Mountain ash, dark clouds, sculptors

The berries of the rowan, also known as mountain ash, are at their brightest. I recall a poem by a forgotten novelist of the 1920s called Mary Webb whose books were set in Shropshire." Come with me to the mountain tree,/ Cinnabar red with fruit is she". She would have been thinking of the tree growing in the wild rather than the tamed garden varieties round here.

Black and purple clouds layering up while the sun shines.

Talking to a neighbour who knew the sculptors Jacob Epstein and Elizabeth Frink and wrote biographies of them.