rocks, alright, strangers

Textures and patterns in  rocks on the Isle of Wight.

I must be acting suspiciously while waiting for my neighbour,  Peter, who gives me a lift to Sainsbury's on Sundays. I have parked my loaded trolley by the door and peer along the lines of busy checkout points to see if I can spot him. "Are you alright, sir?" asks a security guard, which is another way of saying, "What mischief are you up to, then? My camera is in my pocket, and I  am considering a photograph of the scene. Perhaps it had better stay there.

On Radio 4 I hear a travel writer called Anthony Sattin talking about his new book which is called Winter on the Nile. It traces the journey on the river in November 1849 of two very different Victorians, both of who happened to be passengers on the same boat. One was the 29 year old Florence Nightingale, yet to achieve fame as the "Lady with the Lamp" in the Crimea War. Now she was travelling with family friends to recover from a broken engagement The other was Gustave Flaubert, a year or so younger, and yet to shock the literary world with his novel, Madame Bovary. Both Nightingale and Flaubert wrote diaries and wrote letters about the trip, which the author draws on. In Flaubert's diary there is a reference to his meeting an English family among the 70 or so passengers. So Flaubert met Florence Nightingale in Egypt, a useless or, who knows,  perhaps a useful fact.