pink, trained, gentleness

Under the horse chestnuts, the largely white, individual petals from the "candles" are stained with the sort of pink, you associate with sweeties and party frocks.

At the edge of the curb, an over zealous spaniel, its front paws stretched out, lies, rather than sits down, at its owner's word, before crossing the road.

A gentle rain today, so gentle you don't get wet, a sweet rain.

Laburnam, rhubarb, wind

When I was a child I used to climb into a laburnam tree in my grandparent's garden. Now, as I do today, when I look at the yellow tresses among the pale green leaves, I can see and feel the black trunk where you could sit comfortably and watch grown ups below.

If you don't like eating rhubarb, and refrain from cutting down the flowering stems, you can enjoy looking at the big leaves and majestic, cream-coloured inflorescences.

A rough and busy wind has torn off horse chestnut blossoms and sprays of leaves in the Grove.

definitions, flowers and fruit, visitors

As part of my pleasure in reading French, I have recently started to translate favourite passages, which seem relevant to my way of thinking just now. Two passages have come together. One is from the novel Gros Câlin about a man who lived in Paris with a python. The other is the first two verses of the poem on the art of poetry by Paul Verlaine. Both, in an odd way, seem to make the same point, though I didn't realize it when I started on the exercise.
The novel is told in the first person, by the protagonist, a young man, who seems quite lost and out of touch with other people, but whose eccentricty has a consistent and often surprising logic of its own.
He says at one point: "I often use expressions of which I am cautious about recognising the meaning, because there, at least, some possibilites remain. It is a part of my philosophy. I always look into the background of expressions, because there, at least, you can believe that something different is intended".

Verlain's poem opens:
Music before everything:
In its empire, prefer what is irregular,
Hazy, primed to melt in air
Where all is free and weighs nothing.

In choice of words avoid the hard and clear
And hold nothing more dear
Than the grey song of shades
Where well-defined and vague concur.

I note more flowers and fruit on trees, usually defined by their leaves. Lime tree flowers are now in bud, each flower attached, one might almost say welded, by its stem to the leaf-like wing, on which, in time, it will be ferried in the autumn wind. Then there is the maple fruit, with its twin, green, pink-tinted blades, more heavy duty and propeller-like than the delicate fruit of the ornamental acer (also of the maple family) that I photographed the other day.

hanging clematis, coming and going, sweet cicely

A clematis montana rubens has clambered up into some trees in a back garden. A long stem has fallen from the branches. It hangs down, two or three meters without flowers, then at the bottom, a wreath of the little pink flowers, sways gently in the breeze.

I pass a stately, elderly couple on my way into town. They have loose clothing and a guide book and both wear straw hats. They look relaxed as they walk towards the Grove obeying instructions in the book. On my way back through Calverley Park, I see them again, walking in the opposite direction. I find myself hoping that they have not been disappointed and that they will tell someone in a post card or on the telephone how much they have enjoyed Tunbridge Wells.

In someone's front garden I spot a sweet cicely plant. For as long as I can remember this early flowering herb, with its fern-like leaves and flowers in close, white umbels, has grown in my own garden, where years ago I planted it long ago. It smells of aniseed. Its leaves are said to be slightly sweet, and may be used as a substitute for sugar. It is pleasing to see it in another garden, a bit like coming across an old friend, unexpectedly at a party.

Acer fruit

petition, acer, asparagus

A British bulldog looks on while a photograph of Winston Churchill presides over a stall where passers-by are invited to sign a petition against the introduction of identity cards. Winston Churchill, we are reminded, abolished identity cards, which were introduced during the World War 2, when the war was over.

There is a dark red acer near the entrance to Calverley Grounds. I note little green, winged fruit, less than two centimeters from tip to tip, among the feathery, palmate leaves. They comprise the winged seeds common to members of the maple family, which spin through the air later in the year. These pretty fruit, for that is what they are, are beautifully designed. There are two wings, pink at the upper edges and green where they join the thin brown stem. At the junction there a small swelling where, through the transparent membrane, you can see the single, as yet, unripe seed.

In the Farmers' Market there is an asparagus stall - bundles of stems in three degrees of thickness, starting with the thin sprue, freshly cut with the promise of fine, green flavours, their slightly purple heads waiting for melted butter. A photographer, who is patrolling the market, his camera at the ready, has a bunch sticking out of the pocket of his jacket.

extremes, viridian, hoop and squirrel

Under a tree, a group of young people sprawl deep in conversation. One wears a dark grey, hooded top with the the words "extreme music for extreme people"printed on the back.

I look for a colour word for the dark, blueish green of the feathers just above the tail of magpies. you normally think of magpies as merely black and white, but they deserve a closer look. Viridian, I think, where it meets winsor blue on the palette. Unpopular, thuggish birds, magpies; but their arrogance impresses.

In the Grove I hear a squirrel quacking ( I can't think of a better word, though a duck might object to the association) in a holly tree. It sits there quacking but I can't see a reason for the din. Then I notice a child's white hoop hanging among the branches. I have heard squirrels make this noise before, and I am sure that it is nothing to do with the hoop. But the image remains; a squirrel and a white hoop in a holly tree.

new words, composition, prolific rose

The gardener across the road enquires after my heath. "They don't call them operations any more," he says. "They call them 'procedures'".

Have you noticed how animals, people, objects arrange themselves in fields as you pass in the train? Three crows in a diagonal line; or one crow who thinks he's god; a group of cows all pointing the same way in one corner, the rest of the field empty; a pod of sheep; one man and a dog like a yo-yo running off and coming back.

Last autumn, being a little incapacitated, I crudely amputated the shoots of a climbing rose rather that tying them to the wall as I should have done. Now my brutality is rewarded by more deep crimson, heavily scented roses than ever before. And you can almost see the branches making up for lost time, as they push towards the sky.

Holly blue, clothes dance, guess who

A holly blue butterfly hovers round the hedge in out garden. The book, which I use to identify it says that the adults drink "honeydew, sap and juices of carrion".

From the platform of Sevenoaks station, I watch one of those circular, rotating clothes airers, which you unfold and erect in gardens. Partly hidden by shrubs, the clothes which are drying on it, in the stiff wind, resemble people engaged in an endless circular dance. Round and round they go, crowding and pushing one another as in the hokey-cokey.

In the train today a group of young people play a guess-who game. Each has a label stuck on his or her forehead with the name of a person or thing, and has to ask the others question to find out what identity they have been given - a jolly train.

leaves, catkins, brakes

It strikes me as I watch the countryside from the train that trees in leaf, uplifting as they are, have their downside. They hide the secret places of their trunks and branches as well as the fuller view of fields, hedgerows and hillsides, which you have from the train in winter.

In the corner of the Grove, the the big oak is shedding its long catkins, they fly in the breeze more or less vertical, and form little piles and drifts on the paths.

The melancholy sound of heavy duty brakes comes up from the London road as a lorry approaches the roundabout, the terrestrial equivalent of a whale.

parrot tulips, old walk, litter

This morning, a sunbeam , on a vase of parrot tulips, spotlights just one of the lacy red and green flowers .

From the train, I see the top of a slope where I used to walk through a wood above the Darenth valley. It is now the route of a two-lane carriageway.

Litter on the door mat? Not litter, wisteria petals.

bells, wisteria, ferns

The sound of church bells, not so often heard nowadays, drifts across the town.

This morning, through the glass panel of the front door, I am greeted by trails of wisteria.

A fern appears, its new fronds curled like green springs.

soloman's seal, street scene, large coffee

From the downstairs window this morning, I wonder at the drooping green and white bells of soloman's seal polygonatum. The leafy stems have have shot up quickly this year. Or perhaps so much else has been going on that I haven't noticed them. Solomon's seal again at the farmers market, and along side it, though in no way related, dicentra, whose pink and white blooms, different in structure, also hang from long stems, like bells. Its common name is bleeding heart.

In the centre of the town, a bearded man is manoeuvring a large street cleaner, with rotating brushes behind and two headlamps in front. It sweeps and sucks up cigarette ends and other litter. Above the pedestrian way, formerly the beginning of Calverley Road, a banner announces a £75.00 fine for anybody discarding litter on the street including chewing gum. At the entrance to Calverley Road, two men in yellow gilets stand around. Their badges proclaim them to be "street scene enforcement officers".

Outside Costa, Heidi brings me the biggest cup of coffee I have ever seen. "That's a large one," she says. It is like those big mugs you sometimes see in France or Belgium for cafe au lait, except that this one has two handles like ears, very comforting.

earthworms, Lord Bute, new leaves

While I am preparing the soil for sowing seed, a female black bird gathers earthworms, fillets them tidily, and makes a bundle of the fillets in her beak.

Last year a pelargonium called Lord Bute, which I had in a pot, barely flowered and when it did, I managed to break off the flowering stems, by clumsy watering. I trimmed it back and wintered it in the greenhouse, where it seems to have flourished. Today, I bring it back to the garden where, although a little leggy, it is showing off more dark crimson and carmine blooms than I would ever have thought possible.

A gentle breeze stirs the new, fresh green leaves on the lime tree, which, for the first time this season, make a hushing sound; "shush, shush.."

watering trees, poppies, raindrops

Yesterday in the Grove, gardeners pump water from a tank into strips of hose, which have been sunk into the earth at the foot of saplings planted a couple of years ago. They turn the earth over with a fork to eliminate competition from weeds.

Small orange poppies pop up at random in the vegetable garden, their petals the colour of barley sugar.

