runner, tartine? out of the way

Runner beans are sometimes known as scarlet runners. This is why. Let the flowers speak for themselves.

Faced with yet another, grey, wet day, I take a loaf of bread, baked last night, out of the bin and make myself a tartine, to cheer myself up. At least that's what I think for a moment it might be. But after a while, I begin to have my doubts. Yes, it is a slice of bread and butter, which is a crude definition of tartine; but what bread, what butter? and in what terroir is it consumed? Suppose, I say to myself, a French person, who had never lived in England, were to announce that he had made himself some toast and marmalade, I am not sure that I would take him entirely seriously! Anymore than if he had boasted of making himself a cup of tea, or some toasted cheese, or Welsh rabbit (or rarebit)! I have never lived in France for more than a few days at a time, so I must defer to people who have (Lucy who does and Barrett Bonden, who did for example) for a true cultural definintion of a tartine.

The way people say good bye on the phone is always instructive. A man in shorts passes me in the Grove. He is talking into a mobile and almost sings his goodbye: "Good by ay ah!" he says, seeming to add under his breath, as he pops his phone into his pocket: "Got that out of the way, thank God!"

Unfolding, dressing, ambling

Courgette or zucchini, the flower as well as the fruit, has its charms, stuffed, fried, sauteed or chopped in a salad, or just to look at.











As I chat on the telephone to my friend Anna at first about diary-writing, then about letter-writing, the conversation turns to the Rev Sydney Smith(1777-1845), whose exuberant wit, shines through his correspondence, as delightful to day as contemporaries found it. He was something of a gourmet and is still remembered in gastronomic circles for his recipe for salad dressing:

To make this condiment your poet begs

The pounded yellow of two hard boiled eggs

Two boiled potatoes, passed through a kitchen seive,

Smoothness and softness to the salad give.

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,

And half-suspected, animate the whole.

Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,

Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;

But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault

To add a double quanitiy of salt;

Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,

And twice with vinegar procured from town;

And lastly o'er the flavoured compound toss

A magic soupcon of of anchovy sauce.

Oh, green and glorious! Oh herbaceous treat!

Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;

Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,

And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl!

Serenely full, the epicure would say,

'Fate cannot harm, I have dined to day.'


Sometimes, one supposes, people hurry across the Grove, on their way to work or school. But this afternoon everyone ambles. Even dogs. Only the squirrels seem in hurry to run up into the safety of overhanging branches, not certain of the intentions of dogs or people.

rowan, guitar, pop-up

Rowans again. They make a good jelly to go with game. Blackbirds, I have noticed, usually strip this tree and its neighbours before Christmas.

A small boy has a guitar case strapped on his back, like a satchel. It is almost the same size as him.

On the steps of the classical building, which is now a camping shop, is an erected tent called an Easy Camp Pop Up. Its flat base is inadequately anchored to the floor and as the wind enters it, it rocks and swings violently up and down as though someone is angry with it.

changing, inverted commas, tea service

These climbing French beans will eventually be purple from stem to tip. In their early stages of development, you can see the purple begininng to take over.

People sometimes say "in inverted commas" when they want don't want to identify themselves with a word, which they use reluctantly and for which they can find no alternative. Nowadays, you sometimes see, especially on television, a gesture to convey the same separation of meaning, which consists of two fingers of each hand held up beside the speaker's head. Others make the distinction by tone of voice alone. This is something that Proust understands in the context of the forms of snobbery, which he desrcibes so accurately:
'"Oh, but Cambremer is quite a good name - old too," protested the General.
"I see no objection to it being old," the Princess answered dryly," but whatever else it is it's not euphonious," she went on, isolating the word euphonious as though between inverted commas, a little affectation to which the Guermantes set were addicted'.

The Dragon Eye Oolong tea, which we have had in the house for the last few weeks, ran out this morning. The stall, which supplies it in the Pantiles market, was not there last Saturday, and we were unable to replenish stocks. As Heidi and I, despite a shyness for some of the more exotic teas, both now admit to an addiction for its ginger, peach and apricot flavours, I thought I would ring the supplier to see if they would send some by post. No need for postage! This afternoon a carton of the tea arrives delivered by hand.

harvest, umbrella, wind sounds

A few minutes harvesting this morning testifies to the aesthetic pleasure as well as the gastronomic promise of growing fruit and vegetable.

