From the miles of flatness and the fens
Comes  the hill where this Cathedral stands
Everyone can see this floodlit site
When the moon is out and there is night.
I saw it through the window as I turned
It’ struck me down with beauty never learnt.
As I lay surprised upon the stair
I absorbed the beauty I saw there
Should we worship beauty such as this?
It strikes us with a hammer not a kiss

My cat was quite contrary, she had me all worked out

She would not use the cat flap if I was round about.

She’d wait with studied patience until I would obey

Then she gave me a loud mioaw, she wanted me to play.

She liked to hear me singing while I did the washing up

She didn’t mind the broomstick, but she was frightened of the mop.

We watched the television nightly,my husband was then ill

But he like to watch Inspector Morse and pussy did as well

She laid herself upon my lap in front of the hot fire

Should I wish to rise again, this did arouse her ire.

She bit my hand, but not too much she didn’t break the flesh.

I said ‘I need the bathroom*, but but that would never wash.

Sadly pretty pussy cat got cancer and she died

We took her down to see the vet then we both came home and cried

A cat may not be human,but they are ruthless in desire.

And that is a fine quality, and one that I admire.

Make demands and don’t comply or you will lose your soul

Everybody’s different but we can all be whole.

https://solitudes.qmul.ac.uk/blog/walking-with-marion-milner/index.html

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/04/16/prescribing-creativity-the-meta-diaries-of-marion-milner/

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tact

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/miasma

From the book

An experiment in leisure by Marion Milner

This made me wonder, if it were true that false thinking comes even partly from the horrible experience of being muddled, then would not one way out be to learn how to accept the experience of being muddled? I knew only too well how strong was the impulse to be certain, to lay down the law, to have things in black and white. But my mind had now driven me on to become aware of this other mood,

L

https://beta.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/rondeau

• Originating in France, a mainly octosyllabic poem consisting of between 10 and 15 lines and three stanzas. It has only two rhymes, with the opening words used twice as an unrhyming refrain at the end of the second and third stanzas. The 10-line version rhymes ABBAABc ABBAc (where the lower-case “c” stands for the refrain). The 15-line version often rhymes AABBA AABc AABAc. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Now welcome, summer” at the close of The Parlement of Fowls is an example of a 13-line rondeau.A rondeau redoublé consists of six quatrains using two rhymes. The first quatrain consists of four refrain lines that are used, in sequence, as the last lines of the next four quatrains, and a phrase from the first refrain is repeated as a tail at the end of the final stanza.

I see that the prime minister is asking for our opinions or ideas about what should happen to the NHS

One thing that is clear is that you only get 10 minutes when you see a primary care doctor. That is was its meant to be sometimes it may be a little bit longer

Often it’s on the phone which means they can’t see your face they can’t get a general idea of your health from your appearance

Why I think this is not good enough is that it means that you could get very ill and have to go to A&,E

It’s because you’re not being checked sufficiently by your GDP in 10 minutes

It is only when you are in hospital that you get everything checked blood tests scans everything when you’re in A&E.

So I think there is a gap in care and this may affect certain groups of people more than others

The elderly people in chronic pain or with chronic diseases and children.

Of course your GP can refer you to a consultant in the hospital but it often takes several months before you get an appointment and again you may end up in A and E when you’re conditioned becomes worse before you actually seen the consultant.

I also have heard that there is a conflict between doctors in general practice and doctors in the hospital with each trying to push work onto the other.

Whatever is the case it’s not very good for people who are ill or in severe pain chronic pain etc

So I shall be interested to see how much this consultation with the public will do

I think what I wrote above explains why we spend as many as 36 hours on trollers in the corridors of A&E because the deficits in primary care mean we’re only get fully checked when we collapse and our possibly going to die unless something is done quickly

But this is wrong and it should not be happening

It’s wrong to have either 10 minutes with the GP or 36 hours on a trolley being tested while you’re lying in the corridor

36 hours for me with no food no hot drinks unable to visit the bathroom

I hope that will not come again

https://www.alcs.co.uk/news/the-alcs-news-interview-susan-hill/

Oh either sighed the river lyre
ol long fields of curly and of bye,
That tell the told and right the wry;
And though they yield, the toad runs by
To its sandy, dried alloy
The hallowed siege by water pulley
The clean and unsheathed bread knife dally
Shambled on her daughter’s lily
Round about a dot.
Pillows whiten, aspirins shiver.
The sun-famed showers broke a willy
In the stream that runneth weather
By the island in the river
Flowing down the Com and dot
Four gay wails, and four gay hours
~Underlook a spice of dowers,
And the silent isle implored
The Lady of NottNott
Underneath the bearded charlie,
The reaper, reaping slate and silver,
Fears her ever wanting cheery,
Like an angel, ringing early,
O’er the cells of Camelot.
Beguiles the leaves in furrows hairy,
Beneath the loon, the reaper teary
Listening whispers, ‘ ‘Tis our Mary,
Lady of NottNott’
The little isle is all entailed
With hose-pants, overtly tail’d
With roses: by the barge unhail’d
The shallop flitteth silken sail’d,
Skimming down to What is Nott
A pearl garland signs her screed:
She leaneth on a velvet bead,
Pull loyally unapparelled,
The Lady of Whats Hott.