This morning raindrops on the leaves outside the window. The first for two or three weeks. I think with pleasure of the seedlings and newly sown seeds in the vegetable garden, which I have been watering for the last week or so in the absence of rain.

up-to-date, near enough, hazel down

"This is the time. This is contacts. This is you." A woman explains her mobile telephone to her mother. "Much more up-to-date than mine," says the mother.

Scientists, I read, have discovered a planet, not much bigger than Earth, covered in oceans, and only 20.5 million light years away.

At this time of year hazel down floats on the wind like swarms of pale insects. They form little piles and drifts. On a cobweb, the combination of silver threads and white down looks like the milky way.

moon, llamas, wall

A dandelion clock is one way of describing the pale sphere of the full moon in broad daylight.

From the train window, you can see on the left between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks, a field of llamas.

A big panel swings from a crane high above a building site. One day someone will lean against the wall, which is not yet in place, or stick a photo or a poster on it.

fritillaries, banknotes, charlock

Snake's head fritillaries grow in a shady flowerbed. The pale buds hang forward modestly as though not aware of the striking, spotted flowers they will become.

In the bank, the rustle of bank notes drowns the rustle of spring.

Two charlock or wild mustard plants grow in the corner of a wall and adoining pavement. It is a plant you usually think of in hedgerows and fields. Its yellow flowers look lost and dejected.

food novel, tidying, balloon

I have just finished Emile Zola's novel Le Ventre de Paris. I read it slowly and with great enjoyment. It is the story of Florent, a political convict who has escaped from Devil's Island and returned to Paris soon after the completion of the Les Halles food market, in the 1860s. He takes refuge in the house of his brother, who is a charcutier and his sister-in-law, la belle Lisa. The story takes us through Florent's return to political activity and the growing clash of temperament and personality with the well fed and contented stall holders and tradesmen in the market. It tracks the growing hostility of Lisa ,who sees her livelihood and comfortable existence threatened by the presence her brother-in-law. Typical of a number of set pieces, where the descriptions of the market and its attendant trades are skillfully woven into the plot, is one, where Florent describes his escape with a friend. The scene is the kitchen of the charcuterie. His brother and assistants are making black pudding. His niece, a girl of nine is sitting on his knee by the fire and asks him to tell her the story of "the man who gets eaten by wild animals". Lisa is sewing. It is Florent's friend who was eaten by wild animals. But he tells the whole story, where he himself nearly dies of starvation, in the third person. It is hard to know which is more gruesome - the story of his ordeal in the jungle or the preparation of the boudin. As he tells the story, jugs of pigs blood are brought into the kitchen and onions are fried in giants saucepans on the stove; the blood is stirred into the onions, and the sausage mixture stuffed into pigs' intestines and curled up like a hose for further cooking. The contrast between the tall, emaciated and essentially gentle Florent and his plump audience is at the heart of the book.

I tidy up in the garden, cut back excesses amid burgeoning plants, and savour the smell of sap released in the sunshine.

As I sit in the garden with a cup of tea, a red balloon sails overhead. Its retaining string waives loose like a tail. It seems to know where it is going.

Lion, lily-of-the-valley, peeling

Half way up a gravel drive which I pass on my way down Mount Sion, I spot a lion lurking in some shrubs. It is a black, porcelain line from Indonesia, almost life-size, but all the better and, paradoxically, more realistic for being stylized.

Lily-of-the-valley unfurling.

Today, while peeling half a pomegranate I take a step forward in this imprecise art. I had left the fruit in the fridge over night. To my surprise, this morning, the skin came away more easily than usual from the pods of seeds. And most pleasing of all, the juice did not spurt all over the place.

gull steals car, Bulgarians, cats

A fat, sleek herring gull occupies the roof of a car, one of a line of cars parked in the High Street of St Leonards. It walks to and fro brushing, from time to time, against the aerial, which is fixed to the roof above the windscreen. It seems to have assumed ownership of the vehicle. It doesn't seem disturbed by on-lookers but appears rather to enjoy showing of its new possession.

Bulgaria seems a long way from Tunbridge Wells and Tunbridge Wells from Bulgaria, so I like the notice outside a newsagent's window, which simply asks: "Are there any Bulgarians in Tunbridge Wells? "

Cats have the capacity to stay still for a long time, without becoming bored or restless. It must be part of the instinct to lie in wait for prey. I see a cat sitting absolutely still in the window of a house. I mistake it, at first, for a china cat.

bluebells, garden, seagulls

Bluebells need shade, which is why, for the most part, they grow in woods. But sometimes you see them round the bowl of a single tree, where they survive like blue shadows.

From the train train window the countryside looks to me like a garden. Hawthorn, also known as May, because of the month in which it usually flowers, is already draping the hedgerows with white. Despite the speed of the train, I identify: primroses, wood anemones, ramsons or wild garlic, stitch wort, gorse and of course bluebells in the woods.

I watch seagulls glide into the wind above the front in Hastings. They ride into the wind overhead, until they almost come to a halt, before wheeling and swooping away. As I watch the gulls, I see, through the glass door of the restaurant outside which we are sitting, a gull of a pale milky colour, almost ghost-like. It is the reflection of a gull in the glass, a strange contrast, but one which for confused me for a few seconds.

bouquet, down, raptor And photos

Ego

Trunk line

In the a crack between two paving stones in a neighbouring front garden, presented as a bouqet: a group of bluebells, a dandelion flower and a dandelion clock.

Down from hazel and other trees begins to float on the wind abovethe vegetable garden.

As I sit outside looking up at the afternoon sky, I see what must be a raptor - a sparrow hawk perhaps - circling, without once moving its wings, on a thermal, high above the edge of the town. It disappears. A few minutes later, I see it again patroling the same patch of sky. I go indoors to fetch my field glasses, but it seems to have gone for good.

flowering cherry, less, changing language

Half way up the hill, a massive flowering cherry spreads its white clouds of blossom and disperses its amazing scent.

Can I help you? I doubt it. I doubt it.
Is there anything, in particular you were looking for?
There was, but I have forgotten what;
A troubling need lurked, but is no more.
You are fortunate then, and richer for having less.

In an office I overhear: '"How are you? " "Good, thank you!"'

fine weather voices, blooms, water

An exchange of voices in Mount Sion drifts through the hedge to where I sit in our little garden on this warm and peaceful day: " ...Fine. You alright? Beautiful!"

Wisteria
Suddenly, their scent,
Heavy blooms; their sharp shadows
On the white-washed wall.

Water sprays out and drums where it falls from the rose of my watering can.

sun-down poem, policeman, ranunculus

As a result of quoting a poem here, which I thought I was alone in knowing and liking, someone who apparently shares my taste for it, has been in touch. This is a good example of the pleasures of the Internet and of blogging. Sam Thurston writes: "I have loved that poem (I heard a noise and wished for a sight) for over 40 years ever since I read it in the same volume you did when I was 21." His full comment and the poem, as quoted, are in my archive for Sunday April 1. (See column on right).Thank you Sam for getting in touch.

In the Pantiles, a community policeman passes the time of day with the owner of a cafe. They are a new breed, these police community support officers. He has a , pedal bike with a yellow saddle bag and the inscription "police" printed on it in black letters. He seems well equipped for the job. He wears a ridged, grey crash helmet and a yellow, sleeveless jacket. There are pockets and pouches everywhere, a telephone on his shoulder, a dynamo and powerful light on his bike. Without all this paraphernalia, you would barely notice him, a middle aged man in spectacles merging in with the crowd.

A friend brings a couple of ranunculus flowers , one bright yellow and one bright red. Their tight balls of petals seem far removed from the simple and often invasive buttercup, which is the familiar wild flower at the heart of the Ranunculacae family. Only the toothed leaves remind you of the connection.

early thistle, wooden tulips, raising hats

The early stages of a giant thistle: I look down on and see its leaves spread out on the gravel, from which it is growing, like a green star.

In Grosvenor Road precinct, someone is selling painted wooden tulips. I do like them. But I prefer them to other artificial flowers made from silk or plastic. There is no pretence about them; they do not pretend to be tulips.

When I was a child I was taught to raise my hat to grown-ups. So, at the least encounter, off came my black and white school cap . Later, when the fashion for wearing hats had begun to fade, I still raised my hat in greeting, on the rare occasions when I wore one, whether a trilby, a bowler or something floppy in tweed. I still have the hat-raising instinct but hardly ever wear the sort of hats, which are made for raising, and there are fewer people around who would understand the greeting. Today, I see, in the distance, some oldie friends of the hat-raising culture. I think: they are too far away for a verbal greeting, so it would be ideal to raise my hat and wave it in a courteous way. But I realize that I am wearing a base-ball cap, and reflect that this is not the sort of garment that you would be expected to raise. The same goes for the beret basque, which I also wear. I reflect that these, like hats which are part of a uniform, were never intended for raising.

Blot drawing, paper chickens, surprise flowering

The English artist, Alexander Cozens (1717-86) had the idea, which is nowadays quite commonplace as an exercise for art students - to make a picture from a blot of ink, and to draw shapes over and around it. These, he found, can produce accidental forms and fresh and original images, particularly of landscapes. He wrote a book on his idea called A New Method if Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape. I knew nothing of Cozens until today when I read an article by Tom Lubbock in the Independent. The article describes just one picture by Cozens, not a landscape, but two tigers, which have been drawn from and out of a couple of fairly shapeless "blots". The picture is in Tate Britain. This sort of thing has always appealed to me. I like making drawings based on the sepia stains left by mugs of tea, and sometimes deliberately leave a mug on a sheet of paper with a drawing or doodle in mind.. But there has to be an element of chance in the exercise.

