wall, to let, house fly

  This wall borders the site of an abandoned petrol station near Sainsbury's car park. It strikes me as a feature which, if it were produced as a result of deliberate thought and action, might in some quarters be taken seriously as a work of art. (Click for whole photograph).

Two pigeons arrive on a hedge where there is a "To Let" sign. One sits on top of the sign, the other squats on the surface of the hedge. The one on the sign nods its head up and down as it peers about it. Pigeons often make me laugh. These are no exceptions.

Outside The Compasses Geoff tells me that house-flies take off backwards. This is new to me, and intriguing. He says that their front legs make it impossible for them to take off forward. It is also believed that they have evolved the habit because predators tend to approach flies head on. Reverse lift-off apparently fools enemies.  If, as friend or enemy, you want to catch a fly you should therefore come at it from behind.

messages, mystery, peas

 In London wherever you point your camera messages abound.

Unopened bouquets of flowers  left by the wayside are always a sad sight. Often they are left  at the site of an accident  or in a place with sentimental associations, to form a spontaneous shrine of some sort. But the  lone bunch of lilies, still in its cornet of florists' wrapping paper, under a sapling in The Grove, seems to have a less solemn explanation. The flowers are scarcely visible; no message accompanies them; and they are pointing away from the path. They  appear to have been thrown there violently or without feeling.  Perhaps they are a rejected gift of the kind often featured in soap operas to signify an apology not accepted, or a failed attempt to reestablish a broken relationship.There must be a story there.

Garden peas have always been a problem for me.. In the past, mice have eaten the seeds (or so I am told to explain the absence of any sign of germination). Or if the seeds have germinated, pigeons have eaten the tender shoots. This year I have sown the seeds in trays in the greenhouse and transplanted them when they have sprouted.  Today I transplant a second batch of seedlings and arranged pea sticks above them. So far the experiment has been successful. Next year I will try planting the seeds, as I have been advised to do, in a strip of plastic guttering and slide the seedlings with their compost into a prepared trench.

edge, herbs, miles away

 The edges of woods - cross sections of the unknown, - promise complexity, mystify, intrigue. (Click for full picture).

At The Farmers' Market I buy feverfew, St John's wort, echinacea and bergamot for the herb bed.

Woman in queue at  Sainsbury's checkout, whose trolley is blocking the way: "Sorry," miles away".
Man behind her: " Don't worry. I go there too".
Woman: "It's nicer there."

exit, dill, vocal

 Behind the restaurant which is now known in the locality of this and other blogs as The Bloggers' Retreat is this picturesque fire escape.

 I prick out a bunch of tiny, feathery dill seedlings from a pot,  and despite a warning that they do not transplant well, I set out a row of them, taking advantage of the recent rain which has soaked the earth. I smell on my fingers a hint of anise.

After a shower of rain the birds seem to be more vocal, to sing with a greater fluency. Or perhaps it is that the air, rid of its burden of humidity, carries the sound more efficiently.

investigation, six years, pedestrian

 Investigation in The Grove.

To morrow, I realize, it will be six years since I posted my first observations here. The subjects were, a beech sapling in The Grove, some Morris dancers and a solitary girl hoeing in a vast field of roses.  I had been thinking about starting a blog for some time, but wanted to find a focus, before embarking on  a venture of any  sort. My inspiration was Clare Grant's Three Beautiful Things, which I am glad to say is still flourishing as an inspiration to others as well as to me.  Looking back through no fewer than 2136 posts, I recognize that I have made certain changes to the formula I started with. Most obvious perhaps is that one of my three subjects is now invariably a photograph. And second, that not all of the subjects can be described as beautiful; sometimes they may be curious or amusing, or simply interesting (at any rate to me). The observations have however remained positive. There are no beefs or moans.The important thing is that that I enjoy writing  them and  about the small corner of the world in which I live. I have not counted, but the little park round the corner from where we live, is mentioned numerous times, and has become by virtue of repetition, a permanent feature, a landmark in the geography of  my present life. So if I were to propose a toast on this occasion it would be I think to The Grove, which features both in the first post and in the present one. Oh yes, and to  all those who from time to time spare a moment to visit and comment on my posts.

