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Every year at this time I like to send an image to flick to commemorate Remembrance on 1th November. This year seeing the play War Horse brought home to me our indebtedness to animals.

I had intended to take a picture of the war memorial to animals in Hyde Park, but time ran out on me. Instead I offer this statue of a working dog called Sue in the Taieri Gorge of South Island New Zealand. I've had two family dogs - both born to working dogs. This first, a Collie was my constant companion as a boy, the second, a Labrador called Penny, died many years ago at around this time of year and I once wrote a poem in her memory which I offer in the spirit of remembrance. I have been informed (via Taieri Gorge Railway company who organise trips up the gorge) that "The sculpture was commissioned by the local farmer Leela Graham who still owns this dog. It is as a tribute to working dogs in High Country New Zealand."

Lament

No hair upon the carpet floor
No clanking dish no thrashing tail
No offered gift of slipper ball or toy
No barking at the turning of a key
No galloping the door down at the bell
No clumping up the stairs
No in and out and in and out
No getting under feet
No lump to fill each vacant space
No mouth to gobble up the scraps
of bacon rinds and crusts and crumpled crisps
or gravy bones old cakes and liquorice sticks
No chewed up toffee papers all around
No faeces on the lawn
No barking in the garden at a hundred hidden sounds
No complaining grunts or boredom’s sighs
No mournful eyes no pleading glance
to look and look away
No head on lap no paws on knees
No conversation (What’s up Pen? Wach’yer got?)
No shouts and pushing out the way
No holiday companion no reason for a walk
No catching sticks no sniffing out the ball
No splashing furriness no muddy paws
No morning hours upon the bedrooms floor
No afternoons sneaked off to sleep the bed
No one to blame for missing shoes or socks
No back to lean against for Top of Pops
No “Night-night then”
No Pen.

Eleven years you lived with us the family friend
First child companion aunt and then
Much sat upon neglected and presumed
With never a bite or snarl
Who compassed these islands
Shepherded the children on every beach
Splashed any water chased any stick
Graced the scene of any pix.

So I’ll remember
Every November.

Well not really. This is the setting for White Water rafting at the 2012 Lonon Olympics In the Lea Valley at Waltham Cross.

It has been open to the public for a while now. However from the end of October 2011 it's reserved for would-be Olympians.

But it was good to see it in action and for anyone to try it out

Two girls studying in Hyde Park

A woman seated by the river in Saintes overlooked by its cathedral..

One of two views at the Grand Canal in Versailles, this looking up to the palace