Our daffodils are coming into their strength. I planted a load in '24 and a load more in '25. They're my favourite flower- at least in part because they start appearing in the wintriest time of the year. I see the first daffodil and think, "And now it's Spring!" 

We've had no snow in Eastbourne- we rarely do, but we have had lots of rain. We were driving up Seaside on Sunday and there was water mushrooming out from an overtaxed drain and flooding the road.....

We've floated the idea that Wendy should take over our garden and grow vegetables. It would be a win-win arrangement. We need someone to take the garden in hand and she needs somewhere to grow things. I'm not a gardener. I plant shrubs and bulbs and then more or less let them get on with it. Also I cut the grass- but I'd be happy for there to be less grass to be bothered with. So long as she leaves the daffodils in place she can have a free hand.

There seem to be fewer pigeons about. Maybe they're off sourcing nesting sites. There are however rather more gulls because Roselands with all its chimney stacks is a nesting site. I love pigeons, I love gulls, I only wish we attracted more of the smaller birds than we do.....

 Picture Diary 120

1. One small step....



2, Annoying little brother



3. Emergence



4. Missing the point



5. Hide and seek



6. I spy

 I had my hearing tested yesterday.

You sit in a box with a glass window- a sort of man-sized microwave- and press a button every time you hear a beep through the earphones you've been fitted with. 

It could almost be mistaken for fun. 

The verdict is I have a degree of hearing loss- somewhere between mild and medium; nothing unusual for my age. It's not disabling and hearing aids are not recommended....

 Satanism is also one of the Abrahamic religions- its mythology derived from Judaism, Christianity and Islam with more a dash of Milton. Could it be suffering- as its cousins are- from the quiet rebellion of the young against organised religion? 

Satanism, huh? Robes, chanting, sacrifice- that's what our parents did.....

I ask because, having watched Wexner bumble through the hearing yesterday, I found myself wondering where all the young people are. Even Andrew, who represents the younger end of the Epstein class, is already 66. 

Which leads to the happy thought that if the courts don't put a stop to their carryings-on pretty damn soon the reaper will- and then one way or another they'll all be gone. 

 Picture Diary 119

1. Hi there, kiddo



2. Tightrope walker



3. Disks



4. Bad apple



5. Poppies



6. Orion

 Damian has gravel at the front of his house. We were standing talking to him when a particular chip caught my eye. It's about an inch across. A fossil? Yes, what else could it be?



Not an important fossil, not a spectacular one- but still the trace of something that was alive and growing millions and millions of years ago.....

 Most of the time the night sky over Eastbourne gets blanded out by light pollution but yesterday, around ten o'clock, I happened to look out the south-west facing window and there, floating over Beach Head, for the first time this winter, I saw Orion with his entourage- and they were all so sharp and clear that even the Pleiades were visible.

Hey, I've suddenly- just this instant- had a flash of inspiration or knowing. The Long Man of Wilmington, our ancient hill figure: might he not be a representation of Orion? They're the same sort of shape....

OK, I've just checked and it's not a new idea- how could it be?- but it's new to me.....

Because if Orion floats over Beachy Head there must be times, if you're standing in the right place, you'll see him floating over Windoor Hill- further along in the chain of the Downs- with the Long Man right below him- the one shining in the sky the other, outlined in chalk, shining ghostly out of the grass.....

I think the Long Man is a portal, a gateway to the stars....

Go sit at his feet. Ingest some mushrooms. See what comes next.....



The Long Man by Eric Ravilious

 Oh, and by the way-  Happy Valentine's Day.



Hail Bishop Valentine, whose day this is,
All the air is they diocese,
And all the chirping choristers
And other birds are thy parishioners..."

John Donne

 Michael Wolf says he met the Dalai Lama at Uncle Jeffy's New York pad only his Holiness's office says he had no contact whatsoever with Uncle Jeffy.

Know what, I'm inclined to believe Michael because he's got nothing much to gain or lose by putting this out there.

And if his Holiness is telling a fib that's not very holy of him. 

Looks like I'm going to have to cross him off my Christmas card list.

Same goes for Deepak Chopra.

It's a mistake to be calling people "Holiness" or treating them like a guru. Fact remains that no-one walking this earth is ever more than a human being. Spiritual (so called) power is no less corrupting than political power. 

Priestly hierarchies? Pah!

Anyone can talk spirituality. I can talk spirituality. Doesn't mean I'm living it.

 Ailz purchased a TV license last year so she could watch the tennis with a clear conscience. I may have watched a movie or two on the BBC over the past 12 months. I forget. Modern movies are pretty forgettable, don't you find?

But yesterday I binge watched Mackenzie Crook's new series Small Prophets- which is going out on BBC 2. I like Mackenzie Crook so much that I'm willing to overcome my disgust with the Beeb for his sake. Small Prophets is gentle, mischievous, magical and funny in an Ealing sort of a way. Crook himself has a supporting role, as does Michael Palin. No-one else in the cast is hugely well-known, but they're all terrific. I have two episodes still to go. There's a mystery of seven years vintage hanging over the characters and some dodgy business underway but I don't expect any of it to be resolved by gunplay....