fledging, hello, crows

In a neighbour's garden.

I have used the same words myself and wondered a little at them: "Hello, there!" a local shopkeeper greets me. I used to say it when I had forgotten a person's name, so that "there" became a substitute for John or Jim. It is also I suppose a little friendlier than a crude "hello."

The two crows who at this time of year I so often see in The Grove, are back. They peck at the newly cut grass. Invariably there are just two crows, no more. I used to call them Mr and Mrs Crow and saw them as proprietors of the little park. But the time has come to say goodbye to such anthropomorphic rubbish. What is more they are probably different birds.

foraging, animals, animated

  Garden visitor.

Thought for the day. When we begin to think of ourselves as the animals, which we are, it is easier, though no less excusable, to explain some of  the grotesque and cruel practices of the human race.

In The Grove I watch fascinated as one of the brown plastic bags intended for the removal of dog shit by dog owners, as it lies on the grass, inflates and delflates in the breeze, like a lung.

tortoise 2, chair, broad beans

  In response to Anon's request, that tortoise before Mrs P transferred him to the lawn whence we assume he took up  his abode in a shrubbery.

In London's Design Museum I sit in a chair designed by Heatherwick Studio.  It is made of rotational plastic moulding and looks like a sculpture  consisting of two inverted cones welded together with a base rather like a blunt spinning top. Its rippled surface resembles a seashell. At first you don't see it as a chair, but when you tip to one side its function is immediately apparent. You sit comfortably as though in a shell and can rock sideways without falling over, though at first its stability is in doubt.

Broad beans are suddenly plentiful in the garden. Only a few days ago the flowers seem to wither and the  beans not  to appear. I put the absence of germination down to a dearth of bees, but bees or no bees, there are  now beans for lunch prepared as the Spanish do with Serrano ham and a little cream.

fence, tortoise, surprise

Mural.

I meet a tortoise trying to climb a set of three steps to reach a garden path. When it sees me it pulls it head into its carapace. And then when there is no assault puts it out again. "Have you lost a tortoise? " I say to a woman who is passing. "Can't say I have," she says  stopping to have a look. "That brings back memories," she says. "We had a tortoise. For some reason it was called Bacon...." Well, I'll have to leave you I'm afraid," she says, and walks on. Mrs Plutarch, driven by a fit of common sense,  picks up the creature and  puts it on the grass beside the path at the top of the steps.

A bird flies across the sky above the hedge. I expect a pigeon, but it is a seagull. I prefer seagulls. Yes, I much prefer seagulls.

gate, nordic walking, waterwalking

Not into this garden, Maude.

A notice about Nordic walking -  " it uses 90 per cent of your body's muscles. Taster session, only £5.00)"  - is headed "Kentish Nordic Walking". It refers I imagine to that form of exercise where you walk with the help of two long sticks, rather like ski poles. It sounds a bit of an anomaly among the fruit orchards and woodlands of Kent. Then you remember Hengist and Horsa. In the fifth century AD they are said to have led the first band of Teutonic invaders of England. They landed in Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet after sailing from Jutland  to help King Vortigern  against  attacks from the Picts and the Scots. The brothers were rewarded with the gift of Thanet, only later to turn against Vortigern. But they were defeated at Alyesford where Horsa met his death, Hengist however survived and is said to have conquered Kent.  Ebbsfleet is now the main Eurostar terminal

On my way to the vegetable garden I have to pass the swimming pool. This is invariably covered with plastic to keep in the heat and keep out the leaves. Today I see a pigeon walk across the smooth expanse of blue. "Pigeon walks on water" I say to myself, who always fancied himself as a headline writer.

grass, good time, squeaks

Some form of meadow grass I think. Everything about grass is lovely, not least the technical language used to distinguish one grass from another. Look at this description of Eragrostis minor, Love Grass. Or read it alound and listen to it. "An annual; the stems 5-30 cm long, branching at the base and somewhat geniculate, The leaves are hairy; the ligule is a tuft of long hairs. The violet-tinged panicle is large and open, with spreading branches, The spikelets are compressed, with five to twenty florets. Glumes ovate, considerably shorter than the spikelet. The lemma is ovate with three prominent nerves, falling with the seed at maturity; the palea is persistent." (Click photo for full view).

Girl sitting on bench in a plaintive voice: "I was having a good time. I'm sorry. It's like ...." I hear no more as I walk past, but there is a story there, a glimpse of a life, I think to myself.

