Category Archives: River Test

Bull’s Balls,Bluebells and Bicycle Belles

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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.




Oh Autumn – Love Child of Spring

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Oh juice! Oh fullness; Oh grown love-child of Spring !

Season of mists and mellow novelists; Ah yes Autumn it is. Cold arrows of rain drench my heroine’s passion as I sit here trying to write about rising sap and hormone inspired springtime lust.  I always find it easier to write during the actual season where my characters are. Trouble is, it would always be Spring or Summer. All that northern writhing on rugs in front of open fires has always seemed hazardous to me and you have to be careful about where you catch sparks and chilblains. 

Torn wings of toil, mortal beauty in the last sun.


England is the most wonderful of countries. Yesterday I cycled to the country town of Stockbridge and sat in the warm sun watching an alien tweed clad upper class world go by. I stopped and watched the last late cygnets in the river Test. Four deer startled and ran through the sun dappled woods where the bluebells will bloom in May. I long for them now and for their prophets – the snowdrops. 

Today is cold and the last swallows fill their tanks before hitting the gas pedal and heading south. Geese begin to gather at the starting line. Soon enough it will be out to work in the dark and home in the dark. Perhaps I should strategically place a furry rug in front of the open log fire and do some research. No fire – no problem: I could paint some flames on a radiator in the lounge I guess.

Willows overhang a sun warmed river Test. 


In these last days of pseudo summer I took some pictures. Once upon a time I could have done a poem but that gift voucher is long ago spent on frippery, anger and hoover bags. 



Emma thinx: If it’s going, let it go. Just keep hold of the string.