You are used to see people walking towards you on the pavement. This afternoon, it strikes me as curious that, instead of a person, coming down the middle of the footpath, with dignity and deliberation,  it is a single rather plump wood pigeon. As I draw near it doesn't fly off, but instead turns sharp right and proceeds towards the front door of a house, as though  on an errand, to make a visit or leave a  card.

magpie, seeds, sticks

The the feathers on this magpie's back seem to shine and to reflect the blue of the sky.

This morning while the sun is still out I sow seeds of spinach and set out some dill plants which I have been bringing on in the greenhouse.

I always seem to be short of  sticks to prop up the garden peas which are coming on well just now. That is the explanation for my behaviour if anyone sees me and wonders why, like an old man in a fairy story, I am collecting branches blown down from  trees in The Grove and elsewhere.

Pantiles, horse chestnut, fruit

 Saturday lunch time.

Scattered by a high wind  on the grass under a horse chestnut are the tree's immature fruit like prickly green marbles.

A review of the refurbished Savoy Hotel in London lists among its luxuries "softened tap water" and  "perfectly polished fruit."

weed, mother, shadows

Wall lettuce Mycelis murales is a favorite plant of mine at this time of year. It grows out of cracks and corners and has a handsome habit. Against a silvery weathered fence it has a presence which particularly appeals.

As we enter Hall's bookshop, we are greeted by two people and one of them is greeted at the same time  by a young man.. It is like a piece of ensemble acting. "Is this your Mother?" asks Peter who works in the shop. addressing in good faith the young man standing beside Heidi? He has never met Heidi.  There is laughter all round, the more good  humoured because the young man is good looking and  Heidi is at her cheerful best. This  could be an opera," says Peter.  I pick up a business card on the counter. "Whose is this?" I ask. "It could be the subject of an aria ". "Cuesta carta?" chants Peter.

Sitting with a coffee opposite the derelict cinema, I watch pigeons settle on the broken glass of a window on the first floor. They vanish inside the room - it must be the former  upstairs lobby of the cinema; and, as my eyes follow, for a moment - their shadowy wings behind  the dust-coated  fragments of window glass, I imagine the patterned carpet and 30s decor of the space they have made their home..

cherry, talker, territory

That blackbird again, this time with a the remains of a cherry in her beak.

There's a man who passes our house sometimes who talks to himself.  He has a pronounced limp.  We see him passing occasionally early in the morning and hear him shout into the air at no one in particular.  This morning he is walking ahead of me as I make my way to Sainsbury's. I catch  up with him  at the pedestrian crossing in Warwick Road. The lights are against him and he shouts and gesticulates  at the traffic, not in an aggressive way, but rather with a sort of forbearance. I feel myself in sympathy with him and  have the same attitude to traffic, especially now that I no longer drive a car.

This afternoon in Berkeley Road, the air is fresh, after the morning's heavy shower. The birds are especially lively, and I find myself between two blackbirds.  They sing from different rooftops at a distance of about 100 yards. They are supposed to be defending their territory, but I think as I often do how surprising it is that such sweet and fluid  a sound, should be essentially aggressive in nature.

thrush, labels, polentoni

  A  young thrush poses for me not without suspicion in The Grove.

I  enjoy neatly labelling the rows of vegetable in the garden, but not, I suspect, as much as  visiting birds attracted by the white plastic strips, enjoy pulling them out and dropping them a few feet away.

I have always known that people who live in the south of Italy refer, with unkind intentions, to their northern neighbours intentions, as polenta eaters (polentoni) but I didn't know until today that northerners respond by calling southerners terroni a derogatory reference to their occupation with the soil.

butterfly, frames, poet's day

Male common blue  on the back of a hand outside the Compasses.

In the past I have constructed wigwam frames from bamboo canes which come to a point at the top like real tents. For some time I have known that it is more practical to bunch and secure the uprights low down so that they cross earlier, saltirewise, and protrude on all sides allowing whatever is climbing the frame - beans or sweet peas  - to hang down on the outside of the pyramid rather than become tangled at the apex. This year I remember to do it the proper way.

