Stephen Byrne
banner
stephengbyrne.bsky.social
Stephen Byrne
@stephengbyrne.bsky.social
350 followers 320 following 580 posts
Gardener at @bluebellcottage.bsky.social & others. Wildlife (ooh, look, geese!). Books (by the yard). Beer (strong, not too many).
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by Stephen Byrne
A treat for anyone able to get to Canterbury on 9 December … registration required, with payment in cash on the day
Exasperated there isn't enough poetry about ailments of the feet? Fret no more. John Clare goes where others fear to tread, in 'November', from his 'The Shepherd's Calendar'. And joking aside, just how much action does he fit into these four lines...
#Corns
Reposted by Stephen Byrne
It's November! ✨
We are open for free today as it's photography day, so head down if you are free pop down!
We are looking forward to warm drinks in the café, bracing walks through autumn leaves and of course a visit to the museum!
After the war Blunden took up a scholarship. He and Porter decided 'Clare was a neglected but entrancing poet, and before long we had almost signed in our blood a pact that we would not cease from mental strife... until we had built Clare's scattered poetry up again, the unknown with the known.'
Poet Edmund Blunden was born on this day in 1896. Perhaps, without him, and fellow Oxford freshman, Alan Porter, John Clare would still lie in obscurity. Twelve year old Blunden discovered Clare via a collection by the writer Arthur Symons. Blunden later took the book with him to the Western Front.
Loads of bike parking, at last.
What's up, asks Bluesky. Sun's up, responds I.
Reposted by Stephen Byrne
As @drshepherd2013.bsky.social writes, what’s horrifying about those numbers is that “the hurricane intensity scale increases logarithmically. That means a doubling of wind is not a doubling of damage. It actually results in a 256-fold increase in possible damage.”

My heart is with Jamaica today
Reposted by Stephen Byrne
This 1841 watercolour is a painting by writer of 'Wuthering Heights' Emily Brontë. It depicts her pet merlin The bird of prey was rescued from the moors near her home and Brontë named the bird 'Nero'. The Brontë siblings all had good skills in art.
Thinning the leeks. With Robin assistance.
The fallen Larch needles give the shade a lift.
Ah, but will they make it to next year...
#Figs
Well... ya know... it's TH. It's very dark, no doubt, and then, perhaps, it's slightly less dark...
Some kind of synchronicity...
Looking for something else and came upon this. Thomas Hardy.
Jenny Uglow's book 'A Year With Gilbert White' is beautifully illustrated. She says of Richard Mabey's biography of Gilbert White, "a perfect life, as far as I'm concerned" But I'm only in February and I'm like what if she hadn't just opted for one year... Wow!
Not the same thing, but we've picked all the apples, so there's been a lot about the house. Fruit flies!
'The Secret Commonwealth' seems a lifetime ago...
Yes, it was very good. Great use of graphics, for example the Punch cartoon and the first Christmas card. Gave a great sense of the young Dickens's energy, drive and self-belief. Came away with a bit of a festive glow, that fiction could be such a powerful force for change.