Tips

... of tulips. Since I seem to have come down with another cold, just days after recovering from the last one, I decided to stay indoors today. So the tulips were hauled out to play. I tried various different ways of photographing them, mostly with the aim of trying close-ups with my new lens. Some fartnarkling was applied to this one to make it darker. I haven't done Flower Friday for a while -- thanks Anni for hosting.

My friend H's funeral is next week; the only day it could be arranged was one where I can't make it because of a combination of lack of flights and other commitments, so I won't be there except in spirit. As I'm sure she would have wanted, it'll be a natural burial in woodland. The celebrant emailed me to ask for input to the ceremony, so I found myself thinking back to the country walks we went on during a holiday in Cornwall many years ago, with pauses for H to hug particularly attractive trees. This Mary Oliver poem, A Dream of Trees, also came to mind:

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company,
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.