Warm thick slobber!

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart

Of the townland; green and heavy headed

Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.

Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.

Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles

Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.

There were dragonflies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber

Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water

In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring

I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied

Specks to range on window sills at home,

On shelves at school, and wait and watch until

The fattening dots burst, into nimble

Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how

The daddy frog was called a bullfrog

And how he croaked and how the mammy frog

Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was

Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown

In rain.

Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs

Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges

To a coarse croaking that I had not heard

Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.

Right down the dam gross bellied frogs were cocked

On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:

The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat

Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.

I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings

Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew

That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
From Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney

It's Valentine's Day and the Abstract Thursday challenge is Water - amorous goings on in my pond! I haven't heard any farting yet but you have to be stealthy for that.

I didn't have time to blip yesterday - a full on day: Irish lesson in Skibbereen to start with, back home and Jerome the cat needed attention. He's been very smelly and I feared he had a septic leg for there was brown stuff all over his back legs and his tail. Had Fineen bitten him? To the vet - a delightful young Spanish woman who proclaimed him rather manky, told me she would knock him out and take a look. I went off for a cuppa and a date slice by which time Jerome had had his tail shaved only to find that in fact he had two abscesses in his mouth and had been dribbling on his tail and legs! You wanted to know this don't you! Anyway, antibiotics and painkillers applied and shhh don't tell him but he has to go back next week for a dental clean! 
Then after all that it was off to book club to discuss Normal People by Sally Rooney. A mixed reception - two loved it and the rest were underwhelmed. Me included.

Today - the spring clean of the cupboards continues and then into the garden for a bit of digging and clearing up the polytunnel. A lot to do before our jaunt.

Oh, and the arthouse film The Guilty was excellent - super tense, lots of twists and impressive acting by the main man.