peeling, sawdust, elder

Paint peeling does not necessarily appeal, but think of the frame as a careful composition and it may capture your imagination.

From the train I see a field of buttercups, and I think of The Field of the Cloth of Gold, the young Henry V111 and the French king Francois 1 attempting unsuccessfully to settle their differences, with a show-off party. I remember a photograph which I took of my children when they were little more than babies sitting among buttercups. Sad to say the bright yellow in the photograph eventually faded to a drab ochre.

It is now the  season of elder flowers. Their white saucer shaped inflorescence's fly over hedgerows and hover at the edge of woods and walls. In The Englishman's Flora,  Geoffrey Grigson writes: "The Elder grows like a weed, it does not live to a great age, its young stems are not strong, it stinks yet produces  sweet smelling flowers, and sweet, if cloying elderberries. It makes effective medicine and poor timber, it is neither bush nor tree, neither bad nor entirely good." He goes on to report that elder must not be burnt. If you put it on the fire, you will see the Devil sitting on the chimney pot, or else the Devil will come down the chimney. If you dislike most elderberry and elder-flower recipes, Grigson says, try elder-flower pancakes from Austria - circlets of blossom  held by the stem, dipped in batter, fried and eaten with sugar. They are, he says, "fragrant as pods of vanilla".

shadows, shard, animation

Shadow of the photographer with bollard.

In recent train journeys to London I look forward to seeing the progress of the building called The Shard between London Bridge and Waterloo East stations. Every day the glass and steel building rises higher around the central concrete core which must contain the lift shaft. The building when finished will be shaped like a glass shard curving up against the skyline.

From the luggage rack in the train to Tunbridge Wells the sleeve of a jacket hangs down and the strap of a suitcase behind it. There is a button on the sleeve which is done up and the cuff gapes open so that it looks like a mouth. The sleeves seems to be animated, nodding up and down as if it is in perpetual agreement with something.

architecture, Tunbridge Wells, gulls

Shadow of architecture on tarmac in Little Mount Sion  where the road widens opposite the TOC H hall.

They serve coffee at the local food shop called Pigwidgeon & Pye on the corner of Mount Pleasant Road. If you sit outside, it is a pleasant place to watch people and traffic at the cross roads, but far enough away not to be stifled by fumes. It is a terrible name to remember and get your tongue round, but it  works perhaps for that very reason.  If people say "that shop at the top of the town with a funny name",  often enough someone will come to write it down and pronounce it properly. As the local Tunbridge Wells blogger, Ankeblog says the coffee isn't too bad either.
The blog, the work of a devoted Twellian called Christopher Cassidy has according to the local paper been reporting on the finer points of Tunbridge Wells for six years. He has recently reviewed the coffee shops in the town and, as I sit in front of my Americano and croissant, I reflect that what is missing about coffee shops here, and indeed in the country as a whole, is being able to sit down at a table, order your coffee from a waiter and pay before you leave. That is the custom in all the European countries that I have visited. Here you have to pay first and, in some cases, collect your coffee and take it to the table. Is this because the public is mistrusted?   Do they think we'll drink our coffee and do a runner? Or do staff costs prohibit service? I like to ask myself such questions sometimes, remembering my days as a journalist, when I could ask it print with a hint of acidity if not outright  indignation. Perhaps Anke could campaign on behalf of honest Twellians for a coffee shop with service.

A few days ago I thought I heard the cry of seagulls above the voices of children playing in The Grove. Seagulls visit the town, I am almost certain, because of the attractions of the tip in the North Farm Estate. But I could have been mistaken that time I thought. Not this morning when I am woken by an unmistakable squalling such as you hear usually by the sea particularly when a fishing boat is around. Am I dreaming ? I ask myself. Or am I waking up with sea outside the window? No such luck. But it is the sort of wild sound that I like to hear.

timer, robin, repetition

Dandelion clock with bluebells.

A robin is making a huge din in a cherry tree. I watch its throat rippling in time with the trills. As I step back to photograph it, I think of how often robins have flown  down to exploit me while I turn the soil, and here am I exploiting the little bird's brave and vocal defence of its territory.

