Robbie Cheadle's Blog, page 12

Robbie’s Inspiration – My poem, Together we stand, on Hotel by Masticadores

Thank you to Michelle from Hotel by Masticadores for sharing my poem, Together we stand, and related cake art.

Together We Stand (rensaku)by Robbie Cheadle

Robbie’s Inspiration – Thursday Doors: Inside the Imperial Palace Gardens, Tokyo #photography #Tokyo

Last week, I took you on a short visual tour around the outskirts of the Imperial Palace Gardens. If you missed it, you can find that post here: https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/2025/01/09/robbies-inspiration-thursday-doors-outside-the-imperial-palace-gardens-tokyo-and-coffee-at-smorgasbord/

This week, we are going through the gates I included in last week’s post.

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2025/01/16/around-hartford-thursday-doors-jusjojan/

This is the Doshin Bansho Guardhouse, one of three guardhouses that survived from the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603 – 1867). Doshin is a reference to the low ranking samurai who manned this guardhouse. Their job was to check visitors to the castle and to keep watch over the retinues of the feudal lords as they waited for their masters to return from inside the bonmaru complex.

Close up of the door to the Doshin Bansho Guardhouse:

Picture caption: Trees inside the walls of the gardenPicture caption: I thought these yellow leaved trees were very prettyPicture caption: an interesting light post in the gardensPicture caption: I loved this beautiful red leaved treePicture caption: trees surrounding a pond inside the gardenPicture caption: Another picture of the beautiful trees around the pondPicture caption: A lovely waterfall near the pondPicture caption: Suwa No Chaya Teahouse inside the garden (built in 1912)Picture caption: Tokagakudo Concert Hall, designed to evoke the shape of a clematis flower

I hope you enjoyed this mini tour.

If you are interested, this is my video of the waterfall and pond inside the gardens:

This is my video of the Edo ruins inside the garden:

Robbie’s Inspiration – Treasuring Poetry: Meet poet and author, Dave Williams, and a review

Today, I’m delighted to introduce poet and Author, Dave Williams. I have read a few of Dave’s novels and enjoyed his dark humour tremendously. Dave’s poetry is just a big a treat.

thanks for hosting, Kaye Lynne Booth

Treasuring Poetry – Enjoying poetry with Dave Williams and a review of Gasp! Poetry! #TreasuringPoetry #bookreview #poetry

Robbie’s Inspiration – Pure haiku and Sunday Stills: Jigokudani monkey park, Japan #poetry #photography

Talented poet and author, Freya Pickard, has shared the first of my haiku for her Pure Haiku – Ghost Owl Face series.

You can read my poem here: https://purehaiku.wordpress.com/2025/01/14/1-3-4/

Sunday Stills – Snow is white

Terri’s Sunday Stills challenge is white and I am sharing my snow pictures from Japan. No snow here in South Africa – smile!

These pictures were taken at the Jigokudani monkey park in Japan.

The following photographs are snowy scenes from our hike up the mountain to the thermal spa where the monkeys bathe:

The next three photographs are of the snow monkeys:

You can join in Sunday Stills here: https://secondwindleisure.com/2025/01/12/sunday-stills-monthly-color-challenge-a-whiter-shade-of-pale/

Robbie’s Inspiration – Syllabic poetry Spin the Bottle #poetry #ekphrastic #syllabic

Colleen Chesebro has brought her Tanka Tuesday challenge to an end and I am wanting to practice my syllabic poetry writing skills. To this end, I have decided to write and publish a ‘Spin the Bottle’ syllabic ekphrastic poem once a week on a Sunday. Naturally, I will also be using this opportunity to share information with you about South African flora and fauna – smile!

If you would like to join in and practice syllabic poetry with me, please leave a link to your poem in the comments and I will visit. I won’t be doing a round up post like Colleen did as I just don’t have time, but I would love to see what you write and I encourage other poets to follow the links too.

For this first poem, my picture inspiration is as follows:

Picture caption: This is my watercolour painting for January of a strelitzia or Bird of Paradise flower.

This is what Wikipedia says about this flower:

“Strelitzia /strɛˈlɪtsiə/[3] is a genus of five species of perennial plants, native to South Africa. It belongs to the plant family Strelitziaceae.[4] A  of the genus is bird of paradise flower/plant, because of a resemblance of its flowers to birds-of-paradise. In South Africa, it is commonly known as a crane flower.”

