August 1st

 

the claw foot flexes

scoring stone as the flames lick

on Mithras’ altar

This photo is from the Altar of Mithras at the recently restored Wrest Park where we went today. We joined English Heritage, so we can go in free for a year. Seeing as it’s round the corner we’ll be regulars. It’s only around three miles from our house. An enormous country house with beautiful gardens, dotted with outbuildings, classically influenced sculpture and smile inducing follies. You can get lost in the grounds, but the Altar is marked on the map and it seemed alluring, so we found it, deep in the woodlands, an imposing stone block. I should have got a pic of the whole thing, it had a brazier on top (rather, I assume it did but it was around 10 feet up so couldn’t see) with Greek and Persian inscriptions. But the four claw foot stands appealed to me the most.

Who was Mithras? He was worshipped around the time Christianity was picking up. There seem to be many parallels and similarities between Mithras and Jesus, they were contemporary developing religions. Also, Mithraism was a secretive religion, which would, I believe, appeal to the gentry already soaked with classical teaching. Mystery stokes interest. I can imagine this altar was built in the woods as a kind of naughty folly, fires probably burned on it and I can imagine tongue in cheek summer parties lasting well into the night with everyone in Roman fancy dress. “Roman Priests” would conduct rites and the wine would flow. Do I have any evidence for this? Of course not, but if I built a great big altar in honour of a mysterious deity, I would certainly use it for fun historical reconstructions!

May 20th

Crow seedlings scattered

black barbs resonate apart

sad cuts of midnight

I so wanted to see bluebells, but they’ve come and gone. May’s beautiful carpet had been rolled up. I’ll have to wait till next spring now. There were a few here and there, their hanging heads tired, but they were waning, dying. I didn’t realise but the UK has 75% of the worlds bluebell population. We’re privileged to have them. It’s a shame it rained so much earlier in the month, when they would have made the woodland floor blue.

I did see that the Hawthorn’s were blooming though. They cover the hillsides. The little stunted tough little trees, crouched tight to the ground, to stop them being swept off by raging winds.

Further on in the walk, we came to “our tree”. It’s a funny tree, so skinny, yet perched precariously right on the hill crest, where the winds would assault it from all sides. On my drives I often look for it in the distance and get a feeling of security and warmth when I catch it’s crooked thin shape in my sight. Today “our tree” had what appeared to be scratch / claw marks in its trunk. I got excited. An ABC? (Alien Big Cat)? Are these the claw marks of a large wild cat running free in the hills, fields and woods? I should have used my free hand to act as a scale, but the scratch marks were approximately 1.5 inches apart. Of course it must have a rational explanation, but it’s fun to imagine. I’m going back tomorrow night, so will try to remember a tape measure!

But today’s Haiku was about the three Crow feathers I found. They were perfect. So inky, with that metallic black glaze reflecting off them. I took them home. I like to look at them. I admire and envy crows.

January 23rd

I am incapable of using chopsticks, I feel really cack handed and manage to eat about two grains of rice per half hour when I try.

Working for a Japanese company, this could be career limiting, you might not think so, but imagine if a stranger from another land came to your dinner table and proceeded to lean forward, shoving his face in his plate and without using his hands or any utensil, started to trough like a sow whilst squealing and making contented grunting noises. This is how I imagine I am perceived when I ask for a big fuck off ladle to spoon my rice with in a Japanese restaurant.

Today I met a senior executive from our parent company and my first stupid mistake was to forget my business cards (a big no no). Luckily our meeting overran and I didn’t have to suffer the indignity of exposing my chopstick disability if we were to go to the local Japanese eatery, we had a working lunch so I took solace in the familiar comforts of an egg mayonaisse baguette, which I still managed to bollocks up eating. The last bit, the end bit, was slightly too big for one mouthful, I knew if I bit it in half, egg would have splurged all over my brand new shirt. So instead I opted for the “putting it all in my mouth in one go” option. Normally this is ok, I have a big mouth, once I got 4 whole digestives in vertically and there was room to spare, but I misjudged the docking procedure, so not only did I have a bulging mass of egg mayo and baguette in my mouth, but it started to ooze out of my face. My mouth, nose, ears, eye sockets, like some sort of virilent and fast breeding ebola virus, foaming and dripping all over the floor. I managed to wipe most of it away and dispose it before I was too humiliated.

So today’s Haiku is about my inability to use chopsticks.

 

Chopsticks defeat me,

My big clumsy monster claw,

Grasping at nothing.