I was absent-mindedly filling in one of those "where have you visited?" world maps, and I realised I just don't actually know whether or not I've been to Bulgaria... and likewise Hungary. Is that a problem lots of people have, or it it just me?

It’s years and years since I did any painting. Used to do lots, then stopped. But I forced myself to at least have a go this morning to get started again. Small sketch 7x5 inches in “water soluble oil” (because those were the first paints in the cupboard) of a view on the canal near where I live.

I was photographing bits of village landscape, planning to do a painting, but I stretched the zoom and crop potential of my phone camera so much that the photos started coming out like the paintings I had planned! Really keen, but really struggling, to get back to doing some painting.

Good morning from a misty Marbury.

Bits the collie waiting and watching for his Mom to come over the field.

One of my favourite poems is this one by Mervyn Peake: “Sensitive Head”.

Summer in the village. We have a beautiful lake (Marbury Big Mere) right in our tiny village, with the church looking out across it.

Another day, another golden sunrise at Marbury Lock. #ukcanals #cheshire #ukwaterways

Oh no! Who poured all the burning gold into the canal this morning?

The moon, so thin. And the aircraft’s trail so faint. I worry for them both!

The closest #books to where I’m sitting just now. #amreading #withinarmsreach

Ooh look! I started #writing another #poem. My heart is a cool, dry season With thin air and long views Across flat land. Your heart is a palace with a thousand rooms, 17th century baroque. You are tall fountains fed by mountain lakes, I am a dry riverbed That disappoints a thirsty crow...

“The Butterfly and Thistle” would be a good name for a country pub.

Summer mornings.

Lock Cottage, on the canal 5 minutes down our lane. #UKCanals #Cheshire #countryside

Summer evening in the village.

I thought it was a bit noisy in my study, so I looked out of the window over next door’s garden and there’s a combine harvester churning along about 30 yards from my desk. I guess this is what they call a house in the country.

I’ve had a couple of weeks break from social media. (What, you didn’t notice?!) I thought about not coming back, but miss my imaginary friends so here I am. And to celebrate, here’s some sunlight reflected from the canal onto brickwork, cool on a hot day. Birds on the soundtrack. #SenseOfPlace

4 photos of this morning’s solstice sunrise. Official sunrise time here was 4.42, I think, but it was a little later that our sun poked up over the trees on the horizon.

Early-morning solstice sunrise walk.

With no boats coming through because of a closure upstream, the canal past our village is especially calm just now, with clear water letting us watch the fish as the boats aren’t here churning up the mud.

My path today was strewn with these tiny little heart-shaped rose petals.

Look at me! I wrote a poem this morning! "My Fabulous Wings" When I was young There were no flights on Sundays And the aerodrome would close Becoming dog-walk, bird-watch, picnic country For the town... (the rest is in the image and alt text) #amwriting #poem #FirstDraft

An evening stroll. Fragments of cloud in blue sky, And sun on the fields.

65 years old Still charging down the runway I flap my arms, jump.

I think this picture of a bird flying across the sky, one of this morning’s sunrise photos, is actually one of my favourite bird photos! This bird looks like I often feel.

Fantastic 5am morning sky today as sunrise caught different patches of cloud in a complex sky. #sunrise #sky #clouds #photography

New moon Lost in the clouds. No… found.

Guess what I’ve been taking photos of this morning… here’s what the “recent photos” screen on my phone looks like just now! #sky #clouds #weather #photography

An online friend said something today that reminded me of a long forgotten video I made more than a decade ago... I dug it out, and here it is... my day out on the train. It's called "Approaching Runcorn" although most of it seems to be Liverpool and Wirral. youtu.be/cl4UL8s-uK4

This morning’s sunrise. Through the clouds, over the fields, Into this haiku!

Afternoon stroll Between the showers Rainbow

You know that thing where you feel like a Jackson Pollock painting and he hasn't stopped throwing down the paint yet, you're on the floor and not sure which way up you are going to be in the end?

Good afternoon from Marbury. Heavy skies, showers and warm, calm sunny intervals. This countryside is pretty in most weathers.

Okay, perhaps I let “No Mow May” run on a little too far. This is a bit of my back “lawn” and it’s mid-June now. #nomowmay #lawn #meadow

Drove across the border into Wales. Feeling cosmopolitan and international. Thought I should take some brooding photos of the undersides of bridges, foreign signs in exotic languages, and such.

Good morning from Marbury. My outlook just now:

I said a few days ago that I only had one of my poems framed and put on the wall. In case you wondered where it was, here you go… It has pride of place in the emergency toilet. #poem #decorating

Living-room #shelfie of #books and bits and pieces.

Continuing to rifle through old files, finding things I wrote, and forgot about, long ago... This paragraph is not as I would write it now but I resist the urge to tweak or tinker. It is what it was, and it can stay where it is.

I just read Mary Hrovat's maryhrovat.bsky.social blog post on ways the past can live on with us in things we keep around us. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily... Something she wrote reminded me of a character from an old story of mine, where I (less eloquently) touched on something similar: (see image)

Good morning from the mean streets of Marbury: Cheshire noir.

Last one… (and this is a different book) Perhaps my most treasured permission was a personal message from poet laureate Ted Kooser allowing me to use lines from one of his poems at the start of chapter one of my 2019 book “Glacier”. #poet #writing #publishing

One of my very favourites, from “The Little Prince” and the eight words they didn’t let me use from “One Hundred Years of Solitude”.

Some examples of the quotations that I went to so much trouble for, in situ in the finished book.

…especially interesting looking back at getting permissions to use extracts from poems, novels etc as chapter heads. I got all the permissions I wanted (Auden, St.Exupery, Mervyn Peake, etc) except from Harper-Collins who would not let me use an 8-word quotation from Gabriel Garcia Marquez!

18 months into retirement, still sifting 40 years of files, binning lots, keeping some souvenirs. The current folder is the paperwork (proposal, peer reviews, contract, permissions) for my first solo-authored book: “Glaciers” (1999). It’s fascinating to be reminded of so much forgotten activity!

I follow a number of street photographers who post up gritty urban noirs with graffiti and broken windows. Here’s my street… I’m not sure I can join that club. #streetphotography

Good afternoon from Marbury. It’s looking a bit like summer today.

Looking out onto the Great West Lawn with its “no-mow May” areas and unruly boundary hedges… good for birds and bugs! #garden #gardening