green town, moving animals, abutilon

Tunbridge Wells, where I live, is rated, I see, as one of the UK's greenest towns. It comes third after Norwich and Peterborough.

Transhumance means the seasonal movement of livestock. I like the word because it evokes the way civilisations create regular patterns of life, which affect, and become part of, geography and history. I came accross the word in today's paper, where there was an account of farmers driving a flock of sheep through the centre of Madrid to protest against the erosion of ancient routes and grazing rights, some of which go back 800 years.

The white abutilon in the garden has been in flower since July and its white cup-shaped flowers with yellow centres have never looked better than today.

No leaf fall, leap, timber smell

Because the leaves are not falling even in mid-November and the sun is now low in the sky, it is strange and beautiful to catch the light streaming through the yellow leaves from just above the roof tops, when normally at this time of year the branches would be bare.

Proverb for the rash: Leap and then look for somewhere comfortable to land.

Passing a van from which two men are unloading newly sawn timber to refurbish a shop I remember the smell of carpentry and timber yards and think that it is one of the best smells in the world.

Pearl gray, flapper, Mr Crow

This morning the sky is pearl gray, shining like pearls do, where the sun begins to pierce the cloud layer.

A man walks out of the sun; he flaps his coat outwards like wings. Is he saying to himself: "Look, I'm flying"?

Mr Crow sits on the top most branch of a tree, now bare of leaves. He owns the park. He is black, with shiny feathers; he is slow and purposeful in flight. Down he comes, lands heavily, bounces; with a clumsy waddle he proceeds to peck at the leaf strewn grass for lunch.

Starlings, historic facts, charity bound

Small swarms of starlings are beginning to take over the Grove. They did last winter and their numbers grew. Now they appear again on the trees like animated fruit. They sit on the branches and flute and twitter as the leaves fall, before taking off and wheeling over the park in small groups.

Hegel is often quoted, among others by Karl Marx, for this, and its worth repeating: "All great historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

In the High Street, a small procession of people each carrying two bulging plastic sacks; they disappear into the Mind charity shop.

Pink woman, new hillside, two-headed pigeon

As I walk up Grove Hill Road, a woman in an invalid buggy rides past me on the pavement; she is dressed in pink with a white hat, and we exchange smiles. She looks pleasingly cheerful as people in buggies often do.

When I look due south out of the window this morning I spot, beyond the trees, what looks like a massive dark hillside which seems to have grown up overnight. It is a bank of early morning cloud standing out against the brightening sky. A few minutes later it has shrunk to a mere stain.

On a chimney stack I spot a two-headed pigeon. It is two pigeons in profile, beak to tail.

Quinces, pumpkin face, weather

A quince tree laden with fruit, glimpsed from the train outside Tonbridge station makes me want to leap out of the train and raid it.

Entering London I see from the train a large flat roof used as a terrace. Beside a glass door are a table and two chairs. On the table is a scooped out pumpkin with eyes and gaping mouth, left over from Halloween. Nothing else.

Today it rains and doesn't rain. A grayness and damp prevails. It is not cold nor yet warm. The pavement has a sticky sheen.It is the sort of weather, which, if you were stuck in the middle of the Sahara Desert on in a steaming jungle, would make you think nostalgically of England

Squirrels, cappucino, horses

A squirrel sits on a branch and makes a noise a bit like a duck would make if somone were trying to strangle it. I've noticed this before. This is the noise, which squirrels often make, but why? Nothing seems to be challenging it. It justs sits there and squawks. There are lots of squirrels in the Grove, pehaps too many. Maybe they are suffering from over-crowding.


Words come into my head when I wake up for no good reason. This morning it was theFrench word for the hood-shaped, nasturtium, capucine. It is derived, I imagine from the capucin, which refers to the religious order founded by St Francis, or from capuchon, which means cloak with a hood, or from both since the friars wear hooded garments. Cappucino, the italian word for espresso coffee covered with frothy milk, has a similar origin, though in this case the root is supposed to relate to the colour of the coffee when lightened by the milk.

Behind me in the street I hear the following exchange between two men:
"How did you get on with the horses?"
"Useless. Two seconds and two, nowhere."

sunshine and smoke

 

Oak

 

smell of ironing, crunching an apple, seagull

The smell of freshly ironed clothes especially when the clothes have been drying in the sunshine.

Crunching an apple, not any apple, but an apple such as you pick yourself or buy from the farmers market that has been left to ripen on the tree and to develop its full flavour, without being allowed to go soft and sandy. The juice should spurt when you bite it, and it should taste sweet and sour at the same time.

A solitary seagull circles the Grove barely moving its wings.

Wall, smoke, leaves and generations

Patterns left by wear and tear, and weather on walls have always fascinated me. I photograph a wall beside a car park through which I often pass. The peeling layers of render shows the shape, and a hint of the colour of bricks, and different textures according to their condition. In places, the plaster has broken off completely, and leaves a shape like the head and neck of a prehistoric animal, its jaws wide open; or like a map of an island.

Someone has made a bonfire in one of the garden near the Grove. You notice the smell first, acrid but pleasing, and then see , as the smoke disperses, that the afternoon sun, low in the sky, shining through the branches of an oak, has created the sort of beams you might see on a misty morning in the country.

Under the turkey oak in the corner of the Grove, three generations play with the dry, fallen leaves. The children, a boy and girl, shuffle joyfuly through them; their parents and their grand parents (or so one would guess) pick up the leaves and throw them in the air and over each other.

Nasturtiums

 

Frost, butterfly, squirrel

Frost on the lawn, , a silvery carpet through which the grass just shows.

In the vegetable garden, a tortoiseshell butterfly flits in the sun among the nasturtiums which are beginning to sag after last night's chill.

A squirrel scampers across patches of sun and shade in the Grove so that, as it runs, its long silvery grey body, relecting the light, seems to flash on and off like a Christmas decoration

Teddy back, sun behind tree, chill in the air

For several years the huge teddy bear standing by the first floor window of the house called Windy Bottom on the corner of the Grove, has looked down on passers by, as they have looked up to see him. Recently however he had been absent from his watch. Now he's back with a notice which reads: "Thank you for your lovely cards. LoveU."

In the morning the sun rising behind the tulip tree opposite our bedroom window makes the trunk and branches glow as though they are radiating an inner light.

Today, at last, the weather is doing what it ought to do. The chill in the air makes you feel normal again.

CORRECTION

According to most estimates the universe is 13.8 million years old. I left out the 3. Apologies to the universe and to anyone or anything else involved.

how old did you say? soap and cigarettes, spotlight

Sometimes, I like to remind myself that the universe is supposed to be 13.8 billion years old. It puts things in perspective.

An elderly gent in Halls Bookshop is talking about World War 2. "When German soldiers were taken prisoner", he says, "they asked for soap. The English asked for cigarettes."

A group of people in the Grove stand talking in a shaft of sunlight, which picks them out, the sun being low in the sky, like a spotlight on a stage.

