gone, understanding, homeopathy

Nearly all the snow has melted. What is left are awkward mounds of ice on footpaths, which in the sleet falling at the moment, seem to be designed to throw the unwary on to the ground in undignified heaps, limbs spread in all directions. The snow was lovely while it was bright and crisp and even, and now - well, since we are looking for beautiful things - it is a challenge.

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From the shelf I take down The Arctic Fox a slim book of poems by Marianne Moore. It is published by Faber and Faber in a bold, yellow jacket with blue rules, a colour and style fashionable in the Sixties. The first poem in the book is a short one entitled O to Be a Dragon. It goes:

"If I, like Solomon,...

could have my wish -

my wish ... O to be a dragon,

a symbol of the power of Heaven -of silkworm

size or immense; at times invisible.

Felicitous phenomenon."

Much of the page is blank leaving plenty of space for the Corporation of London Libraries to plant its circular stamp in the middle of the white space. For at one time, it seems, it is to that organisation that the book belonged. Pasted on the page facing the inside back cover, meanwhile, is an unused form testifying to a manifest lack of interest in Marianne Moore among the libraries' patrons. Judging by the handwriting, in which the price is penciled on the inside front cover, I must have bought it from Hall's bookshop, but there is no indication of how it progressed from London to Tunbridge Wells. A note to the poem at the back of the book suggests that marauding librarians and indifferent clients are, in the end, of little account . "Solomon's wish," it says: "An understanding heart." Kings 3: 9." I'll second that.

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A 30C homeopathic preparation is, according to Ben Goldacre author of the fad-bashing best seller Bad Science, a dilution in the order of one in 1,000,000,000, 000, 000, 000, 000,000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000. (I think I've copied that right). Not everyone believes, like Goldacre, that homeopathy is based on unsound principles, though you can see why some, myself included, are sceptical. A couple of days ago, I begin to feel the symptoms of a cold, which, in my experience, are invariably followed by a deep and hacking cough. To combat these, Heidi provides me with three minuscule pills, which I must allow to melt under my tongue at intervals of two and a half hours. They have been supplied for just such an occasion by some homeopathic friends in Germany. The dilution ratio is reassuring, because I note that they are derived from Aconite, which I know to be, in more than miniscule portions, a sure and deadly poison. While still doubtful about how so small a dose of anything can affect the human body and its ailments, I have to report three days later, that the cold has gone, and no cough has materialised. But who knows? I remember years ago a male Harley Street specialist saying, with conversation-stopping finality, at a dinner party in response to a claim from me about a cold prevention procedure fashionable at the time: " I took it too and I didn't get pregnant."

snow, risk, surprise

The Grove with child in red leggings.

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Elderly people, who generally lead sheltered lives, can sometimes enjoy the risky options of urban living. I admit to enjoying the titillation provided on the understanding that I survive. Today the choice is between breaking a leg on the ice-layered pavements of Mount Sion or walking on the road and being killed by a 4 WD spitting chewed up snow and grit.

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A surprise parcel awaits us. I have been given a number to ring by Kim, who is my son,Toby's other half, in order to track its progress. All I am told is that it is something that requires attention when it arrives. I need to know when to expect it so that someone can be in when it is delivered. The number I ring turns out to be in Cornwall. How I love the West Country accent and the phrases that go with it! " Right, my love", says a warm female voice. "OK, my love! I say I have been given the number to track a parcel. "This number is in Cornwall, my love," she says. "I am in Kent, " I say."It will take a minute my love, I'll give you the number of the local depot. When the parcel turns up it consists of an insulated box with sausage-shaped bags of ice inside. Kept cold by the ice, is a big packet if white crab meat (bliss, Heidi's favourite) and a generous bag of scallops, (bliss, my favourite). Serendipity and spot on. Scallop and potato salad, tonight,then. I'll use the Ratte potatoes which I bought in the market this morning. Tomorrow crab salad or some other delectable concoction of crab, and then a long promised seafood risotto, when Heidi's other daughter Jenny, arrives from Paris, to join her sister Caroline, who is already here. Thank you Toby and Kim.

shopping, pleasures, walk

The long walk to the shops.