In a neighbouring garden, an old apple tree is shrouded in clematis montana rubens. The clematis is no longer in flower, (in May the pink flowers among the apple blossom give new life to the tree), but now its rampant leaves and stems, form a conical umbrella over the tree, remarkably symetrical in shape. Today, on top of the umbrella, a magpie busies itself.

In the Grove, this afternoon, I stop and listen to the wind in the trees. I ask myself, as I have done before, whether the sounds which the wind makes vary from tree to tree? A beech, I decide, has a fussy, slightly frantic sound, a silver birch rustles like lace, while a neigbouring oak is slower and more settled in its noisy whisper. But it is hard to tell how the gusts of wind dispose themselves in the air over the eminence on which the Grove is planted.

soup, mountain ash, communication

Soup is one of the many ways of making use of the courgettes (zucchini) which, despite the lack of sunshine, are in plentiful supply in the vegetable garden just now. And this is the tool, acquired relatively recently, which has halved for us the work of producing a thick soup based on a purée. No more do you have to transfer the vegetables, softened in stock in a saucepan, into a special receptacle where a liquidiser blade reduces them to a soup base. You simply plunge the hand held liquidiser (Braun 600 watt Turbo is its name) directly into the saucepan and in less than a minute the work is done. Add cream and adjust seasoning and in the case of the courgettes, you have a delightful, pale green "crème" , all in the original saucepan. There are apparently other hand held liquidisers and I can't say how much we appreciate the utility of ours, and regret not having bought one earlier.

The scarlet fruit of the mountain ash or rowan is now in full colour. An ornamental tree in the south of England, in mountainous or hilly, northern regions it grows wild. Whenever I see the tame local trees which grown round the corner from us, I think of the poem by Mary Webb which concludes:
Come away to the mountain tree!
Cinnabar-red with fruit is she.
We'll watch the stars, like silver bees,
Fly to their hive beyond the seas.

What a pleasure it is to see musicians (often when performing chamber music or jazz) communicating with one another with their eyes and with gentle smiles of approval or encouragement, as they play together. Sometimes, as on tv last night during a televised promenade concert, you can see the conductor relate as much by his expression as by gesture to the brass or woodwind, when he is ready for it to come in.

chervil, lost to history, pockets

"It is good for old people, " says the seventeenth century herbalist, Gerard: "it rejoiceth and comforteth the heart and increaseth their strength." I grow it whenever I can. With a flavour, suggestive of anise or liquorice, but milder, when it is chopped with parsley, tarragon and chives, it makes a good omelette aux fines herbes. Its use as a herb is more common in France, where it is called cerfeuil, than it is in England.

I am reminded of a recent discussion here about diaries and manuscripts destroyed, when I read in this morning's Financial Times a review of a biography of Madame de Maintenon entitled the Secret Wife of Louis XIV. Apparently she burnt her 60,000 letters including those from the King, because , she wrote: "We should leave as little of ourselves behind as we can."

Pockets are important to me. I like to have my hands free for taking photographs or notes. Hence my fondness for fishing jackets. One, which I possess has a broad pocket horizontally arranged above the lower part of the back. Today, it makes a suitable respectacle for a newpaper, and I proceed home across the Grove, ready for the unexpected.

gathering..., brushing, nutting

...in shadows.

As I approach the Grove, I hear the solemn and deliberate sound of brushing, as two gardeners sweep the paths of the bracts of still green leaves, which have been blown to the ground by recent high winds.

A squirrel with a nut in its mouth has the self-satisfied expression of a man clenching a cigar between his lips.

bean, sigh, crows

To be precise a borlotti bean. The undulations beneath the red-streaked, green skin of the pod, show where the white beans, also streaked with red, are beginning to swell. Yesterday's bean scape was a close -up taken with the super-macro facility on the new camera.

Outside a cutlers' shop, which is closing down an elderly lady, with a walking stick emits a deep, ambiguous sigh as she contemplates a display of cut price salad bowls.

In the Grove are four crows waddling, all in the same direction, over the grass which is wet from recent rain and yielding up its succulent inhabitants. The crows look smaller than the pair that occupied the Grove last winter and I suspect that they must be its progeny. Or is it mum and dad and two juniors?

...scape, swinging, pipe

Land or sea, earth or air, vegetable animal or mineral? Tomorrow, the full picture.

