Tag Archives: bear

Coleridge, Clickbait and Capsicum Spray

In a way, the title offers more than it delivers and, being deliberately sensationalist, is itself an example of clickbait.

I see it’s three days since I last posted. Unfortunately I can’t tell you what I’ve been doing in the last three says, because I don’t know. If pressed I would say that my main activity has been letting three days slip by. In Victorian times I could at least have excused myself by saying I’d been hitting the laudanum, but in these sanitised days of the 21st century it’s just been TV and reading clickbait on the computer. I can’t help thinking that my life as a poet is not quite on a level with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or even Dylan Thomas.

Talking of which, I recently discovered, to my confusion, that there was also a man called Samuel Coleridge Taylor. Life can be full of interest, but also very confusing. One thing that occurs to me, now that I know, was why didn’t I know? It seems an interesting bit of general knowledge that should have cropped up before now.

I’ve also been thinking about bears recently. They aren’t a problem in the UK because we don’t have any. We have reintroduced beaver as part of a re-wilding plan and accidently reintroduced wild boar, but that’s as far as it goes. We are trying to preserve wildcats too, but they are probably doomed in the long term as, even if we can prevent habitat loss, they keep interbreeding with domestic cats.

It will be harder making the case for lynx and wolves, and I’m sure that bears will definitely be a step too far. Someone was killed recently in Italy by a reintroduced bear, which is more serious than worries about wolves or lynx taking a few sheep.

Bears first came into my mind a few months ago when I read an article on the killing, and returned last night after I spoke to Number Two Son on the phone and Bear Spray came up. I’d seen it on Race Across the World and wanted to know if it was something he’d come across. It was. He’d carried a can while he was hiking last year. Life in Canada is much more adventurous than it is here. The biggest wild animal I generally see is a squirrel.

(It’s capsicum spray, which allows mw the three part alliteration I needed for the title.)

Squirrel in MENCAP gardens, Wilford

Day 135

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The morning is now over and I have spent it having a lie in, eating porridge, repairing a strimmer, catching up on reading and . . . er . . . that’s it. I am currently writing the first few lines of the blog whilst waiting for the kettle to boil (having received shouted instructions from the garden.

It has just boiled, so I will do as I am told and hope to be back with you soon.

Farmer Ted, the knitted bear assistant

Later . . .

I read some of the Haiku Society of America mentorship booklet, which I found hard going. It’s more or less a writer bio followed by three haiku and with a few kind words about the mentorship scheme.

Or, if you look it up on Google, it may be the Human Slaughter Association Mentorship programme. I have a limited capacity for reading haiku (though it is less limited than my capacity for reading them), and don’t like video conferencing or workshops, so you will be more likely to see me discussing humane slaughter than haiku. I confess, and have never hidden the fact, that I am not a fan of haiku and only write them because I need them for haibun.

After a few pages of that, I decided to have a go at Ribbons, which is the magazine of the Tanka Society of America. I joined last week and they have already sent me a magazine. Even better, it is full of tanka.

There are some magazines I read that just feel like home, and others that don’t feel comfortable. Ribbons is comfortable, as is The Haibun Journal. There’s nothing much to see on that last link, as they don’t do anything online. I merely add the link to prove it exists.

While I’m talking about magazines and societies, I should mention that there are other good magazines, and that my definition of bad magazines is based on my own personal view rather than a proper procedure. I find it so much quicker just to form an unreasoning prejudice rather than a balanced view.

I will also say that I don’t like the process that the societies all seem to adopt, of running memberships from Christmas to Christmas. It’s a bad time of year to extract money from people and when they all do it at the same time it forces a decision on some people. Well, on me. I know there are reasons for this, but you would think that at least one would do it differently, just to make it more convenient for members. I suppose when the rest of your members are highly paid and successful (as all the writer bios indicate) nobody else ever finds themselves short of money.

Gatekeeper butterfly

I decided just to add random feelgood photos to this one. The top one may, in hindsight, fulfil that purpose for vegans.

