African music, tea for the Kaiser, ginger's progress

Standing outiside the front door, I hear, drifting up the hill through the warm rain, from a festival in the Pantiles, the sound of African drums and sporadic applause.

In A N Wilson's entertaining account of Great Britain in the last century, entitled After the Victorians, I read about Kaiser Wilhem II in exhile in Holland after the first World War. Although there was a question of extraditing him to face charges in Britain, the government was too busy at home to pursue the idea, and besides he was a cousin of King George V." The old gentleman was doing no harm to anyone, " writes Wilson. "His first act upon arrival in Holland had been for a good strong cup of English tea and his favourite reading was P G Wodehouse".

My ginger plant, the result of potting a small piece of fresh ginger root, has grown a second leaf.