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Hello, Elle!
I came across this meaning of "gutter/ing" a few years ago.
Up until then I did not know it.
You won't be the only one who did not know the "candle" meaning!
A good clue, I thought!
It took me a long time to parse 21 "le"!
Do not be hanging your head in shame...you are making good progress at the cryptics!
My day off from them tomorrow!
I may have a look at the cycling now.
Laura Muir won her x-country race today.
She was representing Glasgow University.

HI, Rusty!
Yes, retrospectively, I think it is a very good clue!
I shall look forward to the Everyman tomorrow!
I am not sure yet how tomorrow is going to pan out...
We are supposed to be seeing younger daughter and family.
But I am not sure how/ where/ and when?
I am waiting to hear from her.
I like to plan........!
Well done , Laura!
She is a very accomplished young lady!
Are you watching cycling?

Hello, Elle!
Have you told your daughter about your Christmas present/shoes that you have bought?
Laura done well.
There was a big entry from Glasgow Uni, around a dozen girls.
I watched a bit of the cycling and now my TV set is turned off for the evening.
I have started reading "The Unreturning Army".
It is good!

Hi, Rusty!
The shoes are only a pending idea....but yes, I mentioned it.
Daughter wants some bookshelves, so we may buy those as their Christmas gift.
I think this is better than buying "blind" so to speak.......at least folk get what they want/ need / might not otherwise afford.
The grandchildren write to Father Christmas...and then their parents tell us what presents to buy!
All this of course is in secret!
Christmas Day is a big occasion for the young ones!
Wasn't it Glasgow Uni where Miss ATW studied? Does she know Laura?
I hope you enjoyed the cycling?
I haven't watched TV at all today, although I am recording "Casualty" as usual.
I have been reading.
"The Unreturning Army" sounds from its title as though it is about losses of human life in the War?
Who tells the story?

Hello, Elle!
I am not so keen on the World Cup Cycling.
Not nearly as good as the World or European Championships, or Olympics.
I do not know if Miss ATW knew Laura.
"The Unreturning Army" is an autobiography of Huntly Gordon who left Clifton School and immediately joined up.
He took a commission and landed in the Artillery.
He tells a good tale, Elle!
"The Unreturning Army" is part of a line in a poem by Siegfried Sassoon.
"Prelude: The Troops".
Sassoon is fairly well known?
Your daughter sounds like a practical lass!
Bookshelves!
Excellent idea!

"O my brave brown companions, when your souls
Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead
Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge
Death will stand grieving in that field of war
Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent.
And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass
Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell;
The unreturning army that was youth;
The legions who have suffered and are dust.
Sassoon.

Hi, Rusty!
That is an impressive title of your book........
I hadn't recognised it as a line from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon.
Sassoon is well known as a leading poet of the First World War.
You will perhaps have come across some of his works quoted in books about WWI, as you have read so much about it?
I think he wrote a lot of "Free Verse" - poetry which doesn't rhyme- as in the sample you quoted.
I liked that - I much prefer "unrhyming" poetry.
(Is "unrhyming" a word?)
Other poets who wrote Free Verse, that I know of (I'm not very well-up in this) are Robert Graves and Walt Whitman.
Daughter has texted - meeting up at 11.30am tomorrow at the park!

Robert Frost described free verse as "like playing tennis with the net down".

I wrote a poem once (in a dream!) to illustrate

Most free verse
Is ordure or worse
Like dog dirt, which oughter
Be cleaned up, as it carries diseases such as Toxocara

I've just found where I wrote my "dream poem" down. It had a better (and more accurate!) last line

Be cleaned up, as it causes diseases such as Toxocariasis

Good morning, Elle!
Lovely frosty morning here!
A few years ago I read about Sassoon meeting Wilfred Owen at Craiglockart Hospital, Edinburgh.
I had not heard of him until then.
Now, "poetry" and "Free Verse" have prominent places on my list of "Things I Know Very Little About"!
It is quite a long list!
Now I noticed that the poem did not rhyme but did not know that was called Free Verse.
Always learning!
Two golds for GB at cycling last night.
Elinor Barker and Katie Archibald in the Madison ( the "holding hands race" as Elinor calls it!)
And the men's pursuit team won, too.
Hope you have a nice time with your family, Elle!

Good morning, Rusty!
Cold and wet here!
My daughter has chickened out of the planned walk, as weather being "unfit"!
Instead, my husband, dog and I shall go out as planned (about midday) and the nesh part of the family will come over here at 2pm, in time for our return.
(Note use of word "nesh"!)
All we need are padded coats and walking boots/ wellies - and perhaps gloves!
I rather like "unrhyming" poetry, but am not well versed
(Sorry, couldn't resist the play on words....)
Your cycling events seem to have gone well!
ATP tennis today if you are interested?
Although I do not know who is playing?
A good Everyman today!



Hello, Chris!
Poetry about tapeworms?
(I doubt you will qualify as one of the great "Romantics"!)
I like Free Verse......