1 A beautiful thing when I opened up the computer this morning – a rainbow for me from a good friend. Thank you, John.
2 A message from another friend, Shelagh, in Vermont alerted me to a brilliant piece of work by The Graffiti Grannys – a Union Jack decorated with knitted and crocheted poppies put up on a fence outside the Parish Church in Camborne, 10 minutes away from us. We set off to find it but at 12.15 it had already been taken down even though the Remembrance Day parade was only just finishing. These photos then, sadly, are not mine. Thank you to the photographer.
3 This is a very beautiful poem from WW1 which I hope you will like too. It’s by Margaret Postgate Cole, a pacifist, a feminist, an atheist and a socialist (so a fair amount in common with me then! I wish I also had her facility with words.)
The Falling Leaves
I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree
In a still afternoon,
When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,
But thickly, silently,
They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;
And wandered slowly thence
For thinking of a gallant multitude
Which now all withering lay,
Slain by no wind of age or pestilence,
But in their beauty strewed
Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.