Sunday Picture Post: By the Coast

Posted on July 12, 2020 by crispina kemp

Put on your hikers, pack your lunch, and don’t forget plenty of water. We’re gonna go walking the coastal route.

We start at the Ravine, North Lowestoft, which takes us down the cliff, to the sea. Foot traffic crosses above us…

Bridge over the Ravine: 29 June 2020

Ragged groynes and concrete slabs = sea defences: 29th July 2020

To our right the sea, to our left the cliffs…

Cliff clothed in greenery: 29 June 2020

Lo! The sun: 29 June 2020

Tree lupin (shrubby shrub): 29 June 2020

Tree lupin grows here in yellow-full abundance

Biting Stonecrop: 229 June 2020

Stonecrop is one of the lowest growing plants of the dune community

A little copse here of evergreen oak (aka Hom Oak): 29 June 2020

Dryads Saddle: 29 June 2020

The queen of the fungi rides again…

WWII installation: 29 June 2020

Listed & protected building come in all shapes. This was part of Britain’s defences in WWII

Moss and lichen paint the dunes in bright colours: 29 June 2020

Spot the fauna: 29 June 2020

We don’t very often see the caterpillars. This one’s a nobby one.

Where do those steps lead: 29 June 2020

Arguably the path less travelled…

I have yet identified: 29 June 2020

(I think it’s soapwort)

Most unexpected, midway down the cliff, growing amongst the furze, an orchid: 29m June 2020

We’ve reached Gunton, and my camera-battery has failed me. And so join me next week when we’ll complete the walk (but in reverse)

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Wishing Wells

Posted on July 11, 2020 by crispina kemp

Such a fantastic response to  Crimson’s Creative Challenge this week has inspired me to share a couple of photos dating back 20 yrs (pre-digi, point&click camera, terrible quality). They were taken at Swallowhead Springs, source of the Kennet river in Wiltshire, near the mystical Avebury Circle and Silbury Hill.

My daughter, surrounded by prayers: Sept 2004

It was a windy day. An ancient willow guards the springs. Tokens of every kind accompany the prayers: candles, slips of fabric and paper, photos, even a carrier bag!

Sept 2004

 

Posted in Photos, Thoughts | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

I Have the Power

Posted on July 11, 2020 by crispina kemp

Sea rolling in at Hopton: 10 July 2020

Nature, another title achieved in Maria’s Antonia’s #2020picoftheweek

Low tide: 7:30
High tide: 13:30
This photo 9:30… a way to go

Coastal erosion here is a problem. These chunks of granite are the only defence

10 July 2020

And sand the nature of the unprotected cliffs. The striations are faults caused by drainage of rainwater

It won’t be long before this falls: 10 July 2020

The power of Nature… even in such a beautiful setting should not be underestimated

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Of Cobblers and Glovers

Posted on July 10, 2020 by crispina kemp

To quote the Bard: A rose by any other name [6 July 2020]

To love
To feel that sweetest of emotions
To give
To be enfolded, warm as in a fleece
To ache in want of you
To open, to let you in
That you might know me true
To receive…
Pain.

Better maybe to remain
Closed to you
To know no blame and feel no flame
Be forever hard and cold
A dried and worthless husk of futile dreams
Of what could have been

But to love
To take that step
To risk that I might drown
Or to retreat while this semblance of sanity still is mine

A decision made… for there can be no other
I trust you’ll make my shoes of finest leather
My patron saint of cobblers and of glovers

Posted in Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged | 32 Comments

CCC87: Gunnr’s Well

Posted on July 9, 2020 by crispina kemp

CCC87

Gunnr’s Well, that’s how we knew it as of old
For Gunnr in his Viking days
Did drive his dragon-warded ship
Into this sea-scoured shore
Tongue swollen with the salty pestilence of sea
Seeking purity of water unpolluted
And there before his sun-blinded salt-encrusted eyes
Seeping from the sand and stone
A dribble blessed by the three
By Odin, Vili and Ve.
Gunnr it was who with stone built a wall around
To guard his treasure from the world encircling Jormungand

I came upon this ‘well’ (it is a spring) just above the beach at Gunton cliffs. Where the wall was leaking, the water was producing desert-looking wadis

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Mostly Micro, Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #87

Posted on July 8, 2020 by crispina kemp

CCC#87

Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN

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 , | 26 Comments

In Alignment

Posted on July 6, 2020 by crispina kemp

image by Alemko Coksa on pixabay

For me, you are the sun
To you, I am your moon
Saturn binds us by our feet
Neptune weaves our fantasies sweet
And Mercury keeps us mentally attuned.
Syzygy!

30 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Syzygy

Posted in Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , | 15 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Green Lanes Part 2

Posted on July 5, 2020 by crispina kemp

Continuing last Sunday’s post, let me take you down our Norfolk green lanes…

25 June 2020

Through farmland…

25 June 2020

…where the golden grains do grow:

corn marigolds: 25 June 2020

…and traditional field-flowers still grow

Plantain: 25 June 2020

Through meadows rich with colours…

25 June 2020

The purple knapweed and the white ox-eye daisies might be the easiest seen, but growing beneath them are yellow rattle, clover and trefoil

25 June 2020

Into the deeper green of the woodland… via a decayed rustic gate

25 June 2020

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The Tide is High

Posted on July 4, 2020 by crispina kemp

Early morning, Breydon Water, when the tide is high, becomes a place of calm

Breydon Water: 2nd July 2020

All is Calm, another title achieved in Maria’s Antonia’s #2020picoftheweek

Posted in Photos | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

CCC86: Mr Ed

Posted on July 2, 2020 by crispina kemp

Crimson’s Creative Challenge

“Why have you shut the stable door?”

“Why? To shut him up, of course. All day long, talk, talk, talk. All right when he was younger, when he was earning a crust. But now Mr Ed’s old… I couldn’t take any more of it.”

“You don’t mean you’ve shut an old man in there?”

“Old… man? No. I’d never shut an old man in there. No, that’s the home of Mr Ed, the Talking Horse.”

 

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Mostly Micro, Photos | Tagged , , , | 40 Comments