poliphilo: (Default)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2022-08-22 08:35 am

False Autumn

 Experts are saying that the reason the trees are shedding leaves early is to cut back on their commitments in response to the prolonged heatwave. They call this a "false autumn".

We volunteered to do various things at the meeting at the Meeting House (too any "meetings" in that sentence but sometimes inelegance is unavoidable- or only avoidable by pomposity). Before the meeting I picked a Bible off the central table, let it fall open where it chose and homed in on a passage in the middle of the left hand page, which- after a little interpretation- very nicely reinforced the thoughts I was already having- and planned to voice later. What happens in Meeting stays in Meeting so I'm not going to go into the issues- just affirm- as has always been my experience- that oracles work. The passage, btw, was Ezekiel 47: 21-23. Did the book have to be a Bible? Of course not. I suspect any book would do, but perhaps it helps if has a a certain cultural heft. The Latins and Latinists used to have recourse to Virgil- and there's a character in one of the Ruth Rendell mysteries I read recently who uses Paradise Lost.

The family from Liverpool are down for a week, staying at Camber. They visited yesterday afternoon. They're big people. Fabrizio is now considerably taller than I am, Christa as tall while Miguel is coming up fast. When they all crowded into our front room I found myself inwardly wailing, "But the house is too small!". We played a game, at Fab's suggestion,  where you go round in a circle adding a sentence to a narrative and every line ending has to rhyme. The kids were good at it. One of the rhyme words was "ocean" and Miguel- who is only nine- came up with "promotion." I though that was smart.

Yesterday was the last day of the air show. There was a turn by an RAF Typhoon. Noisy thing! At bedtime there were fireworks- exceptionally good fireworks. Our bedroom window isn't exactly ringside but it affords a reasonable view out over the town centre.
cmcmck: (Default)

[personal profile] cmcmck 2022-08-22 07:47 am (UTC)(link)
Doing the 'sortes'?

How terribly early medieval of you! :o)

cmcmck: (Default)

[personal profile] cmcmck 2022-08-22 10:45 am (UTC)(link)
It occurs in one of the Ellis Peters Brother Cadfael novels, 'The Holy thief'.