A stocky woman walks in front of me at an immense pace, one arm supporting a large shoulder bag, the other swinging in front of her and to the side, as though she is performing an unusual military manoeuvre. Her gait, in no other way military, is further dramatised by its wandering aim, as she tacks continuously across the pavement from left to right. Walking behind her, I find it hard to steer straight myself.

Today, I pass in the Grove a red faced, grey-suited man with a white moustache. He has a pipe, which protrudes at an angle from one side of his mouth. He walks briskly, and the pipe, which never moves, seems to be a vent for some hidden source of motive power.

The way out.., morning rain, ordered

...or for some, perhaps. the way in.

This morning before the wind gets up, I wake to the sound of rain falling steadily outside the window, like a large crowd of people talking quietly among themselves.

In the Grove I meet Olive, who is always busy. She looks after people's animals and plants when they are away. She has a special fondness for cats. She used to make detailed life size cut-outs of them from plywood, painted in life-like colours. There was at least one looking our of every window in her house. As we part, she says "lunch calls", certain evidence of an ordered life.

looking up, forecast,diaries

It occurs to me that one day there will be no chimneys or chimney stacks on our skyline as open fires give way to insulated houses kept warm by central heating, fired by condensing boilers, wind-powered electricty or solar panels . All the more reason to get up there on the rooftops where I have been camping out with my camera for the last few days.

My mistrust of the weather forecast is confirmed today, August 11, at 12 noon, when I read the forecast on the BBC homepage, which promises that we can expect sunny intervals on Sunday, ie yesterday.

More thoughts on diaries prompted by comments gratefully received. Four hundred years ago, on August 11 1688, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary, in anticipation, one might suppose, of Barrett Bonden's blog Works Well"...and thence at the office all afternoon till night, being mightily pleased with a little trial I have made of the use of a Tube-spectacall of paper, tried with my right eye." Pepys wrote his diary in an easily decipherable code (using, in some accounts of his bawdy encounters with chamber maids and the like, a mixture of French and Spanish words, which seemed to him more appropriate to describe his goings on), and left the manuscript in the care of Magdalene College, Cambridge, almost certainly with posterity in mind. Diaries written by politicians during their term of office, and usually regarded by their authors as a form of pension, are clearly written for others to read. But there remains an idea, quite contrary to the theory and practice of blogging, that diaries should, for a time at least, be secret, a constraint which, is reinforced, for a time, by the laws of libel. It seems to me, meanwhile, that one aspect both of blogs and diaries is the therapeutic benefit and the creative satisfaction which it brings to those who produce them.

up there, few words, diaries

My perusal of rooftops and in particular of the finials which builders and architects have placed there continues.

Brevity is not a word which you normally apply to Proust, yet in the last few days, as I proceed with my slow and enjoyable reading of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, I have found myself referring back to Proust's introduction of one of the most memorable of his characters, Madame Vedurin, whose little "nucleus" of regular guests, she clucks over and favouritises, and inculcates with her bourgeois, social and aesthetic prejudices. You find it hard to love her or her histrionics, which it is easy to laugh at, yet you wonder at the fineness with which Proust depicts her. What exactly is her background? Proust gives it in a sentence, or to be fair in part of a sentence, and, as it happens, entirely in brackets "... for all that madame Verdurin herself was a thoroughly virtuous woman who came of a respectable middle class family, excessively rich and wholly undistinguished, with which she had gradually and of her own accord severed all connections..."

A friend of mine, who has not and is unlikely ever to have a computer, kept a diary for almost a year, before, unaccountably giving it up. When recently she re-read it, she was quite pleased with it, (usually people, myself included, have the opposite reaction, and push their reread diaries away in embarrassment), and, taking me by surprise, asked me if I would like to read it. I have sent it back to her with the urgent request that she take up diary-writing again. What are its qualities? Clarity, directness, honesty, wit. And its weaknesses? Complaint, obsessiveness, self-absorption. Note that the weaknesses are what you would expect of an honest diary writer. It seems to me that diary-writing may be a chore, but it has the merit of providing a focus for one's thoughts and even actions, even if one leads what appears to be a sheltered life. I ask myself if this blog and the other blogs which I read, are not, after all, diaries of a sort? And whether the chief encouragement to continue with them is not the feeling that their readers, usually sympathetic, are responding, most of the time to your musings and observations. That, I suppose, may set blogs apart from more traditional diary forms, but the thought does put blogging and diary-writing in a new perspective.

finial, hot water, toy train

Round here, the finials on the roofs of Victorian and Edwardian houses can be rewarding reminders of the desire for discrete decoration.