"We used to call Friday "poet's day"," says Bill. It stands for "piss off early tomorrow's Saturday." A variation of "thank God it's Friday," I suppose.  A very English variation, I suggest.

crane, slugs, whispers

 Crane, pigeon, chimney stack and one of the parapets of Somerset House.

No slugs are in evidence this year. There have been times when , all else being quiet, you could hear them munching the leaves of hostas. This year the hostas are slug-free and silence reigns.

A few days ago the wind was racing through the leaves of the lime tree opposite our garden,  whistling and roaring. Today as though it doesn't want to be heard, all you can hear among the leaves is the merest whisper.

friends 2 fuchia, steam

Lucy Kempton recognised the carving on the fascia of Somerset House which I posted the other day. She reminded me that she had included it in a montage which also contained a photograph of me. Such company! Here is another pair of friends perpetually side by side on the wall of Somerset House.

I like knowing the names of things, so when Bill Nunn, outside The Compasses, tells me that the fuchsia which grows wild in this country, particularly in the west of Ireland and in Cornwall, is called Fuchsia magellanica, I note it down. I have had one in the garden as long as I have lived in in Tunbridge Wells, but never known  its full name. I like it particularly because, although it was originally introduced as a garden plant, it  has accommodated itself well to our climate.  And without a fuss. It is above all a modest plant and refrains from the noisy excess of some less sturdy fuchsia which can be  found in garden centres, and as far as I am concerned can stay there. "Intelligence give me the precise name of things, so that the word can become the thing itself, newly made for my own mind and heart."

As I finish watering this afternoon I notice steam rising from the paving stones in the hot sun. It has certainly warmed up since yesterday. The land drops away at the end of the garden where houses intervene on the slopes of a steep valley. On the far side among the trees I see that someone has lit a bonfire. The smoke resonates with the brief skein of  steam.

lunch, water, rubbish

 The crow whom I call Mr Crow with  his lunch in The Grove.

As I attend to the pleasant task of constructing wigwams from bamboo poles for beans to climb over, I listen to the pleasant and satisfying sound of water scattered by the nozzle of a hose. I have fixed the hose into the handle of a spade which is angled to spray water  over the potatoes. For the moment I can think of no better company, except perhaps that of a blackbird which seems to be as pleased with the hose as I am.

The noise of the hydraulic devices which lift and empty wheelie bins into the rubbish collecting vehicle would tell me if I did not already know it, that it is Tuesday. It is a mixture of an anguished cry and a baritone bellow. Perhaps the sort of noise that might emerge from something huge and prehistoric. Would a dinosaur, I wonder, confronted by one of these machines, want to mate with it?

friends, deserted, butterfly

These people are to be found on the fascia of Somerset House in London. I am not sure who they are or what they are up to, but one hopes, since they are permanently adjacent, that they are friends.

The garden next to the vegetable garden, where I have been spending a lot of  time in the last couple of weeks, is now deserted. Last year when the house was still occupied by a very old man it was merely neglected, kept just respectable. I rather like it as it is. The white flowers of bindweed clamber over shrubs that used to be cared for, and long grass rises from the paths once regularly mown. Dandelions flourish. Birds have their way there. I watch a young female thrush, making a meal of a cherry which has fallen into a bed of rampant leaves.The cherry must have been dropped by another bird, because the fruit have long her been stripped from the tree, long before it had ripened.. The thrush allows me to photograph her as she nibbles the cherry, dropping  and retrieving it from time to time, although I am no more  than four or five feet away.

Someone at The Compasses shows us a a Common blue butterfly which has settled on his hand. He allows me to photograph it. He draws attention to its dark colouration. It is almost purple. But he is certain that it is a Common blue. Not so common nowadays though. No butterflies are, at least round here.

valerian, bag, accepting

Valerianella grows in profusion round here. It may once have been introduced as a garden variety but it has found itself  at home in the corners of walls and in cracks in concrete where  it thrives. What I didn't know  and only learn to day is that it is related to Valerianella locusta, lamb's lettuce or corn salad, which the French call mâche. It is very different in appearance, lamb's lettuce having small leaves and even smaller flowers, but the reference in my flower book is born out by Petit Larouse.

