Helen McCarthy
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glider.bsky.social
Helen McCarthy
@glider.bsky.social
3.2K followers 1.1K following 7.3K posts
Glider in the night, dancer in the dark, lover of lost rivers and paths in the woods and libraries and half-open doors. Moonlights as a writer.

All images and poems mine unless credited elsewise. AI is only acceptable if it's consensual.
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glider.bsky.social
Somewhere people are arguing over whether you put the jam or the cream on the scone first; here it's a case of how highly spiced you want your scone and whether you prefer mango chutney or lime pickle.
November 11, 2025 at 5:18 PM
glider.bsky.social
I love that @irishali13.bsky.social reposted this glorious Chagall sketch. But with my costumer's hat on it takes me back to all the times designers would come into the workroom with one of these and expect us to make it into fully functioning dance costumes that wouldn't slip or reveal all onstage.
Marc Chagall, costumes for 'Daphnis et Chlöe', designed for the Paris Opera Ballet production set to the music of Maurice Ravel and choreographed by George Skibine. A young man and woman sketched in Greek drapery and flower garlands of red, green and purple on a beige ground, with a small figure resembling a satyr wearing a green curly wig with horns and playing a pair of auloi. The aulos is a Greek reed pipe seen in many classical images and often played as a pair, creating the appearance of a single forked instrument unless one looks closely.
October 26, 2025 at 12:38 PM
glider.bsky.social
I remember when The Sun was a real campaigning newspaper - but it still has away with a nudge, a wink and a killer headline.
October 18, 2025 at 1:09 PM
glider.bsky.social
The sheer magic overload of Ryde's #ChristmasImaginarium made me six years old again. Located near the pier and the epic comic shop #FantasticStore - so convenient for carting your shopping back to the ferry!
Fabulous kings and legendary heroes - a whole brigade of nutcracker toys in Ryde's Christmas Imaginarium. The larger nutcracker toys stand on the floor, glittering in uniforms or red and blue and green, with fur shakoe hats or golden crowns. Christmas fantasies of all kinds - gingerbread houses, mechanical toys, oh my! An Angel of Peace amid Santas, robins, snowmen and kings.
October 12, 2025 at 9:03 AM
glider.bsky.social
I just can't get over how beautiful the Bangor coast and countryside are. Or how lovely the people are. Or how good the food is.
A huge old tree in Strickland Glen, many-branched and surrounded by woodland that filters the sunlight into dancing, magical patterns. Gorse in full golden-yellow bloom along the coast, looking down Belfast Lough to the sea on a perfect blue-and-golden day.
October 2, 2025 at 1:28 PM
glider.bsky.social
Hello my darling butterflies - I hope your weekend is as beautiful as it can be and leaves you feeling as contented as these adorable pigs, living the life of Riley at the Ulster Folk Museum.
Two beautiful pigs enjoying the life all pigs should have in their own natural space with water, shelter and lovely mud to wallow in if it gets too hot. The Ulster Folk Museum is home to animals as well as buildings. They live as farm animals used to, in natural surroundings with plenty of space to behave however they like. Pigs are social animals and these two are enjoying another lovely quiet day in an open field with hedges to keep Museum visitors at a distance and food, water and shelter close at hand.
September 27, 2025 at 12:23 PM
glider.bsky.social
Jonathan Freedland's brilliant Guardian opinion piece has this photo and the reminder that #NigelFarage thinks #VladimirPutin is fab and that #LizTruss 's economy wrecker was a great Budget.
#Clacton MP #NigelFarage smiling at the camera and wearing a MAGA baseball cap at a Donald Trump rally in the US on 4 November 2024.
September 20, 2025 at 9:54 PM
glider.bsky.social
This is a good day to watch a film that says don't give in to fascism. Maybe stream it on a big background, like the walls of Windsor Castle?
Japanese poster for Studio Ghibli's film Porco Rosso. the lower half of the image shows a closeup of the cockpit of a scarlet plane with the pilot, a flying ace in beige jacket, white scarf and gloves, flying helmet and goggles on his head and sunglasses over his eyes. He has the face of a pig. He's giving a 'thumbs up' sign with his right hand. behind the plane we see white clouds and the top of the image shows a pure blue sky with the Studio Ghibli logo and name in katakana and Romaji, and the film title in large white letters.
September 17, 2025 at 9:00 AM
glider.bsky.social
Back in the day when ICE stood for something better: Iron Crown Enterprises' Tolkien game books in the Oxfam bookshop, Greenwich.
