Orford

A butterfly draws the last of the summer from yellow flowers.

Damsels and dragons have their conjugations warmed by the weakening sun.

The wind cackles around me as I pass through the reeds.

They transform its power into a flowing murmuration and like water it carries me on.

A hawk slips over the sea wall.  

I see the shape of a crossbow.

It drifts effortlessly across the reed bed, flapping wings to lift it above the quarrelsome, tentative gulls and I watch with the autumn sun behind me.

It banks as perfect as any spitfire pilot and displays, for itself, for the gulls, for pure joy, or me.

Its plumage is detailed as clear as any tatoo. The bow is drawn back tight.

The world turns in days and seasons and the delight is mine.

Pardon!

The sale of indulgences.
There is a living to be made as a modern Pardoner!
For people fasting, on diets or otherwise denying themselves the sins of the flesh and chocolate, I am offering a very valuable service. At the payment of serious cash money I and a dedicated band of professional staff will take on the burden of your indulgence .
An example.
Your fast, diet, whatever, requires you to restrict your intake of the good stuff to 500 calories and change. You are assailed, as we all are from time to time, by the overwhelming desire  to eat a chunk of chocolate, cream cake, chips and pizza with double mayo, whatever your avoir du poison... you get my drift. Maybe you are committed, maybe you are of steadfast character, maybe you have the will power of a deaf, blind and dumb donkey with no sense of smell, or maybe you are like the rest of us. OK,  so  now you are 2000 calories down the guggle and the guilt is going to kill you. The only thing to do is reach for the next 2000 calories to assuage you poor battered soul which is wracked, wracked I tell you with the guilt.
Fear not the Pardoning Services of Buddhist Pizza Pardons (BPP Inc.) are available - special rates can be offered to regular consumers.
For the payment of a  paltry sum, say 1p a calorie, we will guarantee to take on our broad shoulders (and backsides...Ed)
the results of your overindulgence. An indulgence for an indulgence as it were! (Oh very good, very good. I'm beginning to like the drift of your jib...Ed)
Disclaimer.
The calories remain, of course, but the guilt, the guilt is not yours. It heads for the wide blue yonder, born aloft by the prayers, sutras, mortifications  and good work of the tireless Pardoners of BPP. 

Payment by cheque made out to BPP Inc Charity no 666 registered in the Cayenne Islands if you please, I thank you.

(Now about that sub I was asking for. It seems like there might be funds soon. I can't get to sleep at night for the moaning of the poor hungry wains...Ed)
Are they 12 year old or 18 year old  single malt wains ?

Back to School

Wondering, or even wandering, in a daze this morning about the 'Big Town' I pitched up in front of the Oxfam Bookshop. Yes I know these places are, as the moral mentors of my youth would say, DANGEROUS OCCASIONS OF SIN! However, I was early for a meeting, I am weak and anyway the odd book or three is not going to drag me down to hell. Is it?

(No, but unwarranted capitalisation and dreadful puns will drive me to the bottle or an early grave, or both...Ed)

Moving on. I saw a book under the poster advertising volumes for going back to school. The Title - Study Kills...hmm!
So does bathtub speed, unfettered capitalism and chemical weapons!
A closer inspection proves we are not radicalising a generation and the exhortatory volume was in fact a resource to enhance studying.
The Title - Study Skills; must see the old optician about a new pair of glasses.

While we are on the subject of books, a quote.
The internet is for books you want to read. A library is for books you did not know you wanted to read.
Not original, of course.
(What round here ever is. It  gets worse, folksy, homespun, mumbojumbo, quotes without proper citation and rigorous attribution. You couldn't make it up...Ed)

Exactly.