When there isn't enough radiator...

Rain-drenched Fatsia...

The Edgeworthia popping in the dusk...

@plsoc.bsky.social Came across two references to Philip in as many days. In 'Notes from Walnut Tree Farm' Roger Deakin asks 'Is Larkin any good?'. In 'Stour Seasons' Ronald Blythe revels in the atmosphere of old churches and PL's "marvellous words". Like Hull trains, there'll be another soon surely.

Met my friend Tony for our usual Xmas pizza and catch-up. He's 80 next year and full of life. Tech mad. Just bought an Apple Vision Pro VR headset and loves sitting around on the moon. He runs two online meditation groups and a men's shed. Been married 50 years. Loves big desserts

In honor of my birthday this week I encourage you to get a library card, read books of folklore, listen to medieval & Tudor Christmas carols, watch an old film by Welles or Bergman. Life is not long and we ought to find some beauty in each day. We ought to hold each other close.

Good luck, Everyone!

Really good Christmas gift ideas. Very well thought through imo.

The forever dichotomy of humanity, completely awful on one very large hand, and then, we get together and do something amazing like this.

Wonderfully bleak here...

Sad news to end the night - I've been told that Michael Slater passed away today. A titan of the field, his biography remains the authoritative account of Dickens. But more than that, he was a friend, and a generous and enthusiastic supporter of new Dickens scholarship: the founder of the feast.

Fieldfares.

Udo Kier - cinema’s fallen angel and an embodiment of the screen’s delicious power to corrupt - is gone. "I would live like the hero of Huysman's A Rebours,” he once told me. “Have no clocks, and hire two nuns to go by my window and pray at 12 o'clock each day."

Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was Charlie Brown killed the Beast.

Ah, look at his little face!

When it's too cool for cats...

Last weekend of my annual exhibition - 60 original watercolours on show www.jamesmccallum.co.uk

Minus five. Hand-hurting cold. The exotic garden has been properly bashed.

@slightlyfoxed.bsky.social I think you guys could do something together for a future Quarterly :D

@peteralanross.bsky.social 'Upon a White Horse' is a lovely book, Peter. Julian Cope, Mrs Edith Pretty, and George Mackay Brown. What more could a reader ask... Did you know 'Steeple Chasing' is in this quarter's Slightly Foxed magazine? That's four foxes now.

Betty Mackereth, Philip Larkin's feisty long term secretary, immortalised in the 1962 poems Toads Revisited, has passed away today aged 101. Betty was a great supporter of the Philip Larkin Society. We send our condolences to her family.

Minus two, but here she comes...

Dorothy Hodges' remarkable book 'The Pollen Loads of the Honeybee' (1952) has seasonal colour charts to identify which flowers the pollen comes from

the bricks are alive at this day to testify it; therefore deny it not.

Garlic mulched by Number One, The Larch. The Larch.

Getting ready for the Bullfinches.

THIRTY FIVE artists and makers under one roof showing their work. Wine, coffee, tea, sofas, jazz and buzz. Join us!

Lesser White-fronted Geese - framed ready for my exhibition. A flock of 24 painted at Ken Hill Marsh, Norfolk in Jan 2025 and one of the highlights of the year. @wildkenhill.bsky.social details jamesmccallum.co.uk

So at the moment, despite @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social’s piece, I wonder whether a better BBC response would be the Arkell v Pressdram one. proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/a...

For those who are interested in rediscovering the joys of reading, I wrote a step-by-step guide: bibliollcollege.substack.com/p/how-to-rek...

Too many people have resigned themselves to not reading because they fear they no longer have the focus for it. You only need to limit your screen time for a few days to begin feeling the effects on your brain. I promise you, you are capable of reading books again.

Shore Larks - Holkham Bay. Framed ready for my forthcoming show

Writer Ronald Blythe was born on this day in 1922. Like Edmund Blunden, who influenced him, he championed John Clare. He was President of the John Clare Society for some thirty-odd years: 'Just as Clare had the power to articulate the life of the fields and common lands with a reality unknown 》

We are launching a seasonal series of Nature Talks in 2026! These will be online, one for each season of the year with a fabulous speaker. Our Winter Talk is on the 20th January and our speaker will be Dr Kevin Butt, telling all about his fascinating study of the Earthworms in Gilbert's Garden! 🪱

They're not enjoying the headwind gusting.

The carpet! *swoons*

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

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!

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.

Timely anthem... open.spotify.com/track/1qRA5B...

@typejunky.bsky.social second listening. Still enjoying. #takeda

What's up, asks Bluesky. Sun's up, responds I.

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

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

Some kind of synchronicity...