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The great Dr Samuel Johnson is best known for his conversation as reported by his biographer James Boswell, and for his Dictionary of the English Language, the first of any importance. His pronouncements are appreciated for their wit, learning, and directness. He saw the point when other people did not, and invariably came straight to it. He never pussyfooted. People would ask his opinion knowing that his response would be entertaining if not wise. This Christmas there have been reviews in the press, most of them complimentary, of a new biography by David Nokes. One, today, includes a quotation, new to me and I dare say new to others, which throws fresh light on his inclinations, and adds a new dimension to his humanity. According to his friend, the actor, David Garrick, when asked what he believed were the greatest pleasures in life, he replied, "Fucking and drinking."

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In Calverley Ground, I pass an old woman with a stick walking slowly on the compacted snow. Ahead walks a black Labrador, a green tennis ball in its mouth. After a few yards it puts the ball down and waits for its mistress. She catches up. The dog picks up the ball and walks on. A few yards further on, the process is repeated. Eventually, at a convenient spot, the old lady picks up the ball and with some effort, achieves an underarm throw. The dog bounds after the ball and brings it back, its pent up energy released, just for a moment. But that is all. It is cold and slippery under foot and the mistress has done her duty. The dog collects the ball and they proceed slowly on their way.

finial, twilight, geese

Snow-capped finial of railing across the road from our house.

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Some languages have expressions rich and poetic, which belong to themselves entirely, and which you feel must tell us something significant about the perceptions and attitudes of the people who speak them. What other language I wonder more picturesquely (and might one say Gallic-ly) describes the twilight hour, than the French entre chien et loup, the half light when it is difficult to tell the difference between a dog and a wolf, and, by extension, between other creatures and objects flitting in and out of the darkness! It is as though a poem has formed in the language like a bubble or whirlpool in a stream.

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In today's paper, the caption beneath a photograph of geese bred for the table - "necks on the line" - says it all. Taken at breast level and cropped to show a frieze of plump, feathered bosoms surmounted by long necks, orange beaks and searching eyes, the photograph prompts the thought: yes, geese have long necks.

Snow 2, spontaneity, soup

Figures in a landscape.

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Dave King comments here two days ago on train conversations. He says that he would be more disposed to talk to someone who opened a conversation as he sat down. But he wasn't sure why.

I'm not sure either, but I think it has something to do with spontaneity. It seems more natural and uncalculating than a pondered approach after exchanged glances and clearings of the the throat. Having witnessed my Mother-in-Law at work, I still found her example hard to follow. Only once did I manage it well; and then only after an evening' s drinking, on my way home from London.

I recall walking past the old Blackfriar's Station and noting that, among European destinations embossed above the portal was St Petersberg (at that time still known as Leningrad). I turned right up Fleet Street and made my way down the Strand to Charing Cross, still full of good cheer. On entering the compartment of the train I was struck by a sense of despondency among what were to be my fellow passengers (in those days passengers sat facing one another, a potentially more convivial arrangement than the present aircraft style seating where you look at the back of neck of the person in front of you). The faces were tired and drawn, and most sheltered behind newspapers. As I sat down, I said to the person opposite: "Do you know if this train goes to St Peterberg?" The newspapers rustled, were raised and lowered and raised again. But I was saved: someone smiled. Then someone laughed. The conversation that ensued was lively and varied, touching politics, travel, history and everything was wrong with the world. and one or two things that were right with it. The 50 minute journey home seemed to last five. Or that's how I remember it.

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Another day for soup. Finely chopped carrots, celery, green beans, an onion and a clove of garlic softened with two rashers of bacon also chopped. When the vegetables are transparent, chicken stock is added ,and with the stock a chopped skinned tomato; and with the tomato some small pasta shells and a tin of borlotti bean. The rest is a matter of seasoning and tasting until the desired flavour and consistency is achieved. Oh yes, and you should, at this point ,add some slices of sausage from the new Polish shop round the corner. If there isn't a Polish shop round the corner, something from the supermarket will do.

snow, peas, igloo

Calverley Ground after last night's snow.

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"He's got peas on his knees," said my sister-in-law when I ring to speak to my brother. Confronted by my incomprehension, she says that he is lying down nursing his knees with bags of frozen garden peas. "An old football injury," she explains, "is troubling him. The peas are helping." I hope so.