In the fashion shop called Jigsaw in Mount Pleasant, there is a window display of chickens made from wire and covered in sheets of newspaper moulded round the wire frames. The chickens are placed on an around packs of newspapers intended for recycling with the string still round them. If you look closely you can read the text.

Last year I bought at the WI Market a plant called Epimedium because I liked its variegated red and green leaves. This Spring it has spread and surprised me with pretty, pale yellow, four petalled flowers, on branched inflorescences, in surprising profusion. It has clearly found a habitat which it likes.

dandelion clocks, jogger, through the hedge

In an unkempt garden, are three perfect dandelion clocks. Their brown seed cores, show faintly through the silver balls formed of closely packed, translucent wings waiting for release. They shine like pale moons.

A panting jogger slows to a halt and walks on panting heavily. I am glad that I do not jog.

Through our hedge, while sitting in our garden, you can see people passing, better than they can see you. Invariably, though detail is hidden, you can recognise people you know, as they pass, by their gait, their pace, their posture and the way they dress. Sometimes we call out to them. Sometimes not.

alarm, defeated by bluebells, fleurs de mai

As I go outside yesterday evening to bring in the cushions from the garden, I see a blackbird scurry under some shrubs. As I get closer, he takes off, making his rapid, high pitched, alarm call. "Sorry", I say.

For some years I have tried to eradicate bluebells from the flowerbeds in our little garden. There is so little space. But the bluebells persist. I have now decided to leave them alone and look forward to their flowering, wherever and whenever they choose. They were selling bluebell plants at the WI market last week. "They're "English" said the lady behind the stall. Ours are English too. I suspect that there were bluebells here, before our house was built in the 1890s. Spanish bluebells apparently hang their blooms on both sides of the stem, exhbiting an unbecoming lack of modesty and understatement.

In the biography of Paul Verlaine by Harold Nicholson, which I found the other day in Hall's bookshop, emerges a strange fact. Verlaine, while still at school, found a tattered copy of Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Beaudelaire, abandoned in the schoolroom. He read it avidly without understanding much of it, although he was later to come under its influence. Apparently, he was to be under the impression for several years, because of its condition, that the book was called Les Fleurs de mai. I check the publication date of Les Fleurs du Mal, and find it to be 1857. Verlaine must have read his worn copy in 1862 or '63. In 1864 the author, publisher and printer were prosecuted for impropriety.

ladder, catkins, Just William

Through today's post came a notice for an exhibition of paintings and sculptures by the Catalan artist, Artur Duch, who is a friend of ours. I have always been particularly fond of his sculptures, small "table top" works for the most part, worked from iron . On the front of the fly sheet is a woman sitting on top of a ladder leaning forward her feet on the penultimate rung, her hair flying out behind. The ladder is at a slight angle and leaning against nothing, fantasy and reality nicely balanced. It is 222cm high. The exhibition is at the Roglan gallery in Barcelona, until May 13.

Silver birch catkins hang from delicate branches. They are green with small, reddish brown spots, and look like caterpillars.

On Radio 4 this afternoon is an installment of William Strikes Again by Richmal Compton. I first came across William books when, aged seven, I found them in my school library. They have never lost their freshness and gentle subversiveness, for me and, presumably, for many others because the William stories, brilliantly read by Martin Jarvis, are still heard regularly on the radio. Will William and his friends escape the fate "worse than a thousand deaths" of attending the ghastly Violet Elizabeth Bott's birthday party? We'll have to wait until tomorrow to fin out.

unplanned flowers, new leaves, picnics

In the garden, unplanned, self-seeded violets and forget-me-nots appear.

The new leaves of horse-chestnut unfold in various stages of a slow explosion. At first the little leaves hang down like spaniels' ears. In more advanced trees, they stand up framing the embryo flower or "candle", still in close bud.

The Grove, this bank holiday monday, is full of people. Children and their parents are, as usual attending to the swings, see-saws and slides. Meanwhile, groups form circles of various sizes on the grass, talking. Some people lean back or lie on their backs or on their sides. The look like petals of large, ungainly flowers.

cashew nuts, sunday sounds, shallots

It's good for a change to find an Indian restaurant with a menu quite different from the standard fare of curries and tandoori grills. A small group of restaurants, one of which is in Tunbridge Wells, specialises, instead, in the food of Kerala in southern India. On the menu are various savoury pancakes and breads. Something I had never tried before was cashew nuts fried in a spicey batter.

A fine Easter Sunday, and the sounds are different. Footsteps are more leisurely. Voices are slower and more relaxed. There is cheerfulness and occasional laughter in the air.

Shallots peeled and caramelized slowly in a saucepan, until they are soft and golden brown.

goings-on, barrage balloons, feather

With the lime tree not yet in leaf, I see some goings-on in the branches this fine afternoon, which would normally be hidden. A female starling sits on a bough making fluting noises. It is unusual to see a starling on its own; and I reflect on the decline in starling numbers, which I have read about in the papers. In a while, she is joined by a male, who, to her apparent displeasure, sets about trying to increase the starling population with her help. She is not keen to cooperate and flies off with her swain in pursuit.

In his autobiography An Interesting Life, which I am reading at the moment, the historian, Eric Hobbawm remembers (as I do) war time London with "barrage balloons tethered like herds of silver cows in the sky".

I watch a feather in the wind climb the sky, attracted by feathery clouds.

Spring, cheeping, tomatoes sprout

A collection of quotations on the subject of Spring form an eight page section of today's Independent newspaper. Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Wordsworth, T S Eliot, all the expected lines are there. But there are some, to me, new ones. I like especially Rainer Maria Rilke's
"Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems".
And to escape sentimentality, Dorothy Parker's:
"Every year back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants."

In the hedge sparrows go cheep, cheep, cheep all afternoon. It is the noise which books tell very small children that birds make. And these birds are living up to their reputation.

The tomato seeds, which I sowed in the greenhouse just over a week ago, are already seedlings.

pansies, shedding, waving

It had not occurred to me that the English word"pansy", referring to the flower of the viola family, is derived from the French word penseé, as in Pascal's Penseés. So at any rate the Oxford Dictionary maintains.

When my children were young, I used to read them a story about the north wind that boasted that it could blow so hard and with such strength that it could remove the stoutest garments from peoples' backs. The sun smiled to itself but said nothing. The wind blew and blew, but all people did was to pull their coats more tightly around them. The sun, still smiling, shone with all its warmth, and one by one, people removed their coats and undid their buttons. It is like that today, as the cold, windy, morning gives way to a still, warm afternoon.

Somebody waves to me from a passing car. I do not recognise him because it is often difficult to identify a passing car-driver when you are outside on the pavement. But I wave back, because it is always good to be greeted, and to greet.

discovery, three little policemen, matched

I visit with special pleasure a website called www.qarrtsiluni.com , where Lucy Kempton has illustrated one of my poems with some photographs, which she took in New Zealand. The photographs are beautiful and mysterious in a way, which perfectly complements the theme of the poem. Her blog is called www.box-elder.blogspot.com. It's worth visiting.

In the Grove I spot three community policemen strolling side by side. They all seem to be the same height, not very tall, I would say. Suddenly the title of a comic sketch, as yet unwritten, comes into my mind - The Three Little Policemen. Their gait is jolly and light-hearted, and I think they might at any moment, begin to dance. It's all the more apt, when I realize that one of the little policmen is in fact a little policewoman.

Fifteen years ago today I went to a party. I was a widower, who was happily resigned to remaining single. And match-making was in the air. So I was an unwilling guest. Hence my reluctance to accept the invitation. The first person I saw on entering the room was, I correctly guessed, the person intended for me. She, aware of what was going on too, and, an equally reluctant match, resolutely kept her back to me. The following Wednesday we went to a pub together. She came back for a meal, and, I'm happy to say, has stayed put ever since.

word on the mind, modest beginning, surprise

For no reason I can think of, a word comes to me as I wake up this morning. It is the french word "degingander", ( the first "g" is soft as in the "j" sound of the English word "judge"). I like it, not for its meaning - ungainly, gangling, lanky - but for its rhythm, and the way that its sound suggests so well what it describes.

On the 50p shelf outside Hall's bookshop, I pick up a biography of Paul Verlaine. Its opening words are: "It is not an easy thing to write a life of Paul Verlaine. It is not easy; and it is not quite necessary." Not a promising beginning. But then it is by Harold Nicholson, a writer of some distinction. So what the hell! It's only 50p!

A friend calls unexpectedly. He bubbles over with anecdotes and adds a little warmth to a cold day.

vineyard site, lap dog, guitar

The upper slopes of Calverley Park face south and receive the sun all day. Here, arranged on terraces, are tennis courts, a basket ball court and a croquet lawn. From the path above these sports facilities, you can look across the weald of Kent and Sussex. It always seem to be the warmest place in Tunbridge Wells. I often think these slopes are a perfect site for vineyard.

Outside a pizza restaurant in the High Street, a young man sits with a fox terrier on his lap. People stop and talk to the terrier.

In Chapel Place a man strums a guitar. A few aimless words of a song survive as the wind blows the sound away.

sun-down poem, bee, still life

I have been asking people to name their favorite poems; to be more specific the poem which, if one was ship wrecked on a desert island, one would recite to oneself as the sun goes down. Here is mine. It is an anonymous poem, which I found when I was young in volume one of a five volume anthology English verse. To the best of my knowledge, it has aroused the enthusiasm of nobody else, but it has always be one of those theraputic poems for me, in times of adversity, melancholy or even joy.

I heard a noise and wished for a sight,
I looke for life and did a shadow see
Whose substance was the sum of my delight,
Which came unseen and so did go from me.
Yet hath conceit persuaded my content
There was a substance where the shadow went.

