Back to Nature

Far from the madding crowd....

Sunrise over the North Sea, streaming across the extraordinary poppy fields that this year have coated north Norfolk in waving fields of blood.  

A little while before sun rise I just caught the moon going down, a tiny bright pinprick in the sky:

And then here comes the sun, and I say, "It's alright...."

It all happens so fast.  Daylight like a rising flash, a lightning, I find it all hard to believe, so I ask a passing skylark to take my pic from above:

And then he takes a speckled stutter of spatters without me (can you trust anyone these days?):

And that was last week. 

Yes, life is racing by.  Only a few weeks ago the cowslips were like a delicately quilted coverlet spread across the countryside.  

 

Then they gradually faded, seeping into beige and pale lemony green.  And then we had the poppies, fields and fields of them, filling the air with a dozy haze in the evening air while we walked.

Today I walk from my home to the north coast, some eight and half miles along lanes and footpaths, and the poppies are pale and fringed with age, their petals bruised with the flapping winds we have had in the last few days.....

And now they are being succeeded, by hawkweeds, or hawkbits, or common cat's-ears (please excuse my inexactitude; life is too short....)

So anyway.  I've been in the city.  I've had some slightly startling speedy heartbeats, and I am glad to be back in the fresh air, walking comfortably above the ground, fluttered by butterflies:

Two ringlets exchanging greetings

I am just off the Peddars' Way, only sixteen miles north of Castle Acre,

The landscape tells human stories.  Here a dry cereal crop leads you down to a red stone farm which lies just by the old railway line from Hunstanton to Fakenham.....

Here a shady oak frames a bucolic fold of hills with, though you cannot see it, a red kite trawling for worms.....

Then we have the hedgerows and wildflowers, exchanging their bodily fluids with the insects of the air to enable life, of all sorts, to go on.  Without this, you should know, we are all doomed....  Insect sex is everything we need....

A white-tailed bumblebee on knapweed

A six-spot Burnet moth on Knapweed

A six-spot Burnet moth on field scabious

A small white butterfly on bramble flowers

John Clare wrote:

Though simple to some I delight in the sight

Of such objects that bring unto me

A picture of picturesque joy and delight

Where beauty and harmony be

Oh I love at my heart to be strolling along

Oer the heath a new impulse to find

While I hum to the wind in a ballad or song

Some fancy that starts in the mind

All seems so delightful and bring to the mind

Such quiet and beautiful joys

That the mind when its weary like hermits may find

A retreat from earths folly and noise

The Heath

John Clare

I walk on.  Every day is new.  The shift from yellow to red to brown and so on is all part of the rich weft of colour that our world, when undisturbed, offers to the wanderer.  Seasonal.  Transitional. Always changing; always developing.  I am just perplexed by the rapidity of these changes.  

Don't read anything into these musings.  I breast the hill leading down to the coast and see,  distantly but clearly, Lincolnshire to one side, and a wind farm to the other.  As far as I can see there is life.  And life only.  

The foreground is filled with asparagus ferns, from the young plants that need to mature before they are harvested.  This is where I live, now.  This is beautiful.  I am happy to share it with you.....

Time flies by

In the blink of an eye

When you get paid for having too much fun

Kicking out the foot lights

Living the night life

Like tomorrow ain't never going to come

Wouldn't change much of nothing

About this road we've been running

For of wild times, wild women, and a song

But we would've taken much better care of ourselves

If we would have known we would live this long

Live This Long

Willie Nelson 

Merle Haggard

Pretty Poisons

 Threw a glass darkly.....

Paranoid parolee Dennis Pitt (Anthony Perkins) strives to fit into everyday life working at a chemical factory but soon comes to believe the company is purposely polluting the town's water supply. Befriended by an attractive high school drum majorette, Sue Ann Stepanek (Tuesday Weld), Dennis is delighted when she approves of his scheme to pretend to be a CIA agent in order to destroy the factory. The plan goes awry, and the hapless Dennis becomes a pawn in Sue Ann's own devious plot.

I think I understand.....

Europe may not be the cradle of silverisation, but it may well be the overpriced and sullied double room of world civil ice station.....

Pretty Poison is/was a film that runs through my mind. Although it is/was about pollution (and what can be less current?) I hold the title as an emblem for the drinks industry.....

As a recovering Corona addict (my earliest teens were spent in thrall to the fizziest of drinks) I now seek solace in what the ancients called Alcohol [The word "alcohol" derives from the Arabic kohl (Arabic: الكحل, romanised: al-kuḥl), a powder used as an eyeliner. The first part of the word (al-) is the Arabic definite article, equivalent to the in English].....  Anyway, as a recovering Corona (and ginger beer) addict, I spend my life in search of the elixir of eternal yoof (sic).....

And in Germany (and the Netherlands) it comes in many beautifully presented forms), such as simple, natural, unadulterated bottled beers:

But also as craft drafts:

Clear and thirst-aswaging Pils:

Which may or may not be accompanied by some kind of local Schnapps:

Or it may be Black Beer -  a speciality of the old GDR:

Or it could be some of the delicious local wines, which rarely find their way to the UK.  Here's a Baumberger 

[1855 KAM JOHANN BAUMBERGER NACH MANDEL, 

UM HIER EINE FAMILIE ZU GRÜNDEN UND DIE ERSTEN 

REBEN ZU PFLANZEN.

ÜBER 150 JAHRE SPÄTER SIND WIR EIN WEINGUT, 

EINE FAMILIE, DREI GENERATIONEN, 13 HEKTAR REBFLÄCHE 

UND ÜBER 50.000 STÖCKE.]

With Ápfelstrudel.....

And I love Riesling too: [Germany is famous for producing high-quality Riesling wines that can range from bone-dry to intensely sweet. Riesling wines showcase the grape's unique ability to express characteristics of the terrier {sic} and the winemaking process. They often have aromas of citrus, peach, apricot and floral notes, combined with a distinct acidity that make them versatile for pairing with various cuisines.]

With Spargel:

But a light beer is nice with it too:

Though dunkel beer (or rot wein) goes better with three different meats {duck, venison and wild boar}:

Anyway when all is said and done some kind of flaming digestif is helpful:

Though they don't all ignite:

I should explain that it is not only me that enjoys these tipples:

And it isn't only in Germany that such habits are enjoyed {this is Amsterdam}:

Prost!

Oude Genever....  Proost!

Don't let me be misunderstood.......  I am not selling anything - 

But if you fancy joining me in a convivial beverage, just send a pigeon.....