Tuesday 31 December 2013

Happy New Year folks!





A guid New Year to yin and a' from Alistair, The Lovely G and wee Jess..

We hope the New Year brings you all you could wish for.

All the very best for 2014.

The photo is of the Vikings from the New Year procession in Edinburgh. To see some more great photos from Edinburgh Spotlight please go here

Sunday 29 December 2013

the Sunday Posts 2013/ The Neighbours Cat



Night is in the garden.
In both the black cat
is a small black sculpture
in the long grass.

I watch for ten minutes.
She never moves.

A plane flies high
over the city. She looks up.
her eyes steal the moon.

I'm tired. I go to bed
and stretch out in it.

Sculpturesque, I think,
as my eyes
steal the darkness.

Norman MacCaig
Photo by Alistair.


Tuesday 24 December 2013

Happy Christmas one and all.



 

On window panes, the icy frost
Leaves feathered patterns, crissed & crossed,
But in our house the Christmas tree
Is decorated festively
With tiny dots of colored light
That cozy up this winter night.
Christmas songs, familiar, slow,
Play softly on the radio.
Pops and hisses from the fire
Whistle with the bells and choir.
My tiger is now fast asleep
On his back and dreaming deep.
When the fire makes him hot,
He turns to warm whatever’s not.
Propped against him on the rug,
I give my friend a gentle hug.
Tomorrow’s what I’m waiting for,
But I can wait a little more.

Bill Watterson

Sunday 15 December 2013

The Sunday Posts 2013/Sailing to Byzantium



That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

                   
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

                   
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

                   
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

W.B. Yeats
Photo by Alistair.

Sunday 8 December 2013

The Sunday Posts 2013/ Traveller



Oh, who would choose to be a traveller?-
That anxious railway-guide unraveller
Who spends his nights in berths and bunks,
His days in chaperoning trunks;
Who stands in line at gates and wickets
To spend his means on costly tickets
To Irkutsk, Liverpool and Yap
And other dots upon the map.
He never rests, but always hurries
From place to place, beset with worries
About hotels and future trips
And just how much to give in tips.
He plods through galleries, museums,
Cathedrals, castles, coliseums,
And villages reputed quaint
With patience worthy of a saint
To give his friends the chance of hooting,
'You didn't visit Little Tooting?!!'   

Arthur Guitarman
Photo by Alistair.
   

Sunday 1 December 2013

The Sunday Posts 2013/ This is she



On order that must be obeyed
I sing of a dear little maid.
A mirthfully serious,
Sober, delirious,
Gently imperious
Maid.

And first we'll consider her eyes
{Alike as to colour and size}
Her winkable, blinkable,
Merrily twinkable,
Simply unthinkable,
Eyes.

Then having a moment to spare,
We turn our attention to hair;
Her tendrilly-curlative,
Tumbly and wearlative,
Super superlative
Hair.

Forbear to dismiss with a shrug,
Her nose, undeniably pug; -
Her strictly permissible,
Turn-up-like-thisable,
Urgently kissable,
Pug.

Now, moving a point to the South,
We come to an actual mouth,
Coral, pearlierous,
Argumentiferous,
Mainly melliferous,
Mouth.

Observe, underneath it, a chin,
Connoting the dimple within,
A steady, reliable,
Hardly defiable,
True, undeniable,
Chin.

By all that is fair it appears,
We'd almost forgotten her ears,
Those never neglectable,
Tinted, delectable,
Highly respectable,
Ears!

And last let us speak of herself,
That blithe little gypsy and elf,
Her quite unignorable,
Absence deplorable,
Wholly adorable,
Self.

Arthur Guitarman.
Photo by Alistair.


The Sunday Posts 2017/Mince and Tatties.

Mince and Tatties I dinna like hail tatties Pit on my plate o mince For when I tak my denner I eat them baith at yince. Sae mash ...