“Thank You NHS”

I went up to the hospital for a blood test and took these snaps of the approach road. They've been painted here for more than a year, and reflect a massive manifestation of affection for our National Health Service since the pandemic hit us. At various points it has drastically overloaded its workers at all…

All we ever need to know

Written on 15th September 2006, when everything seemed so simple and fresh, and messages came unbidden out of  a clear sky: "All we ever need to know is what to do", as concluded in the post below. These days I find it the hardest challenge of all. I ask myself whether I actually know anything…

A fig-leaf for David

My previous post wound up with the words "I got a job as assistant to a cinematographer making an educational movie about Michelangelo. But that’s a tale for another day." That tale, first published May 10th 2009, is below. It’s the 6th of August 1962. I’m sitting on the steps outside the Duomo, Florence’s cathedral,…

Waiting

Written on May 4th 2009, rediscovered on a search for Apollinaire, French poet On a morning like this I feel a strong call to take the Valley Path (which I’ve written about a few times) on account of the clear sky, the expectant hush as in a theatre when the curtain is about to go…

Annie Dillard

Another piece rescued from oblivion, originally posted on March 12th, 2011 “In blogging, less is more. Discuss.” That could have been an essay topic in the days of my youth, had blogging then been a word. An old friend who used to post as Rob. and later Bob, did it for the interaction rather than…

Groping Blindly

Originally published on April 27th, 2011. Another one rescued from oblivion I’ve been in a ferment, witness to a cascade of interconnectedness, from which it is surely possible to construct an overarching meaning—but I won’t try, and that is an instance of laziness (or what-you-may-call-it) which was a theme in my last: something which seems…

How we got here, where we go next

Originally published on June 19th 2016, fell by the wayside till now. I cringe at my then support for Brexit, which now seeems like an irrecoverable error, like the Wuhan Lab Leak (if true) I had pretty much done with A Wayfarer’s Notes, actually, didn’t feel loyalty to it any more, only a certain nostalgia,…

Possessed by a god

Originally published on May 11th 2011, somehow got lost till now Suppose I took it on myself to explain what a blog is, to someone who’d never encountered the idea. How would I go about it? Is there a common root to which all blogs are connected? I’m not thinking so much of topics, which…

Protected: About the Magdalene

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Stillness and Passion

In some ways I'd like to be a Christian, but have never believed that Christ was tortured on the cross to redeem my soul. Despite all my upbringing from an early age, it just never caught on. Yet I cannot deny the power of this religion, across two millennia. If it guides us to a…

Natalie D’Arbeloff y el mural del hotel Guarani,1962

Natalie's post SELF BUBBLE modestly links to an article about her in a Paraguan magazine. I say "modestly": not only is it in Spanish, it doesn't allow its text to be copied so it could be put into Google Translate. It was fun bypassing this restriction (I can tell you how, if you're interested). Anyhow,…

Housewifery

HOUSEWIFERY is the efficient running of a house, and embraces problems of widely different natures. It includes the problem of running the house economically, seeing that the money available is spent to the best purpose. It includes keeping the house clean, for cleanliness and hygiene are the basis of healthy living. It includes a knowledge…

Equanimity

Detail from Joachim's Dream, by Giotto , c. 1305 It was as if an angel lifted me up to get an aerial view. There was a vaguely Italian tinge to the dream. It might have been Naples in its sorry state after WWII. There was no visual image, for it seems angels see only into…

Rewiring, continued

Retirement is not a thing that you can illustrate in a short narrative. What strikes you at first is the novelty, the new-found freedom. At a later stage you might look back nostalgically: to have lost touch with colleagues, to find a gap in your life where team spirit used to flourish. And so on.…

Retirement?

My pension company appears to have a dynamic new CEO. He's attached a mugshot and signature, says he is delighted to be introducing your ReWirement magazine ... We want to change how retirement is depicted, and share stories of people who are under-represented, celebrating the diversity and uniqueness of retirement in the UK today....So if…

Buck Fuller

I've been cataloguing my books. They're scattered across the house. Some years ago I got rid of all the IKEA shelves and built my own, as a tribute to this cherished collection. Every volume has its own tale to tell: how was it acquired, why and when? Sometimes memory fails: the tale is lost. Which…

Radical Love

first of a projected series on "Possibility" This may be the first time that the world has got close to being united in a common hope; this despite continuance of being separated by incompatible wishes and fears; not to mention ongoing hate and conflict. I glean from media that to many of us, the world…

Sixteen Feet High

'Suppose everything is just as it should be, already? Suppose everything goes on being just right, no matter what? So whatever creatures do—even mankind—then Nature as a whole (which includes mankind) bounces back, fixing the consequences as best it may?' . . . . This post was originally published on August 12th 2010 as "Aylesbury…

Fitting into one’s space

I've been thinking that the real problem of growing old is to fit ourselves into the space we find ourselves in. By "ourselves" I mean the "I", the human consciousness with all its ideas, memories & habits. By "space" I mean our total situation, consisting of body and habitat. These days old age is not…

Paradoxes

I visited someone in a locked mental ward. She desperately wants to get out but is not ready to do so. She’s a lawyer, indeed a barrister, though I doubt if that fraternity will open its arms again to her. This piece was dated August 8th 2006, same as my previous Never considered it suitable…