Yesterday I hear an urgent and competitive squeaking coming from a tree near The Grove. Today, in The Grove there  are the same noises, and an explanation. Three of four young magpies hop about on the grass, asking, almost as a reflex, to be fed.  They fly between the ground and the lower branches of trees, but reluctantly. Newly fledged, they have not yet learned to chatter like grown up magpies.

parallel, lime, owl

 Parallel universe: curb in the sky.

Lime flower petals  are all over the place; they rush by in the wind;  they curl up on pavements and in gutters like shreds of pale tobacco. The winged seeds, still green for the most part, remain on the trees, waiting to fly when the sap loses its grip.

"What's an owl in Russian?" says a young woman to the child with whom she is walking.

3bt, divided, mustard

As we pass their  house I look up to see, Clare Law ( formerly Grant),  who pioneered the formula of daily describing three beautiful things,  and Nick Law and Alec Law who, by and by, joined her , themselves to become, I think as I click my camera, three beautiful things.

A car driven by a young man with  long hair streaming in the wind, emerges from a side road, music exploding all around him. One half of me rebels at the din and the other half applauds his carefree, youthful bravado.

A visitor introduces us to the taste of papaya seeds. Like mustard, not unpleasant, and especially good for you apparently.

hydrangea, feet, noises

 Today's hydrangea.

In the front window of a house, a pair of feet crossed and resting on the sill appear to be looking out on the street - ten toes curious to see what's happening.

 I enjoyed The Crow's comments on my post yesterday about what one might  call voluntary, involuntary noises. The sort of noises that people make when they are exerting themselves and feel the need to build up and release energy.Setting aside the screams and grunts of tennis players, there is a sort of pleasure to be gained from groaning. It is something that I have noticed in myself and in some of my contemporaries - a groan when aging limbs are stretched in the process of rising from a low chair, or contracted when sitting down after unusual exertion. Robert Graves captures it in his poem Welsh Incident when a narrator describes a creature emerging from the sea. In reply to the question what sort of noise did it make?  "A musical noise, a noise of scuffling?" No,  says the narrator, "but a very loud respectable noise/ Like groaning to oneself in chapel close before the seconds psalm".

sweet, greetings, screaming

 We remember the candles on horse chestnut trees but, unless we are children, take little notice of the conkers. We forget the spiky inflorescences of the sweet chestnut, but remember the floury slightly burnt taste of  the roasted nuts, and the hot, blackened shell between our fingers as we peel it away from the kernel.

As I walk across The Grove I pass someone who sees me as a customer. Next I pass an acquaintance who seems to look kindly on me.  "Morning, sir," says the first. "Hello, mate," says the second. I find myself wondering whether I  deserve either title.

I leave the house half way through the second set of the Ladies Finals at Wimbledon.   Petra Kvitova is in the lead by one set and leading four games to three. By the time  I pass the television shop in The High Street 10 minutes later she is on the screen  on thee TV in the window being interviewed, from which I deduce (correctly as it turns out) that she won in straight sets. I think to myself Sharapova who screams every time she hits the ball like a demented peacock (or should I say peahen) whether she is serving or playing a ground shot, lost the match; and Kvitova who doesn't scream, won. A good sign if you don't like screaming tennis players. Some commentators have referred to these visceral noises as "grunts", surely the understatement of all time.

cherries, fallow, edge

 Cherries by the wayside.

Fallow: a lovely word, which means to plough or break up as well as to leave  unploughed or unsown for a time, as in "to lay fallow"; or indeed a piece of land which is unploughed as in "Landscape plotted  and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough".

Edges of woods have a special appeal. They represent  cross sections of woods and all that goes on among the trees and undergowth. In  the train we pass a field bordering a wood. Half way across the division between grass and trees,  the trunk of a silver birch stands out like a marker amid the deciduous crowd of greens and browns. It reminds me of a picture I once tried to paint or thought of painting.  I never finished it and I am not sure that I now think back on it, that I ever started it.  The title of the painting that never was: The edge of the wood. Perhaps it will be painted now.

drops, sex, budlea

 Rain drops and the veins of a nasturtium leaf.