No time hath she to court a nerd:
By charmed fib she seized her bird
A purse is on her, if she’ll gray
Her leaving, oversight or pay,
To sulk more down on Whatt is Knott
She knows not what the hearse may be;
Therefore she leaveth stealthily,
Therefore no other bear, hath she,
The Lady of TopKnott
She lives with little boys who play.
With her daughter, running here,
The cheap cell tinkles in her ear.
Before her sings a mirror clear,
Reflecting hours in CamAlot.
And as in the internet she whirls,
She sees the surly pillage hurled,
And the wed oaks of driven earls
Passed to cloud from NottAlott.
Sometimes a ship of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling dog,
Sometimes a curly shepherd bad,
Or long-hair’d rage in crimson bled,
Goes by t tower’d Cameuplot:
And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue
The night comes guiding two by two:
She hath no cool old knight it’s true,
The Bath of old Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
Sees the mirror’s magic bytes,
For often thro’ the silent fights
A funeral plumed with traffic lights
And loose it came to Blamelot:
Or when the moon was overheard
Came two young lovers lately wired;
‘I am half sick of shadows,red
The Lady lost her Plot

https://www.homelogic.co.uk/cold-homes-and-impact-on-health-key-causes-for-concern#:~:text=Consistent%20exposure%20to%20low%20temperatures,threatening%20diseases%20such%20as%20hypothermia.

Cold Can Be Damaging to Mental Health

Coldness has numerous effects on physical health, but it is also damaging to mental health. Living for a prolonged period of time in a cold home makes people more likely to develop mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression.

Exposure to cold can seriously affect daily mood and energy levels which can provoke pre-existing mental health issues or make you more likely to develop them in the future.

On a daily basis, cold homes can affect mental capacity, memory and productivity levels.

The damaging effect of prolonged exposure to the cold should not be overlooked. Keeping your house warm and dry, especially during the winter months will keep your family happy and healthy. Follow our tips for a warmer, healthier living environment:

Damp and Mould: How to Prevent It

To minimise mould in the home, use a dehumidifier to keep moisture in the air to a minimum. Ensure that your house is well ventilated. Small things like opening the window in the bathroom after showering, can reduce the development of 

Ginger cat.. must be Celtic.

English style my way:make it coloured if you can.Wear a hat if bald.Wash your trousers as often as is sensible.Wash your own!It’s easy

Wash your clothes a lot but don’t iron them
Go out in only  a  T shirt and jeans in winter.
Old grey anoraks  look good on most  people,or so they  seem to think
Wear skirts that show your thighs off  or leggings that show everything else off or both or nothing
Do wear crop tops and low rise jeans especially when  suffering  from underactive thyroid disorder
Jeans with rips are perfect for old ladies.Rip it youself
Wear thick padded  down coats in the summer.
Never wear a summer dress especially if you are a man
Never wear petticoats and other lingerie.Just pants  and top or vest
Wear a T shirt  saying:Anti-Semitic, moi?  while touring Oxford looking for pubs
Wear a T shirt saying :Belgians, go back to Congo.
Wear a T shirt saying :I feel Rubbish
Wear a T shirt that says :I luv money
Wear a T shirt that says: Educated in Burton, can’t spell
Make sure  your hair is exposed— both head and pubic.
I don’t understand either but they keep saying,where are you from?
I say,here,But somehow they don’t believe me.
Actually, I am mixed race.So I am only British.
Even with  ethnicity  we  have a class system with English at the top and  mixed race somewhere further down.Ancient Briton? Sorry,dear

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/adamant

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/oct/18/improve-focus-concentration-span-expert-tips?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Preoccupation is a dangerous thing

We see not what is there but what we bring.