Of course I repeat myself in this blog. Every year I find myself noting the same buds and flowers birds and animals. Every year though there is, I hope, a variation in what I see and in the way I describe or comment on it. Sometimes it is a fallen leaf from a tree which takes my fancy on  the pavement, perhaps the same patch of pavement. But I have an idea that there will still be differences in the way it lies; and if not in its posture then in mine.  "I grow old, I grow old, I wear the bottom of my trousers rolled" but rolled differently and may be  they are different trousers.Then there is the opportunity, not yet taken to have rows and rows of the same photograph lined up, like an Andy Warhol series of prints. The seasons repeat themselves and birds singing the same notes learn the same songs from their parents.

pigeons, seeds, window

Two scruffy pigeons on a rusty parapet.

Pink and green winged seeds are clearly visible on a maple where they hang like bunches of keys; and we are not yet half way through May.

In a window a grey-haired woman looks out on the world. In her hand a mug from which she takes a sip.

corner, release, allium

In the corner of a farmyard.

After a month of enforced idleness there is a welcome release of energy when  today I resume familiar chores in the garden, especially  hoeing, weeding and earthing up between the potato rows, a usually tedious job.

The star-shaped florets of alliums (ornamental members of the onion and garlic family) are opening slowly, and beginning to contribute to the purple globes of the flower heads which are promised. I planted the bulbs in the Autumn which, at the other end of the long winter seems, now seems to be in the remote past. 

rose, blueberry, office

Sunlight through rose petals.

 I feel a strange spherical object in the pocket of my dressing gown. It turns out to be a blueberry. How does it get there? I am in the the habit of preparing our breakfast fruit, before taking cups of tea upstairs, first thing in the morning. The blueberry must have jumped off the kitchen work surface into my pocket.

On the platform a working girl is talking into a mobile telephone. It is clear that she is offering public relations advice. After a while she concludes her conversation and walks down the platform while she makes a new call. "I took an executive decision," she  is saying. "I've written the cards..." The world is her office.

horse, sympathy, frogs

Horse chestnuts have already flowered and shed their blossom. But here's a memorial to the early spring.

Words come into fashion and like fashion their use fades. One of the words,  that I hope will quickly fade is  empathy. What's wrong with sympathy? Empathy seems to me to be little more than an overstatement of sympathy. It is sympathy pressed home and screwed tight. It is  intrusive, invasive. presumptive. Sympathy is what I want when in need of support. It  is politer  than empathy and keeps its distance. So if so inclined please think sympathy rather than empathy.

Every now and then I enjoy the catalogues which come through the post and which allow a vicarious enjoyment of items for which I have no need and  not the least desire to possess.  Top of today's list is a solar-powered frog. "At nightfall it emits a warm, gentle glow that lasts for up to 8 hours... It is made with a Tiffany-effect construction and like their real-life counterparts, they'll happily withstand the weather all the year round." I would order one today, but for our garden gnomes, who would find such a new arrival unacceptable and undoubtedly have a right of veto.

alkanet, noise, tranparency

One of my flower books describes alkanet, an introduced perennial, as rare. It isn't rare round here. It seems to grow almost everywhere, sending its roots deep into the soil. Despite its lovely blue flowers it can be unwelcome in the flower and vegetable garden. The plant is native on the west coast of France and in the Iberian peninsula.

From within the lime tree opposite our house this afternoon comes an angry scream repeated with increasing intensity. All sorts of noises come from the tree - the flapping of pigeon wings, the song of blackbirds and starlings, and various tits, but this is the voice of one of the ubiquitous grey squirrels which inhabit the neighbourhood.

The deep red rose which I think may be called Copenhagen, has enormous blooms this year, perhaps in some way linked to  the cold winter and early spring. This afternoon I watch the sun light illuminate the flowers from behind. The  transparent, back lit  petals seem  to be  alive.

petal, scone, white

The parrot tulips are finished. But the  fallen petals  make even better subjects for photographs.(Click for whole picture).

Outside a cafe a man with a ruddy complexion and a white beard  sits in front of a cup of tea. He is visibly enjoying a scone, his jaws moving rhythmically as he watches passers-by.

A white wisteria climbs the red brick wall of a house near The Grove. Because I always think of wisteria as blue, this variety has a special appeal.  It is  a surprise. Though it looks well established, I don't remember seeing it before The tresses hang from the branches with a special elegance. I think of the white garden at Sissinghurst  Castle where flowers and leaves are all white and silver against a background of green.

heron, bowling, ice cream

I have seen this heron before on the lake opposite Groombridge Place. Today, aiming my camera a little ahead of its flight path, I capture its graceful progress over the water.

