This and that.

I have just taken this photograph of myself with my old digital camera (I don't have a smart phone) - not very flattering but not bad for eighty seven I suppose.   Anyways I am stuck with what I've got.

'O would some power the giftie gi us - or something like that said the poet.   I must say I was hoping I looked more the like gardening expert Carol Klein - my only excuse is that I have slept on my hair all week and it is due for 'renewal' in the morning.

It is 227 years this week since that wonderful poet of the English Countryside, John Clare, was born.  What a miserable life he had - what privations - and yet what inspirational poetry he produced.   Maybe it was a blessing that he spent a large part of his life in a madhouse, not really knowing who he was.  On the day of his birth the young William Wordsworth watched from the Isle of Wight as the British Fleet gathered in The Solent preparing to fight the French.

I must say it does get one thinking about Time and its passing.   227 years since Clare was born.   As I said yesterday 130 years since my own father was born and now here am I at 87 in the photograph - the passage of time,  so many 'improvements' in the way of life, so much scientific achievement - and here we are - stopped in our tracks
 by Covid 19.   Sometimes I think we do too much thinking about it all.
 
It is what has become seen as a 'typical July day' 
here - and St Swithin's Day at that - not very warm, cloudy with no sign of a sun, a slight drizzle falling - not enough to amount to anything but just enough to make it feel 'unSummery'.   I have spent the morning doing various jobs which needed doing, cooked a light lunch, and now after putting on today's post I shall top up my week end Tesco order.   Then I intend to put my feet up.   I saw last week that 'The Thirty-nine Steps' was on television one evening.   I might go on to iplayer and see if I can find it.   It is years since I saw it and it might be a totally relaxed couple of hours.   I had a poor night's sleep so that might just do me good.  Enjoy the rest of your day.