It's cloudy here with Bluebeard

So no chance of ruining my eyesight staring at the lunar eclipse.

Still, we did see a heron flying riverwards this morning (right over the field where I thought I saw one standing a couple of weeks ago); I'll know to look out in the mornings, now, since they do tend to have very regular habits.

I'd watch one from the bus stop on my way to school. After the mine closed and Black Beck stopped flowing the red of a tin of Heinz cream of tomato soup, the heron took to fishing every morning just above upstream of bridge where Black Beck and Kirk Beck meet. The passing traffic and the noise of the crowd of kids at the bus stop across the way didn't seem to be a disturbance (the ducks always seemed oblivious too): the heron would stand motionless surrounded by its own ball of silence. Stasis. Tension. Then the single jab with the beak.

The flight of the heron into the village in the morning, and the flight of another I watched regularly across the back field in the evening (just before the barn owl flew by), was such a contrast to this archer-like tension and release. It was all lazy flapping with broad wings, curved ends drooping slightly, the subtle knife of its breastbone slipping through the air.

Well, Bluebeard seems to stimulate the brain. Didn't like it when I opened the bottle: too much violet (which just isn't a smell I particularly like) but after an hour I'm still surrounded by white musk (an old, old favourite, which I used to wear continuously as a single note) and vetiver. Very little lavender, except when I rub my wrists together--when a tiny bit of violet returns too, but not unpleasantly.

Well if this don't shame me into doing something...

Nowt will.

( all those pretty beginnings )