There is an open day at The Grove Bowling Club. I have never played bowls, but I enjoy learning the bowling action. You keep  the bowl low so that it touches the ground just ahead of where you dispatch it. Allowing for the bias to left or right, the object is for your bowl to stop as close as possible to the jack. The gentle action and follow-through in the line of your arm, and aiming, allowing of course for the bias, to left or right, is deeply satisfying.

Heidi treats me to an ice cream from Juliet's in the High Street. We sit on a bench with a cornet each, like a couple of children, and watch shoppers go past.

philosophy, punishment, swinging

Noted in a Groombridge bus shelter.

If you want to punish someone tell him how you are when he asks.

A woman bars my path without warning as she turns to look at a shop window. "I swung the wrong way," she says with a laugh.

conversation, labrador, scary

Sandals and trainers.

 In a field on the far side of a stream a youthful  black Labrador looks game to come across  and join us. "Keep out of the water Brian, " shouts it owner. "He thinks you've got a dog," says the owner  to us. Simultaneously I think to myself: Funny name for a dog. Couldn't be very bright if he can't see or smell that we have no dog. Rather insulting if Brian only wants to cross the stream in pursuit of an imaginary dog, rather than  simply to make our acquaintance. 

A photograph of a praying mantis takes up the whole of the double page spread in today's Independent. If this were a still from a science fiction horror movie it could  not be more scary: the heart shaped head; little lidless;  probing pair of antennae,  front legs waving in the air, middle pair of legs emerging from its round, green abdomen and back legs stretched out behind. Imagine a planet where insects were the dominant and most intelligent race.

roof top, garlic, solitary

Roof top parade (click for full view).

In Groombridge to day, beside the path opposite Grombridge Place, I note the white flowers, Allium leaves and distinctive smell of ramsons or wild garlic; and later in quite a different habitat in the corner of a farmyard,   the different white flowers and broad nettle-like leaves of Jack by -the hedge, also known as hedge garlic or garlic mustard.  It is not a member the genus Allium, but if you rub the leaves together they smell of garlic. According to ancient herbals it can be used in salads and has been recommended served boiled with mutton.

From the bus I see in the middle of a cricket field a solitary crow. It strikes me that almost every time I pass the spot there is a crow there. Or perhaps there is often one there and I do not think about it when one is absent. But I have long noticed the way a crow seems to take sole possession of a field, when seen from a passing bus or train, as though it is its landlord on the look out for intruders.

colloquy, police, ice

Under the table.

In Chapel place two youthful  community policemen, stop to caress a cat, which winds itself round their legs.

On a bench in the sun a young woman sits with a chocolate icecream on a stick. She hold the ice in front of her to stop the drips falling on her clothes. She might also be admiring it or presenting it as an offering. For a moment as I pass I think that I might take it from her.

 

scrap book, volcano, handkerchief

One result of the cold winter and the consequent need for tissues is this page from my scrap book which makes use of the perforated, removable lid on tissue packets. And the ease with which they can be changed into fish.

I read about a volcano in The National Geographic. I note the desirability of understanding a volcano. That and so much more.

The sweater, which I am wearing at the moment, has a little pocket  at the top on the left hand side. Sometimes I forget about it, but today while I am  reading I put my handkerchief into this pocket. Later I can't find the handkerchiefand then I remember where it is, which sets me thinking about the way some men, generally suited men, used to put a folded handkerchief into the top left hand pocket of their jacket. Useful, I always used to think in my romantic youth, should you come across a pretty girl with a spot of grit in her eye and in need of someone to remove it. Now I come to think of it, I must have picked up the idea from the film Brief Encounter when Trevor Howard comes to the help of Celia Johnson who has precisely that problem.

time, hedge, addictions

Old timers.

As the hedge outside my window grows thicker I see less of the figures of passers by. Some I can recognise by their voices; others by their gait. Tourists by their slow manner of walking as they look about them; locals by their brisk more purposeful progress.