I did not play Narcissus in conceit,
I did not see my shadow in a spring:
I saw the shadow of some worthy thing:
For as I saw the shadow glancing by,
I had a glimpse of something in mine eye.

But what it was, alas, I cannot tell,
Because of it I had no perfect view:
But as it was, by guess I wish it well
And will until I see the same anew.
Shadow or she or both or choose you whither:
Blest be the thing that brought the shadow hither.


A big, furry bumble bee announces Spring in the garden.

Through the open sash window of a basement flat, I see a pair of walking boots and a vase of tulips on the floor.

hugs, beautiful grass, experience

Teen age girls greet each other in Calverley Park with screams and hugs.

I take some photographs of a spreading tree and its shadow, and then, on an impulse, with the macro on, get a close up of a daisy. "Beautiful grass!" says a watching girl, a satirical note in her voice.

Having used my notebook in yesterday's rain, I find that the page, where raindrops dampened it, has a battered, worn look. Furniture dealers call this sort of thing "distressed", when it is done intentionally to give an appearance of age. But the page of my notebook, now dried out with faint bumps and shadows is, to my mind, best described as experienced.

goodbye hernia, motoring, reading in the rain

The surgeon writes to my GP: "Your patient has done very well following surgery. He did not really need any analgesia. The wound has healed very nicely, the repair is sound. I have therefore reassured him that all is well and he does not have any restriction on his activities. He may lift!" And lift I will, for the first time in six months.

Behind me in the main walk in the Grove, I hear what sounds like a two-stroke engine behind me. It is raining hard. Sheets of water on the new, gravel tarmac reflect sepia images of trees and grey sky. It turns out that it isn't a motor. It's small boy in an anorak , hood up, on a scooter. The scooter is fitted with a device which makes it sound like a motor. He whizzes past. If I were small boy with a scooter, I would be made very happy by a device, which made my scooter sound like motor bike.

In the rain, I meet my neighbour Michael. We stop in a shop doorway. "What are you reading? " he ask. He too is reading Zola, Paris in his case; Le Ventre de Paris, in mine. We agree on Zola's technical excellence as a novelist. The rain drives down.

feathers, portrait, leaf buds

Mist over the common this morning: the trees appear through it like feathers, soft and pale.

In the window of the picture framing shop are a variety of prints and reproductions. And one mirror. Or is it a portrait ? And if it is, of whom?

Watching leaf buds unfold. They are packed with power, charged with life. The compact, unfurled leaves of the horse chestnut look like the fingers of a clenched fist. The green is dazzling, lit by the power of rising sap. Leaves are lovely but buds are beautiful.

fishcakes, research, ice cream van

Fishcakes made with a mixture of salmon and cod. The two fish side by side waiting to be cooked are a pretty sight - pink and white. And so are the finished golden brown fishcakes.

My friend, David comes to visit us. We walk up to Monson Road where his grandmother lived as a young woman, and look at the house, now occupied by newspaper offices where she lived. The times-they-are-a-changing, we think.

Across the Grove comes the sound of an icecream van announcing its arrival. In the jingle I detect Greensleaves.

forsythia, grilling smells, worst meals

A single stem of forsythia appears in the middle of a dense lelandii (Cupressocyparis lellandii to gove it its proper name) hedge half way up Mount Sion. Lelandii is a notorious tree left untended in the suburbs. It grows tall and straggly and excludes people's light, but it is innoffensive in a hedge if kept pruned. Forythia, another feature of suburban gardens is a welcome sign of spring, showing its flowers before its leaves. It, too, can get untidy when it has flowered. But this combination is winning, a yellow flame in a green night.

Even a vegetarian might find that the smell of grilling meat, which comes to us this morning from a restaurant in the High Street, sharpens the appetite.

In the Pantiles, we bump into friends outside Ragged Trouser and, over a snack and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, talk about the worst meals we have ever had. Heidi remembers a peanut soup on the menu at a dinner party in America. Adrienne remembers choking over a dish of sea urchin eggs ( a delicacy I always thought). I enjoy the sunshine, but can't think of a "worst" meal, other than the 50-course banquet, which I once had to sit through in Hong Kong, and which was not so much bad as an embarras de richesse. A feature of it was braised turtle, which reminded me of a tortoise-shell dressing table set of my mother's. Only you had to suck the meat off. I donated it to my neighbour, a Hong Kong gastronome.

fire engine, beautiful thing, lost lake

In the window of a charity shop, I spot a battery-powered remote controlled fire engine with extending ladder. A note says: "It works." For a moment the figure 660, without a full stop after the first six, makes me think that this prodigious toy is priced at £660. But, no, says the lady in the shop, it's 660p. "My husband couldn't stop playing with it!" she says. I sympathise with him. But I decide, after some thought, to put away childish things.

Outside our house I meet a beautiful thing coming up Mount Sion. It is the wise and beautiful Clare Grant, who thought up the idea of noting three beautiful things every day, and has done so herself on her blog, www.threebeautifulthings.blogspot.com for more than two years. She now lives round the corner from us. A strange and beautiful thing is that, when I first encountered her blog, I had no idea that she lived in the same town. Asked to guess where she lived, when I first read it, I would have said San Fancisico, New York or Sydney, so fresh and "new world" was the idea. Last year Saga magazine rightly listed her in its annual list of the nation's sapient talent.

I walk through the larger of our two local parks. It is called Calverley Grounds, and unlike most parks, has steep and picturesque slopes. A bandstand and a cafe sit in the middle. Once, in the dip between the slopes, there was an ornamental lake, fed by a stream. Both lake and stream are no more. But if you walk across the grass as I did today, there is mud on the grass where once the water of the lake must have lapped.

Dylan Thomas, insect wings, hoe,

Last night while I am brushing my teeth, I hear on Radio 4 the recorded voice of Dylan Thomas reading his poem And death shall have no dominion. It takes me back 60 years. I remember attending a reading by Dylan Thomas of his and other poems at the the Institiute of Contemporary Arts in London. I was still at school. It is his voice, not so much resonant as resounding, lyrical, liquid. No Welsh accent as such, but the rhythms and intonations are Welsh. He also read, or chanted is a better word, when I heard him all those years ago, the War Song of Dinas Vawr from Thomas Love Peacock's The Misfortunes of Elphin.
"The mountain sheep are sweeter
But the valley sheep are fatter.
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter ..."
The Misfortune's of Elphin is a good humoured, ironic and witty romp in the Wales of the sixth century. It features magnificent, drunken revellers, war lords, and bards. This morning I go back to the book for the first time in 40 or 50 years and find that it is still as funny and charming as ever.
Here's an example at random:
Elphin and Teithrin stood some time on the floor of the hall before they attracted the attention of Seithenyn, who during the chorus was tossing and flourishing his golden goblet. The chorus has scarcely ended when he noticed them immediately and roared aloud: "You are welcome all four.
Elphin answered " We thank you. We are but two".
"Two or four," said Seithenyn, " all is one."

The sun picks out transparent wings as an insect dances on the window.

We are visited by the owners of a shop, which specialises in garden antiques and gardening and cookery books. They are interested in buying a jardiniere, for which we have no use. We agree a price and they say they will throw in an ancient but sturdy draw hoe, which I saw in their shop and had set my mind on. It will encourage me to keep my vegetables neat and weed free when this year's seeds appear.

pomegranite, strapping son, tomato

I hope one day to track down the persian poem on a pomegranite, to which Lucy referred here last time I mentioned the fruit. I am reminded that poemegranites, in fact, originate in Iran, where they still grow wild today. They areused in persian cooking in poultry and game dishes. The fruit of the wild tree is apparently very sour. The fruit is mentioned in the Bible (Dueteronomy 8:8, and notably in the Song of Solomon). It is to be found, too, in Greek myth. Persephone, daughter of Demeter, goddess of fruit and fertility, was carried off to the underworld by its god Pluto. Persephone vowed not to eat, while in Pluto's kingdom. But she forgot, for a moment, and took a mouthful of pomegranite seeds. Rememembering her vow, she spat them out, all, that is, except six seeds. For the price of those six seeds, she had to spend six months every year with Pluto, but was allowed to return to this world for the remaining six. And she does return, of course, every year at about this time, bringing Spring and Summer with her.

My strapping son Toby has come to my rescue in the vegetable garden, neglected all winter as a result of my hernia. He has spent all day preparing the beds for sowing. Potatoes are now in the ground and salad leaves and lettuce are sown.

There is an expensive gardening shop in Chapel Place. It sells what look like hand-crafted garden implements and various items of gardening clothing, which seem to belong to movies of the 1930s - floppy hats and leather aprons, that sort of thing. This year, they are selling Italian seeds. I buy a packet of a plum-shaped tomato variety called Rio Grande, which I sow today in seed trays in the greenhouse, my first bit of gardening since my operation.

euphorbia, parrots, fragment

The pale yellow, almost green flowers of euphorbia (the common name of the wild variety is spurge) are appealingly understated. The little flowers are surrounded by petal-like bracts of the same colour. The overwheming impression is of freshness, a new start. I stop to admire them, where they grow in the triangular shrubbery (known locally as the village green) in Berkeley Road. They blossom modestly amid daffodils, crocuses, lesser celandine, and periwinkle, but still give a good account of themselves.

Tulips, with crinkley, close-knit petals and thick stems, called parrot tulips, are in the flower shops and on the stall by the station just now. The stall-holder calls them simply "parrots". As the flowers open, there is something a little naughty about them, like frilly knickers.

Two men pass me in the High Street, one with a scarf tied carelessly about his neck is telling the other: "So she said 'I'm married now with two kids' ...". They walk on in the opposite direction. There, I thought, goes a short story.