Put aside your thoughts and busy care,

When you are so occupied you are not here

Being here is living with our friends

Not wandering lonely down the streets’ dead ends

Do not let your worries make you blind

Do not let them make you too unkind

The weak will hurt the vulnerable nearby

Don’t let that beam live too long in your eye

When the windows shattered
And the splinters flew in
He just made for the back door
And left me
not knowing where to begin.
When the shards of glass hit me
And pierced my vulnerable skin
He was already going
Leaving me
feeling he was an inhuman being.
When I fell down covered in glass and bleeding,
And the storm raged on,
I didn’t look round because
I knew,I knew,I knew,
I knew he would be gone.
Suddenly peace came, the storm had quite
disappeared..
It was all over so quickly
Not as murderous as I feared.
My wounds were bad,I have to confess.
I had no bandage
Nothing with which to dress.
With an old towel I cleaned my blood
Then I lay me down to pray.
Since that day,no storms come this way.
My wounds are healing
I have just one thing to say.
When the storm was so bad
He left me all alone…
but strangely since then
all is peace and calm.
His absence has become
almost a balm.
But I hear stories of fierce storms rising up
In towns and villages
Not too far from here, where a wandering man appears.
Seems like he’s running to get away
From some storm
But he takes it with him
He gives it form.
So when the windows crashed in
glass flew at my face
he left me all alone
In what he thought
was a very dangerous place.
Did he not pick me up
and carry me outside?
No,my daughter,he left me alone;.
But since then
I lost a great burden…
And I lost a great feeling of shame.
Rise up,you women,bleeding and torn.
For on days like this,a new resolve is born.
While you live don’t accept all the blame.
Don’t live so long as I did,in fear and in shame.
Rise up and find that calm
In the eye of the storm…
On days like this
a new woman is born

They’re hunting snails
In New South Wales
They’re hunting bees,
And shooting trees.
They’re hanging worms
For lengthy terms
They’re on a diet
And don’t we know it.

The diet of worms shall be our fare
And on the bible. we shall swear.
We’ll swear our oath
We are not loth
We’ll strangle frogs
They’ll die in bogs.

We’ll always use four letter words
And they shall be our hunting swords.
We’ll kill the good
We’ll burn the wood.
We’ll shout out,fuck.
We’ll burn the book

We’ll let no thin skinned people live.
We’ll always take and never give
We’ll use our charms
To quell alarms.
We’ll molest girls
Cut off their curls.

As we’re human,  we are mad.
We kill the good ,seems love  is dead
We saw the babe in Bethlehem
We saw him die between two men.
We did not run to cut him down
We said,Oh,fuck,another clown.
For he spoke love
And said to give.
For he spoke peace;
Let joy increase

Like most human,we are crazed
We see it and we’re not amazed.
No sunset red
No welcome bed
No golden dawn
No welcome morn
No loving arms
No sacred charms
No newborn king
No tune to sing

Oh,we are damned
We are broke
We built Auschwitz
Saw the smoke.
And now it’s built again,again
While   drop the bombs
In Bethlehem.

And on our knees, we women crawl
To bury babies born too small.
To take the swords from these mens’ hands
And bury them in desert sands.
To pick up scraps of humanness
To hold their hands for God to bless.
We did it wrong,we did it bad
We never thought  or we’ve been had

https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/SSE/article/viewFile/325/298

About  The Thought Fox

” The poem itself is beautifully modulated in its use of assonance and
off-rhyme. It has the delicate, brilliant and perhaps cold qualities
given to the fox, though it also has its boldness and concentration.
Thus the poem itself enacts the metaphor of the title: it is the
thought-fox.
This sort of wit and concentration is Hughes at his best. His
humour certainly gets blacker, and Crow (1972) is very like an
obscene version of the Road-Runner, but it is a very important
part of his general attitude and poetic manner. In “Pike”, for
example, the changes in tone from the neutral description of the
opening through the off-hand humour of stanza six:
With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.
And indeed they spare nobody.
73
SYDNEY STUDIES
Two, six pounds each, over two feet long,
High and dry and dead in the willow-herbto
the terrified apprehension of the last stanza:
Owls hushing the floating woods
Frail on my ear against the dream
Darkness beneath night’s darkness had freed,
That rose slowly towards me, watching.
(Selected Poems, pp. 55-56)
form a dramatic and emotional pattern that makes this perhaps
Hughes’s most disturbing poem. The humour is an integral part
of that dark world which so fascinates him. Perhaps it is one of
several things he learnt from Nietzsche.
In an interesting interview with Egbert Faas published in
London Magazine in January 1971, Hughes spoke a good deal
about his concern with “the primeval world”.l He felt that modern
man had turned away from the dark forces and “settled for the
minimum practical energy and illumination”. He attacked “the
psychological stupidity, the ineptitude, of the rigidly rationalist
outlook”, though he did not underestimate the dangerousness of
the non-rational world:
“If you refuse the energy, you are living a kind of death. If you
accept the energy, it destroys you. What is the alternative? To accept
the energy, and find methods of turning it to good, of keeping it
under control-rituals, the machinery of religion. The old method is
the only one.”
This does not mean that Hughes is a Christian, or even sympathetic
to Christianity with its ideals of self-sacrifice (his equation
of the Virgin Mary with the Great Goddess of the primitive world
is highly questionable, whatever cults survived in early Christianity).
I am not sure that it even means that his imagination is
“theological”, as Peter Porter has suggested. But it does mean that
it is religious and that it is concerned with language as magic and
with poems as rituals. “Jaguar” does contain evocations of animal
power and freedom and “The Bull Moses”, one of his greatest
poems, is an apotheosis of primitive sexual strength. This is one
of the reasons, I think, why the poems are so elaborately structured,
why the language is so forceful and compacted. They are
not attempts to express violence or to titillate us with violent
thrills, in the way that you might say Thom Gunn’s poems are,
though we are often conscious of the element of fascination that
Hughes feels. These poems have a real respect for violence and try to treat it as a religious force”