From the bench  in our garden in the evening we watch pigeons on the roof opposite. There is a pair which sit in the setting sun and nuzzle each other's neck. A third pigeon appears on the scene. I call him Roger the lodger. He takes up a position at one one end of the roof and tries to approach  the lovers. But is challenged by the male whereupon he flies off into the lime tree. The pair nest in the wisteria below the roof. And sometime resort to their second home, a spare nest, in  the wisteria above out front  door across the road. Roger is still around, and, though a handsome and stalwart bird, seems reluctant to intrude.

From the train I see that the budlea, so untidy and scruffy at other times of year, is now in flower. Its purple inflorescences probe the air, and match the brightness of the purple loosestrife now also in floweron patches of wasteland.

flowers, meadows, grafitti

  Flowers again. Alliums, blue and white. No apologies. Tigger likes flowers.

From the train, meadow grass flowing like a tide with soft and feathery waves.

As you enter London on the train every vertical surface is covered in graffiti. What is surprising is that there are barely any recognisable words or images, just the same swirling lines, the product of spray-paint canisters, which could all, judging by the uniformity of style, have been squirted by the same hand. It is surprising, considering the effort that so much energy could be expended for so disappointing a reward.

spectacles, smells, end

Sitting outside the pub I enjoy the texture of the scrubbed table and the shadows thereon.

There are two ways of ascending Mount Pleasant from The High Street and the  railway station. One is via the street called Mount Pleasant, which has several restaurants, fashion shops and hairdressers. The other is via Mount Pleasant Avenue, a narrow, relatively featureless street, parallel to Mt Pleasant. Here, on the left as you walk up the hill, you find the rear of the shops, and often see chefs and waiting staff and the odd hairdresser, having a quick puff of tobacco on a doorstep. You also catch a whiff of  the restaurant kitchens, Italian sauces, Asian spices, grilled meat. It's a climb that sharpens the appetite, particularly when you are on the way to the Farmers' Market outside the civic complex on the crest of the hill in search of culinary inspiration.

I have reached the last page of my current notebook, which will join the stack of nine moleskins beside my desk. The early ones in the pile largely contain drawings sketched usually on the hoof or sitting at restaurant or pub tables. I have gradually switched the emphasis from graphics to words.  Most of the books have lasted nearly a year. The present one has a date, 28 August 2010, on the first page  (I should clearly have dated earlier ones, but I  used to underestimate their value as a record). The first words are "house martins". This summer there are again house martins to be seen flitting across the sky in the space between the top of our hedge and the eves of the house where the martins nest.

portrait, toothed, bones

 Portrait of the photographer as an old fart.

The toothed and slightly hairy leaves of sage -  close silvery felt on a green membrane.

In the garden some bones picked clean. Too big for a part of a chicken.  A leg of lamb perhaps. Something out of a dustbin certainly.  A few days ago there was a huge kerfuffle out there, in the middle of the night. A fight over something. Undoubtedly these bones nicked from a dustbin by foxes, probably cubs judging by  the sound, were the cause of the fight, the bones evidence of its cause.

poppy, cherries, horse chestnut

This poppy has flowered and shed its petals. I am glad I photographed it when I did.

Tunbridge Wells is in the heart of cherry country. This year has been a good season with abundant fruit, but the recent rain after a dry period has swelled many to  a point where they split. At the Farmers' Market I ask at  one of the stalls about the split fruit. "We've had five and a half tons," the young man says. "All wasted ?" I ask rather shocked. "No," he says, "we turn them into juice."  Cherry juice is good for you," I say, "it cures gout." "That's right," he says, " you are a knowledgeable man". I walk off glowing a little, I suppose, but refrain from admitting that I used once used  to suffer from gout.

In a flower bed this afternoon I find an infant horse chestnut tree, and the remains of the conker whence it came. We have seen squirrels in the garden and there is little doubt about the sapling's provenance.

pigeons, pubs, hands

Two shots of pigeons in conversation beside a finial.

"It's only 100 yards from the last pub," says one gent to another, as their party of hikers enters The Grove Tavern, after evidently spending some time at The Compasses.

It seems important to emphasise the hands-on element in cheese-making, I notice nowadays. At a recent farmers market, I see "hand-made cheeses". And today I read about "artisan cheeses." Perhaps it is meant to reassure, but I somehow don't like to think of my cheese being fondled in the process of manufacture.

pose, potatatoes, butterfly

Pose or suppose in The Grove.(Click for whole picture).

In the raised flower bed of a house in Sutherland Road which is all there is between the street and the front of the house, there are potatoes growing. A good use of space; no more than  3ft x 9ft, but what satisfaction of unearthing the buried tubers in a few weeks time, and several pounds of them.

