"I Haven't Got Anything Against The Birds" ....

.... said Brian. "Could have fooled me" said the chaffinch. "I don't like the way you're ruffling my beautiful feathers."

Storm Brian has hit the UK and I, together with many others, immediately thought of The Life Of Brian. It's a family favourite of ours. My daughter in particular loves it and can recite a lot of the lines by heart. 

It has been quite windy. I know from our sailing days that capturing the wind in a photograph is quite difficult. We endured high winds and seas but conditions in our snaps look fairly benign. I sat in Longlands Hide this afternoon and with all the creaking and groaning of timber it felt like being at sea in a wooden galleon. The crows were being tossed about and this chaffinch ignominiously had its plumage ruffed up the wrong way.

Today's poem is From Thoughts About The Person From Porlock by Stevie Smith. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46848/thoughts-about-the-person-from-porlock

Well done Stevie! Excuses, excuses from Coleridge as to why he didn't finish Kubla Khan. He was out of his head on laudanum when he started the poem and some think the Person from Porlock who interrupted him when he was writing it was his dealer. I've enjoyed reading around this, particularly Hilary Mantel on the subject. :)