‘Tis a strange thing. My brain doesn’t appear to work in quite the same way it used to. Does yours? Having watched this evening’s broadcasts about the latest C-19 restrictions here in the UK my brain announced, loud and clear, that what I required, fairly urgently, was cherry pie! And who can argue with that? … And yes, of course: with double cream. Hands up, who ate cherry pie tonight?

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands

Denise Levertov
From A Gift

And therein lies the hope of all humanity: in what sometimes appears to each of us emptiness lies, precisely, our availability. Ours for others. Others’ for us. Just when you seem to yourself …

The gifted ecology of one-another-ness.

Evening sunlight behind grape leaf anenome – eriocapitella vitifolia – illuminates so much attention-grabbing detail!

I’m endlessly fascinated by how much variety rises up from dark earth – and by Nature’s immense ‘imagination’ in and throughout the universe: from tiny ants to the mighty oak tree they march around with their organised purpose, to tight-closed protective buds opening to ‘smiling’ fragile flowers like these – each protector and provider to the millions of future-ensuring seeds that will propagate and bloom in a steady procession of tomorrows.

Life is mystery and wonder indeed – and every day we’re alive to witness some more of it we, and the wider life we see, are enlightened …

Fifteen colourful
snapshots of October days
among millions more

what can seem endless
does deliver us somewhere
either up or down

Great to have a sunny afternoon amble in The Dear Green Place again. Happy people sunbathing on the grass in George Square yesterday. Not bad for October! Heavy and relentless rain today, but close company with Rembrandt, Salvador Dali, sculptor William McMillan (Syrinx, marble, 1925) and the Glasgow Boys at the fabulous Kelvingrove Art Gallery lifts otherwise dampened spirits. Warm welcome (thanks everyone) and a fabulous late lunch in lovely company at Café Gandolfi confirms Glasgow’s legendary friendliness.

Seventy years to the day since your smile first warmed the world; Happy Anniversary Charlie Brown!

I’ve been looking forward to the publication of the late, great Clive James’ new book today.

The Fire of Joy – Roughly Eighty Poems To Get By Heart And Say Aloud is, as anticipated, already a joy … ‘To the next generation – “The race of men / Is like the generations of the leaves – / They fall in autumn to return in spring.” – Homer’

There’s feu de joie in colour all around me today – and it’s always good to set eyes upon a rainbow.

Creativity is the great mystery. Anyone can be destructive, but the capacity to build something will go on being the great human surprise

Clive James

This collection will encourage any reader to ‘build something’ – and be surprised!