***

First ever Greek holiday....always remember to lock the door. The goat was the ringleader who butted into our private space and of course the others followed...guess they must have read ANIMAL FARM.

That's mirror in IrishWelshSlovakZuluPolishHungarian....

INDWELLING

If thou couldst empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf,
And say — "This is not dead," —
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art all replete with very thou,
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says — "This is enow
Unto itself — 'Twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me."

T.E. BROWN

I Never Has Seen Snow Lyrics
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW

done lost my ugly spell
I am cheerful now
Got the warm all overs a-smoothin' my worried brow
Oh, the girl I used to be
She ain't me no more
I closed the door on the girl I was before
Feeling fine and full of bliss
What I really wants to say is this

I never has seen snow
All the same I know
Snow ain't so beautiful
Cain't be so beautiful
Like my love is
Like my love is

Nothing do compare
Nothing anywhere with my love
A hundred things I see
A twilight sky that's free
But none so beautiful
Not one so beautiful
Like my love is
Like my love is
Once you see his face
None can take the place of my love

A stone rolled off my heart
When I laid my eyes on
That near to me boy with that far away look
And right from the start
I saw a new horizon
And a road to take me where I wanted to be took
Needed to be took
And though
I never has seen snow
All the same I know
Nothing will ever be
Nothing can ever be
Beautiful as my love is
Like my love is to me

Harold Arlen/Truman Capote

from THE HOUSE OF FLOWERS musical

MY GARDEN

A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot!
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Ferned grot—
The veriest school
Of peace ; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not—
Not God ! in gardens ! when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign;
‘Tis very sure God walks in mine.

T. E. BROWN

She used to sing along to the Quincey Jones arrangement with Phil Wood featuring....yea he of that famous alto sax solo on Billy Joel's JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.

Beverly Kenny is now more remembered for her I Hate Rock 'n' Roll but was a young  up and coming singer who died too early by her own hand.

My lady in the poem did indeed look very much like her and one was often disconcerted by a record sleeve looking back at one with my lady's young face. I never cared for her much except for her version of I Never Has Seen Snow. Curiously the Japanese to this day adore her. I was more of a Julie London man don't ya know.

The rather excellent Barbara Pym was another stand by or go to...EXCELLENT WOMEN was her second book and on p.15 there indeed occurs the line...

"A vicarage ought to be a welcoming sort of place with a bright entrance."

She was Philip Larkin's favourite novelist.

My lady was the very model of a modern curmudgeon and not everyone could stand her but I got on well with her seeing as I knew both Brown and Pym and could sing along to I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW.

fo'c's'le was necessary to complete a crossword and she was getting very cross at not being able all of a sudden to spell it.

The forecastle (abbreviated fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le)is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase "before the mast" which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors, as opposed to a ship's officers

We had made our way down to Derrible Bay on the island of Sark and I ventured briefly into the coldness that was the sea. I had left my watch on some rocks and this was returned to me by a very nice lady whose husband was swimming back and forth across the bay( I had only gone for ye gentle swim and splash-about )and when this picture of health emerged from mastering the sea he came towards us for yea he was the watch-returning lady's husband who it turned out was vastly interested in poetry and so we talked for two hours about the wonders of words. I told him the poem I had in my head to write which was as yet unwritten but now weeks later it has emerged from its underwatery world and stepped into its very own words.

***

Two of my friends found themselves in that awful party situation where they turned up in the same frock and same hairstyle and same makeup. One would have thought it was done on purpose or that they had indeed been cloned. They had the good grace to laugh it off and pretended they were twins! This made me wonder what would happen if God decided to embody himself and take a walk about his world just so to see what it was like from our point of view. He choose the most outlandish style of dress( not knowing that it was exactly what I have been known to wear on many occasions )thus creating the ensuing fracas when our paths cross. Thus it is that a poem is created from the party/frock happening and an idle whim of mine as I find myself out for a perambulation. Ahhh...the mind of the walking poet...one would have thought that I would have seen a host of golden daffodils but instead into my ever walking mind came this thought. Mea Culpa!