Oh blow, it's snow; chuffed, amused, tickled by blog fame; January collage

Well now, all very pretty you might say, and in normal circumstances I'd snuggle down happily and enjoy looking at it, but it's just the wrong day for it, because after a really very manageable winter, the first time it decides to chuck a load of the white stuff is the one when a very old friend I've not seen for over twenty years who has never before driven in France, his not-yet-met partner (who sensibly went out and bought European satnav a couple of weeks ago), and car-full of dogs and sausages are making a twelve hour journey to us from South Wales, and we cannot but worry about them making their wintry way down the cold backbone of the Cherbourg peninsular. But now the sun is out and the snow is melting, and when they arrive all will be rejoicing, and there will be wine and a hot meal and a wood fire and furniture the dogs will be allowed on. 

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This was a nice surprise:

I could barely remember the poem in question, it was part of a longer post and rather done as a five-finger exercise at a time when I still worried if I wasn't writing poems on a regular basis, but looking back on it it wasn't so bad, and anyway there probably weren't too many out there about chrysopid flies, and I really am very chuffed indeed; it's the first time I've had a poem chosen for print in this way, and I didn't even submit it or anything, it was completely out of the blue.

So while I was idly and not very relevantly conducting a consequent google search on myself, I learned that I am also quoted and cited in the bibliography of a worthy tome published by Palgrave called The Cultural Politics of Austerity. In another downright inconsequential post from three years ago concerning assembling a new spice rack, a phrase where, with my arch, smart-alec tongue firmly in my self-mocking cheek, I swear, I refer to 'my make-do-and mend-anti-consumerism' is described as 'a meaningful descriptor of contemporary ethico-political practice'. Well who'd have thought it? And before I pretend to get too cynical and sneery about it, yes it did take quite a bit of effort to track down the exact reference and yes my vanity is tickled as well as my sense of the ridiculous; however at fifty-three quid print-on-demand it probably won't lead to any worldwide recognition of my talents, or indeed a free copy, but I will get one of the Buglife anthology which will be very nice indeed.

Oh, and then my old pal Charles Davies asked me for a copy of this photo from the plane trip I took with RR and VR when he was still Barrett Bonden, for the cover of an e-book he hopes to publish of a novel about Mont St Michel, and sent me a PDF of it, so in fact my cup of blog fame and its rewards runneth over, as it always did.

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And with that and since I won't probably be around for a week or so, here's a January collage, only nine pictures rather than the usual twelve because I really haven't used the camera much this month. Quite a bit of knitting.

1. Christmas cactus, flowering after Christmas.
2. Blue tit and chaffinch eating breadcrumbs. Let's hope we've not fed them all our bread then get snowed in.
3. Tom's red knits.
4. Bunch of garlic from the market.
5. Charlie Hebdo vigil, Lamballe.
6. A very thick pair of sofa sock, knitted very quickly from oddments.
7. Mackerel filliets, marinading in redcurrant vinegar, lemon, rosemary, fennel and olive oil.
8. First attempt at a top-down in the round pullover. Looking forward to wearing it.
9. Frozen leeks, none the worse for it.

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PS - the travellers have just called in from a lay-by somewhere south of Cherbourg, it's chilly but bright and snowless and they sound in good form, despite subsisting on a Brittany Ferries breakfast and large bars of Toblerone.