Faded hydrangeas, tea sounds, lost and found

Deep blue hydrangers, so spectacular last summer, are still a pleasure to look at, but now sitting in a vase in the hall they have been transformed into a blend of crimson and that pale green known as eau de nil, or Nile water.

The sound of tea being made. Hot water is poured into the pot, the brew stirred; milk jug, cups and sugar are set out and after a suitable lull, the tea is poured from the pot into cups - a sort of domestic symphony composed of whirlings, staccato taps and tinkles.

A book I had given up reading some months ago and mislaid, and now need with increasing desperation yields itself up after an intensive search.

A tenner for being late, nasturtiums, chattering

For various reasons we ordered our groceries from Sainsbury's this week. To save you waiting in unnecessarily, they promise to deliver within a one hour slot, which you can specify. The delivery was more than an hour late, and the delivery man handed over a £10 voucher to compensate for the broken promise, standard practice when this happens. You couldn't be cross.

In the vegetable garden nasturtiums have as usual taken over. The only thing that is unusual is that they are still vigorously in flower at this late date. I pick a bunch and enjoy the spicey scent. The colours range from yellow through orange to dark red.

I come across the french expression "jaser comme une pie borgne", to chatter like a one-eyed magpie. I like it because "jasser" so well describes the noise magpies make, and it seems especially appropriate just now as there are so many magpies around at the moment.

busy sky, gnats, pruning

The Grove is busy with families, scooters and push chairs, enjoying the sun; and the sky above the park is busy too. Vapour trails criss cross like paths ending nowhere, and I count five planes travelling at different heights and in different directions.

In the sunbeams, gnats move to and fro like specks of gold, but some move up and down like yoyos.

We prune the lavender, cutting back the flower spikes which are at last exhausted and our hands and the surrounding air smells sweet.

Lego, Tesco, rain

It is a fact, I read, that if all the Lego in the world, were divided equally, we would get 30 pieces each.

Another "fact": In 2005 Tesco controlled 31 per cent of Britain's grocery trade and 13 per cent of retail sales. The figures must surely have changed by now, and to day we learn that another adjustment must be due. The Morrisons formerly Safeway store opposite Tunbridge Wells station, which ceases to trade to day, is to be revived by Tesco, which will open there at the beginning of December.

Rain is a beautiful thing.

"O bruit doux de la pluie

Par terre et sur les toits!

Pour un coeur qui s'enuie,

O le chant de la pluie!

people from the past, yingtang song, sounds

Someone gives us a lift to the reception following a funeral. It is a chance encounter. But after a while he says: "I know who you are!" and I say, "I thought I knew your face." The years fall away as we explore encounters from the past and people we know in common.

During the funeral service, they play the Goons' Yingtang song. It says a lot that's specificaly charming and unusual, about the person who has died and his family.

On the Radio 4 Today programme they have a feature about sounds that turn people on. I can think of lots that turn me on, but if I had to choose one, it would be the wild, raucous sound of waterbirds. The mewing of seagulls will do, but for sheer savage abandon, it would be the mingled cries of marshland and estuary birds, such as I remember once in particular along a dyke behind the Maltings near Aldborough. It recalled Stravinksy's The Right of Spring, as the Right of Spring, years later, recalls that walk.

shades of gold, leaf, green and red

Going up the hill between the High Street and the Grove, I enjoy the variety of Autumn colours. I try to count them and find names for them. The spectrum within a sheet of gold, containing green, umber, lemon yellow, crimson, cream, sienna, ochre might sum them up.

A leaf, with streaks of crimson, curls like a claw on the tarmac in the middle of the road as I walk up Mt Sion.

Giant peppers from Sicily are on display in the delicatessen. They are in the process of changing from green to red; the green streaks are dark, almost black; and the red streaks, deep red, merging also into a depth of darkness, which they share with the green.

draped, bell pull, kiss

Those expressionless, plastic lay figures in shop windows always fascinate when the window is being dressed. Today in Hoopers department store a group of alabaster-white women, revealing the lines where they are articulated above the hips, are ranged with their backs to the window, grouped as though watching the window decorators painting the backdrop. A dustcloth is draped over them not so much for the sake of modesty as to shield them from paint splashes.

As I pass the front door of a house, which gives directly on to the street, I see a visitor reach up and pull a handle. It is an old fashioned bell pull and I hear a responsive tinkle inside.

My friend Anna sends me a postcard in which she mentions a happy encounter. "I saw a daddy with a little boy with very blond hair floating above his head, jumping up to his dad to tell him something. It was a friend with his Downs sydrome son Archie, friends of our family. Archie has a beautiful face and I gave him a kiss. He wanted to do it again, We did it again. We did it three times." She adds: "All my gloomy thoughts flew away."

cooking eggs, emptiness, snowman

I have been looking at Velasquez's An old Woman Cooking Eggs, painted in 1618. It captures a domestic moment. A woman is seated by a table on which various implements are spread, an egg in one hand, a wooden spoon in the other; the spoon is held above an earthenware dish on a brazier in which you can just see glowing charcoal; two eggs in the dish already sit in hot oil; a boy with a pumpkin in one hand, a decanter of oil in the other, stands beside her. She looks up, the boy looks down. Their eyes don't meet and never will.

Morrison's supermarket opposite the station, formerly Safeway, is closing its doors on Friday. Today most of the shelves are bare. It seems a nightmare of want.

In a furniture shop window is a little snowman made of twisted wire, sprayed white. He has a hat made of black wire, and a real carrot for his nose. White christmas tree lights are woven into the structure, as is a motor which cranks his arm to make him continuously lift and replace his hat.

always a birthday, greetings, kicking leaves

There are three or four customers in Hall's bookshop this afternoon. A little girl approaches each of them with a home made chocolate cake on a paper plate and offers a slice. "Is it someone's birthday?" asks one of the customers. "It's always someone's birthday," says the girl.

I am often surprised and made a little uneasy by someone I don't know greeting me warmly, as happened today in the bank. It took me a few moments to realize that he was talking to the man directly behind me in the queue for the counter. Something similar happens when someone comes up behind you in the street and says "hullo" into a moble phone.

Under the turkey oak in the Grove, I kick my way through the fallen leaves, and realize that kicking leaves is something I have done as long as I can remember.

wondering, reading, autumn

Wondering what is going to happen in the next second.

Reading by the window where rain drops tap the glass and collect.

"Voici moins de plaisirs, mais voici moins de peines.
Le rossignol se tait; se taisent les sirènes".
"There are fewer pleasures here, but less pain.
The nightingale is silent; the sirens too."
Jean Henri d'Aubigné

tuna, white heather, clouds

Something special for supper and beautiful to see as well as eat: tuna steaks briefly marinated in lemon juice and sesame oil, and seared on the griddle; with them a stir-fried mixture of vegetables - cucumber, sugar snap peas, red and green peppers, spring onions, lemon grass and coriander, spiced with finely sliced ginger, a little fresh chilli and a drop of soy sauce. To drink with these - a perfect match it turns out - a bottle of dry, aromatic Wolf Blass Reisling from South Australia, a present from Ken and Joyce last time they came to see us.