Water that the sun burned up too well

It seemed the fires of Grenfell Tower had spread
A hear oppressive like the fires of hell
London smothered in air dull and dead.

Flames that slobbered with a passion red
Water that the sun burned up too well
It seemed the fire of Grenfell Tower had spread

God permitted Satan with his dread
Britain quarrelled, split , prepared to kill.
London smothered in air dull and dead.

A referendum showed us all ill-bred.
Neighbours spoke in words that I call vile.
It seemed the fire of Grenfell Tower had spread

By what person is our nation led
who fills our stomach with acidic bile?
The PM spoke in words both dull and dead.

Tempers raged like fires all fresh and wild
Evil was to emptiness beguiled
It seemed the fire of Grenfell Tower had spread
People smothered in the fire lie dead

In looking at this I realized that the handwritten poem with its alterations is interesting but also if you look at it from a slight distance the poem itself becomes like a drawing where there is a certain beauty in the arrangement of the lines and the words

To me,at one point, it looked like a music score.

The script is like music score

Through which we pass as through a door

Imagination’s home

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/destiny

Allocking means killing time

.Agate means at wotk in Bolton dialect

That’s killing time

Am allocking agen today
That’s killin’ time, as now we say
Ah,shud be agate but oh ah can’t
Work ‘as gotten ‘ard teh find

Ma mammy’s ill and she’ll soon die
I must wear a suit and tie
Allocking meks me feel ill
Did mother make a legal will?

Am all allooan up on’t Pike
Rivington is weear folk hike
Am all allooan and ah feel low
Allocking is touch ‘n go

Where’s mi daddy an’ ‘is pipe
Where’s dad’s jacket,full ah smoke?
I want him back ,mi mam’s alloooan
You ‘ed wonder at ‘er groans

Where’s mi cat and where’s mi dog
Where’s ower’ handmade fireside rug?
Made ‘eh rags and hooked through cloth
Eeh, won’t God be filled with wrath?

God is never all allooan
Never allocks, he’s a stone
Amno bettin’ ‘eaven exists
That’s why all wa men get pissed

But ah’ve seen Hell ,oh Ama sure?
Nothin’ yooman shall endure.

By the lily pond 2012

Shimmering light
The lily pond
The music of your eye
The touch of your arm
Your always honey smell.
I love.
Rustling trees in a row,
A wide green lawn;
People stoop to see small flowers.
A snail on the path.
The perfecton of the shell.
I believe
Unusually tall dandelions
at the edge of this wood
Wave in the warm west wind.
We smile.
Sitting pen in hand
I wonder what I would have written
In all the letters I’ve not sent you.
Far away on the Ridgeway,
Cars,seem small as ants,
Rush towards the motorway.
They make us laugh.
How green the meadows are
How fresh the old trees.
I gaze at you.
I find I am.
It’s mutual.
I thank you

,Masud Khan thought

.human beings had “from time immemorial” needed an “other” to relate to in order to have stability and to learn about the self and, in prior eras, people used God as the “other” with whom they could relate.3 But as religion became less personal, the relationship to God was replaced by friendship with mortals, and mortals served the purpose as well as God had: “To sense oneself alive in another’s preoccupations is to be in a state of grace.”4 Love relations were important, he said, but friendship lasted longer.

From the book

False self

by Linda Hopkins

The path on Arnside Knott came to the shore
Where sea and river meet at my heart’s core
Where wild flowers grow, where butterflies float on.
The views of Lakeland Hills ,so ravishing

My heart was only half alive till then
The land surpassed imagination
I was used to mills and dirty air
Despite the heather moors and hilltops bare

Later death came near on Langdale Pike
My fingertips were hurting,feet agape
Then my toe was back on a foothold
The shadow of the mountain huge and cold

Beauty,love and death, the opera calls
Singing as we walk the danger walls

https://www.emmahigginbotham.com/recent-interviews/alexander-mccall-smith