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In The Grove this morning, a woman stands guard over a wigwam shaped igloo. "My sons made it this morning," she says. "They made a big snow ball and hollowed out the middle. They were up at 5 o'clock this morning." This morning I wake early too and, mesmerised by the big, beautiful silence and the white light leaking through the shutters, want to be up and about taking photographs, sampling the depth of the snow. Making an igloo doesn't occur to me, but I can understand their enthusiasm. "It's perfect snow for skiing," says Caroline, who is staying with us. "She lives in Munich and skis regularly, cross country as well as on the slopes. She knows her snow. The snow, so rare for us nowadays, is overwhelming. It has brought everything to a halt. Peace and silence reigns.

reaching, notebook, snow

Two spires and a finial.

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Sunday 15 February 2009 marks the first page of my current notebook, of which no more than one clear page remains. There is a stack of seven such notebooks on my desk at the moment. Looking at them I realize that, largely thanks to the Three Beautiful Things formula, the contents of the notebooks and my approach to note-making has changed considerably. To begin with, the notes consisted largely of drawings of whatever happened to catch my attention - a head or a tree, a flower or bird, a dog or a cat. But posting three observations every day is hard when holes begin to pepper your memory, and drawings will not suffice. So nowadays synoptic accounts of conversations, bird and plant behaviour, the oddities of urban living, the pleasures of gardening and reading, have taken over. I notice however that there are still drawings - a reindeer head, a pig snout, a parrot, a cat which have popped among the words, just as words once used to pop up among the drawings. I treasure this book and the others though I doubt if the scrawled indecipherable phrases and abbreviations would mean anything to anyone other than their errant author. They are a poor thing but they are my own.

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The strange but rich language of the BBC forecasters grows ever more fascinating. I hear to day that "more meaningful snow is driving in over high ground..."

stall, rule, Christmas card

Wool and fleeces at the Farmers' Market.

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Jeff Wild who lives in Switzerland commented on my chance meeting and three minute conversation with the Shakespeare scholar and editor John Russell Brown the other day.He knew who I was talking about. How lucky I was he says to have met him like that. Lucky too to live in an age when people can so easily communicate from different corners of the Earth on matters of common interest. The global village, once forecast as a miraculous means of intercourse for the human race as a whole is coming to pass. The encounter meanwhile has reminded me of the rule formulated by the mother of my first wife, which I have not forgotten: if you want a conversation on a train, strike it up as you sit down. If I had managed to do that on this occasion, our conversation would have lasted the best part of an hour instead of three minutes. Unless of course, as it is quite possible, Mr Russell Brown grew tired of my naive observations and returned to the manuscript he was correcting.

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It starts to snow as it is getting dark. In Calverley Place the shop windows are lit. The snow settles. Shoppers say the same thing: It's quite like a Christmas card. Cold though and wet when the thin flakes melt on your neck.

leeks, grandson, frost

Leeks stand, waiting to be lifted through the winter - a thrifty and delightful vegetable. Only when the ground freezes solid, rare nowadays, do they become inaccessible. I like to stew the stems slowly in a mixture of olive oil and lemon. You can eat them this way hot or cold.

I believe the method is called A la greque.

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Josh's If only I could ... poem , which I quoted the other day, attracted the attention of Alison Wormald. She comments on my post to Josh's pleasure and to mine. She says that she would like to read the whole poem. So, as it is not very long, I have posted it in full in the comment window of the original December 11 post. Among the many things I like about the poem is its rugby image - poetry is rarely, perhaps too rarely, associated with rugby. So good on you Josh, and goodbye to any foolish idea that sport and poetry do not go together.

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Perhaps the first day of frost this winter. You can tell without looking because you can hear the rime being scraped from car windows. Then all day, the rime lies in hollows and shady places in The Grove and on lawns. Birds are more in evidence than usual . The cold seems to slow their movements and they appear less shy than normal. I count no fewer than seven black birds in a rowan tree, attacking the berries

leaf, playroom, goose

Leaf with script.

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Through a basement window I catch sight of a child's playroom. On a table is a toy fort or castle. I had one as a child and always considered it inadequate and not worth defending with what few soldiers I had. Since then I have always thought "fort" a silly word although I know that forts did exist in the real world. Still the sight of the play room with the fort and other toys scattered on the floor opened a portfolio of bitter sweet memories. Why bitter sweet? I can't remember, but my childhood, though far from unhappy, is streaked with strata of disappointments.

