Sorry everyone, I’ve been neglecting you. When you combine the nappish nature of old age, the fatigue of recovery and the lack of sleep due to the hot nights, I seem to spend my life waking up in a chair and wondering where the last hour went. I looked for a library picture of an old man napping. Frankly, they were depressing.
We have had a real storm of butterflies in the garden, with a growing list of species, including white ones and little brown ones (precision has never been one of my strong points) and the birds continue to delight. We have had a family of blue tits visiting regularly, and using the bird bath, and the goldfinch contingent is growing in numbers. Not only do we have a few more on the feeders, but there are more in the air and they frequently sing from a perch on the TV aerial.
I have kept up my writing for the Numismatic Society Facebook page and done several pieces for the Peterborough Military History Group. What I’m not doing is writing poetry, or anything I might get paid for. I really need to earn some money to pay for the research sites and WordPress. What I do notice, with much of my writing now being 500-2,000 words long, I am now blasting through 500 words, where 250 used to seem like plenty.
I have recently been wondering if anyone has done an analysis of the people who use the different types of Social Media. WP users are obviously top of the pile, Facebook users are more varied, and at the bottom of the pile comes Quora. Yes, I’ve been on it again despite all I said. Amongst the gems and genii (there are a few) are people like a professor from an American University who tells me that all War Poets were British Army Officers of the First World War.
This is wrong. We also have non-British War poets, some women wrote war poetry, they weren’t all in the forces, Rupert Brooke was in the Royal Navy, they weren’t all from WW1 and they weren’t all officers.
However, leaving all that to one side, isn’t life unfair? I sit here, crushed by the weight of my own ignorance whilst a man in the USA, confident in the quality of his intellect, makes big money teaching despite his dangerous stupidity.
This is a German WW1 poster exhorting school children to collect nettles. They could be processed for their fibre in the same way as flax. The yield was less, but they grew wild.
Here’s a poem from Moina Michael, a very untypical war poet, according to the definition above. She wasn’t an officer, she wasn’t British. she never served in the Army and she wasn’t a man.
And with that, it’s time to go.
(I had planned to use Alan Seeger as my atypical war poet and quote Rendezvous with Death, but I was close to getting political as I mused on a scenario where he returned from the war, entered politics and filled the White House with the Seeger family. Particularly Pete and Peggy.
That thought, I admit, cheered me immensely.
I am glad to hear you are still writing for Numismatic Society Facebook page and the Peterborough Military History Group. All is good! You will get back to poetry when you can. Sometimes a short break of doing something else is beneficial.
I have eaten nettles. They are quite restorative but need boiling first. Hope those children wore gloves collecting them. 🙂
I saw Pete Seeger long ago when I was a child and he gave a concert at the Seaport museum. My mother took me.
You should write a song about hearing Pete Seeger. Eric Bogle did one about the Dali Lama. 🙂
I was unaware of Eric Bogle’s song. Thanks!
That’s the beauty of WordPress!
WOW! You write A LOT! Keep up the good work!
Practice, as they say, makes slightly better. 🙂 You, on the other hand, know the Latin names, and much, much more, about plants, than I will ever know.
It’s a process. I can spell them better than pronouncing them…
I’m pleased you have woken and writing as well as ever. Keep well, my friend
I’m doing my best, thank you. 😉 I hope your treatment is going well.
I have a break until September when the camera goes in for what could be the last time.
I hope it records a successful conclusion and you never have to have another one inserted.
I wonder if that would make a good Greetings Card – they seem to have one for everything else.
🙂
I am glad to get this update, as I was beginning to get a little worried about the state of your health. It is good to hear that you are writing well, even if not profitably. Judging from our recent visit to London, it is amazing that anyone is still alive in the heat you have been having.
It’s a bit like our winter – lots of people have worse weather but cope better. Number Two Son in Toronto has a heat warning (it’s about 5 degrees hotter there) but his eyelashes freeze in winter. I wouldn’t swap. 🙂
Thanks for the link to Moina Michael. A worthwhile inclusion.
No worries – an interesting woman. I’d never heard of her until a few years ago when I was researching poppies.