Laura Parker

I wonder what dictionaries he found and swallowed for the first impenetrable stanza of On a Raised Beach.

A Winter Apple by Don Paterson for Nora Chassler ​ Here, I got you one of those you like: those bewildered late bloomers, tough and small and sweeter than they’ve any right to be, as green as Eden, the red an afterthought as if there’d been an hour left in the season to paint them all, and where the brush had swept the snow-white fruit below is stained with pink as if your teeth had bled from biting it. It was hard enough to body itself forth with so few leaves to hide it from the frost without it burning fuel on working out where its skin stopped and its flesh began. All that touched it shook its heart. It was that or it was nothing. Take it in your pocket on your long Sunday walk to eat by the loch with that lone jackdaw only you can talk to. I make no great claims for this little thing but I promise only good will come of it.

Here, I got you one of those you like:
those bewildered late bloomers, tough and small
and sweeter than they’ve any right to be…

—Don Paterson, “A Winter Apple”
Published in THE ARCTIC, @faberbooks.bsky.social 2022
#poem #poetry
www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...

Love your 'kitemark' branding there!

A sleepy tawny owl finishing its shift at 0645, moonlight silvering the wood.

Aerial view looking down on a river running through a village. The focal point of the picture is a pink-painted inn on a stone arch bridge in a valley covered with snow.

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 5
‘Snowstorm in a Pennine Valley’
Artist: SR Badmin

Snap x 2 on the song thrushes. Been very loud on recent sunny mornings. Not a cheep from them on rainy ones.

Want to know Linda Newbery's Top 3 Books of 2025? Linda's top 3 reads of 2025 include The Poet's Wife and two other amazing books. Discover what makes these books unmissable!

Here are 3 of my best reads of 2025 (though a whole month to go!) What are yours? Do please add in the comments! shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/... @guyshrubsole.bsky.social #judithallnatt #barbarakingsolver
#greatreads #booksoftheyear #booksof2025 #TheLieoftheLand #ThePoetsWife #DemonCopperhead

December: the fatstock market. From.Clare Leighton's The Farmer's Year, 1933.

Advent wild apples - surely the original Christmas baubles.

He's a local waller who appears on Jeremy Clarkson's TV prog, Clarkson's Farm. Has many fans!

The colours of a Cotswold wall in November. Wall repaired last year by the TV-famous Gerald, as it happens.

Timeless

Where? 💚

Want to read something positive and hopeful about nature?🌳 👇

Love the observation about the ceaselessness of the stream.

Definitely worth a go! Best of luck.

Pleased to hear that the target for curlews has been reached for curlews @oxfordclarion.bsky.social

New field path made by sheep.

Thanks, I will!

Congratulations! The Cuckoo's Lea is on my Christmas wish list.

Feet of an Australian coot.

God tried hard to make feet that would suit
And for waterfowl ones that looked cute
But his large stock of webbing
Very soon began ebbing
And ran out when he got to the coot

Seals singing in a sea cave

#Orkney 🦭🎧

Oh yess, Flynn and du Maurier. I'd listen to that!

ICYMI 😺

Done. Thanks for making the petition and email to MP so easy

Eels should be as much a conservation symbol as a butterfly, says a passionate advocate for the world's most trafficked creature, whose numbers have fallen by 90% in 25 years. Fascinating to find out all about eels for this week's Country Life.
📷 Alamy, Getty

What a family! Will look out DE, thank you.

Cowslip in November. #wildflowerhour

This little sycamore looks like it has had the Andy Goldsworthy treatment! Just a few bright carefully-placed leaves remaining.

Read this and enjoy, for some excellent sheep and the best use of alt texts. 🐏🐑