middle of a piece. My job was as page-turner, which rather daunted me, as harpsichord music has loads of ornamentation which is open to interpretation by the player. This means that there are all sorts of twiddly bits that are not fully written out, making it very hard for a page-turner to follow the music.

The maestro himself
Victor at the harpsichord