A conversation with a neighbour about giving up smoking. I know little from personal experience of that particular addiction. But I confess that I was at one time addicted to nibbling items from the fridge much as other people light-up to occupy nervous energy or take the place of restless endeavour. My solution was to eat  little and only at  fixed times and, most important, to savour what I was eating and approach it with a sort of reverence in order to derive the maximum pleasure from it. Consumption decreased as satisfaction increased. To  the smoker I say:  don't necessarily give  it up, but cut  it down and resolve to enjoy every cigarette. Never, above all, smoke without thinking about it.  I guarantee that your consumption will drop off. I am not sure that he agrees with me, and if  in fact he has succeeded in dropping the habit, I don't blame him.

scrap, refrain, video

Drawings taken at random .Two pages from my scrap book. (Click to see it all).

In the health food shop I hear the words "Fairy tale... beautiful... so much in love... you could tell when they looked at one another..." How many times must such sentiments  have been expressed today. A curious echo of yesterday's big event.

My brother "Lucas"  has made a video of himself reading a poem into a mirror. I play it over several times. You go to The Night Mirror wmv on Youtube. Some might call it mysterious, some a little sinister. But I find myself enjoying it.

watchers, wedding, parties

While these people are watching a game of rugby I photograph their shadows which cross the touchline.

One of the surprises during today's Royal Wedding is the fly-past above the Mall when the newly augmented Royal Family appears on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, though it might have been predictable, is the fly-past of a Lancaster bomber flanked by a Spitfire and Hurricane. The sight of these aircraft always tugs at the heart.  So too, the cheerful crowds lining the streets and the familiar forms of the ceremony itself. The words of The Book of Common Prayer remain precise and resonant "... was ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort, the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity."  Though in the long run it is seldom achieved, the ideal of matrimony  are not expressed much better than that.

Street parties spring up here and there. In Sutherland Road,  there is a barbecue, trestle tables have been set up and pennants hang in front of some of the houses. The smell of burning sausages teases the appetite. In The Grove there is a tea party (not the  American variety). People chat and offer slices of cake to one another. Eleven years into the new one there is a sense that the old century is still alive, though without its horrors.

close-up, holly, car

The wisteria beside the front door is beginning to fade. It is shedding its petals which Mrs Plutarch sweeps up like fag ends. A close-up makes you forget about the long, drooping panicles and remember the individual blooms.

Holly is not a tree which  you associate with spring, but such prominent berries are inevitably preceded by flowers.  And it is the clusters of white flowers on a holly tree that catch my attention in The Grove this afternoon. Holly flowers.

Some cars, particularly old, battered cars, rather like old dogs and old people develop distinctive personalities often associated with their decrepitude. Sometimes a car's registration plate helps the process. I remember a car called HEV very much on its last legs, rusty and mildewed and grey. I remember it rather better than the family that owned it; only that they habitually referred to it as Hev. Sometimes though, a new car arrives bursting with personality. The red Fiat 500 recently acquired by a neighbour is an example. It is red inside and out and feisty by nature and inclination. Everyone who sees it  and rides in it falls in love with it. It has the delightful name of WOB.

empty, fox, faces

Shadow of an empty glass.


Last night a fox - I suspect a vixen because dog foxes are supposed to bark just once or twice - emits a series of raucous scream outside our window, -  a welcome reminder that something wild and out of our control  can exist  so close us.

An old woman, slightly bowed passes our table outside The Ragged Trousers. She wears a tweed suit, and walks with the aid of a stick.  Here face is long, her mouth wide and expressive. As I often do nowadays, as I get older myself, I find that I have a picture of the younger face buried in the older one.

pennant, spam, gastronomy

The wind is invisible unless it has something to blow.

This morning, following recent observations about spam, (the luncheon meat not unwanted mail) it enters my head to buy a tin for lunch. We eat it with salad. "Too salty," says Mrs Plutarch, who vaguely remembers it from her younger days.

"I have eaten two humans - one was a man, the other a woman... They taste the same" . This month's National Geographic refers to a programme on its TV station in which Piers Gibbon explores the jungle of Papua New Guinea to find out if cannibals still exist. Apparently they do.

The way through the pub. View of The Grove through a front entrance and the read entrance of The Compasses.

"Pour me a drink and I'll tell you some lies," says Danny as he joins us outside the pub. The words are those of the singer Neil Diamond. It makes me wish I had a better memory for songs; or perhaps that I paid more attention to them when they are in vogue. "That's me," says Danny, who weaves tall stories into the conversation with such elegance and sense of fun that you almost believe him; and sometimes do, because you can't be sure when he is joking.

