python scrap enough

  Over Christmas and the New Year  a skating rink took the place of the old bandstand in Calverley Park. When this month, they move the equipment from Calverley Ground this pythonesque cable lies curled up by the path ready to swallow passers-by.

In considering what to stick in my scrap book I have to bear in mind what is truly compelling. The book with its bizarre contrasts and  trouvailles  could get out of hand if I do not begin to be severe in making choices. Today's neighbours are first  a magnificent photograph of two burkah-clad women in a vast desert-landscape in Afghanistan. The photograph spreads across two pages. The dessert is ochre, the sky ultramarine and the burkas themselves, a dazzling  cerulean blue. Next to it is a photo of a Land Rover battling through a snow-laden wood  beneath  a tunnel of lacy branches in Somerset.  On the same page is a 7 mm long New Guinea frog - the smallest frog in the world - is sitting on a dime coin.

Sometimes you know what people are going to say as they come towards you in the street. In today's bitter wind  I see Giles approaching in The High Street. He is hatted and muffled up like me.  I intone to myself, "cold enough for you?" And sure enough, he greeting is, "cold enough for you?"