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In one of the innumerable newspaper articles anticipating the approaching festival is a photograph of a goose. Its neck is stretched up almost vertically towards heaven and its head proudly announces its preeminence among birds - little does it know that its fat will soon used to roast potatoes. As is my custom, when I see a photo of something that appeals to me, I make 20 second drawing of it in my notebook. The drawing doesn't look much like the goose in the photograph, but it has a pleasing goosiness all of its own, plus an expression suggesting apprehension and doubt entirely missing from the photograph.

leaf, fit, abacus

Today's leaf.

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A fit looking grey haired man runs round the perimeter path of The Grove. He strides at a steady pace. He is running faster than the average jogger, easily and with great power. At the end of the circuit, he looks at his watch and starts again. Round and round he goes and consults his watch every time he completes the circle. He is setting himself a target, competing with himself.

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Rain drops line up under the top bar of the black iron gate at the entrance to The Grove... like beads on an abacus.

leaf, spray, purveyors

Today's leaf is hanging on.

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After the rain, from the wings and and tail feathers of pigeons, as they flap to and fro under the railway bridge that spans the platform at Tunbridge Wells station, clouds and rainbows of spray explode.

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A notice advertises "Purveyors of Quality Fresh Produce". I like the dignity of purveyors; nothing so mean as sellers or merchants.

printed, Orion, wagtails

Flattened leaf with tyre imprint.

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Grandson Josh sends me a poem called "If Only I could..." which he did recently for homework. It is about astronomy. "If only I could put a rocket in my pocket... " he begins and later

"...Help Orion chase the Great Bear,

Dodging our way

Through the defending stars..."

The last line is especially poignant because, a sturdy lad, he excels, apart from poetry, at rugby.

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Standing in Calverley Precinct as the shop lights come on and it begins to get dark, I look up to see a flock of birds wheeling overhead. At first I think that they are starlings. Then I notice their long tails and distinctive swooping flight against the evening sky. And I remember a conversation on New Year's Eve two years ago when a neighbour told me that she used to see pied-wagtails roosting in the trees in Calverley Place. I have, from childhood, loved the way they swoop as they fly, as though from a consicious joy. But I had never thought until then of pied wagtails as sociable birds which gather in flocks. Now I can see them for myself.

flowers, corrections, noughties

Snapped from Hungerford Bridge, the flower stall at the bottom of Villiers Street by the entrance to Embankment tube station.

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Opposite me on the train an elderly man is correcting a type script. On the seat beside him is a travel bag. When we stop at a station someone wants to take the seat and he stands up with difficulty in order to lift his bag on to the rack. I offer to help but he persists in doing it himself. "My bones are getting old," he says implying that nothing else is. As the train draws into Charing Cross, I put my book on the table in front of me and open my shoulder bag ready to put it away. "Why are you reading Pericles on the train" he asks. "I explain that I am reading my way through all the Shakespeare plays in the Arden edition. "It is just by chance, " I say, adding how much I am enjoying it. Shakespeare only wrote about 50 per cent of Pericles," he says and adds that his wife is also rereading all the plays in the Arden edition. I tell him that when I was a child my father believed that the plays were written by Francis Bacon. We quickly agree that this is unlikely. "When would Bacon have found the time?" he says. And I say that Bacon has none of the playwright's range of spirit and imagination, least of all the Bard's common touch. Could Bacon have created Falstaff? "Have you got round to the Arden Merchant of Venice yet?" he asks. I say that I have. "Then you will have read my notes," he says "because I edited it." He says that the play does not seem to be very relevant to the present age." Why?" I ask. The morality and ethnic basis of the plot is no longer valid, " he suggests. "I wonder, " I say: "if you look further afield than England, perhaps it still is." The train comes to a slow, jerky halt at the platform. "That's true," he says, which is encouraging. But the train has stopped and we must go our separate ways. The entire conversation must have lasted three minutes. I have the feeling that it could have gone on for three hours.

As we part in the train's crowded corridor, I raise my hat because, though hat-less himself, he belongs to the generation which would understand the custom. It is easy discover subsequently that he is called John Russell Brown and that he has written and edited a number of books on Elizabethan drama . What I never get round to admitting is that, though I have been reading Pericles on trips to London for more than a year, I have not yet finished it. I have, in fact read more than half the Shakespeare cannon in the Arden edition, and come to a halt here only because, in pursuit of posts for this blog, I very rarely read on the train nowadays. Instead I look out of the window in pursuit of beautiful or interesting things, watch and listen to fellow passengers, and sometimes even talk to them..