Long flowering white heather plants from the new farmers market in the Pantiles to go in the window box outside the dining room.

To read the afternoon, I watch the sky. For a moment, an almost perfect circle of blue appears between the surging clouds.

gold dust, ladybird, after school

Small drops of rain blow past in the sunshine like specks of gold dust.

A ladybird crawls across the head of one of the stone lions beside our doorstep.

In the heart of town, outside Cafe Nero, teenage school children gather after school. The girls scream and greet one another with hugs and kisses. They are like a flock of birds gathering on an especially propitious site, fluttering and shrieking, playing for territory, showing off their feathers.

boot, leaf mosaic, oldies

You sometimes see one half of a pair of shoes abandoned in a field or by the road side, less often a wellington boot. In our twitten, (the little path that runs between the back gardens of houses in parallel streets), near the dustbins, lies a lone wellie.

Passing cars have pressed flat onto the tarmac the fallen leaves of the lime tree on the bend opposite; a rich mosaic of of reds, browns, ochres results.

A group of oldies follow a man in a brown suit into the Grove. He seems to be giving a guided tour. He stops and turn towards them as they gather round. It begins to rain. All the oldies open their umbrellas; he has no umbrella. As I pass, I catch the phrase "...in the eighteenth century ..."

peace, jelly, acorns

"Quand on ne trouve pas son repose en soi-meme, il est inutile de le chercher ailleurs."
When you can't find peace in yourself, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. Le Rochfoucauld.

I work on the crab apples, which I cooked yesterday, and allowed to drip through the jelly bag all night. Now I have the pleasure of labelling. The scruffy little green apples have been transformed into four jars of translucent crimson jelly.

Crunching acorns under foot, I make the connection with the oak forests of the Andalucian sierra, and think of the pata negra, long legged Iberian pigs, which live up there, feed off acorns and produce the sweet, air-dried serrano ham, which you find in every self-respecting bar in Spain.

memories, adagio, perfume

"Les souvenirs sont cors de chasse
Dont meurt le bruit parmi le vent".
Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies in the wind. Apollinaire.


Listening to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. It joins sadness with a profound feeling of content, and brings to mind:
"...And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well..."

Crab apples slowly cooking perfume the house.

accents, pomagranite seeds, three crows

Now here's a beautiful thing. Ever since I have written this blog I have been unable to use accents over letters, umlauts etc. within the blog format. Now thanks to Clare Grant, who had the original idea of describing, every day, three beautiful things in her log , I have discovered the knack, with the help of the program called character map. What a souflé to savour!


Pomegranite seeds are beautiful things. Just look at one. It is like a jewel, a ruby; its single seed looks like a source of light within it.

The other day I saw three crows struttin' there stuff in the Grove. Today, on a roof top above Five Ways, three crows (could they be the same?) take over the chimney and slates, fluttering and squabbling ; and below flows the traffic.

10 verb poem, pumpkin, crab apples

look
see
listen
hear
touch
feel
inhale
smell
engage

dance

Ron Wallace of Rhode Island, I read in the paper, has grown a pumpkin which weighs 1,502 lbs (720kg). It has a circumference of more than 9ft.

Today in search of crab apples we find that the tree in High Rocks Lane, which was barren last year, has recovered. We came home with a rucksack full of the unpreposessing little green fruit, and there will soon be several jars of translucent rose-coloured jelly with which to remember a gentle, autumn walk across the Common and down Cabbage Stalk Lane.

Kohl rabi, anniversary, October butterfly

At the farmers' market is a stall with kohl rabi, that strange looking, member of the cabbage family, which is notable for its swollen stem, a bulbous shape, the size of a tennis ball, or larger. This is the part you eat. When displayed at the greengrocer, the leaves, which are not usually eaten, are cut off, leaving spikes protruding from the bulb so that it looks a bit like a mine.

We pass a neighbour's house. The owners who are in the garden invite us for a drink. While we are sitting in the sun, we learn that it is their 55th wedding anniversary.

While we are at a cafe table opposite the station, I see a butterly fluttering past the station: I check the fact that it is October 14.

Flash mobbing, grape juice, dragon fly

I am intrigued by "flash mobbing", where people with ipods and mp3 players collect to dance in silence, they are united but separate, enclosed in their own worlds. The papers show a photgraph of the concourse of Liverpool Street station, London, full of dancers at one of these "silent discos".

The neighbour, whose grapes tumble over the wall of his house, brings round a large garden sieve loaded with tight little bunches of the black grapes (I stole one such bunch the other day as I walked past). There must be several pounds of them. I feed them into the juicer and produce, to everyone's satisfaction, pints of foaming, purple grape juice. Sweet enough to drink yet sour enough to be refreshing.

A dragon fly, not for the first time, but never, surely, so late in the year, flies past me up Mount Sion, keep more ore less to the centre of the road.

Holly,grapes,time to stare

Holly trees are laden with clusters of bright red berries. I am not sure that I believe the saw that this betokens a hard winter.

Bunches of ripe grapes tumble over a neighbour's wall. I steal a bunch. The grapes are small and not very sweet, and each contains a large pip. But, what is it they say about stolen fruit?

The slogan of this log (and others like it eg the emotional blackmailers handbook and three beautiful things) must be
" ... what is life, if full of care
we have no time to stand and stare?".

crows, vapour, milkmen

Usually there are two crows stutting on the grass in the Grove or flapping lazily into the trees, as though they owned the place. Today there are three.

The sky to the west where the sun is setting is laced with the vapour trails of aircraftin the direction of Gatwick airport. They shine in the setting sun, criss crossing paths going nowhere in particular.

Very early this morning while it is still dark, I hear the electric milk float stop, deliver to the house opposite and race its motor to start again up the remains of the hill. My mind goes back nearly 7o years to the sound of a milkman with his horse and cart, and the noisy clinking of the glass bottles you had in those days.

caught, clock pigeons, chyrsanthemums

A shadow takes a photograph of its owner.

A cluster of pigeons occupies the roof of the four-sided clock tower, which stands above the railway station. The pigeons look like voluntary ornaments. The clock has been out of order for several months. This may explain the boldness of the pigeons.

The golden, yellow-highlighted, glowing flowers of russet Chrysanthemums, are the best of all Autumn colours. They sum up the gentleness of the season, only mildly tinged with sadness. of the season.

weather forecast, plastic water, watching the screen

I take pleasure in ignoring the weather forecast prefering to wait and see what happens.

A vase of roses in the post office has drops of water on the leaves. Like the flowers, the water drops are plastic.

From the terrace outside Sankey's I see framed in a window a man in his shirt sleeves looking in front of him. I can't see a screen, but he must be at at a computer. How many people in offices are not at computers?

condensation, checking up, ash keys

The area of condensation on the bedroom window this morning goes up and down like a graph or outline of a mountain range.

A little girl, six or seven, checks her mother who is choosing carrots. "I'm not going to poison you with carrots after all this time," says the mother.

