Wild in the City

Wild Around the Block
 
Years ago, when I worked at Pizzaland, Charring Cross Road, London, the company paid for our taxi fares home if we had to work late. I had great conversations with my taxi driver, who looked the spit of Abraham Lincoln; he told me that Scandinavians have a term for people who thrive in the city - they're called 'pavement flowers'. I liked that. I loved living in London; but also here, down by the sea. I decided I'd go for a city stroll & find me a bit of urban countryside on my doorstep.
 
 

 Have to consult my bird books, aware I'm not sure of the names of some common birds, as in the one below...tsk! A sparrow? No sea gulls, but loved the urban blackbird & colours on the pigeon (not a great camera for close-ups). I'm not that good at formatting pictures when blogging, either, so it's all a learning-curve....
 
 
I like how nature works around whatever is in its path, including this abandoned bike!
 
My own front doorstep is pretty wild, too!
 
It feels 'naughty, but nice', I'm sure my mother would be horrified, but I kind of like how Nature just gets on with it - in such an irrepressible & exuberant way...
(sorry, mum!)
I'd like to be able to identify all these things I see
 
 
 
 Pizza & Poetry
 
Thursday is 'Pizza & Poetry Night' at my house. To celebrate 30 Days Wild I weeded out all the nature-related postcards from my Big Stack so we could pick a couple of cards at random to use as prompts for writing exercises. Great poem by Polly Ballantine, playing on the theme of remembering & forgetting: lapel poppies & all they stand for & the effects of the opium poppy. Dave Patchett drew out the painting of 'Ophelia' by Sir John Everett Millais & chose Aspen from my book on Trees.
 
 Helen tackled a picture of the developing skeleton of an embryo chick - beautifully! I had a picture of a 3rd century (textile?) of a shepherd with a lamb on his shoulders beside two others, with the quote on the Good Shepherd on the back, & later a post-card poem by U.A. Fanthorpe called 'The Apple War'. I drank a cup of delicious mint tea - from leaves I'd picked from the garden in the morning to celebrate today. Delicious all round!
 
 
 
 
 


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