crispina kemp

Tuesday Treats: Yellow

Posted on April 26, 2022 by crispina kemp

To me, Spring is typified by two colours: Yellow and Purple. Enjoy

Fritillary: 8th April 2022

The fritillary is a rare flower to find growing wild these days. It comes in those two colours

Fritillary: 8th April 2022

8th April 2022

Is it a cowslip or an oxlip? I always muddle them. Yet they’re not so alike

8th April 2022

The primroses, here coupled with a violet. Yellow and Purple, the colours of Spring (ok, so this violet veers more to the blue)

8th April 2022

I think (but I’m not sure) that this is Fairy Flax

8th April 2022

Ground Ivy: 8th April 2022

Red Dead Nettle: 8th April 2022

White Dead Nettle: 8th April 2022

And appearing like an exclamation mark, and cultivated, not wild (but I couldn’t resist)

Canola: 8th April 2022

That’s all folks. Many of the earliest flowers are now fading away. Perhaps next week I’ll have something different for you.

Posted in Photos | Tagged British Flora, Photos | 13 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Not So Common

Posted on April 24, 2022 by crispina kemp

8th April seems so long ago, yet I’ve left us at Fritton Common, and we’ve a bus to catch to take us home. So best we ignore the date and get walking again. Please, come along…

At the south of the common, signage directs us to Boudica’s Way. But that’s not the Way we want.

8th April 2022

This is the way we want…

8th April 2022

It takes us alongside a rather wet woodland looking wonderfully green…

8th April 2022

Now which way?

8th April 2022

Apparently this way…

8th April 2022

And into a pasture, beyond which…

8th April 2022

But first we have to cross the stile… and I do swear it was designed for a giant; it’s all crazy angles and made of slippery iron (not to mention the barbed wire beside it just waiting to snag us)

8th April 2022

And we’re into a field of canola. In UK it’s called rapeseed. But with such sunny flowers, and such a sweet scent, I cannot use such a horrible name

8th April 2022

Almost back from our walk, reluctant to encounter traffic and people, I take a lingering look back

8th April 2022

And onto the last few yards of a footpath which will deliver us to the small town of Long Stratton

8th April 2022

Hope you enjoyed our walk. Next week we head out to the water meadows of Swardeston. Till then…

Posted in Photos | Tagged Norfolk Walks, Photos | 9 Comments

Cyril

Posted on April 23, 2022 by crispina kemp

13th March 2022

Cyril is the most annoying creature in the whole wide world.

Bad enough that he sneaks into my garden.
Bad enough that he digs up my lawn.
Bad enough that he’s making that lawn into a pitch and putt course.
AND has created a peanut plantation.

If I had a gun… I do swear!

A most provocative creature – he’s provoking my anger.

62 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Provocative

Posted in Mostly Micro | Tagged Sammi's Weekend Writing Prompt | 35 Comments

On a Misty Morning

Posted on April 23, 2022 by crispina kemp

Breydon Water as the sun rises: 18th April 2022

What I couldn’t capture is the sound of the birds, so evocative in the stillness of the turn of the tide and the turn of the day

Beginning with M, another title from the list Maria Antonia has given us for #2022picoftheweek

Posted in Photos | Tagged #2022picoftheweek, Breydon Water, Photos, Sunrise | 7 Comments

CCC180: The Problem of a Wooden Castle

Posted on April 21, 2022 by crispina kemp

I didn’t want to marry the earl. But my brother had got in deep with him and together they were conspiring – not that I knew that then. I didn’t know until my husband, the earl, threw the keys to the castle at me and told me to hold it.

Against whom?

The king’s brother, the king being out of the country.

Why, where was my husband going?

Into exile.

Thank you, my brother, for delivering me unto this.

I defended the castle. What choice had I? Until, in the direst straits, the king’s brother said I could leave, to go join my husband overseas.

Of course, this isn’t the same castle. Ours burnt to the ground. That’s the problem with building castles of wood.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, History, Mostly Micro, Photos | Tagged #CCC180, Crimson's Creative Challenge, English History, Micro fiction | 8 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #180

Posted on April 20, 2022 by crispina kemp

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

An answering photo
A cartoon
A joke
A caption
An anecdote
A short story (flash fiction)
A poem
A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
An essay
A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

Your creative offering is indeed yours
Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos | Tagged #CCC180, Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos | 10 Comments

Tuesday Treats: It’s THAT Season

Posted on April 19, 2022 by crispina kemp

A selection of photos from our walk on 8th April. Apologies if cherry blossoms feature too much, but it is THAT season

8th April 2022

Sick of cherries yet? So try the last of the daffs instead

8th April 2022

Or how about primroses… they’re almost over too

8th April 2022

Or you could be enchanted with yet more violets… 2 species I found

8th April 2022

Now this one is different. I wonder how many people notice it. What is it? Ash-tree flowers. These become keys

8th April 2022

And that other staple of the English countryside… chestnut

8th April 2022

Finally… the periwinkle. It grows wild, but it grows in gardens too

8th April 2022

Hope you’ve enjoyed. Part Two next week

Posted in Photos | Tagged British Flora, Photos | 9 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: An Uncommon Common

Posted on April 17, 2022 by crispina kemp

Friday 8th April, a bus into Norwich, another bus out, and we hop off at Tasburgh, a village on the former Roman Road, now the A140. We’re heading to Fritton Common. Despite the post’s title, there’s nothing outstandingly uncommon about Fritton Common. Yet commons themselves are not so common since Parliamentary Enclosure Act back in whatever the day.

So, let’s go. From A140 we turn down Fairstead Lane…