Recourse to an old fashioned hot water bottle when you have pulled a muscle in your back proves a very present help in time of trouble.

In the High Street a new shop called the Children's Salon is on the point of opening. Suspended just below the ceiling and circling the shop is a narrow shelf wide enough for a track. And on the track, is a good sized toy train. Children and grand children are now probably to big to provide an excuse for me to enter. But when it opens I think I will anyway. Toy trains were unavailable in the war years ,when I was of an age to enjoy them

first, power, fecund

The first to bloom of a row of sunflowers which I planted in May. This, not too large, copper tinted variety is a favourite.

I watch a man with a power hose clean a yard. What ever he is getting rid of seems to have spread on to his shoes and the bottom of his trousers, because he directs the hose on to these, performing a little dance in the process.

In the vegetable garden, after the rain and in the continuing humidity, everything is growing and bursting out of its bounds. There is a sense of fecundity and excess.

encounter, storm, roofers

No fewer than four children were accompanying this rabbit, which in the distance I, at first, mistook for some sort of dog, on a walk in the Grove.

Last night, as the air grew sponge-like in its humidity, there was a majestic thunder storm.Lightening was almost continuous and the thunder irrupted overhead with ear-splitting claps. You might have used the phrase "shock and awe" if hadn't belonged in a less natural context.

A thin strip of green roofing felt is all that remains for the roofers who have been working on the house round the corner for the last four weeks, to cover with tiles.

vegetable love, raindrops, ready

Not of my growing, but snapped at the show-allotment in St James, Park, London. The patch is a memorial to the "Dig for Victory" campaign, which urged people to grow their own vegetables during World War 2. Even London's royal parks were turned over to horticulture in those distant days.

On the iron bars of a gate, raindrops hang in a row like beads on an abacus.

I enter a local bus, wallet in hand and open, but hesitate over which of two cards in adjacent slots, is my bus pass (the other one is my driving licence and no longer in active use). The driver points to the bus pass, and with a deprecatory smile, says: "You ought to have your bus pass ready when you get on the bus." For some reason I feel that I am back at school, my grey stockings twisted round my thin legs. "Pull up your socks, Hyam!"

post, forecast, usage

The barred metal gate at the main entrance to the Grove is not often opened. There is a separate pedestrian entrance, where spiders do not ply their trade.

After following the five day weather forecast on the BBC website recently, and having found that it has very little bearing on how the days turn out, I have decided to rely in future on traditional saws such as "red sky at night, shepherds' delight; red sky in the morning shepherds' warning.

An announcement on the platform of Tunbridge Wells railway station sets me thinking: "The next train at this platform is not for customer use." It is not so much pedantry as an over active imagination that allows me to occupy my mind with alternative uses to which customers (such a strange word to apply to passengers particularly as it is so frequently ridiculed) could put a train.

sculpture, heelys, conkers

I am drawn to the sculptural quality of these thorns and the green blackberries in waiting.

What are heelys? In case you didn't know they are the wheels set into childrens' shoes, which allow the shoes when the children's weight is distributed approprately to become instant roller skates, and the children instant missiles. Bliss, I used to think. But, "to reduce the risk of accident to our customers and colleagues," says a notice on the door of Sainsbury's "heeleys may not be worn in the store with wheels attached."

After the wind and rain of the last few days, the grass in the Grove is scattered with miniature conkers in their spiked green cases under the horse chestnut trees.

rural break, short cut, Oolong plus

Nowadays I do not often have the chance to look at, photograph or draw cows from life. So I was glad the other day to be able to use the zoom on the new camera, while on my way to visit my invalid friend, who is recovering in the country. I love the way the ears of cows often stick out at right angles from their heads. It is a coincidence that Lucy's black and white cows, one of which has a glowing orange label on it ear, appeared on Box Elder a few days ago.

Among the front gardens, which I pass, one is attractively unkempt with all sort of garden flowers mingling with their wild cousins. The owner of the house, a reluctant gardener, has hit on an unusual method of restraining weeds. She simply heaps layers of compost on top of the weed and plants shrubs and the like on the compost.

