City and Country, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Simple Pleasures and Stickybeaking

Stickybeak  NOUN: an intrusive, meddlesome, busybody, nosy parker who sticks their nose (beak) into other people’s business. The act of stickybeaking. VERB: to snoop or pry into other’s people’s business. This was a delightful new word for me this week although it’s clearly common currency in Australia and New Zealand. I came across it first in one of a series…

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City and Country, RattleBag and Rhubarb

A Few November Snowflakes

A few November snowflakes and the hits on my all-time most-read post start climbing the “Most Read This Week” list. Chance of Snow is from 2011. You think it would have melted entirely from view by now. But no – 12 hits in the last two hours for a grand total of 12,052 to date. Must be those wishful thinking,…

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City and Country, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Did you have a special place as a child? Perhaps somewhere secret and magical? A corner of a city park, a place in the garden, somewhere under the trees or behind the shed?  Do you have one now? For the artist Paul Nash his first special place was Kensington Gardens, in west London, near where he was born in 1889.…

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