On a 69th birthday

 Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Sixty-nine won't come again,

And take from seventy springs that score,

It only leaves me just one more.

And since to look at things in bloom

A single spring is little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

Acknowledging A E Housman

The high chair in ancient Greece

 

You could take this either way, I guess

 “Tradition is tending the flame, not worshipping the ashes”

Gustav Mahler

Dear England

 Gareth Southgate's open letter to England

HG Wells on a monotonous existence

"Nothing ever does happen to me," he remarked presently, beginning to think aloud. "I wonder why? Things enough happen to other people. There is Harvey. Only the other week; on Monday he picked up sixpence, on Wednesday his chicks all had the staggers, on Friday his cousin came home from
Australia, and on Saturday he broke his ankle. What a whirl of excitement!--compared to me."

from The Flowering of the Strange Orchid

Restoration

Wonderfully stabilised and restored, after singing with the Clerkes again for the first time in ten months. Six of us sang carols, all delightful, on a cold sunny windless day, outside the Minster. I was the only alto and had some lovely lines, but the best of them was in O Little One Sweet. 

Here it is being done properly by the King's Singers.

A short demonstration of the effectiveness of wearing a mask.