Bear’s Guest Blog

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It’s a bit nippy out, and there’s a North wind blowing across Nottingham as I type. You notice things like this when you have no trousers.

This cold wind may be a metaphor for the current state of world politics, if you think that a bear with a head full of viscose kapok is capable of metaphor. Or it may just be a weather report. Looking at our current crop of politicians, it’s clear that brains aren’t required, and in at least one case the stuffing appears to be leaking out.

The lack of trousers may also be a metaphor, depending on your view of the Prime Minister’s well-publicised private life.

The lack of trousers is even more apparent when you spend a lot of time sitting in a tree. It wasn’t particularly cold during the photoshoot, but there was an element of chafing I didn’t particularly care for.

This isn’t the only deficiency in the knitting. You’d think if they expected you to type a blog they’d have managed a few fingers, wouldn’t you?

Me amongst the cranesbill

However, I digress.

Today the two large moving objects that share the house went to visit something they call “the gardens”. This is different to “the garden” which is an area of untamed growth to the rear of what they call “the house”.

To get to the gardens we drove, which seems to be a process where the one with the furry face twiddles a few bits and pieces and offers a stream of helpful advice to other drivers.

The quiet one, who knitted me, mutters things like: “You really shouldn’t say things like that to people.”

I keep pointing out I’m not a panda but it doesn’t seem to sink in

I remember her voice from the knitting, because she did my ears early on, though it was nearly a day before I could see her. It’s a pity she didn’t take a bit longer and add a few extras. I’ve already mentioned trousers and fingers, but when posing for photographs it might have helped to have had a few joints. There is a limited number of poses when you can’t bend anything, and I’m not going to be Playbear of the Week if I can’t strike a pose.

Fortunately I do have a winning smile and a twinkle in my eye.

From this angle the lack of knees and elbows isn’t apparent, but this doesn’t mean I’m going to stop mentioning it

An Uncanny Resemblance

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Banana Bread Face

Teddy Bear climbing a tree

Yes, after two and a half months of lockdown I’ve finally relinquished my grip on reality and started to write a post on the similarities between Julia’s Banana Bread and the teddy bear she knitted last month.

Last night I had my new, increased dose of methotrexate. I’m hoping it works because the arthritis is very difficult to cope with at the moment. However, after a week or so of moaning about arthritis I’m going to give it a rest now. I’m just reporting that the increased dose has not brought on any side effects, and I’m hoping all that is behind me now.

This morning I dropped Julia off at the gardens and went to work for the first time in 72 days. I think it’s 72 days, anyway. It’s certainly been a long time.

The first thing I had to do was ring the boss and ask what the alarm code was because I had forgotten it. He wasn’t much better and initially gave me the wrong one. I think it may have been his PIN number. We’re both a bit rusty.

I’ll draw a veil over life in the newly re-organised shop because I’m not particularly happy with the reorganisation for a number of reasons. The main one is that it’s meant a lot of disruption and has produced nothing of benefit that I can see, either in terms of health or efficiency.

Julia is finding the same at the gardens. I will draw a similar veil over that.

Least said, soonest mended.

I just wish that the people in charge would actually think things through. It’s a bit like when we were on the farm. People mistake change for improvement. They think tidiness is the same as hygiene. And they think that if they move something they are doing something useful.

This bear has more brains than many of the managers I have suffered under. And so does the banana bread.

A Bear of Very Little Brain

Sunday Once More

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Sunday has come round with its usual reliability and I have just checked back on the week’s output. I’m not impressed. I have become irregular and have been using Julia’s photographs to cover up my deficiencies.

If you’re paying attention you might have noticed I’ve done it again with today’s pictures of a bear in the garden.

We had a reasonable weekend, with a massive queue on the A1, roadworks on the Cambridge road (it feels like there have been roadworks on the Cambridge road all my life), and then more roadworks…

During all that time, including on hour queued on the A1, we didn’t see a single man working. They just set up the roadworks, put up the speed limit signs and then abandon them, regardless of the disruption it causes to everyone else. It’s a bit like being a politician – you make a mess, you walk away. At no time do you have to consider your fellow man.