Ash keys sometimes do resemble bunches of keys as they hang in the Autumn sun. I doubt if they tinkle like real keys do when shaken, but if you could get close enough to distinguish the sound, you might hear them rustle or crackle.

dried fruit, thin cat, toy drum

In the French market in the Pantiles is a stall with many different varieties of dried fruit. We buy dried, sour cherries. Better than a bag of sweets, we say!

A long, thin orange cat sniffs the tailgate of a black Rangerover, and sidles off. Not its sort of thing.

I can't resist playing with a toy drum with proper parchment in the smart toy shop in the High Street. I love toys as much, if not more, than when I was more of an age for them. Another grandfather passes. "I'll join in with the xylophone," he says.

dried fruit, thin cat, toy drum

In the French market in the Pantiles is a stall with many different varieties of dried fruit. We buy dried, sour cherries. Better than a bag of sweets, we say!

A long, thin orange cat sniffs the tailgate of a black Rangerover, and sidles off. Not its sort of thing.

I can't resist playing with a toy drum with proper parchment in the smart toy shop in the High Street. I love toys as much, if not more, than when I was more of an age for them. Another grandfather passes. "I'll join in with the xylophone," he says.

paved with gold, cowboy, skyscape

After the heavy rain, it is still warm and steamy. The sun appears unnaturally bright. The wet brick pavements, in reflecting it, seem to glow. The black tarmac of the roadway glitters.

As I walk, without stopping, past the open door of the Grove Tavern, I glimpse in the corner of my eye, a man, in a broad-brimmed hat, lining up his cue at the bar billiards table.

Big banks of white clouds move fast, chasing one another across the blue space between. A silver plane crosses a gap in the clouds.

It's all the same to me!

grass, all these I learnt, warnings

The smell of grass in nearby streets tells you in advance that they they are cutting the grass in the Grove.

Today is National Poetry Day. I wouldn't have known it, if I hadn't heard Prince Charles on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme. To celebrate the occasion, he was reading something by the travel writer, Robert Byron, whose book The Road to Oxiana was published before World War 2. It turns out, that it was not, strictly speaking, a poem, but a piece of prose, having no metric pattern, line form or rhyme - a prose poem perhaps. I tracked it down with the help of Google. The Prince chose well, no old chestnut, but something, which will be new to most people as it was to me.
It is a beautifully written list of flowers, butterflies and moths in the English countryside which he would like his son to know, as the writer came to know them in his own childhood.
"....He shall know the tree-flowers, scented lime-tassels, blood-pink larch tufts, white strands of the Spanish chestnut and tattered oak-plumes. He shall know orchids, mauve-winged bees and claret-coloured flies climbing up from mottled leaves. He shall see June red and white with ragged robin and cow parsley and the two campions. He shall tell a dandelion from sow thistle or goat's beard..." . There is more, and the piece ends: "All these I learnt when I was a child and each recalls a place or occasion that might otherwise be lost. They were my own discoveries. They taught me to look at the world with my own eyes."
The piece was quoted by Laurence van de Post in a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society in 1995. Van de Post was of course a friend and advisor to Prince Charles. The BBC will almost certainly be flooded with enquiries about its source, and rightly so. It is a forgotten masterpiece and a truly beautful thing by an observer of beautiful things.

The preposterous warnings by manufacturers, scared witless by the threat of law suites, are highlighted by Simon Carr in today's Independent. They are taken from a list published by the Michigan Law Suite Abuse organisation, and may be verified on www.mlaw.org/wwl/index.html should they seem too crazy to believe. Here are some of them:
A label on a new kitchen knife warns: "Never try to catch a falling knife".
A popular scooter for children warns: "This product moves when used."
A label on a hair dryer reads: "Never use hair dryer when sleeping".
A household iron warns: "Nevr iron clothes when they are being worn."

Two conkers

 

marrows, chard, magpies

Neglected while we were away, the courgettes have become magnificent vegetable marrows, some yellow and some green.

The chard has shot up. Huge green leaves are ready for picking. They are the size of docks but promise something altogether sweeter. For some reason the red or ruby chard has failed this year.

I see three magpies fluttering round a rowan tree and then flying up and taking over the roof and gables of a house. Then to my surprise they are joined by another, and then two more. Six magpies altogether, something I have never seen before.

red creature, Golden october, virginia creeper

Sitting at a table on the terrace of Sankey's I spot a minute red creature - I suppose about a millemeter long - tearing here and there. At first I think it is some kind of spider, but it is too small to check whether it has eight legs, which would be an indication. Google helps but doesn't completely answer the question. Mites are similar to spiders having four pairs of legs - but spider mites tend to be pests don't they and inhabit greenhouses. And surely they don't race around tables on their own at top speed!

Sitting in the October sun with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Golden October.

The blood red colour of virginia creeper is most striking when it climbs through, and is contrasted with, variegated ivy. I watch its tongue-like leaves flame in the sun.

Watching umbrellas, dog shelter, conkers

In the shelter of a dripping doorway, I watch people pass. They lean into their umbrellas which they hold at an angle against the wind.

Outside the Italian delecatessen there are two sets of tables and chairs where people can take their espressos and capucinos. In the rain, an umbrella has been secured bridging a chair and a table. It shelters a small dog with white paws and long ears. The dog is wearing what looks like a macintosh stretched over its back. It licks the water from the pavement. The umbrella carries the logo "Porsche-Club Great Britain".

Fresh conkers: they shine as though they have been french polished. The rings, which show through the veneer of their shells form patterns like isobars on a weather map.

Onions and tears, monkshood, human race

An article in the paper (drawn from the Last Word correspondence in the New Scientist answers the question, why do onions make you cry? They contain, it says, a derivitive of sulphur, which is decomposed by an enzyme to form the volatile propanthial S-oxidide. This is the irritant or lacrimator. Upon contact with water - in this case on your eyes, the irritant hydrolises to propanol, sulphuric acid and hydrogen sulphide. Tearfully the eyes try to dilute the acid. What it doesn't say is what most chefs will tell you; that nearly all the tear-making irritant is in the root end of the bulb. If you cut this off and discard it before chopping there should be no tears.

About this time of year the monkshood in the garden is in flower. It is poisonous, but a bright, magical blue.

The human race is a race which, in the long run, no body wins.

Noddy, beans, fit

Outside East Grinstead, there is a cemetary called Mount Noddy.

The beans, which have served us so well this summer, have now swollen in the pods. But they are still useful. Removed from the pods and sauteed with a little chopped shallot and garlic, they become a dish in themselves, like the dried haricot beans, which you have to soak before cooking. But these require no soaking.

"Fit for purpose," seems to be catching on as a fashionable expression. I've heard it several times on Radio 4. If any one uses it to me, it will give me great pleasure to hit it on the head.