As I approach Sainsbury's a transparent plastic bag is caught by the wind inflated and floats up in the air. It has is strange and half alive like the bag filmed by the young man in the film American Beauty. It's transparency gives it a sprite-like quality so that from moment to moment you doubt its existence.

"You'll have to tell him he'll have to accept him for who he is..." the words of a passer by disappear in the wind. They are all the more intriguing  for being incomplete.

wild, plant-sitting, tarragon

A wild rose. My rose book has numerous similar varieties, too many for me to allow me easily to  identify this one, which appears in the front garden of a house in Grosvenor Road. Many, despite being described as wild, are like this one, cultivated. On the whole I think prefer these simple flowers to confectioned damasks, flroribundas,  rugosas and  hybrid teas. A rose is really more than just a rose.

A hydrangea and an agapanthus both in pots have joined the other plants in our garden while some neighbours are on holiday. We have become plant-sitters. Or put another way their plants have become boarders.

In the Farmers' Market today I find French tarragon. "Finer than Russian tarragon," I say to the plants man."  "I grew some Russian tarragon once," he says and nobody wanted it." I have some Russian tarragon which grew from seed, and which lacks the flavour of the French variety. They are similar to look at and have similar Latin names. The Russian is called Artemesia dracunculoides, and the French Artemesia dracunculus. The Russian is hardier and more resilient.  There is a good recipe for roast chicken stuffed between the skin and the breast with a mixture of French tarragon and parsley amalgamated with creme fraiche and butter.

One of the Chinese artist, Ai Wai Wai's zodiac sculptures in the courtyard of Somerset House.

I take two plaice from the freezer and leave them to defrost in the kitchen. They are the last of batch of six which we bought from the Farmers' Market in the Pantiles at a good price. As they warm up, their skin, white, underside down on a dish, begins to shine and to reveal the upper pattern of orange spots on a browny gray background, at its most seductive.  It is this view that is designed to deceive overhead predators by its resemblance to the floor of the sea above which the fish swim. Like all understated colours this camouflage becomes more attractive the more you think about it.

Tufts of leaves have blown down from the trees in The Grove and lie scattered over the grass as though giant vandals have wondered among the trees striking  wantonly at the branches with poles.

clematis, dry, space

 In a neighbour's garden a newly opened white clematis like fine linen on display.

There have been several showers today, the first after a month of drought. I run out in the rain to see what it is doing for the garden. Under larger plants and shrubs, the soil is still dry, a few inches of powdery dust.

Most morning BBC Radio 4 keeps me company as I go about my chores. At 7.50 there is a slot called Thought for the Day, where people of different religions produce a homily or two. Only one regular contributor offends me, a woman who seems to be very sure that she is right all the time about everything. Her voice  has a confident stridency which persuades me that the best thing to do is switch off  the radio. I think to myself in the silence that follows: too much radio; too little space for calm contemplation. My thought for the day.

watching, short, swifts

 Something moved.

"Short back and sides," says a neighbour passing as I supervise some fine touches being applied to the hedge by the hedge cutter. He said the same things last year and I dare say the year before.  And I hope he will say it again next year.

Sitting in the garden I hear the swifts shrieking before I see them in the space between the top of the hedge and the rooftops. They swoop and slice the air with their swept back wings. They are my favourite birds. I love them for their wildness and their  speed and precision, the sharpness of their turns,  their agility and deftness in avoiding collision. Summer is here. 

flying, sticks, still life

Two things flying over London.

Somebody threw away the pea sticks which I had carefully collected. There is nothing better than small branches pruned or fallen from trees for garden peas to climb over.  Fortunately rough winds have shaken the darling buds of May, and sticks blown down from various trees are scattered beneath them. The Lord taketh away and the Lord giveth. I wander about like a medieval peasant gathering the bounty. The pea plants are waiting in the greenhouse. I have given up planting the seeds where they will eventually grow. Too often the seeds have been eaten by mice, or so I am told.