All the leaves are out, and the horse chestnut candles are in full bloom. As I stand under the big oak on the corner of The Grove, I hear an unfamiliar sound. It is the wind in the leaves. At my feet the shadows of the leaves move on the brick path.

A few weeks ago Lucy Kempton replied  wittily, succinctly and honestly to my last question in our Compasses  shared blog (see link in side column), with a poem of six  rhyming stanzas in which the same rhyming pattern is repeated six times. Inspired by her example I have replied in like manner. I found, not altogether to my surprise, that the need to search  harder than usual for rhymes helped rather than hindered my pursuit of appropriate images. I am glad to say that my attempt has met with her approval because I am far too close to it at the moment to judge for myself.

meeting, humming, healthy

Above the station. (Click for full picture)

 A robin hovers for a few seconds beside the hedge. Apart from its rapidly moving wings it is perfectly  still. I think of humming birds. Only this bird is interested in an insect rather than the nectar which attracts humming birds.  And its wings move rather slower.

A small boy says to his father: "I want a strawberry milk shake. Can I have a strawberry milk shake?" To endorse his case, he adds, having evidently been subjected to  grown-up propaganda: "It's healthy isn't it?"

lovage, organ, dry

Visitor on lovage  leaf. It is at this time of year that I usually plan and then don't get round to making soup from this herb which taste strongly celery.

Parked in Berkeley Road is a handsome blue van which declares that it belongs to Martin K Cross Church Organ Builders of Grays Essex. The thought of church organs inspires hope and pleasure.  As I pass the van I imagine their resonance. Mozart called the organ king of instruments. But all I can hear in my mind as I walk on J S Bach's No 1 hit, the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

 Despite the thunder in the distance, Mrs Plutarch is watering the potted plants and the newly sown patches of grass seed. There has been no rain for weeks. I think of Jean de Florette waiting for the rain on his remote Provencal farm where his carnation crop is about to collapse for want of water. The sky darkens. Thunder rolls.Jean (in the person of Gérard Dépardieu) and his family rush out to welcome the rain but the clouds pass overhead on their way to the next valley.  It is like that today, only not as desperate. Not nearly as desperate.

going, fleeting, twittering

Before they give way to greater things a mass of lesser celandine.

The lime tree opposite our house is shedding fine tufted seeds which drift in the warm breeze. Because of their lightness they seem animated, moving  like tiny insects. One lands on a page of the magazine which I am reading. It casts the most delicate of shadows, but just for a moment before it flies off. I would like to have photographed it, and, camera on the ready this time, I wait for another to arrive. But  no such luck. I even try to catch one  and to settle  it  on a sheet of white paper But it proves  impossible. It  it is off again the moment I release it.  For half an hour I wait without success hoping that another will land for long enough to photograph.  But if one does come near, it is off immediately. Nature photographers need, above all,  patience which I have not got. Not this morning at least.

As I walk down Mount Sion this afternoon, the hedges on either side of road are alive with sparrows. You can hear them but not always see them. Meanwhile they say that all the sparrows, once so common in London, have left town.

parrots,spindrift, music

Parrot tulips in different moods.

Tufted seeds float in the breeze in the same direction as though they are looking for something in this afternoon's sunshine.

As the day progresses the lazy sound of  music drifts  across the garden from an indeterminate source. It is so faint that it is difficult to identify it, but it could be a slow piano piece, suggesting idleness and melancholy.

opening, post-its, idiom

Dandelion bud opening for business

My scrap book is growing and contains some odd items One of my favourites is a page on which I have pasted 12 post-it notes. Each has a  round stain left by a tea-cup . I have labelled it 12 cups of tea. It is I suppose a sort of installation.

The French word poireau, a leek, as I mentioned in a post some years ago, also signifies "a person who is waiting around, probably unwillingly.From it, is derived the verb poireauter and the expression "faire le poireau" . Today I come across another vegetable metaphor employed in French. In the novel La Malandre by Henri Troyat, the central character, Philippe, a middle aged lawyer, impatient with the new generation with whom he considers himself in conflict, refers to a  successful and arrogant young man, as a salsifis pretentieux, literally a "pretentious salsify". A salsify is a long finger like vegetable with a delicate flavour, better known perhaps in France than in England.