An unexpected and very welcome country walk with the sun out and wayside sheep grazing contentedly.In the train, an announcer uses a word that is seldom heard in conversation. "Passengers should alight here for Knole Park", she says. I enjoy the sound of this elegant word, but try as I might I cannot see myself alighting anywhere.
Every year when I make our Christmas cards I have to relearn the appropriate parts of Paintbox I enjoy making cards, but not making the same mistakes every year. This year the consolation is that I make fewer mistakes and learn to find my round them more quickly than I have in the past.
7 comments:
Oh, you make your own Christmas cards? You are a man of many talents. I hope you will show them here when they are done!
I can just imagine Gene Kelly "alighting" from the train. I think it takes a double-breasted suit, a fedora, and a shiny leather pointed toe!
I use alight referring to the cat when he leaps up so gently, seeming to float a moment before touching down on a surface.
But then, I use words like horrid and salutations as well.
... and then you skip along the platform and hopscotch across the street between swerving pink and gold rolls-royces to swing around a lamp-post ( gas, of course ) before gliding like a toreador in to the exclusive snug of the best candle-lit pub in the world, where you spin your fedora across the room with unerring accuracy to rest at a jaunty angle on the mahogany stand before tinkling a few fats waller numbers on the piano and then sinking down into a deep leather sofa with a raucous shout of triumph and a triple brandy between two glamourously curvaceous "hostesses" who stroke your head and loosen your collar for you ... merry christmasses to you and yours !
I can feel for you. I find now that if I do not use a certain piece of equipment for a while I have to relearn it before I can get back to using it.
The Oxford Dictionary traces alight, meaning to descend out of or to dismount, back to Old English. I was wondering about the past tense. Alit or alighted? Both have been used: "Alighted at your gate" - The Merhcant of Venice. "I alit upon my feet". Poe.
Wow, Tristan's on a roll...
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