The Trees, by Philip Larkin

There is a wonderful recording of the poet reading his own poem here.

Wordless Wednesday: Winter fair, Edinburgh

Petition to stop the UK government review of home education

Thank you Lorna, for bringing this to my attention. If you are a UK citizen or resident, please consider signing it. It reads, in part:

We ask him to remind ministers that recent DCSF consultations have concluded that current law, when applied correctly, is sufficient to the task of protecting home educated children should parents fail in their duties, and that the law represents a satisfactory balance between protecting children and the need for privacy and autonomy in family life.

We also ask him to call a halt to the review of home education, begun in Jan 2009. Home educators have already taken part in four consultations in just over three years. New guidelines for LAs regarding Home Education resulted from one of these consultations as recently as Nov 2007 and yet we are now faced with yet another review which appears to seek to erode parental responsibilities. We ask him to remind ministers that repeated consultations infringe the BRE's Code of Practice on Consultations, Criterion 5.

2nd September, 1985, Beijing

China is so endlessly tatty. The campus [where I live and work] is a continual building site but the new buildings look no fresher than the old. Driving from the airport, after a 19 hour sleepless flight, the road reminded me of France, with its tree lining and the road itself slightly raised above fields of trees.

Mr Shen [school representative in charge of foreign teachers] attentive and kind after a sticky beginning. Not very good English. All the figures on the road started off [in my initial impression] as Western people and turned into Chinese when we approached. Warm but not too hot. The campus is about ten kilometres from Tiananmen Square - a good solid trip by bike. Is the bike which is being 'loaned' to me a temporary or a permanent loan? There are new quarters being built for the foreign teachers, but I get the feeling that me [sic] and the other girl who is coming are meant to stay put [in this building]. This block itself is quite new but so drab; the feel of it is not their fault, as no room can feel lived in that has a new occupant each year, but the loo is filthy and I have not yet worked out how to have a shower without boiling myself alive. And to get to the shower you have to climb over the loo. The kitchen, similarly, is just dirty and tatty and difficult to keep orderly......

Not feeling too miserable; just tired, clean and a little lost. Wanting something to happen and doubting my courage, in advance, to do all that I have to do....

They eat so early here: I dined in state with Mr Shen on beautiful food, but at 5:30, and it is now only 8:30.

First Sight, by Philip Larkin

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air,
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

© The estate of Philip Larkin

Wordless Wednesday: husband's Chinese cooking

Left to right: Jia Chang Dou Fu, Gong Bao Ji Ding, Kong Xin Cai

31st August 1985

Such a perfect evening in Horley, just by Gatwick [airport], staying in a guest house before my flight [to Beijing] tomorrow morning. The journey straining, because of my suitcase, bag, and typewriter, but at Reading, an hour's wait, resting my arms on the open window. The end of one of the few real summer days this year. Blue sky with fluffy white clouds against occasional dark grey. The country so green and soft and full from the last few months of flood.

Then this evening, through the churchyard to an old pub, where I ate outside, there being no room inside; midges in the air, and the air itself just chilling but kind and very still. The clouds turning orange as I read Graham Swift's Waterland. Dreaming. Neck tingling.

After eating, walking further through the garden to the river. Cows on the far side, steep banks, a willow, thick grass, the water quite swift. Never silent because of the 'planes and the road, but entrancing. The sky shading from pale blue through white to silver, and the pink, the silver reflecting in the water.

Back to the churchyard and into the church; nice young woman explains its history, mostly medieval. There is an old man who remembers being confirmed in the church during the war. Beautiful brass of the calmest of wimpled ladies.

Back through the graveyard. Earlier, when I had been eating, there was a fair American girl who came to talk to me, and now there are Americans who overtake me wandering. The most English of days.

Bird life

Hobbes has become an avid bird watcher, and we seem to be feeding half of Fife's birds through the cold weather. At our makeshift feeder, we have so far seen (European) robins, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, chaffinches, bullfinches (red status), treecreepers, blackbirds, wood pigeons and a pheasant.

Edited to add: yellowhammers, our second red status bird.

Decent snow at last and winter lessons

The boys have been frankly resentful of all the snow that the south of the UK has been getting over the last couple of weeks. Today, at last, we had appreciable snow here: the boys have built their first snow man and slid their first sleds. My very happy, rosy-cheeked sons are sitting in the kitchen now, eating leek and potato soup, having spent hours with local friends on the traditional village sledding field.

I've been learning new skills in the last few days too. This morning, I cleared my first driveway of snow and made a mental note to buy a lighter shovel. And having suffered another five days without central heating (we finally have it back now) I have come to grips with how to manage the wood stove. First thing in the morning, you start it up with lots of kindling and the maximum amount of air flow. You burn two or three logs very fast (field maple catches easily, because of the loose grain), until the stove metal heats up and you can feel its glow from six inches away. After that, you turn down the air flow and feed logs slowly for the rest of the day - at that point, our dense larch wood catches well, because the stove is already so hot.

I like very much the idea of growing our own fuel, but I suspect our little copse needs some managing - thinning and renewal, maybe coppicing. More skills to learn.

Wordless Wednesday: Scotstarvit Tower in winter and Hobbes' impression of it