I have chosen to write a Seox poem which Colleen describes as follows:

“The word seox in Anglo Saxon means six. This is a verse form written in 6 lines in keeping with its name. Form created by Ann Byrnes Smith. The elements of the Seox: a poem written in six lines, a hexastich, 3-7-6-5-4-3 syllables per lines. Unrhymed.” You can find Colleen’s example here: https://tankatuesday.com/tanka-tuesday-poetry-cheat-sheet-for-tanka-tuesday-poetry-challenges-2/#seox

January

Overnight

January came about

A new year to enjoy

Fresh stories to write

On this blank page

Full of hope

Sunflower Tanka

A reminder that the Sunflower Tanka is now available as an ebook and a paperback from Amazon (Amazon US purchase link: https://www.amazon.com/Sunflower-Tanka-Anthology-Prose-Experimental-ebook/dp/B0DPVJD2PC

This is my digital music and art rendition of my poem, Jacaranda Blue, from Sunflower Tanka:

Robbie’s Inspiration – Thursday Doors – Outside the Imperial Palace Gardens, Tokyo and coffee at Smorgasbord

For Dan Antion’s Thursday Doors challenge I am sharing photographs from my recent trip to Tokyo, Japan. These are pictures of outside the Imperial Palace Gardens. I walked from the hotel to the gardens on my first day in Tokyo. It was rather exciting as very few Japanese people speak English and I had to find my way there and back (which was about 12,000 steps and quite a few roads and crossings) on my own with Google Maps. Have you ever noticed that Google Maps isn’t that clear about where you must turn? Next week I’ll probably let you through the gate – smile!

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2025/01/09/runaround-prepare-the-badges

Picture caption: Reflections of the skyscrapers in the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace GardensPicture caption: Reflections of a traditional gate house in the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace GardensPicture caption: One of the gates to the Imperial Palace GardensPicture caption: Close up of the doors into the Imperial Palace GardenPicture caption: Picture of trees in the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace GardensPicture caption: A nice contrast picture of the skyscrapers on one side of the moat and the gardens on the otherPicture caption: The bridge crossing the moat around the Imperial Palace GardensPicture caption: Japanese topiary garden outside the Imperial Palace GardensPicture caption: This picture was taken later on the far side of the Imperial Palace Gardens because I came out the wrong gate and had to walk all the way around.

Talented author and blogger, Patty Fletcher, kindly invited me to be her coffee guest over at the lovely Sally Cronin’s blog, Smorgasbord. I was very touched by Patty’s kind words. You can read this post here: https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2025/01/08/smorgasbord-coffee-morning-authors-bloggers-patty-fletcher-and-her-guest-robbie-cheadle/

Robbie’s Inspiration – Reblog: Cook and Read on Writing to be Read #bookreview #recipe

Welcome to the first Cook and Read post of 2025. Today, I am reviewing A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute and sharing a delicious recipe for Peach Chicken.

Thanks for hosting, Kaye Lynne Booth.

Cook and Read – My review of A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute and Peach Chicken #CookandRead #fiction

Robbie’s Inspiration – my poem, Elephant’ on MasticadoresUSA

My thanks to Barbara, editor of MasticadoresUSA, for sharing my poem and painting, Elephant

“Elephant” by Robble Cheadle

Robbie’s Inspiration – Lion photography on Chewers by Masticadores

Thank you to Nolcha Fox from Chewers by Masticadores for sharing my lion photographs. These pictures were taken at Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa.

Lion Photography by Robbie Cheadle

Robbie’s Inspiration – Tanka Tuesday, a haiga, and Christmas #poetry

Thank you to Melissa from Mom with a blog for hosting this week’s Tanka Tuesday. You can join in Tanka Tuesday here: https://tankatuesday.com/2024/12/24/tankatuesday-poetry-challenge-haiga-12-24-24/

You can find the talented Melissa here:

This is Melissa’s challenge:

Haiga (俳画) is a refined visual art of combining brush painting, haiku, and calligraphy. A traditional haiga requires all three of these elements. Just as haiku succeeds by creating space and energy in the relationship of its two juxtaposed parts, haiga creates interest through the “leap” or even disjunction between the poem and the painting (the painting is typically not just an illustration of the poem, nor is the poem a caption for the image).

Here is mine:

Post-Christmas fatigue

Couch beckons enticingly

Rejuvenation

Post-Christmas fatigue

Couch beckons enticingly

Rejuvenation

Christmas at my house is always chaos and food filled.

This is all the food we consumed:

Picture caption: Dad made the roast potatoes (you would have thought there was no other food – he was very proud of himself – haha!)Picture caption: Roast chickens with sausage (pork) stuffing made by mom. Beef stout pie and Greek slow roast lamb made by me.Picture caption: Mexican avo and tomato salad (recipe from Lorraine at Now quite Nigella blog), beetroot, mixed peppers and cucumber and pineapple salads from my SIL and MIL.Picture caption: My Christmas pavlova fruit wreath. Idea curtesy of Lorraine from Not quite Nigella (you can find her blog here: https://www.notquitenigella.com/

Sister #4 made a trifle but I didn’t get pictures. She served it while I was still assembling my dessert so it was half eaten when I got there.

Sister #2 was late to the food request party so she got off the hook with contributing.

Sister #3 slung her hook to the Drakensberg Mountains and missed all the fun.

I hope you had a wonderful festive seasons.

I nearly forgot. This is my table and lights display. I love lights!

Picture caption: My table (mom did the cloths and overlays) with my American light cable in the background.Picture caption: My Christmas chaos tree with new lights.Picture caption: Lights above my antique treasure cabinet. If you look carefully, you will see my new hand painted Japanese fans in a row on the bottom shelf against the back. Picture caption: More lights! My mom says I’ve become very American – haha! My African beaded flamingo was happy to be a lights centre piece.