Good lines: the ordinary, the familiar

    "Such beautiful things, she thought, these mussels. Their sleek shells gleaming in the water, pearl-tinged at the hinges, a darkness that was full of colour - green and grey and bronze. As with many other things - the iridescent feathers on a drake's neck in the winter, so startling a green; the buds of a magnolia; the high polish of a newly released conker - the mussels were too familiar to be a real cause of wonder. We look out for the rare and the exotic. The magnificence of a peacock's tail, the flash of diamonds in a seam of coal. And yet what could be more exotic than a cock pheasant in a field of frozen turnips on a winter morning, his ruby markings and his emerald-green head?"

From The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay.

Comments

[Lindsay]

Three bird references there, Mrs C - careful, or you'll be getting over your ornithophobia!

[Dark Puss]

I like your photograph.

"the flash of diamonds in a seam of coal" - I don't think so! Perhaps Ms Kay might wish to brush up on her geology. Of course I'm no expert either but I believe the evidence is overwhelming that diamonds pre-date carbon in the form of coal and they are never found in coal seams. There is a nice description of the processes that lead to diamonds on earth here.

[Cornflower]

I can admire (some of) them from a safe distance ....

[Cornflower]

I did wonder about that line, but it is a very nice image! Thankyou for the link.