Twilight

 

Playa de Santa Sebastian, Sitges

 

Waves, no, lonely cloud

For eight nights our bedroom two floors above the sea and half way along the narrow road, which borders the beach, echoed to the sound of waves breaking. After a while we could tell from the noise what state the sea would be in, inthe morning and whether it would be suitable for proper swimming or simply vigorous jumping over the breakers. A continuous roar meant rough water and powerful breakers. A pause between the sound of a wave breaking and the next, meant a calm sea. When we got home last night it was hard to get to sleep for the complete silence.

Two pieces of widely visible grafitti in the country outside Sitges stay in my mind. The first simply said in Catalan: "No a tot", which means: "No to everything". The second in the same ironic mode, in Spanish: "Todo lo que me gusta esta prohibido" which means "Everything which I like is forbidden".

It was a pleasure to photograph a solitary cloud in the evening sky, and to see the cloud on the screen when we got home.

police, range of clouds, running dog

Two or three times a day, a pair of police officers patrols the peaceful stretch of promenade opposite the hotel. One is a man and one a woman The woman has a blonde pigtail falling half way down her blue-shirted back.

This morning the sky is clear, pale blue and bright. Above the horizon, backed by the light of the rising sun, is a long line of jagged, purple clouds aping a mountain range.

From the balcony I watch a dog running down the hill to the left, and over the zebra crossing opposite the hotel. Behind the dog runs a woman, puffing. It seems that they are on a usual errand. But who is taking whom for a walk?

a face, swallows, children`s voices

"His face was simultaneously boney and doughy, a face fed on junk food." From Roger`s Version, a wickedly funny and profoundly perceptive novel by John Updike, which I have just finished reading.

Swallows, (golondrinas is the lovely Spanish word) fly inland from the beach. The late afternoon sun tints their white breast feathers a shade of gold as they wheel above our balcony.

The voices of the children´s choir in the church of the Monstserrat monastery are full of grace. And not even the crowds of tourists (of which I am ashamed to be one) pushing and shoving, and holding their cameras and video cameras above their heads to steal some of the beauty and tranquility of the scene, cannot spoil it.

summer lightening, snow white, swimming pool

Last night there was sheet or summer lightening over the sea and beyond the horizon. In the dark there was no visible horizon until the distant lightening showed it up contrasting the dark sea with the illuminated sky beyond the rim of the globe. When the lightening was nearer, it lit up the sky for a second showing the sort of dramatic cloudscape you see in the romantic paintings of Casper David Friedrich.

On the other side of a black railing outside an open ground-floor window sits a snow white cat.

The swimming pool is a peaceful place. We are nearly always the only users. Above it towers a date palm, its ripening dates falling in orange tresses beneath its broad, feathery fronds. There is also bougainevilla and brilliant red hibiscus flowers.

French party, catching raindrops, wedding photos

A party of eight French people - four men and four women - arrive to eat in the restaurant where we are having dinner. One of the women stares at what we are eating as though to guage the quality of the food and then apologies when she sees that we have noticed. They go indoor to eat - we are outside - and settle at a long table. Later I pass their table and notice them eating and talking enthusiastically with a sort of intensity characteristic of the French. They are at a long table, the four men and one end, the four women at the other.

During a heavy shower outide a bar where an overhead canvas cover protects customers from the rain, a little girl, leaning her head backwards, catches drops of water in her mouth as they fall through a rent in the cover.

A bride and groom appear on the beach after their wedding, she in her white flounced wedding dress and black hair in a chignon, he in a tie and dark suit. They pose for a photographer, she swirling her dress, he spinning her round as though in a dance movement. Then, for the video camera, she jumps on his back, he bends forward and they both spread their arms as though flying.

swimming in the rain, sea colour, la netedat

In the swimming pool, drops of rain water splash like fish rising.

This morning the sea is pearl grey; then as the sky brightens, a greenish glow appears and the waves unroll.

Plaques on the outside walls of houses announce in Catalan: " No embruteu les parets, la netedat es un gran senjal de civiltzacio." We have seen no grafitti in Sitges.

present, drums, walking

Opening a birthday present which exceeds expectation: the Everyman edition of Montaigne´s complete works. I read right away that Michel de Montaigne´s father was called Pierre Eyquem de Montaigne. He was mayor of Bordeaux. Is there a connection between his family and Bordeaux´s famous sweet white wine, Chateau dÝquem.

Tomorrow is the Fiesta de Santa Tecla, the local patron saint. Small children with drums practice for the procession. Everywhere the sound of beating drums. Tonight, fireworks.

On the beach a woman in a black singlet and striped shorts marches up and down along the edge of the water. She has thin brown legs from much walking. She walks swinging her arms loosely for hours on end. To complete the picture, four women line up on the beach facing the sea and perform slow oriental exercises more or less in time with one another. You get the impression that the beach has been taken over by some sort of insitution.

no change, cooking, warmth

Nothing seems to have changed here in Sitges. Even the computer on the reception desk has been awkward as last year, but has yielded to my ministrations.

People on the beach spread fat on their bodies and gently cook in the sun until the crackling has achieved the desired crispness.

Palm trees in the breeze fanning their shadows with their giant spreading fronds.

helmet, scooters, fish

A person (or monster) in a helmet and bikers' gear crosses the road fully accoutred. Until the helmet is removed, as it approaches the opposite pavement, you don't realise that it is a young woman.

At the bottom of the High Street there is an extra wide strip of pavement. Because there is a drop of about four feet to the roadway, it is bordered by a railing. Behind the railing is a sort of corral for scooters. They line up there, facing the railing, sadly waiting for their owners.

"Looking for fish? Don't climb a tree". Chinese proverb.

variable resource, six men and a hole, framed

In an obituary of the arts administator, Sir John Drummond, I read that John Birt, when he was director general of the BBC, replied as follows to a question put by Drummond about the BBC's orchestras: "They are a variable resource centre whose viability depends on the business plan of the controller of Radio 3". Apparently Birt said later that he had been joking, but Drummond, says the obituarist, was not convinced.

In Mount Pleasant six men are trying, with difficulty, to move a cash dispensing machine into the new premises of the Royal Bank of Scotland. A hole in the wall awaits the success of their manoeuvres.

Framed by two windows of a stationary bus are the head and shoulders of two old men, one in each fame, the one behind the other. One has plump, rather florid features, the other a thin and lined face. They present portraits in profile. Each stares straight ahead, never looking out of the window; and each, in his different way, has the bleak, empty stare of someone going nowhere.

Stillness, trotting pony, idiots

Some days recently have been completely still. Leaves, even at the top of the lime tree, do not stir. And sounds, close too and far away, are amplified by the heavy air.

Two or three times recently a pony and trap has trotted past our house - the sound of hooves on tarmac is rare nowadays, particularly in a town like ours, and beats the noise of an internal combustion engine any day.

I like and approve of the German saying: "Even the gods cannot fight against stupidity". The German Dummheit is a nice word for stupidity.

talking, babies, Magners

Talking to an old friend on the telephone about this and that is a beautiful thing.

Fascinating, isn't it, the way babies look at you, especially when secure in the arms of a parent. It is an open, penetrating stare, unequivocal, uninhibited, that seems to imply a knowledge of what they see, which exceeds your own knowledge of yourself or any body else's.

