Engerrland Part 2

How can one have so much time and still need more? This is a rhetorical question of course. So much to do, so much entropy to battle!

In Brockhole I believe

 Day out near Blackburn in a wildlife reserve. The highlight of the trip, I seem to remember, was eating blue ice cream.

Boldventure wood

 The furniture was a bit on the large side though!

Wistful 

 I believe this is an expression usually reserved for reminiscing adults or deep philosophical cogitation. Or perhaps not. Looks like the photo was taken in Cambre not in Darwen!!!

Watching Sponge Bob or Political Debate?

I know which one I would choose. One, of course, is yellow, light weight, full of holes and infantile..... And the other is Sponge Bob.

  

At home with Gilty

In Rivington

Today's poem:

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree. 

Engerrrland. Darwen part one

Land of the Angles, saxons, Jutes. That describes England pretty well one feels; obtuse-Angles, smelling of smoke-saxons, a pithy mysterious cereal crop held in high esteem by someone but largely ignored by most-Jute.

A tall one

Parks. How beautiful they are those three parks in that industrial valley town. But here's a bit of provincial.

Still waiting for no man. Wonder what it's doing for everyman?

This is the town hall clock in the centre of Darwen

Now a pub or eatery

 Looks like it probably housed some local worthies at some time.

Panoramic with the tower in the background

Town hall

 Might have to change that flag soon. Suppress some of the blue in September perhaps.

Unphased

And, by way of contrast here is the Coruña town hall. Still provincial, a bit more imposing perhaps, ostentatious?

Maria Pita

None of which are as beautiful as a garden or,

indeed, a dog.

Today's poem.

A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown. 

Film Noir; The Portugese connection

Film noir (/fɪlm nwɑr/; French pronunciation: ​[film nwaʁ]) is a cinematicterm used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression.

Norman Tebbit Fan?

Cyclical. Life is cyclical. And, if you only live twice it´s bicyclical. Film Noir is really Greek tragedy. Dry humour, dramatic irony, a pinch of farce and fate. The important thing is that you know what is going to happen before it does. Only the details retain any importance. And that's life in a nutshell. 

I am, of course, a little sad because Jacob is back with his mother for the month of August.

This has been a long, short, long month. Trips and tropes and tripe and tropes. Jacky now knows he has a real grandpa.

A Strange look

 Well, as luck would have it, we arrived in Portugal two hours early. I say, "as luck would have it" but what I should say is, "incompetence" rather than luck. Nevertheless we stopped in rather a nice mountain village with a rather presuming mansion or palace which we explored after cakes and coffee.

Can't resist a framing opportunity

We managed to play a bit of football eat sandwiches and pose stoically for photos.

Photo and sustenance supplied by old Gargoyle;

 The drinking fountain was pretty too. 

Young Lord of the Manor 

 Well there you go. He certainly looks to the manor born. Comfortable in role of young squire, soon to take on the mantle of responsibility (heaven forbid).

Ever fixéd mark

 Oh yea. That piercing interrogative gaze again. Healthy that, right to the core.

And Flowers

And the gobstopper in your gob?

In the airport in Porto, this was when the photo was taken. Little do we know at this stage that all will go well and smoothly. We weren't going to be arrested for absconding even though the authorities in Spain now have a protocol in place whereby both parents must go to the police station with the child in unison before they let you out of Spain via the airport. It's the same if you leave in a car or fly from a different a European country. Just as well.

Today's poem:

The flight found us homeward falling
Engines stalling, rain appalling. 
"The Fall" - Our descent, screamed unending
Your will unbending, impending.
I`m just pretending.

Skyward climbing through seamless blue
To fading memories of you
To another future pending
Suppurating wounds unmending.
I´m just pretending.

No longer anchored in the past
Floating incorporeal at last,
Where the garden waits our tending,
To you our love are sending
Unpretending.





  

Time machine

I have been studying. But of course the only knowledge possible is self-knowledge. What can we know about ourselves? Almost nothing. So, can we know anything at all for certain? NO. Does it matter? NO.

View to the Future

This is a rather voluptuos window onto the future. Voluptuous because it's got plenty of sap and, as views go, it's buxom, comely, inviting. It is also dawn. My life began again when Jacob was born. So, it's rather nice having two lifetimes. And that's why I decided to build a time machine!

Making Bread

 And here is my assistant. The brains behind the operation. Checking bread quality. By eating it. The bread was made by him.

Weights-for-no-man

In addition, I wanted to check that I was in the right place, that I wasn't anchored in the past or lying down in the future.

Time Machine Building Site

As luck would have it, there was a certain amount of R&D space available. Most of this was in my head but there was still some physical space left in a remote corner of the Iberian penninsula.

The Search For Nuclear Biofuel

Of course, time machines need special fuel. Distilled mushroom soup. We didn't find any so we might have to give it a go with rain water, which is pretty plentyful round here. 

Mushroom Expert

The mushroom expert, apart from being an adept in the art of spore dispersal prediction also stressed the need to make sure the "Present" was indeed where we were and, more importantly, where we were supposed to be.

Advice from a fellow-scientist

You can't really avoid travelling in time any way. It´s a one-way ticket into the future. Jacky is growing up fast, so I suppose that entails travelling in two directions; upwards slowly and forwards to meet your destiny.

Bargain: Grumpy Fatty 

You can probably guess what it is. It isn't wholesale shoe leather for football boots. It's the saltiest thing on the planet; cod. It needs to be soaked and resoaked until it only tastes of the sea rather than the Arizona salt planes. In the future I will be able to travel back in time and relive what life was like now, similar to the past but from the future, lived as if from the past through the lens of the present. which is impossible because the present does not exist. It's inexistential.

Times are Hard

The art of sleep, 17

Nice bit of granite that

 So, the secret of time travel, what is it? It's really simple. The only difficult bit is to remain in the present. As soon as you try, your dragged of unceremoniously into the future. To go back into the past, just use a bit of memory, for which it helps to embelish all of the good bits. For the future you have children and they are the vanguard. If you don't have a van you can use a bike.

?

20 minutes from the house

Deportivo get promoted back to the first division

 Ok. more stuff. Here are a load of pictures;

Kung fu colleagues

Good year for the Cherries

Robot condom

School colleagues

Life is too big and too small at the same time.

Here is this month's poem.

Weapons forged in fires cold
May glisten bright and firm to hold
But combat forcing bold mistakes
The sword will fail, the blade it breaks.