Ace Bird, Ace Tree

Dull and damp today in Essex but meeting and chatting to this robin brightened my day, as did the gorgeous yellow field maple leaves, my favourite tree, behind it. My customers used to plague me for Japanese maples but I love our indigenous Acer campestre best. It's possible to make maple syrup from it just like they do in Canada from their maples. I know I've mentioned it before but Kate and Wills had field maple trees along the nave in Westminster Abbey for their wedding. They're beautiful in all seasons. As for the robin it's protecting its boiler-house territory.

Today's poem is She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep by Robert Graves. https://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/graves.tellslove.html

I like to think this is about the woman RG loves, his future wife Beryl, mumbling garbled sweet-nothings as she sleeps. It's beautifully calm, a far cry from the tempestuous times when he was involved with highly-strung Laura Riding.