Outside the fishmonger's a blackboard offers "butterflied mackerel". A miss-spelling of a  mispronunciation? I ask myself. But inside all is revealed: the mackerel have been boned and the two sides opened out like wings. They do the same with prawns. A new verb then: to butterfly.

sculpture, windows, hat

 Sculpture in St Giles, London. Is it the angel celebrated by the pub in the background?

 I look up to speculate about the little windows on the top floor of a nineteenth century house, now used for offices.   The rooms under the roof once housed chamber maids who had to get up before anyone else to dust ornaments,  light the fires and blacken  fire places. It is hard this afternoon to imagine them and their work in the age of central heating and electronics.

Thought for the day. If you have a hat with a wide enough brim you won't need an umbrella.

looking up, visitor, marauders

I'm not sure what this is or where I was when I pointed my camera upwards but it makes an interesting contrast in textures.

In the vegetable garden I sense a presence. It is the Labrador from next door whom I have seen for several years. He must have found a new way through the reinforced hedge and fence. He mooches around as he used to, nose to the ground.

When I go through the garden door I disturb two pigeons and a magpie. They are nibbling my lettuces. The lettuces  - at least the crisp green ones - have had little chance so far. Everyday I find them  tidily and thoroughly cropped. I have given up protesting and decided to subscribe to  the fiction that I planted the lettuces just for these greedy birds. Why not? If they don't eat them, the neighbours, to whom I always deliver the surplus, will. Perhaps a few will be spared for our own use.

wall, dock, dislikes

A wall behind the abandoned petrol station between Sainsbury's car park and the London Road. I stop to take a series of photographs from the footpath beside the car park entrance. It proves a fruitful couple of minutes.

There are now two areas of grass which are allowed to grow uncut and wild in The Grove. One is in its second year of deliberate neglect and already there are signs of interest. In particular a majestic clump of docks appears among the  sedges and feathery grasses. Gardeners uproot this plant which is seldom is seen as handsome or appears and renowned only as cure for stinging nettle stings. But allowed to flourish on its own, with its big leaves folding away from the centre, it deserves a word or two here.

Though I forget much I find, as someone who enjoys cooking, that I remember the likes and dislikes of people, even people for whom I have never cooked and for whom I am never likely to cook.

Saturday, walking, names

Chatting.

 There are reasons for walking slowly in the rain.

Is there anywhere in the world an estate agent called Crumble and Crestfallen?

together, steam, alliums

Together in London.

After the rain, the sun and in the sun steam rises.

Globes of florets on the alliums (ornamental onions), some white, some blue, which I planted in the Autumn. At first the globes are opaque, but when the petals fall leaving the spiky seed heads, you can see through the skeletal globes. They remain a spectacle.

view, fleeting, rain

 View through a sculpture in St Giles, London.

A reddish brown shape disappears into a flower bed on the other side of  the lawn. Not a cat I am sure. It must be a fox. A cub I guess, and clever at hiding in a border. I go to investigate. There is no sign of it. I content myself with imaging its quick eyes peering out at me from among the lupins.

There is a heavy shower of drenching rain. I stand in the green house, listen to the drops falling on the roof, and watch the tangles in the overgrown garden next door, wilder and more mysterious than ever in the rain.

toadflax, pylons, seedlings

 A weed is defined as a plant growing where it is not wanted. Whether it is wanted or not, toad flax springs up quite unexpectedly in unexpected places. One plant takes shelter behind a sage in the vegetable garden and its purple flowers, mingle with those of the sage so that it goes virtually unnoticed. Here the plant grows out of the base of a wall against the unmade path (the local word is twitten) where dustbins reside. But such magnificence deserves a better description than "weed"  wherever and however it grows.

From the garden behind  the The Griffin Inn at Fletching we admire pylons striding across the weald towards the South Downs. My daughter is involved in research for the National Grid. Not everyone likes pylons, she says. But we agree that they have a certain architectural beauty. We note the way  perspective gathers the pylons together as they approach the horizon as  though they are engaged in some sort of meeting.

I wake up worrying about my basil. Yesterday the tray in the greenhouse where I had sown the minute black seeds looked dry and neglected. So this morning I check the tray, to find that spread across the  still moist compost are tiny green dots, which promise, once the seedlings are transplanted, a good crop of aromatic leaves for pesto and tomato and mozzarella salad.