moon river

I've just done something I've not done
in all the time I've been here: sat on a bench (remember how I used to love sitting on benches? when I lived in the village. . .), but this time a bench by the river, not the pond in the village

the river has filled up since I was here this morning, and is now emptying again
.

since I was here this morning I've been to my Etching class and learnt to etch with "soft ground" - last week I learnt "hard ground" - and also how to "stop out" and I have printed my two "doodle" plates (one plate was seagulls and waves and the other was random textures of various bookcloths and fray-not and linen and cotton threads from my bookbinding tool box) ! the prints are drying under boards at the moment, and I am going to have to find the scanner (which is in one of the still unpacked boxes in the new house) if I want to show you the prints. . . which I do (otherwise I'm gonna have to print loads and send you one each!); I have done two loads of laundry and put the rubbish and the recycling out and scrubbed the floorboards and taken in the grocery order and put everything away and had the plumber round to fix the broken loo and the central heating (which he couldn't fix) and cooked tea and done homeworks and watched two episodes of Fraiser (currently The Teen's fave show) (which is excellent, cos unlike The A-Team, his other fave, which does nothing for me, I love Fraiser)

(well, actually I am totally in love with Niles

but it turns out he's now married to Daphne
so I've missed my opportunity)

and a fascinating show on Discovery Channel about a Giant Squid

(or was it a Colossus Squid?
I think it was the latter)

(the first one ever to be found alive and intact)
(normally they find bits of them in the stomachs of sperm whales)

whilst embroidering the Kaffe Fasset "Lobster" cushion panel (which is what I'm currently doing when the children watch tv between tea and homeworks and I've done all the chores)
.

I DIGRESS!!

anyhow, as I sat on, the bench, by the river, the moon - which is waning, I think - was low enough in the sky to run a path of reflection to me across the water

a while ago I drew the ripples on the water a black and white image of simple lines criss crossing in a complex pattern; I photocopied it (costs a fortune, an A2 photocopy) and have been colouring in the copies with the patterns that the sunlight creates on the water. . . I think I'll have to do a really inky black one now, with the moon path beckoning in the manner that I've just seen it

I sat and watched the moon rise every so gently into the night sky, but down on the water what really surprised me was that the heron was out night fishing - it was standing on one of the sandbanks that gradually appear as the water recedes

as it dipped in and out of the water. . .

(a little like those glass nodding-headed birds
that fill with coloured liquid, you know the ones,
and lean backwards and forwards filling and emptying)
(they always remind me of those metal balls on strings in a cradle
that click backwards and forwards in patterns)

(a Newton's Cradle, I believe -
what must be the best desk-toy ever)

. . .the surface of the water rippled and bubbled and glinted in the light of the moon - made me think of phosphorescence and bio-luminescence

I remember years and years ago skinny dipping with a friend in the Indian Ocean really late one night and we swam thru some kind of glowing algal bloom that was on the surface of the water. . . when we emerged, we glimmered. . .