tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1078357011397157919.post8411176559992898772..comments2024-03-25T22:43:21.934-07:00Comments on Justine Picardie: Tillypronie in JuneJustine Picardiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16957669049699860596noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1078357011397157919.post-16923268597064260412010-06-11T08:16:03.061-07:002010-06-11T08:16:03.061-07:00Enid: '...any reading ideas for Normandy? I wa...Enid: '...any reading ideas for Normandy? I want to read lots.'<br /><br />Enid, do you know of the Normandy-set trilogy by Sebastian Faulks, erstwhile colleague of Justine? 'Charlotte Gray' was adapted into a cheesy vehicle for Cate Blanchett's cheekbones, but 'Birdsong' (1993) is the better respected novel. There's also 'The Girl At The Lion D'Or', if you're going for the full Faulks Normandy experience.Stephen Popehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04478876953799167344noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1078357011397157919.post-51061141489857984202010-06-10T00:24:41.713-07:002010-06-10T00:24:41.713-07:00O to be in England now that you are in full bloom ...O to be in England now that you are in full bloom and not here listening to football mania. I am planning our trip to france any reading ideas for Normandy - Bayeux Mont San Michel Rouen. I want to read lots.enidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04506741826683775428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1078357011397157919.post-54775360620640275782010-06-07T01:24:19.017-07:002010-06-07T01:24:19.017-07:00The dog is called Bill, and very much part of Till...The dog is called Bill, and very much part of Tillypronie. He dived into the heather, and then turned to his master's camera at exactly the right moment. He is very much a one-man dog, but I do enjoy his company, even though Bill's gaze is always on his beloved.Justine Picardiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16957669049699860596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1078357011397157919.post-55198331968730709992010-06-06T17:55:25.866-07:002010-06-06T17:55:25.866-07:00What a great expression on the dog's face. Doe...What a great expression on the dog's face. Does he belong to Tillypronie? We have a just three yr old King Charles Cavalier who is the delight of our retired lives. We have previously had a springer, and a cocker spaniel and a labrador all of whom we loved, but Charlie is something special. I love the way spaniels sit so alert and aware of their surroundings.jaywalkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18057625356137450284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1078357011397157919.post-44347212937600997932010-06-06T03:06:30.990-07:002010-06-06T03:06:30.990-07:00Tillypronie's heavy rain came earlier than the...Tillypronie's heavy rain came earlier than the South's - London and the Sussex coast rippled with thunder and lightning downpours at dawn today.<br /><br />Your description of Tillypronie's cracking trees made me think of Robert Frost...who might well have pored over this poem by his friend, lately killed in the First World War. But I wonder what bird he, as an American nature observer, imagined it to be describing? Like the great Mimosa/Acacia confusion, the Pewit is another common name that Europeans and Americans use to denote entirely different things. To us (and Edward Thomas) the Pewit, or Peewit, is a Lapwing, a type of ground-nesting Plover found on wet fields...whereas the American Pewit is a 'Peewee', a woodland Flycatcher that catches insects on the wing.<br /><br />I'm lucky if I spot even a couple of Flycatchers per season here, but Lapwings/Peewits still maintain reasonable numbers on the wetlands of Romney Marsh where I live. Yet their numbers are a fraction of the dense flocks I remember as a boy in the 1960s - land drainage and intensive agribusiness have decimated them.<br /><br />I love how Tillypronie triggers the desire for hares. London doesn't quite do that.Stephen Popehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04478876953799167344noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1078357011397157919.post-24532649883175809852010-06-05T12:30:10.144-07:002010-06-05T12:30:10.144-07:00I love the inadvertent (or is it deliberate?) rhym...I love the inadvertent (or is it deliberate?) rhyme of "sky" and "fly." <br /><br />You remind me of the June I spent in St. Petersburg, when the sun never sets. You are so far north, in a strange stage-set of a city, all pastel palaces and arrow-straight boulevards, that in the unearthly light of evening you feel like you have gone to the edge of the earth. <br /><br />After your last posts, and your photographs of blooming gardens, I begged a friend to bring me some branches of rhododendron from her garden. Now my dining table is dominated by a massive bunch - almost a small bush - of purplish-magenta blossoms.<br /><br />It's been grey and rainy here in Seattle, but today the sun burst out, and even though it's still relatively cool, I feel like summer is finally starting.kairuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11608839703020585886noreply@blogger.com