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Am I alone in only just realizing that the decade which is just drawing to an end has come to be known as the Noughties? Alone or not, I find it and the inescapable pun which it embodies sadly appropriate.

framed, cries, slow

This strange image appears on the wall of one of the towers supporting Charing Cross railway bridge. It seems to have several levels of significance. At one it is an angel; at a another a human crow. I like the way it seems to be escaping from the frame provided by the architects of the bridge, and pondering the spikes erected by those who want to protect the bridge from marauders.

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In Oxford Street, the brakes of the bus on which we are travelling scream and groan as though driven mad by pedestrians and shop windows. They remind me of the agonised wailing of the hydraulic bin lifting device on the Council rubbish removal vehicle which was at work outside our house as we left home this morning. The Christmas lights,which come on in the early afternoon in Oxford Street and Regent Street, do little, this afternoon, to relieve the apparent pain suffered by the machines which labour without thought or reward.

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It is difficult, but satisfying to walk cross the road at traffic lights slowly and with dignity to the sound of the impatient bleeping which is supposed to hurry pedestrians on. I feel sorry for people, older and even less agile than I, who hobble across the road as though whipped by the insidious bleeps, their sticks trembling and tapping in front them. In response to the bleeps I walk twice as slowly as I normally would, and smile at the drivers crouched like jockeys over their steering wheels.

rope, envelopes, Bishop

Ready to hoist a cradle for window cleaners these ropes possess a quality of usefulness postponed.

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An artist whom I know draws on the back of used envelopes. The envelopes, she says, by virtue of their redundant state, make less extreme demands on her than proper drawing paper. I say that I know what she means. She dates her drawings and puts them in batches in larger envelopes for storage. I suggest that she might arrange the drawings in a big book side by side on the page, where the drawings and the envelopes would display their distinctive qualities to best effect. She says, that's a good idea.

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In the book on Elizabeth Bishop which I bought serendipitously from Amazon, I begin to read an essay on Bishop by Miriam Bellehigue, Mâitre de conference á la universitée de Paris, Sorbonne.

It is called Four Poems: humilité, intermittance et plaisir. This is the price, I say to myself, that I have to pay for careless ordering. But one of the four poems subjected to analysis is the sestina which led me back to reading Bishop a few months ago. And I relish, though do not entirely agree with it, the judgement quoted by Bellehigue, in a letter from Bishop to Marianne Moore, that the sestina is "just a sort of stunt". Bishop of course takes the form more seriously than that as the poem testifies. But oh my goodness, I have put my toe in the waters of academe and I think that I will quite soon remove it.

message, wrong book, pimientos

The Message.

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The wrong book arrives from Amazon. I ordered The Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop. What arrives is a work of serious, you might say, cold academic criticism. It is a compilation of articles on the poet and value judgments are largely absent. Most of the articles are in French. It is part of a series called Lectures d'une oeuvre. The layout of the cover reveals the reason for the mistake, as the title, introduced by the phrase Lectures d'une oeuvre is called The Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop, just like The Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop. As anyone reading this post will have gathered, I am rather keen on Elizabeth Bishop, so I think I will read these serendipitous lectures.

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In Barrica, a tapas bar in London, there are some grilled, small green peppers called pimientos de Padron. I last ate them in a tapas bar in Madrid. The are slightly spicy in flavour but rarely hot like a chilli pepper. Only sometimes you are luck (or unlucky) enough to get a hot one. So the pleasure of eating them is enhanced (or marred)by an element of Russian roulette. On this occasion none of the peppers is hot. Had there been one, there are a number of sherries on the wine list to come to the rescue, rather in the way that dock leaves are said to grow near stinging nettles. A chilled, salty manzanilla would have done the trick. As it happens I have one standing by just in case.

stone

stone, idea, suspicion

This stone, which I photographed in my collapsible mini studio, is about three inches high and two inches wide at its widest point. I have had it for a long time and like it very much.
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My mother told me that I was born between 3.30 and 4.00 in the morning and I have often wondered if that is why, when I am awake at that time, good ideas come into my mind. Last night it was a big idea, and this morning it still seems to be big. I am afraid that I cannot reveal its nature, though. Ideas can be like buds or parcels full of surprises and rich rewards. Or they can turn out to be fireworks, which rocket into the sky and go pop without any of the hoped for extravagance. This particular idea, which seems at the moment to be pulsating with life and promise, could still turn out to be a dud firework. So, chiefly to avoid anti-climax, silence must prevail on the subject, but its presence remains for the time being a beautiful thing to treasure and to work on.
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I bend over to photograph a leaf, shiny with rain water, and pressed flat onto the pavement. A man passes and skirts me with an expression on his face of profound suspicion.

