Gallimaufry

There's Beau and Peep on our lawn on Tuesday morning. The sun was rising, casting shadows of houses upon the grass but briefly our faithful sheep were squarely framed in solar limelight. I just had to grab my camera. Five minutes later, the spectacle was over.

Here's another picture - received within the last half hour - of our unborn grandchild, resting in our daughter's womb, unaware of corona or even night and day. He or she has never seen another human face and does not know a single nursery rhyme. I will sing for him or her - "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "The Grand Old Duke of York" over and over. I hope to live long enough to pick brambles with this precious child. Due on January 6th or thereabouts.

The poem I wrote for National Poetry Day includes one of my favourite words: "lament". It seems a very apposite word to use in this year of heartbreak, death and confusion. It is as if we have lost something along the way. Many of the hopes and dreams that will have been present on New Year's Eve have somehow melted away.

The lament that was in my mind as I wrote "In The Time of Corona" was a Scottish tune: "Niel Gow's Lament to His Second Wife". In the late eighteenth century, Niel Gow was Scotland's finest fiddler. His second wife was Margaret Urquhart. She died in 1805 when Niel Gow was seventy eight years old. Surely, not only is the tune a lament for Margaret but also for a life well lived - a life of music in changing times. Please listen:-

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/3iwp5yF