Wild garlic, lawn-mower, donkey

There is a stall selling wild garlic, otherwise known as ramsons, in the WI market this morning. The flowers are white and the leaves, long and pointed. Both the bulbs and the leaves are ready for gathering at this time of year. If you walk in the country where they grow, you often catch the savoury aroma before you see the plant. You can use wild garlic in salads or make a frittata with it.

For some years now there has been an old lawn mower standing under a hedge in the corner of a front garden near here. It seems to have rusted and merged into its surroundings so that you don't notice it often. It moves me somehow with a sense of fellow feeling.

Coming out of the news agent in Chapel Place I hear the immense, creaking sound of a donkey. When did I hear it last? In Cyprus, where some friends run a donkey sanctuary? Or in some village in Spain where donkeys were still used as beast of burden? Only it isn't a donkey. How could it be in Chapel Place, where the church of King Charles the Martyr and the book-lined frontage of Halls bookshop preside? No, some men are working on scaffolding above the sandwich bar next door to Halls, and the noise comes from a hoist at the top of the scaffolding, which is being used to raise cement in a black bucket.

lamp posts, menus, chorus

I like the way the lamp posts in the Grove, lean at odd angles. They are of traditional design and their unstable appearance belongs to an age, where things did not have to line up and stand to attention. From the end of the main walk in the centre of the little park, you can see three lampost set up in a straight line. Each seems to lean a little more to the left.

People reading menus in a restaurant window have the same look of sharp intelligence that you see in dogs, when food is around.

The dawn chorus wakes me this morning at around 5 o'clock. One of my earliest memories is being woken by the din of bird song, when we lived in Forest Row, a village near East Grinstead, about 20 miles from where I live now. I was four at the time.

peeling, drops, mirrors

Pomegranites used to be a chore. Now, at at last, having worked out a way to peel them, I look forward to the job. You cut a pomegranite into quarters and try to follow the demarcations made by the pith. You will find that the fruit-encrusted seeds, each glowing like a ruby, are arranged in "pods" which cling together and are easy to separate without taking with them too much of the pith. It takes time, but the reward is to end up with a bowl full of shining, juicy seeds.

As I walk beneath a gutter, big drops of water overflow and fall at my feet. The sound is "pitter-patter", the sound which rain drops are supposed to make but normally do not, because gnerally they are wafted by the wind, when they seem to whisper, or fall without interruption with a continuous drumming.

There are mirrors everywhere in the sun after the rain. Drops or sheets of water on black railings, tarmac, brick pavements, branches of trees and shrubs, even on leaves waving in the wind, reflect the light. There is a dance going on, mindless, undirected, full of energy.

lady birds, sleet, leaf buds

Heidi keeps finding a ladybird on her writing desk. We think it is not always the same one.

A sleet shower: ice cold needles in the wind.

You can see the leaf buds of a horse chestnut tree on the common from the other side of the road. They glow like eco-friendly electric light bulbs.

Little Red Riding Hood, kite, soap likenesses

Between times I am reading fairy stories as told by Charles Perrault. I had forgotten that Little Red Riding Hood had come to a sticky end. Perhaps the story they told me was bowdlerised. But I recall her as a streetwise child, who made her escape, when the wolf, with the intention of making a meal of her, invited her to join him in her grandmother's bed. I may have passed this weak ending on to my own children. I hope not. Perrault's story ends this way:
"Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"
"All the better to see you with, my child"
"Grandmother, what big teeth you have!"
"They are to eat you with!"
And with these words, the wicked wolf threw himself on Little Red Riding Hood and ate her."
No nonsense there.
But I do have a soft spot for James Thurber's version of the story. It ends: "So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead", to which he adds the moral: It's not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be".

A father with two small children, a kite and a camera, attempts to fly the kite, keep the children happy and take photographs of happy children flying a kite. I'm not sure that he succeeds but I enjoy the way he persists.

I have a weakness for soap operas, and an ailment which arises from it. I keep seeing people who remind me of characters from East Enders. They are not necessarily of the same age or sex as the characters; it may be a way of walking, a hair-do, or a set of features, which puts me in mind of the soap. Today I see a baby in a pram, who is the image of Tracey Slater, a bright but troubled teen-ager, with a sharp tongue. She has a disdainful expression most of the time with her mouth turned down and her lower lip scornfully curled. This baby is probably six months old, and as I look at it, it stares back with that knowing, penetrating look that babies have, bold and full of knowledge and intelligence. It looks at me, this child, full of scorn, its features frozen in contempt.

laughter, jackets, teenagers

As I approach the Grove Tavern, I hear a man laughing energetically. He is still laughing as I draw closer. He is laughing into a mobile phone. "You're giving me a stomach ache, now", he says into the phone. The laughter continues. "Ye er," he says. And goes on laughing and laughing.

Calverley Park this warm, blowy, Saturday afternoon is blossoming and budding not just with flowers and leaves but with teenagers. They sit in circles on the grass, lounge on benches, kick footballs. The girls shriek, the boys shout. The rite of Spring.

A board advertises the Calverley Park Cafe. I read: "Breakfast, Home-made Soup, Jackets etc." How long before potatoes cooked in their jackets and filled with various stuffings will be universally know as "jackets"? Please note Oxford English Dictionary!

Pencil, greetings, curiosity

I like my pencil with an eraser at one end. Press the eraser-end and you extend the lead. Twist the barrel and the eraser extends.

The style of greeting seems to be changing. I've noticed it for some time. A passing neighbour today says: Hullo, Joe. Are you alright? I reply "Yes. You?" Sometimes people say just: "Alright?" to which one smiles or nods and replies: "You?" Not so long ago, the more usual exchange used to be "How are you?" And regardless of the facts:" Very well, thank you? How are you?"

The houses round here are mostly Victorian or of an earlier period, have small gardens and are close together. Curiosity, meanwhile, is an ailment of someone looking for interesting or beautiful things. Through a hedge, I spot something unusual. It looks like a life size sculpture of a big, brown chicken. It moves, and I realize that it is a live chicken; it walks with the jerky, acquisitive, movement that birds have when they are on the lookout for worms.

food, fairy story, another ball

I have started to read Le Ventre de Paris by Emile Zola. Anyone who loves food markets will love the detailed and colourful description with which this book opens. An escaped convict arrives in the Les Halles food market of Paris soon after its completion in the 1870s. Starving and almost dead from exhaustion, he is been given a lift by a market gardener, while it is still dark. Her horse-drawn cart is stacked with carrots, cabbages and turnips. Left to himself amid the mounting piles of every variety of foodstuff, in the flickering light of oil lamps and the din of vehicles and traders, he is befriended by an artist, who is captivated by the atmosphere of the market, and knows all its corners. I mark this passage because it sets the scene so well. "His stomach gripped by hunger, Florent, heard the enthusiastic words of the artist. It was clear that Claude, was not thinking at all of the beautiful things as nourishment. He loved them for their colour".

Memories stir as a result of an email from someone whom I haven't seen or heard of for, it must be 4o years. It takes me back to the time when I was working on an engineering magazine called Mechanical Handling. We occupied offices in a little road off Covent Garden in London called Bleeding Heart Lane, and we were looking for a temporary secretary. The agency sent Vivian, as I recall, a slight girl, with long, straight, black hair and a very white complexion. Because we were desperate from someone of her caliber, and because she came from so far away and looked so amazing, she seemed like something out of a fairy tale. She was Canadian, and it turned out that she had missed her plane home from Heathrow. Because her ticket was for a chartered flight, she had no means of getting home. For the next few months she earned the money for her fare, and we had the benefit of her hard work and friendship. She reminds me, in her email, that she, her brother and a friend of her brother spent Christmas day with me and my family.

In another tree in the Grove, another football hangs among the branches almost at the top.

tears, balloon, three babies

I commiserate with my friend Hedley, whom I meet in the Grove, about Wales' s recent loss in rugby. It is an emotional business for the Welsh. "There were tears in my tea," he says, and then refers to the match on Saturday when Wales plays England. "It will be singing and tears," he says.

Pigeons circle the clock tower above the station. Something seems to detach itself from the flock. It is a small red balloon. It rises steadily into the sky, passes over the High Street, rides against a soft, grey cloud, and disappears.

A woman pushes a set of triplets down Mount Pleasant. They face her, one behind the other, in a special push chair, with seats in a straight line. A man comes out of Wagamama with some women. "Three babies!" he says with an enthusiastic Scottish accent.

retrieved, harmonica, unbelievable

One of the two footballs stuck up the tree in the Grove has been retrieved. But the other remains immovable on a high branch. I shall watch it with interest until, unless it is rescued, it is hidden by leaves.

Going through a drawer of my desk, I come upon a minute Hohner harmonica. It is not quite four centimeters wide, but has four holes making an octave, (you blow in and out for successive notes). I am far from musical and sing out of tune. But I have always managed to get a tune of sorts from a harmonica. I like particularly its melancholy twang. This one was given to me by the great Larry Adler, whom I met and a lunch party, a good many years ago. It came in a little cardboard box with his name printed on it. Alas, I no longer have the box. It is amazing how much sound, to my ears, reasonably tuneful, such a small instrument can produce.

The way we talk about the weather rather like the way we drink tea has a quirky ceremony about it. I pass a neighbour pushing her shopping trolley in the sunshine. " I can't believe this," she says.

tune-less singer, high balls, pumpkin seeds

There is a man who walks through the town singing in a peculiar, tuneless manner, not proper songs, but, it seems, songs composed of whatever comes into his head. I hear him in the Grove before I see him. I look in the direction of the sound, and there he is. He is carrying an orange bag, and, as he crosses the main walk of the park, performs a little, rhythm-less dance. Nobody takes any notice of him. And he doesn't mind, because he seems completely self-absorbed.

