Snow on pub tables, just a few days ago. It melted and it has rained since almost continuously.

Wine, because most of it is imported and the pound is weak,  is becoming  increasingly   expensive. Congratulations then to Sainsbury's on its handsomely labelled House Wine range.  All the wines are less than £5.00 a bottle but what is more important, despite the fact that their  provenance is not always precise, and that they are unlikely to interest wine critics,   they are extremely well made by wine-makers who know what they are doing. The Pinot Noir from Roumania challenges more expensive competitors from Burgundy, the traditional home of the grape. The Beaujolais is excellent. and the Cabernet Sauvignon satisfyingly tannic as you would expect of  Bordeaux from where it comes rather than from the New World. Today I noticed under the same House Wine label something I haven't tried. It  is labelled simply Hock. Who talks of Hock nowadays? The term is generic and was (still is it seems) used to describe wines from the Rhine regions of Germany.  The term comes from the German Hocheimer denoting wines from Hochheim.on the river Main just west of Frankfurt.
Spying the  Sainsury bottle  on the shelf today  meanwhile reminded me of John Betjeman's poem about the arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel in London.
"The poem begins:
He sipped at weak hock and seltzer
And looked at the London skies
At the Nottingham lace of the curtain
Or was it his bee-winged eyes..."
I can't say that  I was tempted to try it with or without soda water.

I am grateful to Lucy Kempton for her comment yesterday on the new layout of this blog. She says that at first she found it confusing. So did I. It is not entirely  clear to me how I arrived at it. A piece of serendipity I think. Meanwhile until she passed on her discoveries about its hidden depth I have to admit that I was not aware of all of them. I hope meanwhile that not too many visitors have been confused.  If they have perhaps Lucy's discoveries will compensate.
 

sails onions polysyllabic

 Red sails at Sitges

When, several years ago,  I wrote about Roscoff onions which we were able to buy from Sainsbury's at the time, I was surprised and delighted to find that someone else knew of this delectable allium from Brittany.  My correspondent was Lucy Kempton who  has subsequently became a dear friend and collaborator in several ventures including  the exchange of poems to be found on our joint  blog, called Compasses. Yesterday, over here from Brittany, Lucy visits us and brings among other goodies from Brittany a bag of Roscoff onions from her local market. Time has made a neat circle and the onions are back in Now's the Time.

When tweeting I find myself using polysyllabic words, an added challenge to  what and how to communicate in 140 characters.

discovery, three little policemen, matched

I visit with special pleasure a website called www.qarrtsiluni.com , where Lucy Kempton has illustrated one of my poems with some photographs, which she took in New Zealand. The photographs are beautiful and mysterious in a way, which perfectly complements the theme of the poem. Her blog is called www.box-elder.blogspot.com. It's worth visiting.

In the Grove I spot three community policemen strolling side by side. They all seem to be the same height, not very tall, I would say. Suddenly the title of a comic sketch, as yet unwritten, comes into my mind - The Three Little Policemen. Their gait is jolly and light-hearted, and I think they might at any moment, begin to dance. It's all the more apt, when I realize that one of the little policmen is in fact a little policewoman.

Fifteen years ago today I went to a party. I was a widower, who was happily resigned to remaining single. And match-making was in the air. So I was an unwilling guest. Hence my reluctance to accept the invitation. The first person I saw on entering the room was, I correctly guessed, the person intended for me. She, aware of what was going on too, and, an equally reluctant match, resolutely kept her back to me. The following Wednesday we went to a pub together. She came back for a meal, and, I'm happy to say, has stayed put ever since.