art,writing, soup

Three pieces of art are gifts which we received during the course of the year and which have now been framed and hung in suitable places. The girl in a cafe on the left is the work of the Catalan artist Artur Duch and the prints on the right will be recognised by Marja-Leena Rathje as her work. The photograph marred by reflections off the glass, does none of the pictures credit, but they give so much pleasure that I wanted to let the donors know that they are now displayed on our our walls.

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I have just got round to reading The Anthologist by Nicholson Barker which I was given for my birthday back in September. One reason that I am enjoying it is that, apart from its story, it is a meditation on the writing of poetry. Two epigrammatic references of the narrator (whose writer's block is preventing him from producing an introduction to a verse anthology) made me pull out notebook and pen:

- "Auden believes that you should write drunk and revise sober."

-"Frost said that free verse was like playing tennis without a net."

Both observations strike me as true and relevant to a number of conversations in progress.

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The prospect, after a damp and raw afternoon, of home made tomato soup made with fresh chicken stock and spiced with cardamom.

fashion, perfumes, apples

In Calverley Precinct outside what used to be Woolworth's.

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For those sensitive to what's going on in the world, it is important to be able recognise a perfume, if not always to appreciate it. As Sherlock Holmes points out in the Hound of the Baskervilles, having identified a woman by the smell of her notepaper, "there are seventy-five perfumes that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from one another". Nowadays there are a lot more than 75. A book called Perfumes An A -Z Guide, which came into our house recently, to say nothing of their range and qualities, lists and vividly describes no fewer than 1,800. Its authors, Luca Turing and Tania Sanchez, have produced a work which Sherlock Holmes could only have regarded as a key reference. There is everything here that he would need to know about the structure and nature of fragrances. For the beginner, like me, it is nice to learn that these materials are found in almost every composition: "molecules that smell of rose, violets, jasmine, wood, patchouli, sandlewood, vanilla, and musk. Some - such as vetiver, tree moss, violet-leaf compounds, isoquinolines, aldehydes, or birch tar - mostly belong to certain genres." As far as I am concerned the names of these building blocks of fragrance are enough to make me want to read on and on.

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In the Smith's the greengrocer, I pick up an apple of supreme elegance, colour and size. It is perfectly shaped and almost as big as a melon. It is called a Howgate Wonder, an old and now rare variety. I take it, with my other purchases, to the cash desk, and as it is about to be charged to my bill, I go to the display and pick up another, to keep the first one company and because I love the look of them.

messages, fox, human

In the barred gate of the entrance to Shell-Mex House in the Strand is this blocked letter box, bearing strange and confusing messages.

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In the vegetable garden I spot across the fence in the neighbour's garden a fox among some shrubs. At first I think that it is eating something but upon closer inspection I realize that it is grooming itself, licking and biting its leg curled beneath it. It is absorbed in this task until it becomes aware of me and looks up. For some time it watches me watching it before it lazily stands up and ambles gracefully deeper into the shrubbery.

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One quote of many from The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands fits neatly into the format of this blog. It comes from his contemplation of the differences between man and other animals, apes and wolves, as he puts it (equating man with ape). The book is an account of the eleven years which he spent living with a wolf. "If we wanted a one-sentence definition of humans", he writes, "this would do: humans are the animals that engineer the possibility of their own evil."

chard, everything, alright

The variety of chard called Bright Lights lives up to its name, especially when the sun is low in the sky.

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In the train I am sitting opposite a young woman busy writing cards on the table between us. Her book, closed on the table, is a paperback called Eat, Pray, Love and subtitled "One woman's search for everything". It is by, one, Elizabeth Gilbert and has according to another line on the cover, " sold over six million copies".