Heidi's daughter Caroline is staying with us at the moment. Where Caroline goes, teas - unusual teas from China - are never far behind. Last year her, Christmas present was a number of immaculately packed examples of such teas. On this visit, she brings some Dragon Eye Oolong tea, described as "Green oolong tea with sunflower and marigold flowers, and ginger, peach and apricot flowers". It has an amazing perfume - scented but never cloying and leaves a fresh, lingering after taste, like a Spring breeze.

agapanthus 5, tourists, gathering

The story of the well fed agapanthus - a happy ending.














A collection of tourists round the iron railing above the Chalybeate spring in the Pantiles - the raison d'etre of Tunbridge Wells - sip the unsavoury, brown water, which people used to think was good for them because of the iron content. They hold the water up to the light, swirl it around and look as though they are parodying professional wine-tasters at work.

Singing in the rain is all very well, but gathering vegetables amd cutting flowers, this morning, in the soft, summer rain is even better.

the centre, flying, swinging

A couple of hundred meters from Whitehall, just a little further to the Palace of Westminster in one direction and Buckingham Palace in the other, these new reed beds, adjoining the lake in St James's Park, make London seem delightfully rural.

Wind and sunshine accompany me as I walk up the wooded drive of Burrswood, the hospital and rehabiliation centre, to visit my friend Anna who is recovering from a hip operation. Particularly, when I come to gates overlooking fields, through gaps in the trees, I see all sorts of things flying about in the wind: some insects, self-powered; and thistle down and other seeds, powered by the wind.

I try to photograph bumble bees, of which there are quite a lot round here, as they settle on sprigs of lavender. The job is made difficult by the way the stems swing up and down when the insects settle and depart. They, bees and lavender, seem to be performing a frenzied dance, and I have little success with my camera.

looking up, mnemonic, road map

No reason for showing this chimney on the roof of the house opposite ours, except as a change. As a change from taking photographs of flower petals and insects, I raise the new camera, look upwards apply the zoom, and, hey presto, I have soared three storeys high. Also I like the 18th century, pineapple finial, which is one of several which rise from the cornice of the house.

As I have a poor memory, I rely more than most people on mnemonics. Some I enjoy more than others. My favourite, at the moment, is the one I use to distinguish between the french words pécher, to sin, and pêcher, to fish. The circumflex accent over the "e" in pêcher, I tell myself, is a hat worn by a fisherman, leaving no doubt about which word is which.

In Mount Pleasant, they are carefully removing the bricks round the boles of the plane trees which line the street. The roots have been pushing up the bricks making mounds, which may be considered dangerous. With the bricks gone, and the sand and soil, where they rested, open to the sky, there remains a delicate map composed of roots, which spread out like arterial roads from each of the trees, mimicking the spread of its branches.

agapanthus 4, creme caramel, creative moment

Open

The art of creme caramel is to cook it slowly in the bain marie so that no holes appear in the custard when you turn it out.

Regular visitors to this blog are, I believe, the sort of people, who are at their happiest when they have made a picture, finished a story, an article, a picture, a poem, with which they are satisfied, and enjoy a sense of relief when they feel that there is nothing more that they can do to improve their work.. They will excuse therefore my reference to a passage in A La recherche du temps perdu, which describes that feeling.
The young Marcel has just declared his doubts that he has the ability ever to to develope the capacity to become a great writer. He and his family, while returning from a country walk are given a lift by Dr Piercepied, and Marcel is sent to sit beside the driver of the doctor's carriage. From this viewpoint, he becomes fascinated by the way the two steeples of the village of Martinville, bathed in the setting sun, constantly change their position as the carriage follows the windings of the road, and then a third steeple that of Vieuxq joins the frame. Inspired by what, he sees, he borrows some paper and a pencil from the Doctor and writes a description of what he is seeing. "I was so filled with happiness, " Proust writes, "I felt that it had so entirely relieved my mind of its obsession with the steeples and the mystery which lay behind them, that, as though I were a hen and has just laid an egg, I began to sing at the top of my voice."

new life..., rust, buddleia

...breaks out.

From the train I note a field, rusty with the red spikes of dock.

Beside the railway, on waste land, it is the season for buddleia, which for some reason grows wild along the line, even out of cracks in walls. With flowering over, it is a scruffy plant unless tended by gardener with shears, and the dead flowers, shrivelled and hollow blooms, become an eyesore. But just now the the plant, in its wild state, is at its best, and on one patch of waste land, I catch sight of the long stems of flowers rising and falling, like purple fountains.