Lois Wakeman Posts

4 April 2010

I forgive you your financial recklessness – for two blissful days of glorious blue skies with nary a contrail in sight. Normally, I can count between about 10 and 20 by 7:30 in the morning, but today – nothing but blue, blue, blue. I can begin to imagine…

30 March 2010

I never thought of the origin of this phrase before, but today, I was outside at just after 6. The sky was a dark inky blue starting to lighten to a sullen grey in the south, and apart from the distant roar of the surf, all I could…

4 January 2010

On Sunday, the Met Office told us it would be a glorious sunny day in the Southwest, so we took them at their word and went to Dartmoor for a walk. We left sunshine behind at home and it got greyer and greyer the nearer we got! The…

21 December 2009

  In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone;– Christina Rossetti – the opening lines of a well-loved Christmas poem, set to music and now sung as a carol. Those lines, originally written in 1872, are a true description…

11 December 2009
5 November 2009

Number 4 in an occasional series: 1 was staplers, 2 was caravans, and 3 was office chairs. Some while ago, I got an Epic Fireworks catalogue through the post – why they think a 2-man company would mount a £2,000 display is beyond me, but it furnished me…

4 July 2008

A study in green – ripening wheat on Salisbury Plain. A stop by the side of the A303 (surely one of the most rewarding roads for the arable enthusiast?) on the way to a friend’s funeral yielded this unexpected image. The lush soft green was captivating, and the…

20 May 2008

Ceres walks through the crops, her hands brushing the ripening ears as she moves silent and unobserved in her rustling domain. Barley is a wonderful crop to observe on a breezy day, as the awns sway and shimmer, catching the light and delighting the eye. The camera can…

16 May 2008

This year, the oak leaves were out well before the ash. According to the saw: “Oak before ash, in for a splash – ash before oak, in for a soak”. So, what actually happened? We had 10 days of clear warm sunny weather, followed by a torrential downpour…

13 May 2008

At last, the hawthorn is flowering. For me, a still sunny afternoon, listening to flies buzzing, wood pigeons cooing, and smelling the heavy perfume of the may tree (which mixes intoxicating cloves with something slightly off) is the absolute essence of early summer – something to savour and…