A beverage, which seems to be sweeping the country at the moment is a cider, made in Ireland, called Magners after its brewers. It comes in a heavy, solid bottle, about half a litre (on other words a pint) in capacity. It is served in a pint glass on a stack of ice, which allows topping up aften the first pouring because of the volume of ice. It is dry, "crisp" they say, and has just 4.5% alchohol content. It is gold in colour with a hint of pink. It is just the drink for me at the moment.

pub sounds, pink limo, bombarded with beans

The sounds which emerge through the open door of The Grove Tavern on a summer afternoon, a harmonious, contented rumble of voices, with the click of a billiard cue at regular intervals.

Double parked at the bottom of Mount Sion, not exactly a beautiful thing, but a spectacular one: a long, shining stretch limo, its immaculate bright pink paintwork contrasting with the mysterious smoked glass windows.

This joyful piece of prose on the menu of a new Persian restaurant:
Baghali Polo with Mahiche (Persian treasure)
Basmati rice bombarded with bare naked baby broad beans
captured in a unique taste of dill, butter and saffron, served
with a succulent portion of lamb shank..."

Woman on phone, Fibonacci, starlings

I pass a picture window close to the road, where a woman is sitting with a telephone and a cup of tea. Absorbed with the phone, she massages one bare foot with the other.


I have always been intrigued by the sequence of numbers discovered by the thirteenth century mathemetician Leonardo Fibonacci. In the Fibonacci sequence of whole numbers each number is equal to the sum of the preceeding two. Hence Fibonacci numbers are: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and on and on for ever. I have known for some time that the number of flower petals or seeds in flowers from the daisy to the sun flower, are nearly always Fibonacci numbers. Today, I read that, particularly as the numbers get larger, the ratio of each number to the preceding one "converges" on the number 1.618... which is the "divine proportion" or "golden mean"recognised by Pythagoras as a symbol of health and used by Euclid to construct a regular pentagon and other more complex figures. The ratio was apparently known to the ancient Eygyptians who used it in the pyramid at Gizeh where the ratio of the altitude of a face to half the side of the base is almost exactly 1.618. Renaissance artists among others applied the ratio in architecture and the composition of paintings, a fact that did not escape the author of the De Vinci Code.


On the cross bars of a telegraph pole sit rows of starlings like musical notes.

Shoe box, discovery, intelligence

In the packaging cupboard, I find a smart shoe box in whichI can pack the collection of stationery I have bought for grand-daughter Giselle's birthday. The boxes of pencils and notes and the journal with a magnetic clasp fit perfectly; the box might have been made for the purpose.

For some time I have been meaning to read Effi Briest by the 19th Century German novelist TheodorFontane. Today, there it is in the Oxfam book shop in Chapel Place - a black-spined Penguin Classic edition in good condition, perfect for holiday reading.

Am I intelligent? No. But I am intelligent enough to know that I am not.

Hot air, spider, truth

I watch a red, hot air balloon float across the sky above the Compasses. Against the light you can see the flame inside and just hear the subdued roar that it makes.

Three times in the last few days I have blundered into and completely wrecked an almost invisible spider's web stretched at head height between the two side of the hedge above the steps that lead down to our back door. The last time was this morning. This evening, through the study window, because of the position of the sun behind the web, I can see that it has been remade in just a few hours.

When people preface a statement with the words "to tell the truth", I wonder what they normally tell.

soprano, reading, quick response

In the hot, lazy afternoon the rise and fall of a soprano voice practising scales drifts into the garden where I am reading.

In the Grove a woman is sitting in the shade under a tree peacefuly reading. The book is on the ground to her left: her right arm supports her upright position; her head is bent over the book; one knee is drawn up as a balance. She doesn't move. Her concentration is complete.

I order a book from Amazon. The next day it arrives.

Corn on the cob, rabbit food, defiance

The sweet, succulent seeds of fresh corn on the cob, grilled and dripping with butter.

In Sainsbury's I read, on a 4kg bag on the pet food shelves, the legend: " Wagg Bunny Brunch tasty food for rabbits".

In the Compasses a woman I know describes her daily journey to work down Whitehall. " I always salute the Centotaph," she says, "and put two fingers up as I pass Downing Street." A policeman once stopped her after this daily demonstration. But she is a formidable lady, and escaped incarceration.

abutilon, acorn, verde

The white bell-shaped flowers of the abutlion glow in the twilight with the yellow stamens and carpels shining a pale yellow like the interior of chinese lanterns.

The green of a new acorn fading into the white body of the nut.

Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
Y el caballo en la montana.

pistachio, thread of light, haiku - summer storm

The green that clings to the kernal of a roast pistachio nut.

Disconnected threads of light follow one another along an otherwise invisible line of spider silk moving in the breeze and reflecting the sun.

So hot, no leaf moves,
Clouds hide the sun, the bee rests.
The wave crashes down.

sounds of tea, wild sounds, sound decisions

The sound of tea being poured and the tinkling of a teaspoon.

From the elm tree come wild and rapidly repeated clucking sounds. It has to be the magpies which have been hanging about recently. But why all the fuss? You can't see because of the leaves. But could they be disputing territory with the wood pigeons which are usually there?

"Today's sound decisions, but for an occasional bit of luck, are usually history's mistakes". Chairman Plutarch

Thin skinned tomatoes, golden trumpets, meat and two veg

Although my tomatoes this year have been a great disappoinment, a few of the big, bulgy Brandywine's (that' the name of the variety) have produced spectacular fruit. Their outstanding quality comes, apart from their size and shape, from the thin skin and small seeds which, when seen in cross section, are as delicate as stars on a clear night. And they taste as good as they look. Some compensation for a sparse crop.

The golden trumpets of courgettes flowers are a joy to see among the spreading leaves.

Tonight's evening meal: Slices of cold brisket of beef with potato croquettes, sauteed courgettes and french beans dressed in olive oil.

Bird posters, apple time, autumn

A series of beautiful bird posters are arriving every morning with the Independent newspaper. Yesterday we had garden birds, today sea and coast birds. The illustrations are of a substantial size and make recognition easier than most. The captions are succinct but full of useful detail. By the end of the week there will be the equivalent of a whole bird book.

The apple trees which I planted five or six years ago and espaliered against a fence in the vegetable garden for the first time produced enough apples to be useful. The variety is James Grieve, not seen much nowadays, and certainly not in supermarkets. A bowl of the green apples, which are often tinged with sunrise reds and pinks, is a rewarding sight. And so is the spurt of juice when you bite into one straight from the tree.

Autumn is in the air. "I do not regret the passing of my youth," wrote Flaubert. "I love only the autumn of my life as I love the autumn of the year. Spring is idiotic and summer upsets me. Let's not think about winter..."

swifts, watermelon, Flaubert's Parrot

Swifts usually leave for a warmer climate by the middle of August. Yesterday evening we watched and listened to a party of these acrobatic, screeching birds wheeling above the High Street. Behind them, over the Common, hovered a red kite - a flying toy and not the bird of prey.