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A postman whom I haven't seen before hands me a parcel when I answer the door. "Are you alright" he says. Depending on the tone of voice, this locution could have a number of different meanings. In transcribing it, I leave out a question mark, because clearly it doesn't require an answer. Rather it signifies a cheerful "good morning!". But with another intonation it could mean: "Is there something wrong with you?" Or, as when relatively recently a railway employee used the same expression to me when he saw me taking photographs at the end of the station platform, it clearly meant, "what mischief are you up to?"

alright, critic, repeats

"There's rainbow," Heidi calls to me when I am downstairs in the kitchen. " a double rainbow". I run upstairs and there it is, only a single one by now, but bright enough to win Noah's approval, and to make me grab my camera. I think of what used to be a favourite line of soap opera script writers, "everything's gonna be alright," because that's what rainbows are about.

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In Watersone's bookshop, two teenage girls are standing in front of a shelf of English classics. One knows her onions and tells the other what's what. "That's Emily, she says, " And that's Charlotte..." Passing on from the Bronte's she responds to her companion: "P. G Wodehouse? No it isn't. It' not heavy at all. There's always a jealous lover somewhere. They always get married at the end of the book."

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On Hungerford footbridge, I watch different people stop to take a photograph, all from more or less the same spot, of St Paul's Cathedral. I

imagine a pile of photograph as high as St Paul's itself assembled from all over the world. I suppose it's the same wherever there is an important object to view, that people want to take a little bit of it away for themselves. In this respect digital cameras give instant satisfaction.

loosestrife, grandad, papers

Purple loosestrife after summer's strife becomes a grey tangle, hard and dry.

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On the train to London two little girls run between the seats towards a grey head facing away from them. "We thought you were our grandad, " says one, as she comes level with him. "He's some body's grandad," says the girls' mother apologetically, and one presumes speculatively.

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A Londoner by birth and proximity, even if I haven't always read them, I have always been aware of the City's evening papers. Once there were three, and I can still hear the news vendors shout from street corners: "News, Star and Standard...". The Star was the first to fold. Then it was The Evening News. The Evening Standard still survives, but since my last visit to London, it has become a free paper, having shed its price of 50p in an attempt paradoxically to become solvent. The new owner, a former Russian diplomat, bought the loss-making tabloid for £1.00. The principle is that if you increase the circulation and cut some overheads, greater advertising revenue, will compensate for the loss of revenue from sales, and be enough to begin to make a profit. As a purveyor of information on culture, restaurants and entertainment in London, and helped by its website, perhaps it will now win through. Meanwhile it is good this evening to hear the news vendor outside Charing Cross still calling although his cry has changed to "Free newspaper...Free newspaper."

disintegration, book, seeds

Today's leaf and a flattened wad of chewing gum masquerading as the moon.

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One of these days I will have an electronic reader and I look forward to the convenience and comfort which it will provide. But today, as I start again to survey my shelves for a book, which I read only recently and which now eludes me, I find myself reflecting that there are certain books, which , as far as I am concerned, will always be impossible to replace. There are books that I wouldn't swap for a wilderness of e-readers. This feeling has little to do with the nature of books in general but rather with the relationship built up over the years with specific books. And it is not the content to which I refer; it is rather the familiar signs of usage on a cover or on a page; a coffee stain perhaps; a forgotten bookmark; a marginal note; a dedication; a deteriorating spine; an elusive smell of mustiness or soap. I think of books which have travelled with me to different parts of the world and in time, travelledwith me through 70 years and more. I take one or two down from the shelf. Here is my Oxford University Press The English Poems of John Milton, still holding together although it has sat in countless numbers of my pockets - so much to value in such a small space and yet with a clear, readable type. Countless books would, I know, fit into the same space on an e-reader, but that worn, navy blue cover has been faithful to me and I to it since my schooldays. Another loyal companion is the Penguin Book of Spanish Verse (Price 5/=), which has been repaired with sellotape and whose yellowing pages now recall the aire amarillo of the time before sunset in southern Spain, and the phrase itself, which I must first have come across within its covers. And here is The Faber Book of Comic Verse, which I have read over and over again for it reservoir of wit and fantasy, nonsense and its few shreds of sublime wisdom, which are close to nonsense but go far beyond it. I still fail to find the book I am looking for, but I find a lot else to think about.

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My Autumn digging is now almost complete, and all the beds dug and weeded for the frost, when it comes, to work over. And today, arrives the seed catalogue just at the right time. With the almost empty beds fresh in my mind, I begin to see myself sowing them, and the tidy rows of emergent seedlings that will follow. If Winter comes...