Three boys are trying to dislodge a football lodged in the branches of a tree. They kick or throw another football at it in order to knock it down. As I watch their unsuccessful attempts, I notice yet another football stuck in some branches even higher up the same tree. Will they fail in their attempts, and lose the third ball up the tree? I make a note to check the number of balls in the tree the next time I walk past.

In the Pantiles, we drink big glasses of Sancerre in the warm sunshine and nibble grilled and spiced pumpkin seeds.

lampost climbers, racket, conversation

Yesterday evening I watch three schoolboys climb a lamp post against a wall at least seven foot high. They walk on the wall and sit there for a while, kings of the castle. The lamp post, one of those installed a few years ago, swings wildly like a tulip that has just been assaulted.

This morning there is a vast racket overhead. A helicopter hovers low over the rooftops for a couple of minutes, then drifts slowly sideways, before flying off in an easterly direction. It could be a scene from a movie, though, in a movie there would be some outcome.

There is an elderly gentleman whom I pass occasionally and often see in Halls bookshop. He wears a deerstalker hat. Today, for the first time, we greet one another in the Grove (this is Tunbridge Wells, where it takes years before you acknowledge the presence of people you often see but don't know). We pass the time of day pleasantly and exchange notes on various ailments. He laments the absence of conversation, nowadays. I concur. We have a conversation. I say that I hope it will be taken up on future occasions. He agrees. We each pursue our constitutional.

light bulb, book, mug of tea

I saw the other day, as though they were acting out a formula joke, three men changing a light bulb in the Pantiles.

A book, Sergei Aksakov's Russian Gentleman, which I ordered a couple of days ago from one of Amazon's registered dealers arrives today in a neat package with a note: "Hope you enjoy the book." I will, Iknow.

There is an an interview with the Japanese writer Masahiko Fujiwara in today's Financial Times magazine. 'In England,' the interviewer says 'he had been shocked to see esteemed professors slurping tea from their mugs. "We have tea ceremony. Everything we make into art."' I have always admired the charm and restraint of the Japanese tea ceremony. But, as much as I admire it, I don't think I could could could cope with it for long. The very thought disturbs me. So I make myself a mug of tea and slurp it, a biscuit in the other hand, with the smug contentment of one who has long practiced the English tea ceremony.

eye at the door, medical prose, shaking

This morning, as I pick up the paper from under the letter box, I see a blackbird on the hedge. He is watching me, with one curious eye, through the panelled glass of the front door.

Medical matters generally leave me cold, or uneasy. But I am taken with the prose in the letter, which the surgeon wrote to my GP after he operated on me on Tuesday. It strikes me as precise, succinct and unambiguous, as good prose should be. So, although I understand so little of it, I feel I should share it, if only on account of its elegance.:
"I operated today under local anaesthetic attending to his left inguinal hernia. I found a large indirect sac and a small, laterally placed, direct one as well. I have divided and high ligated the former and inverted the latter, I have carried out a Lichtenstein tension free hernioplasty with light-weight open weave Ultapro mesh between the conjoint tendon and inguinal ligament. There are no problems with the procedure and he is due home later the same day.

On the steps of the Down Town Fish Bar, the fish and chip man, flirts with the girl in the car workshop opposite. He sings and perform a little dance: "I'm available.. " he says. "You're shaking my baby ... you can dance with the guy, who gave you the eye."

Light patterns, cyber friends, cobwebs,

The sunlight comes through the window and creates patterns on the wall and on books in the shelves.

The pleasure of receiving good wishes from people, cyber friends in particular, who are in touch because of remote but true affinities. Who would have thought that a reference here, the other day, to sweet onions from Roscoff in Brittany could have forged a link with a langauge teacher, poet and photographer who lives in that part of France? Look at box-elder.blogspot.com/

Lots of cobwebs today. As they move in the wind and catch the sun, they look like fine shafts of light flying through the air.

Professor, Aksakov, Venice

It was flattering to be greeted at the hospital, where I was operated on yesterday, as Professor Hyam. Perhaps my life took a wrong turn, or I have forgotten some earlier distinction. It is also good to come home on the same day.

My friend Anna asks me to track down a nineteenth century Russian writer, now little known, called Sergei Aksakov. His best known book is a memoir called Family Circle, published in 1856. I hadn't heard of him. I enjoy doing this kind of research.

"Take it easy", they say. So I go to Venice, with the help of one of Donna Leon's, detective stories, all of which are set in Venice. I pick on Death at La Fenice, in which a famous conductor is murdered in his dressing room in the opera house. It is Leon's first book - I think I have read most of the others. It is not her best, but it's still good to explore the cold, damp alleys and courtyards of the city at a time of year when tourists are absent.

applause, correcting, haiku

Pigeons rise in a small flock from a roof top. Their wings clap like a burst of applause.

I tend to do my daily sudoku with a pen. This makes me all the more careful not to make mistakes, and adds a little spice to the game. But if I do make a mistake there is correction device called Pritt, which rolls a thin film of quick-drying correcting material over the error. A cheat's last resort.

I have a little book of Haiku by Basho, one of the great Japanese masters of the form. Although haiku are generally written in lines of five, seven and five syllables (seventeen in all), because these are translations, and probably quite literal, they are presented in even briefer lines. eg
From the heart
of the sweet peony
a drunken bee.
I would not like to think that this absolves those who attempt haiku in English from the classical seventeen syllable form. Bit I do think that the staccato sound of the shorter lines does have a charm of its own probably closer to the Japanese sounds.

eclipse, salt, raindrops

Last night I watch as the shadow of the earth gradually covers the full moon. At about 11 pm, the entire moon looks like an orange, just a hint of silver at the permimeter.

While they are carving some serrano ham for me at Sainsbury's delicatessen counter, a man standing beside me says: "I can't eat that because of the salt. I can't eat salt". I realize that he is the same man who made this observation at the same counter a few months ago, while admitting to a fondness for Spanish ham. I say: "We've had this conversation before." "Yes," he says, "we have". Groundhog day?

I like looking at raindrops hanging from leaves and branches. They seem to contain the universe.

new angle, brightness grows, rules of argument

From Eden Road there is a point where you can look across at the weather board clock tower and cupola of the church of King Charles-the-Martyr. You usually look up at them from below, in the Pantiles or Chapel Place. Here you are almost on a level with them, and they looks so different that, for a moment, you cannot place them. When you do, you appreciate them all the more for their elegant architecture, set against the slopes of the Common.

In the Farmers' Market in the Pantiles today, there are stalls bright with daffodils, polyanthus and primroses in pots. Their brightness sprouts in the sun under the striped covers of the stalls.

A few minutes spent with Montaigne this afternoon are rewarding. On the education of a child he says, with particular aptness, when you consider how poorly people, politicians in particular, engage in argument nowadays: " Let him be made fastidious in choosing and sorting his arguments and fond of pertinence, and consequentially, of brevity. Let him be taught above all to surrender and throw down his arms before truth, as soon as he perceives it, whether it be found in the hands of his opponents or in himself through reconsideration."

goose, crocuses, rosemary

From a bench in front of the Crown at Groombridge, I spot some Canada geese grazing in the field by the lake. One stands still with its neck stretched up, on the look out.

Crocuses appear, little explosions of colour - purple, yellow, white. Close up you see the orange stigmas. From one variety of crocus, Crocus sativa, the stigmas, separated from the flower, become the world's most expensive spice.

Rosemary shows off its pretty, blue flowers. Small, among the green spikes of the leaves, they have the blue of Mediterranean skies.

Surprise, welsh rarebit, catikins

It was a pleasant surprise to find that it was already March 1 today. March sounds so much more hopeful than February.

Welsh rarebit rather than toasted cheese. An easy recipe is to mix cream cheese with grated cheddar, a spoonful of mustard, an egg and, if you like, a little beer. You can also add a drop of Worcester sauce. Spread the mixture on the untoasted side of slices of bread which have been toasted on the other side. Return to the grill , cheese side up, until the mixture begins to bubble and go brown.

Passing the triangular shrubbery in Berkeley Road, known locally as the "village green, I imagine I see drooping leaves on a hazel tree, to realize quickly that they are long catkins dangling there - lambs' tails as in Little Bo Beep

truth, pigeon, success

There is a debate on Radio 4's Today programme about the existence of God. Because there is so little time, arguments for and against seem equally ineffectual. The next day I wake with the thought: Truth comes in small packets, which are usually sent to different addresses.

Being no geek, I feel pleased with myself when I can help a technophobe. Today I persade and help one to download photographs on to his computer frim his new digital camera. To my surprise it works, and he as even more delighted than I am to see his photographs appear on the screen.

In the hall the shadows of leaves cast through the front door by the afternoon sun, dance longingly on the painting of a pigeon, which hangs there.

Glenn Gould, shop talk, coincidence

My most used disc is Glenn Gould playing J S Bach's Goldberg Variations. For a change today I listen to Gould's performance of Bach's partitas, which ring their way across the afternoon.

Last night I see a programme on the More 4 channel in which Harold Pinter discusses his plays with a group of actors as they rehearse extracts from them. He speaks with relaxed humour, perception and authority about the stage, playwriting and acting. It is always gripping to hear a creative artist talking about his work, particularly one as old and distiguished as Pinter.

