• About

Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Monthly Archives: November 2019

Gallery

Dolls’ House, Window Display

29 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in Architecture, art, Nostalgia, Personal, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

dolls' house, Oxford, window dispaly

This gallery contains 8 photos.

Dolls’ House Window Display, Oxford. Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Red House

28 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in Architecture, art, gardens, Personal, Photography

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

courtyard garden, hornbeam topiary, red house

red house 2

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Time Marches On

26 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in History, Literature, Nature, Personal, Poetry, Psychology, Social Comment

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Graves, Japanese poetry, memento mori

File:Japanese grave marker.jpg

Photo of kanji by Jmettlen on Wikimedia Commons

 

Even our friends’ graves

will one day be ploughed over.

Grief diminishes

through time and we smile once more.

Calligraphy on

headstones will be eroded.

The deceased’s peers die;

his name is then forgotten.

The pines which are deemed to live

for a thousand years

are, in actual fact, chopped down –

disrespectfully,

or just pragmatically,

according to how life’s viewed.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Luna Park, Sydney

25 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in Architecture, Photography, Summer, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Australia, Big Wheel, ferry trip, fun fair, Luna Park, Sydney, Sydney Harbour

Sydney theme park

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

No smoke that day.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Sandhurst Autumn Foliage

24 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in Autumn, Environment, gardens, Nature, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Autumn foliage, Copper Beech, Sandhurst, Surrey

sandhurst red night
sandhurst moonlight
sandhurst yellow

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Sandhurst – Today’s Parade

23 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in Animals, News, Personal, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British army, Passing Out Parade, Sandhurst Military Academy

IMG_0090 (2)
IMG_0057 (2)
IMG_0059 (2)
IMG_0069 (2)
IMG_0080 (2)
IMG_0088 (2)

with HRH Prince Edward

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Oxford Market Lanterns

20 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in Animals, art, Nostalgia, Personal, Photography, Sculpture

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alice in Wonderland, caterpillar, Cheshire Cat, dormouse, dragon, Oxford, Oxford Indoor market, paper lanterns, White Rabbit

market teapot
Market alice
Market bunny
market cat
market caterpillar
market dragon
market peter rabbit

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart.  All Rights Reserved.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

View from my Window

19 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in art, Autumn, Environment, gardens, Nature, Personal, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Autumn, Autumnal foliage, sycamore

sycamore season

…this morning.

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

 

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

South Leigh – St James the Great

17 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in art, Summer 2012

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Augustine, Jacobean pulpit, John Wesley, mene mene tekel upharsin, ordinand, Oxfordshire, South Leigh, whitewashed wall paintings

s leigh 20

Poem as promised yesterday-  see previous post for all photos relating to this poem.

 

Standing in the Jacobean pulpit,

an ordinand preached about promised rest

to some illiterate farm labourers –

those who were the physically weary.

Insubstantial words were like thin phantoms

who lurked beneath the lime-washed plaster, whose

discovery would take a century.

For now, his epistle of straw did not

result in any great harvest of souls.

 

Seventeen years on, he came back, after

his heart had been ‘strangely warmed‘ – awakened.

This time he had a pressing conviction.

He knocked at the door; was not admitted.

As far as South Leigh clergy were concerned,

he was too drunk on non-Anglican wine

and this was his eponymous Church End.

 

If only he had had the eyes of faith,

to detect what lay beneath the surface!

The first time, he was weighed in the balance:

oh, mene mene tekel upharsin.

He could sense the whitewash in his own soul.

 

When he’d returned seventeen years later,

burning, burning, like Augustine before,

perhaps the very stones reacted and

truths emerged, as though Christ passed through a wall,

but restoration was gradualist:

much like his view of sanctification.

‘His first sermon’ – yes, then he saw darkly

and, in his lifetime, never saw the light:

that glorious panoply behind him,

which, though covered, had been always present.

Its secret power had blessed his ministry.

 

I test the meshed door and it gives with ease,

then leave it open, as instructed, for

swallows who nest in the porch of The Lord.

And there is the pulpit and all around

is such a blaze of glorious ochres.

Those hidden things have been made manifest.

 

My spirit is strangely warmed by this feast:

Come ye blessed… – a stern invitation.

Who would not turn their head from the Hellmouth?

 

And, just as Wesley stressed the grace of God,

the Virgin redresses the sinner’s doom,

by gently tipping scales in his favour,

with the surreptitious drop of a bead.

 

(The preacher was a youthful John Wesley)

 

 

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

St James the Great, South Leigh

16 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by Candia in Architecture, art, Bible, Education, History, Personal, Photography, Religion, Social Comment

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Doom, John Wesley, Mary, Oxfordshire, rosary, South Leigh, St James the Great church, wall paintings

s leigh 22
s leigh 21
s leigh 20
s leigh 19
s leigh 15
s leigh 14
s leigh 13
s leigh 12
s leigh 9
s leigh 8
s leigh 5
s leigh 3
s leigh 2
S Leigh 1

Oxfordshire.  Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart.

These were whitewashed and when John Wesley preached here in

his early days, he would not have been able to see them.

Poem to follow- next post.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Recent Posts

  • Thames Pillbox
  • Coln St Aldwyn Flooded Field
  • Wedding in Sydney, NSW
  • Vertical Slice from my Previous Painting
  • Poole Pottery Breakfast Set

Archives

  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012

Categories

  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • art
  • Arts
  • Autumn
  • Bible
  • Celebrities
  • Community
  • Crime
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Family
  • Fashion
  • Film
  • gardens
  • History
  • Home
  • Horticulture
  • Hot Wings
  • Humour
  • Industries
  • James Bond films
  • Jane Austen
  • Language
  • Literature
  • Media
  • Music
  • mythology
  • Nature
  • News
  • Nostalgia
  • Olympic Games
  • Parenting
  • Personal
  • Philosophy
  • Photography
  • Poetry
  • Politics
  • Psychology
  • Relationships
  • Religion
  • Romance
  • Satire
  • Sculpture
  • short story
  • short story
  • Social Comment
  • Sociology
  • Sport
  • Spring
  • St Swithun's Day
  • Summer
  • Summer 2012
  • Supernatural
  • Suttonford
  • television
  • Tennis
  • Theatre
  • Travel
  • urban farm
  • White Horse
  • winter
  • Writing

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

acrylic acrylic painting acrylics Alex Salmond Andy Murray Ashmolean Australia Autumn barge black and white photography Blenheim Border Terrier Boris Johnson Bourbon biscuit boussokusekika Bradford on Avon Brassica British Library Buscot Park charcoal Charente choka clerihew Coleshill collage Cotswolds David Cameron dawn epiphany Fairford FT funghi Genji George Osborne Gloucestershire Golden Hour gold leaf Hampshire herbaceous borders Hokusai husband hydrangeas Jane Austen Kelmscott Kirstie Allsopp Lechlade Murasaki Shikibu mushrooms National Trust NSW Olympics Oxford Oxfordshire Pele Tower Pillow Book Prisma reflections Roger Federer Sculpture Shakespeare sheep Spring Spring flowers still life Suttonford Tale of Genji Thames Thames path Theresa May Victoria watercolour William Morris willows Wiltshire Winchester Cathedral

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,569 other subscribers

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Candia Comes Clean
    • Join 1,569 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Candia Comes Clean
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: