Another week …
This is a selection of images from Blip over the last seven days. It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegone – two rounds of golf, one on the coast and one in Yorkshire (Spring must be around the corner); no rides out on the bikes, too darn cold but the chains have been cleaned and oiled; various walks around Hexham, including one to the station – hence the picture of Les Dawson. It is a look I have enthusiastically courted all my life – disapproval – reassuring that I can still do it 🙂
I finished reading Adlestrop Revisited by Anne Harvey, an anthology inspired by Edward Thomas’s poem. It includes this by Martin Newell, an extract from Adlestrop Retrieved:
Bombastic brash and over-prone
To shouting on his mobile ‘phone
He’s cancelling his three o’clock
Or booking tickets for Bangkok
So fellow travellers have no choice
But hear his self-important voice.
“I’ve godda window, Tuesday. Noon.
“Yup. Abso-lootly. Speaktcha soon.”
No sooner has he closed the thing,
His brief-case then begins to ring.
And down it comes from off the rack.
“I’m breaking up, I’ll call you back.”
As fellow travellers wish he’d stow
His mobile phone where phones don’t go.
And so the pompous prat proceeds
From Paddington to Temple Meads.
Have a good week all and may you find life’s silent coach 😜 🚊
northumbrian : light 
… where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking (except Les Dawson, obviously), and all the children are above average. Love the poem.
My thought exactly, Su. Love the set of photos.
janet
I love Garrison Keillor. I get the News From Lake Woebegone podcasts and listen when I’m walking. I do wonder sometimes what passing motorist make of me giggling to myself as I walk.
Many thanks Janet
Exactly Su, the very same place. There are passages of his early work I can recite and being a boy of the 1950s, 95 theses 95 always struck a chord:
You taught me not to go overboard, lose my head or make a big deal of it, but to keep a happy medium, that the truth is in the middle. No extremes. Don’t exaggerate. Hold your horses. Keep a lid on it. Save it for later. Be careful. Weigh the alternatives. Wear navy blue.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch 😊
I can still hear my dad’s voice in some of them!
Love the face of that man at the train station.
… only a mother could love 😱
Great captures, and what a wonderful poem…so funny and so true to life!
Many thanks – yes, we all know the sort don’t we 😏
Indeed😁
Late winter ennui. Silent streets, empty shores, and curmudgeons. 😉 Great shots of your world, Robin.
Very succinctly put, Julie – in his defence, I think he might just have spotted a fellow curmudgeon 😠 😀
TWO rounds of golf, Robin? Steady- it’s only February (just 🙂 ) Lovely shiny bike though. That irritating man! I’ll just have to move 🙂
Two rounds in three days and I’m still standing, Jo – life in the old dog yet 🙂 🐶
A damp one with the laptop today 😦
Not very inspiring is it 😦 We are heading down to York on the train expecting to walk the walls this afternoon – it needs to cheer up 😳
Great photos! I was sad to listen to Garrison’s last News from Lake Woebegone last Saturday. End of an era.
Many thanks – that’s a shame – the passing of an institution.