Bygone bloggery, Bee & Thistle

To be a writer, you only need one reader. If you google “literary blogs” you will find those which gossip about literature, rather than consider themselves as literature. I am not interested in gossip, and abhor the clichéd thoroughfares of discourse. But I think blogging is my kind of literature, at least for now. .…

The organizing power of words

I write here to express my thoughts and it’s difficult because they branch out in all directions, and I struggle to find an organizing principle. My thought is a response to the interaction of myself with the rest of the world. It’s constantly dynamic, like the global weather system. . . . First published on…

Fingers and Moon

I was dumbfounded: confounded and struck dumb at the same time. It was a congenial place to be, I discovered, being content to stay there a while, sheltered in the dignity and grace of not knowing, that is, shedding false knowledge. . . . First published on July 15th 2015 and reissued to complement Natalie…

Being human with what we’ve got

Dear Vincent A long gap between communications tends to blur thoughts that were sharp when originally conceived - ie: when I first read your excellent last post. Maybe that’s a salutary reminder of how ephemeral our thoughts are anyway! Now that there’s a quiet moment I want to try to sum up what I wanted…

What looks after us?

I've been wanting to write about the role of angels in my life. Like most words in any language, it's loaded with baggage going back millennia. Let's strip off that heavy weight of meanings, leave it in a heap and walk lightly away. I want to go back to a time before I had words…

Fourteen Strands

This site started as a blog. These days it hardly has anything new to say, but remains as a sprawling overgrown labyrinth, still here for all comers, whether regular readers or stray visitors on some quest of their own. Hard to find, deliberately not signposted. Perhaps it might be refurbished. A designer hired for the…

The Chilterns

Visits to the sunflower field in Downley, mentioned three times before, have become a private ritual. These unharvested crops survive like invincible peasant crones. In Italian, the sunflower is the girasole or “turn-sun”. Its sun-worship is enabled by fibrous sinews in its "neck", made of certain cellulose molecules, and these don’t decay as rapidly as…

Ritual on New Year’s Day

I’ve been doing this for months now, writing little notes and essays for anyone to see, like graffiti on a public wall. I’ve got used to the rhythm of it, as an important part of my life. It’s legal, free and gives me a kick. I’ve long had fugitive thoughts and feelings which seemed precious…

In the bleak midwinter

Christmas is the most renowned of all the world’s festivals. It’s full of drama and contrast and potent symbols. Like many, I dread the tawdry commercialisation, sentimentality and ubiquity of this season’s trappings. But I see it differently now, having spent an entire year celebrating the daily advance and decline of Nature's rhythms in the…

The offender

I suppose gawking out of morbid curiosity is a universal trait. In America they call it rubbernecking. In England crowds used to gather at public hangings or burnings at the stake, to see the condemned in extremis, and how they conducted themselves. For lesser crimes, we had the pillory and the stocks, restraining an offender…

Ce Que Vouldras – Do what thou wilt

"I escape whenever I can to explore these exciting places, and it would take a big volume to record the feelings and memories evoked by the sounds and smells and visual impact." Previously published on Friday April 27th, 2007. After disinterring it today I recall another post but am unable to find it in any…

Entering the Mapless Dimension

This is the day I become clear about the purpose of my purposeless journey. Now the task is to express clearly what I see clearly. My path leads more to the past than the future, for “the past is my treasure” as an archaeologist might say. previously published on Saturday March 13th, 2010 Wayfaring Again…

A sense of belonging

So I took off to Bledlow Ridge, a village on the spine of a hill, and zig-zagged down the eastern slope. There was hardly any breeze and the February sun actually warmed my face. Near the top, my route descended to a hollow where the public footpath had been churned up by big-wheeled vehicles. Logs…

Theories of Everything

First there was nothing. Then there was something: the Creation, as engineered by the Big Bang and ongoing evolution to this day.Whatever you call it, it's never stopped. Creation continues, evolution is not complete. Here we are: creativeness builds on the legacy of yesterday to bring something new today, unaffected by the future. Such is…

The Tree of Life

“If I can prevent just one person from watching this, it’ll have been worth suffering through it.” Thus begins a review of The Tree of Life by Kevin A Ranson, alias Grim D Reaper; unfortunately one which I didn’t read in time. Published on Blogger, Saturday March 17th,  2012 “If I can prevent just one…

Bygone Bloggery

As an art form, the blog has extraordinary possibilities. It’s a “magic theatre: entrance not for everybody”. Anybody may come and peek, but those for whom it’s not intended will swiftly move on. Où sont les neiges d'antan? Where are the snows of yester-year? Through handwriting to Eternity Published on Blogger, Friday, October 12, 2012…

Holy Family

I guess like other educated white males I haven’t understood the the accusation that came out so often last year in the Black Lives Matter campaigns, that people like me are “privileged”. Especially in the sense that there are things we may never be able to understand, such as the sense of global outrage and…

Joy without a cause

I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher. Night shall be thrice night over you, And heaven an iron cope. Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hope?Inspired by G.K. Chesterton's Ballad of the White…

Where We Stand

Politics has never been more rotten, more destructive of the people’s wellbeing. From an impartial distance, this is surely unarguable. But who keeps this distance? From where I stand, democracy (reflecting the people’s choice), and freedom (of the powerful to enrich themselves and do what they like), have become especially poisonous. To the biosphere as…