Watermelons are at their most spectacular, after a slice has been removed, and the skin, with its pale green background and dark green strips, is contrasted with the abundant crimson flesh.

Some years ago I read Julian Barnes's novel Flaubert's Parrot for the first time quickly and with only moderate enjoyment. But it left its mark, and, prompted by it, I subsequently read or reread five of Flaubert's most important works and a selection of his letters. I read them with increasing pleasure and enlightenment, and now I'm rereading Flaubert's Parrot with increaing pleasure and enlightenment. It is relatively short but amounts to a critique of the great French novelist's work and life, while its own sparse plot unfolds. Thankyou Julian Barnes.

vacuum cleaning, slow cooking, lighting up

Sucking up an overlooked pile of dust or cobwebs in an awkward corner with the tube of the vacuum cleaner, the sweeper-head removed.

Slowly pot-roasting a brisket of beef with sliced onions and spices which, after two and half hours, create a rich natural gravy.

"You don't go to hell to light a cigarette". Greek proverb.

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.

wishful thinking, racing children, driving on the pavement

A 28-stone man on the Channel 4 news complains that he was made to leave a passenger plane, because he didn't fit any of the seats. He had been humiliated. "I was made to feel very small," he said.

Thee children carreer down a path in the Grove on those little scooters with tiny wheels. They hurtle into Grove Avenue and down towards the High Street managing to stop before they reach the main road. Just. What excitement!

Ascending Grove Hill Road I see a car coming towards me in the centre of the pavement. It is a remote controlled model car. Its owner, a few steps behind it, with the remote in his hand, is taking it for walk.

Montaigne, cobnut, dandelion clocks

I love Montaigne. He is not exacting in any sense. He is relaxed. He says: "When I meet with difficulties in my reading, I do not bite my nails over them: after making one or two attempts I give them up." Why waste time and energy on what is obscure? And he is modest: "Mistakes often escape our eyes but it is the sign of poor judgement if we are unable to see them when shown to us by another."

Under the cobut trees the path is strewn with broken cobnut shells. The squirrels have as usual been at work. Seldom do they miss a single nut. The trees are almost if not completely stripped bare. But as as the husks crunch under my feet, I spot one nut that has survived. I crack it open and eat its milky kernal and it seems like a feast. Meanwhile on a bough that has pushed through the roof vent of the greenhouse, hang two more nuts which the squirrels have been prevented from reaching. I'm saving them for another feast.

Two perfect dandelion clocks rise from between paving stones in a front garden. They are stately yet possess a sense of fun.

Ginger plant, buddleia, cooks and hands

The piece of ginger I planted in a pot now has a substantial leaf.

On a buddleia, also known as the butterfly tree, flutters one solitary cabbage white.

Too many cooks spoil the broth. And many hands may light work.

Upside down squirrel, painted face, good timing

A squirrel clings upside down to the trunk of an oak tree yet manages to hold a nut in its forepaws and nibble intently.

I see a little girl in a push chair with her face disfigured by what appears to be a horrible disease. I notice her sister walking beside her mother with the same affliction, until, with relief, I realize that both children are ornamented with face paint.

It showers heavily and I can rejoice that I ccmpleted my gardening chores before it started.

clouds, shadows, Dombey & Son

Watching majestic nimbus clouds piling up in the blue.

Shadows of leaves playing on the trunks of trees.

Reading the last of the 1000 or so wearisome pages of Dombey & Son. If this were the only novel which Dickens wrote he would surely not be thought of as a great novelist. It is tedious and sentimental, with a story, which is rendered no more believable by the weird behaviour of the central characters. Not for a moment do you understand why they act as they do. It is not worth suspending disbelief for.

dragon fly, open mind, hibiscus

A dragonfly is trapped between the paines of a raised sash window. It looks huge and sounds almost like a helecopter as it beats its wings in the confined space. It has a long, green body,which suggests that it might be a female Emperor dragonfly according to my book of garden wild life. How to free it? Luckily it works itself free, exiting the way it came in, through the gap between the two window frames.

"Open mind. You can drive a tank through it and not bump into anything on the way".
From Plutarch's Dictionary of Common and Uncommon Sense.

The white hibiscus is, at last, in flower. It is a hymn to whiteness.I take a close-up photograph of a single bloom. I look closely to see what the camera sees, and perhaps more - a bunched-up cluster of translucent white petals with delicate undulations like creases in a piece of fine cotton, three or four white stamens, and the only colour, a scattering of yellow pollen beneath the stamens. I must down load the photo to see if the camera agrees.

captive bike, wild nasturtiums, old person

Bicycles are often seen chained to railings or lamposts but one chained to a tree in the Grove strikes me as surreal.

" Old person. Anyone 10 years older than you. Do not speak to one unless you have to."
From Plutarch's Dictionary of Common and Uncommon Sense.

The grass of the curved strip which we call a lawn and which follows the curve of the road and the hedge bordering our house is green again after the rain. An unusual feature is the nasturtiums, which are popping up on it at intervals. Walking its length I counted five plants with two tiny but distinctive leaves. I'll have to find a way of mowing round them.

two crows again, fruit eater, blower

The two crows are in the Grove again. This time they are walking and not hopping. One opens its beak and caws restlessly from time to time. The other continues foraging. Then the restless bird caws again and confronts the tranquil one with its open beak. The other responds by squaring up with its beak open and the beaks clash. Is this affection or agression? I suspect it is affection. Crows are said to pair for life and these two are behaving like a couple.

A girl on a bench leans sideways over the arm rest to eat what looks like a piece of fruit and avoid the juice dripping on to her clothes. It must be a mango I think, though it is too far to see for certain. Only mangos are messy enough to require such a posture.

A man in goggles and ear-muffs blows leaves before him with a leaf-blower. There is a power pack on his back like a rucksack. Autumn is still far off, but there are enough dead leaves around to run before him, "as though from an enchanter fleeing."

Sun after rain, two crows, film stars

After the rain the sun comes out and warms the grass, which steams.

In the Grove two crows walk and hop. They walk, one foot at a time pecking at the grass as they go. When they want to make more progress without going to the trouble of flying, they hop, both feet coming off the ground at the same time.

When I tell a friend about the shop window in which there are at present pictures of 20th century film stars, he fetches an album of cigarette cards "issued by John Player and Sons" entitled "Film Stars third series". There they are, over glamorous paintings, in which even the men appear to be wearing make up - Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Bette Davis, Gracie Fields, Erol Flynn, Vivien Leigh, Ray Milland, Laurence Olivier, James Stewart, and many others. Each card has been pasted in the place assigned to it, where there is a brief biography beneath the frame. Each picture is autographed by the star. It would be surprising if any were still alive.

flying time, confit, reunion

Looking at the time after a sociable lunch and finding that it is 5.30pm.

Confit of duck, crisped up after being removed from the fat in which it has been cooked and preserved, served with potatoes fried in the fat, and petits pois. A taste of the south west of France.