Two Iron Crown Enterprises Lord of the Rings game books offered for sale in Oxfam's Greenwich bookshop. A list of titles and prices for Iron Crown Enterprises Lord of the Rings books offered in the Ixfam Bookshop, Greenwich. Iron Crown Enterprises (I.C.E) Lord of the Rings game book with vividly painted fantasy cover in Oxfam's charity bookshop, Greenwich.
August 30, 2025 at 2:27 PM
glider.bsky.social
#SomethingBeautiful August is a great month for spotting harvest mice. These endearing rodents, less than 5cm long (though the tail more than doubles that) and weighing just a few grams, survive despite loss of habitat to humans and mechanised farming.

www.rosshoddinott.co.uk/images/uploa...
Two harvest mice on an ear of corn, their tails twined around a second cornstalk behind them for stability. The background is a soft unfocused gold, suggesting a cornfield, but the tiny, agile mice are quite rightly the centre of attention. They gaze out to the top right of the image, alert but not alarmed.
August 20, 2025 at 11:24 AM
glider.bsky.social
Hello my lovely butterflies, just a reminder that you were all born as lovable and adventurous and fascinated by life as this kitten, and on the inside you still are. Love you all.
PHOTO: Beata Miro – www.bemiro.com
Beata Miro – www.bemiro.com - took this photo of a gorgeous black-and-white kitten sitting in a brown wooden tub lined with soft white fabric. Their darling little white paws and black forelegs are resting on the rim of the tub, and their white front is visible under their white chin. Their face is black from just below the nose upwards, and they have beautiful white whiskers and pale green eyes.
August 19, 2025 at 9:48 AM
glider.bsky.social
What a greeting this morning! The garden has drunk in the rain of the last few days and made a rosy rainbow. This inspired today's #haiku over at helenmccarthy51.bsky.social
At bottom right of this picture is a gorgeous spray of soft raspberry Comte de Chambord, a beautiful multpetalled old rose with big, soft green leaves. To the left a chime of bells from penstemon Hidcote Pink, a shade or two softer and streaked inside each bell with baby pink. Bees love them. More of those in the centre of the frame, and spreading above them two sprays of pink-flushed golden Peace roses in full bloom with buds crowding among their glossy dark green leaves. A world of beauty and life on two square metres of London clay.
July 25, 2025 at 10:50 AM
glider.bsky.social
After three nights and early mornings of rain, these gorgeous navy blue petunias in pots on the front doorstep are holding up well.
Navy blue flower trumpets against bright green leaves - rain soaked petunia flowers looking glossy and gorgeous. Some of the flowers on this pot of navy blue petunias and bright green leaves stayed dry and others got wet. The difference is clear - the dry flowers look like deep soft velvet, the wet ones are shiny as satin.
July 21, 2025 at 10:18 AM
glider.bsky.social
My wish for all you beautiful butterflies this Friday: an abundance of Peace
A fully open Peace rose in a cluster of buds - flowers for days to come, against a background of glossy dark green foliage. Peace rose buds are streaked deep pink and yellow, and open with different degrees of pink tint around the edges of petals that are golden yellow at the base. The blooms fade through soft pink to pale gold. This was my mother's favourite rose and I love it too.
July 18, 2025 at 7:20 AM
glider.bsky.social
This worn plaque with its barely legible heraldic arms marks the site of the last surviving fragment of the College of Saint Mary, Cardinal Wolsey's gift to his home town, now destroyed.
Pale stone plaque worn by time and weathet, with the arms of Cardinal Wolsey's College of Saint Mary beside an inscription recording how the red brick gateway is the last surviving fragment of that huge undertaking. Wolsey's Oxford college still survives. This magnificent red brick gateway with wooden gate in the central arch is the last remnant of the College of Saint Mary, built on the lands of several priories by Cardinal Wolsey. The pale stone plaque above the gate is a carving of the College's arms, now worn by time and weather. The church just visible to the left is Saint Peter's by the Waterfront. Saint Peter's by the Waterfront has been on this site since Saxon times and was absorbed into Cardinal Wolsey's college as its chapel. The only surviving College gateway stands alongside the church.
July 17, 2025 at 11:00 AM
glider.bsky.social
The Ancient House on Ipswich's Buttermarket was built in the 15th century but tarted up in the 17th - Rover Sparrowe put on a whole new front with posh pargeting in white plaster and a flashy Royal crest sucking up to Charles II.
