Early Autumn Morning

The water meadows beside the Test at Whitchurch on a spectacular October morning. Click here for some more photos

Favourite Poetry - October

Dew and sun beside the Test

The green elm with the one great bough of gold
Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one , – 
The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,
Harebell and scabious and tormentil,
That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,
Bow down to; and the wind travels too light
To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;
The gossamers wander at their own will.
At heavier steps than birds’ the squirrels scold.
The rich scene has grown fresh again and new
As Spring and to the touch is not more cool
Than it is warm to the gaze; and now I might
As happy be as earth is beautiful,
Were I some other or with earth could turn
In alternation of violet and rose,
Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,
And gorse that has no time not to be gay.
But if this be not happiness,—who knows?
Some day I shall think this a happy day,
And this mood by the name of melancholy
Shall no more blackened and obscured be.

 Edward Thomas

Favourite Poetry - Hiawatha

I had forgotten how much I used to like Longfellow's Hiawatha (full text behind the link)

 Downward through the evening twilight,
 In the days that are forgotten,
 In the unremembered ages,
 From the full moon fell Nokomis,
 Fell the beautiful Nokomis,
 She a wife, but not a mother.

 By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
 By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
 Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
 Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
 Dark behind it rose the forest...

Favourite Places - the Boat House

The boat house, somewhere in deepest Sussex

Favourite Places - Mudeford

Mudeford is a charming old fishing village at the narrow entrance to Christchurch Harbour distinguished by a having its main beach (the Spit) separated by the harbour channel and reachable only by ferry. Over the years a superb collection of colourful beach houses have been constructed on the Spit and are now highly sought after. From them one can have a clear view of the Needles at the western end of the Isle of Wight. Click here for some more photos

Lots Road Power Station

Lots Road Power Station, Chelsea, which once supplied the electricity for the Underground, seen across a muddy Thames from the Battersea side. Click the photo for a larger view

Favourite Places - Lainston House

Lainston is a classic late C17th country house outside Winchester, for many years the home of the Craig-Harvey family. Now an hotel, it retains all the old house's beautiful features but one can now eat outside on the tented terrace and enjoy the superb view of the lime avenue and parkland below. Click here for some more photos

Favourite Places - A Hampshire Garden

The summerhouse

I am not going to reveal where this enchanting place is as it's of course a private house - except that it lies in my beloved county of Hampshire. But you can click below for some more photos and dream of the peace and beauty that lies among these fields. Favourite Places - A Hampshire Garden

Illustration by William Nicholson

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

THE Velveteen Rabbit

OR
HOW TOYS BECOME REAL

by Margery Williams

This has strong echoes of my favourite piece from Le Petit Prince - the Story of the Fox

The Joy of Cricket

Lords

Ok, this one's going to be a tough sell. Cricket is probably the least known and understood of the major games played internationally. And those who play it are only countries with long ties to Britain such as India and Australia (though not the US or Canada) and as with football and rugby, it is a game which owes its development and spread to being part of the unvarying curriculum of the the British public schools.

Lords

I have just been lucky enough to be asked by a member of the MCC to visit Lords for the third day of the Test Match between England and India. It was an enthralling spectacle for one who understands the game; a crashing bore for anyone that doesn't. For one, each game is played over five days and a single innings by one side can last two or three days. And a single innings by one batsman can also last as long, though it rarely does.

Hurstbourne Priors Cricket Ground, Hampshire

By chance, I grew up a few miles away from the ground where cricket was supposed to have first been played in about 1750 - Broadhapenny Down in Hampshire, beside which is a pub, The Bat and Ball, dedicated to the game. And when young my brother and I played endless games of cricket on the lawn at home, with straw bales behind the wicket to stop the ball.

Its appeal has been endlessly evoked in literature; from the classic description of a village cricket match in 'England Their England' to the dry prose of the almanack of cricket, Wisden. But this short piece from an Australian summarises its appeal concisely:

'Cricket invokes passion among the one billion people who play it. And Test cricket is the most passionate of all, with national pride bubbling close to the surface of the match.

International relations can be soured by controversy; in the 1930's Bodyline Test, the English captain's tactic to play the man led directly to serious calls for Australia's secession from the Commonwealth. Prime ministers and the king intervened.

The passion grows from the spirit of the game, its beauty, complexity and subtlety. One has to plan, to have a sense of strategy and exercise skill. It is not about might, but about psychological confrontation and domination.'


See also John Updike on Baseball