It is Michaelmas day today. I told my wife, Jen, that traditionally it is the day when you feast on goose, fattened on the stubble fields, and that if you eat goose on this day you will never lack money all year. And also, it is as said that Elizabeth I was eating goose on Michaelmas Day 1588 when she heard about the defeat of the Armada and therefore declared that everyone should eat it on this day to commemorate the victory.
My wife replied “We are having pizza.”
Have a great weekend everybody.
See you on the flip side.
from my poetry blog
My favourite article that I’ve read this week was about officials reacting to a complaint of an African grey parrot that sits in the window of a house in York and shouts out to passers-by “Show us your knickers!” or “Wanker!”
The owner’s landlady has been threatened with eviction if this behaviour continues, which would be a fowl thing to do.
Have a great weekend everybody.
Make sure you don’t end up before the beak. See you on the flip side.
And still, the no man’s land between summer and autumn.
The green foliage hangs heavy, but the odd leaf is beginning to turn.
What’s a guy to do, when travelling to watch a local non-league team?
The sun is still there, but sinking, diluted.
Is it too warm for a coat, or too cold for a jumper?
Just bring on winter and we’ll all know where we stand.
A fellow Mancunian took this photo as his plane was coming in to land.
Manchester – from the air.
Rising high upon the backs of my ancestors, laying its claim to my heart and hearth
from my poetry blog
Dead Bird The kids are fascinated by the varying states of putrefaction. Every morning we pause, compare it to yesterday's studied image. "Where have it's eyes gone? Have they sunk into its skull?" Half-covered by an overnight shroud of autumn leaves, provoking a conflict of opinion. The girl thinks it should be buried out of decency, the boy eager to glimpse its surfacing skeleton. Every day its stomach is drawn in, the ribs rising. Then this morning, stunned: the bird is gone, perhaps removed by a conscientious council worker. The boy thinks that it's been dragged off to be devoured by a fox, or a cat, but whatever it was it must have been really down on its luck, falling on that desiccated morsel for a feast. ©AndrewJamesMurray
This is my wife’s ticket for the Trade Centre, from when she went to the top of one of the twin towers just six days before the terrorist attack.
Six days.
It’s like playing Russian roulette with the calendar.
Remembering all of those who were there that awful day.
I found my Mum’s lower set of false teeth on the floor in the back of my wife’s car, and as she lives next door to us I sent my son to post them through her letter box.
At least I think that they are hers. I can just see her in the morning:
“Guess what the postman brought?”
City Jackdaw 