I sit in  the sun and listen to the wind. Above me the branches of the lime tree swing in the wind as through trying to work loose. The bracts of the winged seeds ( I suppose the tree's fruit) are already in evidence. Their cream-colour contrasts with the fresh green of the leaves. In the wind the leaves and bracts tremble in constant movement. In a space between them I can just see the white breast of a pigeon.  The pigeon amid all this movement is quite still.

platform, thrushes, green

Waiting for the train.

While working in the vegetable garden I hear a noise behind me. A sort of chattering disturbs the peace. I turn to see two male thrushes fighting on a patch of grass. They fly up in the air and land and fly up again, confronting one another, all a flutter. Hormones I suppose.

Sitting in the sun I extract a bag of Moroccan mint tea from the steaming mug in front of me. I note the bright green of the re-hydrated mint inside the mesh before discarding the bag. Verde que te quiero verde., as Garcia Lorca chorused. Green, how much I want you, green. But there again tea made with fresh mint leaves is still better than the dried stuff.

lunch, auntie, trees

Blackbird on telephone wire with lunch for offspring carefully chopped for easy transport.

 Solicitous, middle-aged man to the woman with whom he is drinking coffee outside the Italian delicatessen, Arte Bianca. She is trim and slightly his senior.  "I was somewhat embarrassed when I introduced you as my auntie last night. I hope you didn't mind." "No, I'm getting older."

Through the gap  where The High Street bends to join The London Road, you can see, from the corner of Mount Sion, the tree clothed Common on the other side of London Road.  It rises steeply, branches swaying and leaves shimmering in the breeze. The trees which   follow the upward slope of The Common  tower above the four storey building which houses a car showroom. The constant movement of the leaves makes the building at present enmeshed in scaffolding appear lifeless and redundant.

cormorant, scoffing, bag

From Hungerford Bridge between the South Bank and Waterloo Station  I spot a cormorant.

Today in The Pantiles it is the first day of a food festival which seems to have merged with the regular Pantiles Farmers' Market. The sun combined with fruit and vegetables and cooking smells brings the people out to play. Groups stand around with paper plates and plastic forks and spoons scoffing. Or sit on the wall, drinks in hand. Dogs look hungrily up at them. The restaurant tables are packed with people who seem to be overflowing in their chairs, abundant, indulgent, conspicuous.

In the convenience store a man buys a can of beer. "May I have a bag?" he says. "I'll have to start charging  you for it," says the shopkeeper.  it seems the customer is a regular offender.  The shopkeeper hands over a small plastic bag, in its folded state no bigger than a pocket handkerchief. "There," says the customer, "I'll give you 5p, the same as Marks & Spencer."  He walks off leaving the 5p on the counter. Offended the shopkeeper ignores the coin, until as though tidying up,  he picks it up and does with it what shopkeepers do with coins.

now and then, poppy, fruit

 Dandelion bud and flower.

In our garden, a white poppy opens in the sun and almost at the same time as the petals unfurl, three... four bees arrive to take advantage of its opulence.

On the counter in Hall's bookshop a wicker tray of various fruits presents a vivid contrast to the faded understatement of second hand books on shelves and tables. People, including myself, cannot withhold their curiosity. "An eccentric customer left it," says the young man in charge, "he said 'help yourself'' so help yourself". "I'd love a tomato," says an elderly lady, may I take one?"

bud, watering, sawdust

 Promise.

I hold the hose over the broad beans, lettuces, and newly sown seeds and hope that the water is reaching down through the dust. But a scratch with the hoe shows that it  remains on the surface like rain on a mackintosh. To make sure that it gets through I count to 40 as I hold the hose above a batch of six  plants. It is tedious standing there, but I try to imagine new roots welcoming the water, and the dust turning soft and muddy.

There is a variety of rowan tree which has similar flowers to the more common red berried variety but berries of a cream colour.  There is such a tree on the corner of Belgrove. Its flowers are shedding their pollen at  the moment. Drifts of it lie on the brick pavement like sawdust.