Meeting and eventually recognising someone whom you have previously only seen in fancy dress.

beatles, on the outside, weather

Apparently neo-nazis are threatening with extinction a species of slime mould beetle called Anophthalmus hitleri, because they are so keen to capture specimens of it, and retain them as pets. The beetle, which in 1933 , was named after Hitler by the man who discovered it, an amateur German entomologist, called Oscar Schneibel, is found only in 15 caves in central Slovenia. The habit, says the Independent where I read the story, of naming beetles after politicians seems still to be alive. Last year, three newly discovered slime mould beetles were named a. bushi, a. cheneyi and a. rumsfeldi.

Overheard from the pavement on the other side of our hedge:
Woman's voice: My father does that; my brothers do that; they never let me walk on the outside.
Man voice (fading): I would do that ... but..

Chalked on a blackboard outside the sailing club in Whitstable:
Thursday: rainy/ cloudy/ sunny.

Talking boat, seagull woman, branches

On the Thames, a boat full of tourists passes. On board, a guide with a megaphone has a loud, strident voice. He is describing the buildings on either side of the river. You can hear every word as the boat passes.

A woman friend, who loves eating fish, left a deep impression of this particular passion some months ago. In a restaurant, she began to pick at the head of a whole fish, which she had been eating and seemed to have finished with, prodding it with her fork, as gulls do with their beaks, and extracting the flesh until only eyes and bones remained. I wonder whether I will see a repetition of this intriguing behaviour when she is staying with us last week. I dissect a large turbot, which I have just cooked and start to serve the fillets, when true to character, she commandeers the discarded backbone, and, with her fork, tears at the shreds of fish, which still adhere to it, squeaking with excitement.


From the bedroom window I note the lower branches of the large lime tree outside the window moving slowly in the wind with the sort of rhythm people adopt when fanning themselves. Further away the more exposed upper branches of the tulip tree in the middle distance are waving in a more vigorous wind. This time the rhythm is rather that of someone waving to attract attention.

arctic beer, rubbish eater, fowls flapping

Drinking exotic beer. This one is Lapin Kult. It is described on the label as the premium beer of Finland. "Greetings from the North", says the label. "Made from the wild, sparkling waters of Lapland."

Moored on the Thames a raft like structure which acts as a filter in the tide and carries the legend "I eat rubbish". A noticed fixed to it claims that it collects 40 tons of rubbish every year, the equivalent of 800,000 plastic bottles. I feel virtuous just looking at it.

"The sound of her laugh: fowls flapping into the air being chased by a rooster."
As observed by Murray Bail, see, Now's the Time, August 14.

melancholy neon, silk road food, exercise by the Thames

A neon installation on a white wall in the White Cube gallery in Hoxton Square in London consists of these words in neon letters:
And if I don't meet you no more in this world
Then I'll meet you in the next one
And don't be late, don't be late

We eat mezze and shish kebab outside a restaurant in Old Street. The restaurant is called Shish which is turkish for the skewer on which meat and vegetables are grilled. The menu is drawn from the countries through which the 2000 year old silk route between Europe and China once passed, and whose local cuisines have influenced one another over the years. I savour the food and, not least the names of the place associated with the silk route: Trebizond, Tabriz, Nashapur, Samarkand, Kashgar, Xi'an. Never far away are James Elroy Flecker's words: "
We travel not for trafficking alone:
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

From the pedestrian bridge over the Thames, (St Pauls Cathedral on one bank, the Tate Modern on the other), I watch, on one of the beaches which occur when the tide is low, a solitary young man in a green T shirt doing some exercises; he leans forward and slowly rotates his torso, while breathing in the muddy air of the river.

Mallow

 

Whitstable fish market - Where's Tristan?

 

lost and found, open mind, sun

Grandson Josh goes missing on a family outing to Groombridge Place. After about 40 minutes, a hue and cry is set in motion. Eventually we find him sitting on a fence near the car park. Without talking to any one he has found his way, a long way, back from the Enchanted Forest. It seems that he deliberately set off on his own and didn't consider himself lost. Finding him was a beautiful thing, though losing him wasn't.

Open mind: the horse has bolted.

Looking for a third beautiful thing, I walk outside on grass, soggy for a change, with recent rain, and feel the warm sun on the back of my neck.

herbs, horse, showers

I cut herbs - chervil, tarragon, chives - to accompany a scallop and potato dish for supper, and particularly enjoy the aromas released into the evening air.

From a car window I see, for a fleeting moment, a horse in a particular position that I associate with Chinese drawings. Its body is facing foreward but its head is turned to the side and its neck stretched out to capture an especially juicy (one supposes) tuft of grass.

On the motorway we see showers ahead and it seem that we are going into the rain rather than the rain coming to us.

musket, fox without a tail, no ball games

I listen and watch entranced as someone dressed as an 18th century soldier explains the working of his muzzle loading musket to a group of small boys sitting in front of him. He is a natural story-teller, with perfect timing and a great deal of knowledge about what it was like to be an English soldier in America in the reign of George III. He is part of the entertainment in the magic forest at Groombridge Place, - a good outing for children of all ages. Now, I know precisely the origins of "half-cocked" and "ramrod".

There has been one fox or another in the vegetable garden since I have been working there; the current one is a misery. It has no tail, and when I arrive, he scuttles away, where his predecessors invariably ambled off with a mixture of dignity and disgust at being disturbed.

Most prohibitory notices have a streak of unconscious absurdity about them often falling uncomfortably between the specific and the universal. One near the pay kiosk at Groombridge Place suffers from something else as well: "No ball games inside the attraction", it insists.

rosehips, hunters, film stars

Rosehips hanging in bunches, too early for Autumn surely, but surely the hips of some early flowering almost wild rose! Each fruit has attached to it the whiskery remnants of sepals - all that is left of the flower.

"Hunter gatherers don't make good gardeners, nor gardeners, good hunter gatherers". JP

In the windows of Hoopers department store are photographs of all the film stars of the 20th century you can think of. People who don't normally look into shop windows stand in the street trying to name them all.

notes like these, beans, hydrangers

Murray Bail is the author of a novel called Eucalyptus, which I read a couple of years ago. It is set in his native Australa. It's about a man who promised his daughter's hand in marriage to anyone who could name all the varieties of eucalyptus on his estate. There are about 90 in all. It is an an odd and beautiful fairy tale, well written and intriguing. I am pleasantly surprised to find, this afternoon in Hall's bookshop, the published notebooks of Murray Bail, and even more pleasantly surprised that they consist of notes similar to those which appear in this log. One example, taken at random will suffice: "In a bus or tube I am torn between the necessity to read and knowing that I would become "more observant" if I looked round.

Picking beans in gentle, misty rain, I smell growing plants, damp leaves and the hanging pods and I don't mind if the water trickles down my sleeve.

The hydrangers, which a few weeks ago were bright blue clouds of flowers, have faded to a range of pale colours, pink and fawn and predominantly that pale green colour, called-eau-de nil. The colours reminds me of the silk scarves and handkerchiefs which old ladies used to have about their persons.