The corner of the Ancient House, Buttermarket, Ipswich, with dazzling white plaster pargeting covered in images on the street-facing facades of the first floor. The painted and gilded Royal crest and the motto ´Honi soit qui mal y pense' in gold on black below it, between two Ipswich windows, styled after the very fashionable Venetian windows, displaying both cosmopolitan taste and local loyalty.
July 17, 2025 at 9:26 AM
glider.bsky.social
What a treat - street food for the soul. A beautiful vacant Ipswich shop, with a secret garden leading to another ancient building otherwise obscured by a car park. St. Stephen's Lane, Ipswich. It was all I could do not to call the estate agent...
Next to the vacant shop a cobbled alleyway with white plastered walls and exposed beams leads to the enchanting hidden garden of a magical house. A shop front to let, white plaster with exposed dark beams. Who wouldn't like to keep a bookshop in such a lovely old building? The view of the shop and house from the car park next door. One plastered in pale golden cream colour, one white, both with exposed wood beams and tiled roofs. Imagine changing that car park into another garden to enhance their beauty. The interior of the shop, it's huge fireplace now occupied by a pale oak cabinet. The dark-painted stairs lead to the first floor and there's a glimpse of another white-plastered room with exposed beams beyond. The dark wood floor glows with careful polishing. How welcoming it looks!
July 17, 2025 at 9:08 AM
glider.bsky.social
This is not the first ancient church I've been privileged to speak in, but it is the first with a Tournai marble font dating from the late 1100s and adorned with the most adorable maneless lions. Possibly desert lions, as seen by crusaders and described to artists in Europe? Stunning.
July 16, 2025 at 6:04 PM
glider.bsky.social
The fabulous ancient roof of St. Peter’s by the Waterside. An early Victorian restoration hid it under plaster and it was only uncovered in 1877. More here: www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-pe...
The ancient roof of the 600-year-old Church of St. Peter by the Waterfront in Ipswich. The Domesday Survey of 1086 found a Church of St. Peter on the same site, so it is a pre-Norman foundation rebuilt in the 15th century.
July 16, 2025 at 5:54 PM
glider.bsky.social
Saint Stephen's Lane, Ipswich, with St. Lawrence's church just visible over the rooftops. St. Stephen's is out of shot to the right. The Lambretta and Twist and Shout signs on the shop to the left are beautifully incongruous - the Middle Ages rocked but didn't (AFAIK) shake it up baby.
Saint Stephen's Lane, Ipswich - a narrow mediaeval lane linking St. Stephen's Church with St. Lawrence's, whose tower czn be seen above the rooftops at top right, against a beautiful blue East Angles' summer sky dotted with fluffy white clouds.
July 16, 2025 at 4:30 PM
glider.bsky.social
Definitely wandering in my wits today! I got out three pairs of earrings to choose tonight's pair and they're still at home waiting for me. I'm out in public with naked earlobes for the first time in forever.
July 16, 2025 at 11:56 AM
glider.bsky.social
I always seem to get lucky at charity shops - gorgeous new (still tagged) vegan "leather" UCON Atmosphere backpack in red and black, the perfect size for my MacBook, £14.99. Just in time for tonight's #Ghibli talk in #Ipswich.
@helenmccarthy51.bsky.social
A black shopping bag with red and white cotton lining standing next to a pillarbox red UCON Atmosphere backpack with black webbing carry handles and fittings. The background is a pale maple coloured floor and drawer unit with silver tone brushed metal drawer pulls.
July 16, 2025 at 9:16 AM
glider.bsky.social
Good morning butterflies! Look what was waiting for me in the garden this morning: a fully open rose, my mother's favourite - Peace. Wishing you a day of many small joys.
A fully open bloom of the rise variety Peace, a classic rose shape with layers of petals opening from a tightly folded centre. The petals are a warm cream-gold lightly blushed with pink. The fragrance is delicate. A In the background you can see green foliage, mostly pointed glossy leaves of penstemon and long rounded dark green leaves arranged in rosettes on the euphorbia.
July 3, 2025 at 7:32 AM
glider.bsky.social
Isn't this enforcing an #abortion on a mother who wants to carry her child to term? How does #Christian #America feel about ICE procuring abortions? If all life is sacred before birth, this must be illegal.
July 1, 2025 at 11:59 AM
glider.bsky.social
blue and gold
swimming in the heat
fathoms deep

#haiku #haiga #highsummer #poetry
A blue sky over golden fields and green hedges, seen from the train to Cambridge.
June 30, 2025 at 12:05 PM