anticipation, New Year, imported

 
In the Winter sun.

At the cross roads at the top of Mount Pleasant is a notice which reads: "Chinese New Year Parade. 13 February. Expect delays 5 - 6 pm". A first for Tunbridge Wells?

Insignificant snow flakes have been blowing about the town like frenzied insects. But none has settled. Outside the town it must be different. As I walk up Mount Pleasant I see a pile of snow in the gutter that must have been shed recently by a car from the surrounding country. Walking down the hill a little later I watch as a deep wedge of snow slides off the roof of a black Mini-Cooper, which is just about to drive off. I remember how during World War 2, there was a joke or an urban myth or both, where some soldiers walking in The Strand in London were identified as Russian because of the snow on their boots.

outlet, pullover, tools

 

Vents and exits 8.

When I take off a sweater or tee shirt, I pull it from the top and tug at the sleeves, easing it up over my head so that it comes off out side out and and inside in. I have noticed that others cross their hands and pull from either side of the lower hem, and then over their heads, so that the garment finishes inside out. I ask myself, today, whether this is a technique which women rather than men use, or am I an eccentric undresser. Come to think of it, I don't think I have seen a man perform the crossed arm manoeuvre.

Interviewed on a TV programme Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon says: "We change out tools and our tools change us." As I type this blog, I think to myself, he has a point.

drain, suit, tropics

 

Vents and exits 7.

Somebody has left a dinner jacket (tux) and a pair of evening trousers on a
hanger hooked to the door of the Mind charity shop, which is closed, it being Sunday. What looks like cigar ash is smeared on the right shoulder of the jacket. But it should brush off if anybody is interested in using it right away.

Crossing Little Mount Sion, I meet D and A. D is 80 and is recovering well from a recent heart by-pass operation. He has felt the cold, he says, since he came out of hospital, but then it has been cold. They have just been out to lunch, they say. They switched off the heating to economise while they were out, which Denzil regrets. "Never mind," says A, "We'll switch it on again, when we get in. And in five minutes it will be as hot as the tropics.

chicken, hoover, Monty

 

Fast food and architecture.

As I walk down Mount Sion I pass a man staggering up the hill. He is hugging a vaccuum cleaner. He must have been to the specialist shop on the corner of London Road and The High Street. You have to live here to be able to make such deductions.

A couple walk past the dress shop on the narrow pavement by the pedestrian crossing in the Frant Road. The man hurries on because the pavement is crowded. "Monty..." says his wife, "...Monty..." but he hurries on. "Monty," she calls this time successfully, and Monty turns back to join his wife, as together they block the pavement to consider an item of clothing in which he has, at best, a vicarious interest.

outlook, tips, untidiness

 
Vents and exits 6.

Vents and exits 6

After snow and icy winds and grey rainy days, a splash of sunshine illuminates the minute, red buds of a maple in The Grove. Buds? You have to look twice, but they are buds.

Through the basement window of a house, which I pass every day, I note a scene of domestic untidiness which appeals to my worst nature. The truth is that I am fundamentally an untidy person but one who has reformed to the point that he often overdoes tidiness, knowing where untidiness can lead. Through the basement window I see stacks of papers, books, upended furniture, electronic gear. Not a square centimetre of floor space is free. Both a nightmare and a fantasy world. I have an old friend who lives like that. She is afraid to put anything away in a drawer or cupboard in case she forgets where it is, and wanders among her possessions, scattered but on view, like a lost child in fairyland, always in search of something.

extractor, abandoned,reprimand

 

Vents and exits 6.

Today I finished reading Romain Gary's autobiographical account of his youth and early manhood. Half way through he describes how a girlfriend descends on him and his mother to demand that he marry her. Her reason?
'"He made me read Proust, Tolstoy and Dostoievsky," declared the unfortunate girl, with a look to break your heart. "What will become of me?
'She was right. I had made her swallow the whole of Proust, blow by blow,and for her that was as if she had already made her wedding dress. God forgive me. I had even made her learn by heart passages from Thus Spake Zarathustra. She was not properly speaking pregnant, but I had, all the same, put her in an interesting condition."

Outside Hall's bookshop I pick up a book called Austerlitz. I want to see if it is a copy of the novel of that name by W. Sebald, or a history of the the Battle of Austerlitz. I note that it is the latter and replace the book where I found it, horizontally on top of a row of books displayed upright on the open shelves. I half notice ,though,as I put it back, that the title is facing in the wrong direction. "Good afternoon," says the lady on today's rota in the shop. She has popped out for a smoke. "I respond with a comment on the improved weather. She laughs as though I am being too optimistic. "Well," I say defensively, "It's better than it has been. "I was only laughing", she says because this is the third time today that I have turned this book round the right way".

holes, blue blood, outside

Vents and exits 5.

The blood of snails, spiders and octapuses is blue . The colour is derived from the copper which is an ingredient . I learn this curious fact from Professor Jim Al Kahlili's account of the The Periodic Table, on BBC 4. The programme describes how the 92 elements, (of which we and everything else are composed) were discovered;  how the table came into being; and its contents arranged. Its internal logic is beautiful and mind-teasing.
.
There is a tall, elderly lady, whom I see  most afternoons  outside The Grove Tavern.  She has a cigarette in one hand and a large glass of white wine in the other. She is someone who enjoys life and is not going to let anything like a smoking-ban in bars, interfere with her pleasures.  There is usually a chair for her on the pavement outside the pub, but this afternoon she has to to stand with her wine and smoke in the drizzle.
"Where's you chair?" I say. 
"It's broken," she says.
"They should get you a new one."
"The govenor, Steve, says not to worry. He will."
 And I'm sure he will. There is something warm and welcoming about The Grove and its drinkers. It's what pubs are about. Or used to be.