I read a story in True Tales of American Life, about a young woman who is reading Great Expectations in a crowded restaurant in New York. She is joined at the table by a young man who says, as he sits down: "A tragic life for poor, dear Pip." They are immediately attracted to one one another. She writes her telephone number, but not her name, in the book and presents it to him. Soon after he leaves, (and fails to recover), his jacket with the book in its pocket, in the subway. He tries without success to trace her. She goes to Oxford to study English literature; he to Paris to study painting. She takes a short holiday in Paris and again finds herself in a crowded restaurant. She is again reading Great Expectations. A waiter asks if she would mind sharing the table. The same young man as before says: " A tragic life for poor, dear Pip, " as he sits down. The person telling the story is the daughter of the couple, who didn't repeat the mistake of their first meeting. Heidi reminds me that we recently saw a film of this story.
In the Mind charity shop in the High Street, a few mintues after reading the story, I find a book on synchronicity. I am not certain what the term means, and have to buy it to discover that it is a term invented by the pyschologist, Carl Jung to describe "meaningful coincidence". telephone you.

buds, cricket, silver

From the bedroom window, I can see that the tulip tree, although it is in the middle distance, is already in bud.

There is a sign post at the corner of Warwick Road, which points the way to Tunbridge Wells' Neville cricket ground. There are no words on the signpost, which relies entirely on graphics to do its job. The simple image consists of : three stumps, two bails and a ball. The ball is hitting a stump and one of the bails is in the air.

The vertical lines of silver birches seem to have a light of their own as they contast with the browns and greys of other trees and shrubs which climb the slopes of the Common

blue, toreador, breathing

A grey, monotonous sky is broken by a tattered hole. Blue shows through it for a moment, but it quickly closes.

In Sainsbury's a short, round man, walks slowly past me as I wait on the far side of the checkout. He wears a dark blue cap and a light blue shirt bearing the company logo. He is carrying two transparent boxes of fruit salad. He is whistling the theme of the toreador's song from Bizet's Carmen.

I put my head out of the front door and breathe the late afternoon air. It smells of rain and wet vegetation. In the distance I hear the contented cooing of doves.

hot, bee, pirate

In the Farmers' Market is a stall with different chili sauces to sample. They range from mild and sweet to hot. At the hot end, is one marked "hot beware", and next to it, right at the end, is another labeled "beware hot". I assume the last one is king of the hots. I take a nip of it on the strip of tortilla provided. Six hours later, I can still taste it.

To my collection of unseasonable creatures this winter I must, this February day, add bumble bee. It explores a front garden as I pass.

Through the window of a cafe, I catch sight of a man with a scarf wrapped round his head. One end of the scarf hangs behind his neck like a pigtail; it is tied in such a way as to show the round shape of the top of his skull. He is seated at a table and, with a knife and fork, tucks in to something on a plate. He has a pointed black beard. In my fleeting glance, I do not see an earing, but there must be one, I think, for he is the picture of a pirate..

cherry, violets, beaks and buds

A flowering cherry enlivens a day of damp and drab weather.

An uncared-for front garden boasts, among weeds and junk, a generous cluster of violets.

It is tempting to apply the adjective "intelligent" to the beaks of birds. They possess a potency of their own, a capacity to unravel problems. In a different way, I am tempted, to day, to see "intelligence" in the green, pointed buds of daffodils, as they probe the air, testing it for Spring.

Drips, by, kind driver

I walk in the sun after rain. Everything is dripping: the branches of trees, gutters, eves, shrubs; the rain water gurgles into drains and you can hear it flowing above and below ground.

People have way of ending telephone calls with a note of satisfaction or relief. Thank God, that's over! " 'By", they say, but it isn't really " by"; it's "by-e". Air is expelled from the lungs.The final e, not quite an extra syllable, is just a little more than a full stop.

I do not often go to London these days. When I do, I still miss the old Routemaster buses. You could join them at traffic lights or in traffic jams by leaping on to the open platform at the back. Now, if you don't reach a bus stop in time, you can have to wait for the next one, even if if the bus you have just missed stops a few yard further on. This happened yesterday, but the driver, opened the doors to let us on, even though he was waiting at a red light. Such little acts of kindness do not go unnoticed.

hidden railway, elastic bands, cafe noises

I have always known that the main line London to Hastings railway passes near our house. But it is easy to forget, because it runs in a tunnel, deep under the little park called the Grove, and emerges on the other side in a deep cutting. You can look down on the railway if you take the un-made road that leads off the top of Mount Sion, opposite the entrance to the Grove. On one side are the back gardens of some old houses in Claremont Road, and on the other several houses perched on top of the cutting, with sloping gardens and the track some way below them. Today, on a short stroll, we remind ourselves of the railway's existence, and it still comes as surprise that it should be there, only two or three hundred meters from our front door.

Are we alone in these parts in having postmen who shed elastic bands? You see the bands, usually in pairs, discarded on the pavments, as the posties separate the packets of sorted letters before delivery. It is one of those features of everyday life, which we take for granted and could one day even become nostalgic about.

The sound of bacon and egg frying in my favorite cafe and the hiss of the steaming water-boiler.
A young man comes in and orders "an all-day breakfast" plus an extra egg and an extra sausage. He sits himself at one of the tables and contemplates his mobile phone, and then, as an afterthought, adds hash browns to his order.

view to go, companions, orchestra

The lower end of Tunbridge Wells High Street, bends at a right angle, before meeting the London Road. Opposite the intersection is the site of a disused petrol station backing on to the common. The site has now been boarded up, and there are signs of imminent bulding work. As I look at the view of bare trees climbing the slope of the common above the site, I realise that soon the view will no longer exist; it will be difficult, as so often happens when new buildings are put up or old ones knocked down, even to imagine what was there or not there before. I'll enjoy it while I can.

As I walk down Mount Pleasant, I see a thick set, black mastiff negotiate pedestrians with a confident trot It seems, surprisingly, to be on its own, and it is a minute or two before I see, at some distance from the dog, a middle-aged man in an ankle-length, leather overcoat. The two, I think, can only belong together. And it is pleasing to note a minute later that in fact they do.

Yet again I find myself bemused by the sound, which the starlings make as they gather in the Grove. They sound like an orchestra tuning up before a performance, but somehow more deliberate and more practiced. I think that, if I were a composer, I would begin a symphony with chords based on their fluting and whistling.

Samuel Palmer, groups, the papers

One of a series of posters of British art treasures issued by the Independent newspaper is a reproduction of Early Morning painted by Samuel Palmer in 1825. He lived in Shoreham in Kent, not far from Sevenoaks, and the picture shows a path through a wood near the village. The picture is almost entirely composed of glowing browns and sepias with clinging black shades. Leaves, grasses and other plants are picked out in minute detail. An oak tree with a heavy, solid trunk spreads its branches like an umbrella. A rabbit lopes in the foreground, a small group of people in the centre of the picture, labourers perhaps, appear at the edge of the corn field. The more you look at it, the more you see, and the more you see, the more you wonder.

Grand daughter Giselle explains the various groups in her London school. She is, she says, an indie (independent) as distinct from a chav, an emo, a goth or a bimbo, each of which she defines with the precision of a sociologist.

One of the things I most enjoy in my daily routine is having the newspapers, mostly full of bad news and irrational opinion, behind me, so that I can indulge myself in the sudoku.

coal tit, continental, Bald Primadonna

For some years I have heard but not identified a bird call while working in the vegetable garden. It is a repetative ringing, two-tone sound, crystal clear. This afternoon in the Grove, I hear it again high up in an oak tree. A tit of some sort, as I suspected. But which member of that vocal family? Now thanks to a CD and accompanying book which I was given for Christmas, I pin it down. It's a coal tit, Parus ater. I can still hear it, chiming, in my head.

In the Pantiles the Farmers Market is on and their are people, some of them in shirt sleeves, enjoying the sunshine. A man approaches some friends at a table. "All very continental!" he says.

In the paper today, I note that it is the sixtieth anniversary of the world's longest running play La Cantatrice Chauve, The Bald Primadonna, by Eugene Ionesco. It has been playing at the Théâtre de la Huchette in Paris since 1957. I enjoyed reading this surreal play a couple of years ago. For most of the action, the central characters - an English couple, who inhabit a suburban house - converse in the language of a phrase book, which is their basic means of communication. Hence the opening lines of the play, which I translate:
Madame Smith: Goodness, it is nine o'clock. We have eaten soup, fish, potatoes with bacon, English salad. The children have drunk English water. We have eaten well this evening. It is because we live in the suburbs of London and our name is Smith.

long brush, stories, white among grey

A window cleaning firm has an intriguing extending arm, which reaches windows 45 ft above ground level. I pass one today in operation. Attached to the light, extending arm is a hose. This feeds a brush similar to those used for washing cars. The combination of arm, hose and brush must be exceptionally light, because one man can operate it, fully, extended without apparent difficulty.

A year or so ago I bought a paperback from the Oxfam Bookshop called True Tales of American Life. I forgot about it until today, and now I cannot put it down. It is based on something called the National Story Project, in which members of the public were invited to submit true stories about themselves. The stories were read on a radio show called Weekend All Things Considered. The book is a collection of the stories edited and introduced by the novelist Paul Auster, who was involved in selecting them for the programme and reading them on air. The stories are short, on average about 500 words, some even shorter. They have been edited skilfully so as to leave a taste of their original language, but, as they are presented by a man who is a brilliant stylist, they flow like a clear stream. In fact you forget the form and are drawn immediately into the humour, sadness and joy of the narratives. They are written by people of all ages and from all walks of life. They seem to me to say more about American life than a roomful of sociologists, economists or historians.

