Before the 17th Century forks where barely known as a table implement in this country. Only the smartest and richest people used them. This thought occurs to me as Pete at The Compasses proffers one with a paper napkin or our lunch time snack. We take for granted this trendy device never once asking, what's wrong with fingers? Or plunging our well honed knife into a piece of meat to bring it to our mouth?
For the second day in succession I surprise a crow on one of the beds in the veg garden. Pigeons are a common sight, but in 20 years this is the first visit of a crow that I have witnessed. It flies off heavily carrying a twig. And very welcome it is.
The first horse chestnuts are in leaf in the south-facing patch of Common facing the Church of King Charles the Martyr. Late but oh so welcome.
4 comments:
Eeek!
Have you seen this short film featuring Hall's Bookshop?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPfThpelv48&feature=player_embedded
A 20 min film concerning the future of books!
Years ago I installed one of those cutlery-drawer inserts which imposes a logistical apartheid on knives, forks, teaspoons, etc. A mark of my anality? At some later stage VR decided that we no longer had a complete set of the said cutlery, bought another set, dropped the separated items into their appropriate slots, but without removing the old items. My mother would have approved: "they'll come in," she would have said. Thus we await a meal for eleven people which, judging by our present anchoritic tendencies, will never happen.
This effected a Proustian moment, but in reverse. I can no longer use the old forks (which probably date back to our 1960 wedding). Their shafts are too short, their structure too delicate; almost as if there were a gender mismatch. Yet I used these forks for decades. It may be that my hands are much clumsier these days but this cannot be the complete explanation. I am almost revolted by the older forks; they sicken me. Please, Dr Thurber, is my case treatable?
I wonder how they carved great big barons of beef and such like without a carving fork to hold them down? The history of everyday items is always interesting and usually overlooked.
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