I bought a beautifully illustrated book of poetry at a charity sale today. It has lots of the classics as well as some I’ve never seen before. Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ for instance , which I remember hearing at school. I wonder if the teacher would have read it to us if he had known that it was composed during a drug induced delirium?
I loved it for its sounds, even when I did not understand the language, nor did I know where Xanadu was or what a zither sounded like.
When I was growing up I’d never seen a real pineapple. Such fruit came in a tin, and was a favourite in our house as , in those long ago days of sugar rationing , because it was for some reason usually available in our area. We kept hens and so my father would barter some spare eggs for the delicious tinned fruit and some ham for salad. The pineapple cubes would be eaten with great enjoyment during Sunday tea, with evaporated milk poured on top.
There is a radio programme on at the moment about anthropology – in particular about kinship. As far as biological kin is concerned I am a daughter, a wife, a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin and so on, but I am also a friend, a colleague , a customer, a client, and sometimes a patient.
Round here it looks as though the whole of the United Kingdom is gradually being covered in red white and blue in preparation for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Every garage forecourt seems to be selling flowers in these three colours , often petunias, I guess because they grow so quickly. The colours are, of course, those of the British flag, or should I say that of the United Kingdom.
Confused? You will be!
There are probably very few people who use this word in just the way we do as a family. Usually it means to move or cause to move rapidly up and down or from side to side, but we have a large garden from which we obtain lots of fruit, vegetables and herbs. I pack some in brine or syrup, make sauces, jams, and have even bought a dryer (not a clothes dryer) so that I can produce such things as semi-dried plums.
