The living and the dead

"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain"

T S Eliot - The Waste Land

Its blowing a gale here today, but it is mild and although its not April yet, you really do feel as if it might as well be. Winter certainly seems to be over and the dead land is clearly alive once more.  We certainly had plenty of Eliot's Spring rain this morning, but at last it has finally stopped, this afternoon.

I popped out for a bit of a walk and a chance to take today's blip whilst Cathy had a snooze.  Her choir were performing in Devizes last night which meant that she got back late and with the loss of the hour as we move to British Summer Time, so she's a bit short of sleep.

I parked and opened my car door only to have it literally torn from my grasp as the wind caught it.  Fortunately no harm was done, but I hadn't had the foresight to realise (as I parked the car in a relatively exposed spot), that it might have happened.  I did think about trying a couple of long exposure shots on some violently moving trees - to see what would happen - but I'm not sure my tripod would not blow away.  Its all very well buying a nice lightweight tripod for easy carrying, but on a day like today you really need something made of scaffolding tubes.  So I decided to play it safe and shoot handheld.  I shall leave that experiment to another occasion.  

This is a shot of a group of trees that I passed on my short (and muddy) walk.  I was busy trying to remember how some Eliot went as I walked.  I've admired Eliot's poems since I first got introduced to them at school 40 years or so ago.   However, on getting back I was  disappointed to find  when I looked it up that I had conflated some lines from a different poem.  

Still, the thoughts that were sparked by the dramatic effect of the dead tree next to the living tree have given me an idea for a future blip  :-)