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I like that, Pigale, about Willie!
I am sure Mr Mullins has wellies but I only recognise him by his snappy brown trilby hat!
Willie is a hero of mine, but I have more heroes than you could poke a stick at! And heroines!
Our weather is just cold and wet, just now.
I do not think there is snow forecast.
Be nice to see a blue sky again!

The poem is Gerard Manley Hopkins, he of

"Glory be to God for dappled things"

I used to learn 10 lines of poetry every Sunday evening, though now if I did that, I'd have forgotten them by morning! But what I learned as a teenager has stayed. Yes, I was a pretty weird teenager. I tried to learn the speech n Shakespeare that begins

"The man that hath not music in his soul"...
and I still can't remember line 2 (and the rest), though it ends "let no such man be trusted".

Our local lifeboat launched this afternoon in response to a "shout". When they returned to shore they discovered that their cars had been ticketed by a parking warden!
They had parked on yellow lines, but for heaven's sake!
The council are " investigating"!

Rosalind, I too can remember huge passages from Racine, or Corneille (our famous tragedists - I'm sure you have heard of them), and a great deal of poems by various great men. Memory does work that way - often easier to remember things of long ago than things that happened the day before.

Having said that I have always been blessed with a good memory and still am - the main thing is to make it work as often as possible.




Rusty, this parking ticket lark is ludicrous !

Hi, Rusty!
Yes, it was very sad news - I've been a bit tied up for a while, dealing with the aftermath and talking to various folk.
Quick for Margaret, but a shock for family and friends she leaves behind.

I remember watching a film about Isadora Duncan - oh, many years ago! Isadora was played by Vanessa Redgrave. I thought then that it was very good. Did you see it?
I didn't know that about her children. You are a mine of information.
I'm glad your horse racing went well - even if Faugheen came second. That is good for Willie that the first three horses home were all trained by him!
I liked the "walking on water" and the "wellie" bit!
I'm afraid that I haven't heard of "The Guns of August" - is it about the First World War? You will be becoming an expert in that field with all the specialised reading that you have been doing!

I've just read what you said about the lifeboat being called out and the crew being issued with parking tickets!
I'm surprised that the men don't have cards to put onto their windscreens - like doctors do? saying "On Call" or something equally relevant?
But I'm sure it will all get sorted - otherwise no- one will get rescued in the future!!!!

Ros, thank you for your condolences.
Strangely enough , the poem you were quoting is relevant, as our friend's name is Margaret......very apt.

And your Shakespearean quote... I can't remember the next line, either, but it's Lorenzo speaking, from "the Merchant of Venice" , isn' it?

Last Sunday a lot of folk got booked at a Remembrance service, but their tickets were scrubbed the following day.
I am not sure what system the lifeboatmen use but obviously something went wrong today. The boats (there are two, a deep sea one, and an inshore one) are launched regularly.
The inshore boat is at the Road Bridge regularly on standby, when some poor soul is threatening to jump off.
We lost a boat and all the crew many years ago.
The Mona in 1959.
I did not see the film about Isadora, but she was involved in a few road accidents.
Yes, the Guns of August is about the start if the Great War.
The author died in 1989. It gets superb reviews.
It is in some lists as one of the top 100 non-fiction books of the last century.
Yes, I loved the crack about Willie and the wellies
Humour is still alive and well in France!

Will this be the Tay Road Bridge, where the life boat is more or less on stand -by? (my Geography knowledge is very poor!)
Why so many would be suicides from there? Is it easily accessible for the public to climb up/ jump off?

McGonagall wrote a poem about the Tay Bridge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tay_Bridge_Disaster

Ah yes, I have encountered the incorrigible William McGonagall before !
Reputedly the "worst poet" in History!