Bull's Balls,Bluebells and Bicycle Belles

Two Bicycle Belles - Oooh - the sighs of those thighs!

If you love great powerful pumping male thighs - nothing beats a good old cycle race sprint finish. I've just been watching Mark Cavendish win yet another stage in the Giro d'Italia. One day I'm gonna write the definitive tale of love in Lycra and passion in the peleton.  What I want to know is why are these guys thighs so much stronger than mine when mine are bigger?  

Don't need your conversation - just hangin' loose you old cow

Today, despite the North East wind and the bank breaking energy bill, the sun peeped out in the UK. As the central heating thermostat clicked on, I headed for the woods with my camera.(Ok - I do know I should have been turning out future English Literature exam syllabus material).  On the way I encountered a most magnificent beast. I was so excited I didn't centre the shot. If I could have dressed him in a tux and given him a couple of horny lines he'd be my next hunk. I've read books with similar grunting heroes.

My real quest was the ethereal quality of Nature and mortality which are never far from my thoughts.Of course, the bluebells were out and pumping up the volume of their abstraction. No more and no less than these blooms, our lives have their hours set against the depth of Time past and the infinity of future. These flowers are a certain embodiment of a thing being nothing but its simple self but yet a transcendent path leading beyond presence into wordless meaning. I don't really know what I mean but these flowers say it for me every time I see them physically or in my mind. 

I am so lucky to share my life between two beautiful places both here in the UK and in France. I'm sure that today the river Charente is pushing on to the Atlantic on the west coast of France. My last shot is of the famous (for trout fishing) River Test at Horsebridge as it approaches Romsey in Hampshire UK. 

Near here I once saw a hawk sweeping across an undulating meadow to snatch a rabbit. Its flight was a perfect poem of elegance and precision. The strike was an exploding synthesis of suffering, victory and hunger. If ever I understand what I felt I'll be somewhere - but words won't help me.My mind is a poor tool but it's all I have.

Emma Thinx: A kite only soars because it is tethered.