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SEPTEMBER - "Behold the apples’ rounded worlds..."

Behold the apples’ rounded worlds: juice-green of July rain, the black polestar of flowers, the rind mapped with its crimson stain.  The russet, crab and cottage red burn to the sun’s hot brass, then drop like sweat from every branch and bubble in the grass.  They lie as wanton as they fall, and where they fall and break, the stallion clamps his crunching jaws, the starling stabs his beak.  In each plump gourd the cidery bite of boys’ teeth tears the skin; the waltzing wasp consumes his share, the bent worm enters in.  I, with as easy hunger, take entire my season’s dole; welcome the ripe, the sweet, the sour, the hollow and the whole.      "Apples" by Laurie Lee   These lovely "back-end" walks are touched by sadness because Orlando cannot accompany us now. Or does he? It sometimes feels like he's just a touch away. The best thing is knowing that he no longer makes himself ill with the effort of a walk he's sure he can do. If he was left behind, h...
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About the Blog

In January 2017 I started a blog. There were 12 blogs altogether - one for each month of that year. When I had finished, my daughter and I edited the blogs and I wrote two more chapters so that my first book was formed. It is entitled "Child Of The Isle" - like the blogs - and covers aspects of my childhood in the Isle of Axholme - then a quiet corner of rural Lincolnshire - through the fifties and sixties.

I miss the blog thing. And I have enjoyed putting the book together. It follows that I should have another go. I am now attempting to answer all those people who have, over the years since we first moved to Orkney in 1986, asked the question, "What's it like up there?"  We lived in Orkney for 10 years, moved back to the Isle of Axholme for a while, then to Barrow upon Humber, and now we live in Caithness.  We meant to return to Orkney but we stopped off in Wick. We've been here since 2009 but I have never forgotten my roots and I am still searching for more information about my ancestors from Axholme and from other parts of Britain - some may be from further away but that is a work in progress. I intend to weave memories into "What's It Like Up There?" So, each month, for 12 months, I will take a topic and write about it from my Caithness viewpoint, referring back to other times in my life.

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