We were well on target to arrive in Stowmarket when we hit the first set of roadworks (I was using the satnav to keep track of the time) and we eventually arrived an hour and a half late.

Bear with pansies

Bear in a tree

Bear with tools

It was a good party, but I won’t say what it was for, as my sister-in-law isn’t happy about reaching 50.

Later, at the hotel, we found they had laid on a group of swearing drunks for us outside the main door, all smoking whilst wearing smeared makeup and the remains of their wedding finery. It was very kind of them, and didn’t cost extra, but it’s not really my sort of thing.

I’ll leave details of breakfast for later.

Bear with seed packet from Kew

At the Bird Feeder

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I thought you might like this. In the UK we complain if we have a visit from squirrels.

Who is the Best Bear?

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I’ve been struggling today – having written over a thousand words and deleted most of them. The remaining fragment is saved as a draft and may never be published, which is ironic when you consider the subject is publication.

The trouble is that I kept getting bogged down with the misery of a serious intro.

So I’m now just going to get straight to the point.

The subject is bears, specifically which is the best bear, with a digression into bears that might have been,

Our bear, as seen in the picture, is Farmer Ted. He’s a bear known to only a few, though he is an excellent fellow and sound on rural matters.

His main competition comes from Rupert, Winnie the Pooh, Paddington and Yogi. I’m also fond of the Bulgy Bears, though they aren’t as well known as the rest. Number Two son has just nominated the three bears of Goldilocks fame, Kung Fu Panda and Bear in the Big Blue House. I’ve also just thought of Aloysius from Brideshead. Even better, I actually remembered how to spell it.

So, first question, who is your favourite bear?

My second question is – who else do you think wasted their talents instead of writing about bears?

If T S Eliot had concentrated on his lighter side and produced a bear book instead of messing about with the Four Quartets he could have been onto something. He did alright with cats so I don’t see why not.

There’s also Barrie, Grahame, Sassoon, Gavin Maxwell…

Memoirs of a Bear Hunting Man would have been a much fairer contest and Ring of Bright Water would not have ended well for the man with the shovel.

Bear of the Baskervilles anyone?

Screveton through the Looking Glass

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Well, that’s the paperwork up to date. I can clear my desk with a clear conscience now and feel virtuous until we start tomorrow morning – that’s a whole 17 hours.

I’ve been struggling with the organisation of the Lammas Fun Run. The two things (one being an ancient Anglo-Saxon festival of Loaf Mass) and the other being a twenty first century celebration of people looking uncomfortable whilst running. At least Loaf Mass does what it says on the tin. Fun Run isn’t fun, and it’s barely running. Now, I’m no athlete, as you might have gathered from my comments on food, exercise and youth, so I do admire fun-runners: I just don’t understand them.

It’s also another example of the Random Events Generator that seems to be in use round here. Lammas is about loaves. We normally do a couple of wheatsheaf loaves (complete with traditional mouse) – though that’s more a harvest festival sort of thing. Last year we also made soda bread straight from the field (and had it back to the combine crew in time for lunch) and did a couple of plain loaves which were used in the Communion service.

having mentioned it I’m seriously thinking of building a random event generator – that’s for “Events” as in Open days and such, rather than just things that happen. What with guinea fowl and goats we have enough randomness in everyday events not to need any more. No, this is Over 60’s Limbo Championship territory, plus the Santa Fire Walk and Full Contact Knitting. We already have Breakfast and Yoga next Saturday and Doga in a couple of months. That’s Yoga combined with dog walking – I’m told it can be a bit lively when the dogs get together.

Yes, it’s like the Through the Looking Glass version of The Office working here.

Fortunately I’m not in it for the money or the glory, I just like a laugh and the feeling I’m doing a bit of good.

So let’s see what the next week brings.

And watch out for the further adventures of Farmer Ted…

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Life after the Care Farm