As you walk down the steep roads, which lead to the High Street, you often see flocks of pigeons wheeling against the tree-clad slopes of the Common opposite you. Today, I spot a white pigeon in the middle of a flock of grey ones, glinting against the mass of bare branches.

glitter, moment, Everyman

Shiny, evergreen cherry laurel leaves in the middle distance behind the tulip tree sway and glitter in the morning sun helped by a light breeze.

A moment captured, just below the Grove. A magpie clucks noisily in a holly tree. A black cat sits on the fence beneath the tree. It is curious about the bird. Probably the bird is alarmed by the cat. The cat's green eyes catch the sun.

Everyman Books, since their new design came out about 20 years ago, are the most comfortable way to read classic authors I can think of. Today, I spot a series called Everyman Pocket Poets. They are delight to handle and to read, and they do fit comfortably into the pocket. On an impulse I buy an anthology of Indian Love Poems and another anthology called The Dance

shadows, Valentine, legs

In the shadows under a holly bush a blackbird hops and looks at me but does not fly away.

Two girls cross the park with red heart shaped gas balloons. A tall, tough looking man in jeans and a black jacket strides in the opposite direction , in one hand the strings of a mauve, paper bag contain an arrangement of bright red and orange flowers.

A leg-less woman rises from the floor in a window display in Hoopers department store. She wears a blouse and a cardigan. In front of her, wrapped in a length of cloth, are her legs. A male manekin stares in front of him unconcerned

English French, not heard, cabbage

Drifting through the French dictionary I note that there is a French word, le five o'clock for afternoon tea. Another, le brain trust, means brains trust.

The Thought for the Day slot on BBC 4's Today Programme is usually a home for cliches but I enjoy hearing the Bishop Southwark, Tom Butler, refer, this morning, to the importance of silence , and to the significance of what isn't said.

Cabbage heart, chopped and gently softened with some butter in a pan. A glass of dry, white wine is added and reduced, as the cabbage continues to cook. Lastly, cream is added. The cabbage and cream are then allowed to go on cooking slowly, until the wine and cream reduce to make a flavoursome sauce. The cabbage should retain, as much as possible, its original, creamy white, faintly green colour. Season with salt and pepper. The whole operation should take no more than 5 or 6 minutes.

meerkat, bike in a bag, slicing beef

The alert expression of a meerkat on the look out for danger in the current BBC2 television series is so endearing because it is strangely close to the way human beings look in similar circumstances.

A motor bike wrapped in plastic sheeting outside the entrance to the Grove looks like an ungainly animal.

Nowhere better than supermakets to spot the way marketing men play around with the English language in order to redefine standard produce. "Beefsteak tomatoes" have been with us for long enough for the term no longer to be surprising. Now I note, with amusement rather than irritation, a tomato described as "Slicing beef".

sparrow visitor, barramundi, hellebore

A telephone wire, a meter or so from the bedroom window, is usually free of visitors. This morning, a sparrow alights there and stays for a moment or two. I do not imagine for a moment that -a sort of avian twitcher - it is looking in at me, but it is a pleasing thought.

In Sainsbury's on the fish counter is a fish that I have not seen there before. It is the barramundi. But no ordinary barramundi - a popular fish in Australia, where it swims wild in lakes in Queensland, and where it is also farmed. The fish in Sainsbury's is described as a New Forest barramundi. The New Forest in Hampshire is known for its ponies, its wild mushrooms, once presumably in the time of the Norman Kings, for its venison (William II was killed there deliberately or accidently by an arrow, while hunting deer); but, until now, not for its barramundi.

There is something satisfyingly modest and restrained about green flowers. Several varieties of hellebore are green. I stop in front of one in a front garden, and photograph it, using the macro lens.Then home to read about it. The plants are very poisonous. The stinking hellebore, H foetidus, was, I learn, used to "cure coughs and wheezing in horses, or for humans as a drastic emetic, according to Gerard for 'mad and furious men'".

contrast, ahh, red mullet

Sun after a cold damp morning. Everything gleams.

Being able to sit down and stand up with out excruciating pain. The lumbago lasted three days and I am not sorry, pun not intended, to see the back of it.

A dish of red mullet with a Thai stir fry, at the bar restaurant in the Pantiles called Ragged Trouser.

sweet and hot, branches, Mr Crow's morning

Sweet and sour is a familiar flavour combination. Less familiar is sweet and hot. I enjoy salads just now made with chilli pepper and a little sugar, plus oil of one kind or another. Cucumbers, red peppers, cherry tomatoes and carrots are well suited to such a sauce. Chopped coriander leaves add to the spiciness. A useful hot flavour comes from the preserved chillies marketed under the name Pepperdew.

Seen through the open slats of the blind, the pattern of upward-pointing branches resemble books lined up on a shelf.

In the early morning, sparrows twitter in the eves; in the distance Mr Crow says: "I'm here... I'm here!"

Snow, finishing a long book, haiku

You know that it has snowed overnight because of the quality of the light coming through the shutters in the early morning, and the unusual hush in the street.

I reach the end at last of Perez Galdos' Fortunata and Jacinta, not the most gripping of novels, and surely one of the worst constructed. The two women in the title are the mistress and the wife of the central character, in whom you begin to be interested, only to find him discarded by the author half way through the book. If it does give a picture of Madrid at the end of the 19th Century, it is not one that suggests that it is inhabited by very interesting people. There is pleasure only some of the humour, in having persisted to the end, and knowing that you don't have to read it again.

The best account of haiku which I know and which also seems to me to be an excellent anthology, The Classic Tradition of Haiku. It has the merit of spelling out phonetically in Latin characters the 17 syllables of the original Japanese. So that if the same number of syllables (essential to true haiku) do not always surface in the translation, you still get the form of the original. The book is edited by Faubion Bowers. The haiku form has always seemed to me to be well suited to the English language. In his introduction Bowers demonstrates this when quoting the English poet James Kirkup, who sets out to provide a model and a definition:
Haiku should be just
small stones dropping down a well
with a small splash.
The book is published by the American publisher Dover Publications Inc, Dover Thrift Editions. I can't recommend it enough.

vixen, long embrace, falafel

At this time of year, you sometimes hear, as I did last night, a vixen in the road outside our house, or in one of the gardens opposite. It is an eerie, screaming sound - "a woman wailing for her demon lover" or a wandering ghost; but I like it for the breath of wildness, which it brings to our comfortable lives.

In today's paper, I read an account of some skeletons buried between 5000 - 6000 years ago,and found during a dig near Mantova in Northern Italy. The skeletons are of a young man and woman, who were buried and are shown in a photo, hugging one another. We'll probably never know the story behind this long embrace?

At lunch today, our neighbour serves falafel made from green peas and corriander instead of the usual dried beans or chick peas used in this Middle Eastern street food.

Feta cheese, Bob Newhart, sharpening stone

Olives stuffed with feta cheese: a Mediterranean double whammy.

I listen to some Bob Newhart monologues. That deadpan, slightly surprised American voice and his genius for understatement and throw-away line make me laugh as often as I hear him. The Driving Instructor, Rocket Scientist, Defusing a Bomb, or Merchandising the Wright Brothers, I don't know which is my favourite.

A pair of garden/kitchen scissors has become blunt. I find the little carborundum stone which I keep in my desk drawer, and grind away. I don't think it has helped, but there is satisfaction to be had in fining a blade.

Yorkshire pudding, blackbird, periwinkle

I see, through the glass door of the oven, a straw-coloured Yorkshire pudding rise in airy mountains.

This morning, a blackbird sings as it gets light outside the window. It is the first I have heard this year.

In the shrubbery known locally as the Village Green, some periwinkles are in flower. I apply the macro-focus of my camera on to one the blooms with its five blue petals, and suddenly it seems more important.

sunflower, game, collared doves

A beaming elderly lady hums through the Pantiles farmers' market in the bright sunshine. Attached to the front of her basket is a big, plastic sunflower.

Two little girls hide behind the sheeting in front of their mother's jam stall in the market . Two terriers of the bull terrier type make friends with them, but cannot see the joke, as the girls are overcome by an attack of the giggles.

A pair of collared doves now appear regularly in the Grove. They are distinguishable by a half collar at the back of the neck. They are a soft grey colour, and of the delicate shape that one supposes separates doves from pigeons.

pretty cops, oysters, keyboard

We pass a good looking young man and woman, chatting and laughing as they walk by. They greet us cheerfully. They are wearing community police uniforms.

I buy some oysters from the fishmonger, who calls every Friday in his white van. Last time I tried to open oysters, it was a struggle, and as a result I bought a specialised oyster knife. That was several years ago, and until today I have not used it. It was something of a triumph then to succeed, not without a little difficulty at first, in finding the tricky little muscle at one end of the mollusc, and leavering the two sides of the shell apart. A bottle of Chablis saved for such an occasion enhances what is already a treat.

In a skip, I spot a cardboard box with one of those Yamaha electronic keyboards inside. Someone has written on the box: "Please take me. I do work." I don't take advantage of the offer, but hope that someone with a taste for such things is as nosey as I am.

February butterfly, shadow, Sarcococca

Again, a brown butterly flutters above me at first floor level, this time in Mount Sion. Like the last butterfly I saw a few days ago, it seems to be in a hurry.

My long shadow goes ahead of me on a path in the Grove.

There is a shrub, about four feet high, which I pass every day. It has small white flowers in loose clusters and dark pointed leaves. I note it because of its extraordinary perfume, which greets you long before you spot where it comes from. I have tracked down its name. It is called Sarcococca and though it is, like the English Box a member of the Buxaceae family, it is a native of the Himalayas. As I type, I can smell the tiny sprig, which I picked for identification purposes, and which consists of only one cluster of flowers just a centimetre across.

tree towers