I’m enjoying this autumn. In the weeks leading up to COP26 we will be dragged ever more into the nightmare that the future holds if we don’t get a grip on emissions. But that should not let us forget we live on a planet and in a country of amazing beauty.
There’s a wonderful program on BBC Sounds interspersing Keats’ poetry and letters with a playlist that varies from Bach to the Smiths and Bob Dylan’s Love Minus Zero.
The title of the poem comes from John Keats poem “To Autumn”, it’s featured as is Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn. Keats died very young, 200 years ago. He was worried he left no legacy but his words are alive today! Let us hope they will survive another two centuries.
The Grecian Urn reminds us
This picture was taken from the stern of Lady Lucy on Saturday night after a cruise up river to Sonning.
Up river on Saturday
The river calms us down and allows us to appreciate the diversity of nature, the colors of the trees, the feel and smell of wet leaves as they fall upon us and the insistent play of light and shade as the sun and clouds play above our heads.
Though it rained on us on Saturday and Sunday morning, cloud gave way to brilliant sunshine in the afternoons – sunshine that fled all too soon as evenings draw in.
Thanks to my crews for keeping the boat out this autumn. There are very few boats still on the river (and even fewer lock-keepers)!
We forget the abundance and fecundity of our planet when we live in cities, but the great river Thames , like that Grecian urn, reminds us of deeper truths, which we ignore at our peril. COP 26 is for keeping this lovely planet as it is. We should be mindful of how lucky we are and how much we have to lose.
A memory of summer
