mystery who? salt

In the peeling paint of an old lamp post mystery resides.

A face I haven't seen for some times belongs to an elderly man who used to help out at Hall's bookshop. Before that he ran a bookshop for new books almost next door.  He disappears into Chapel Place. As I look after him I meet a neighbour who works at Hall's from time to time. ""That wasn't Paddy was it?" she says. I assume  that we are talking about the same person.  I didn't know his name, but now I guess I do. "I think so," I say. "I must talk to him," she says and hurries on.

Last year when it snowed the trains seized up, the trains didn't work and the roads became skating rinks. This year for the first time there is talk of snow and in the morning there is a thin white covering on the tarmac. Snow? No. It's salt. Precautionary salt. We're still waiting for the snow. Our new snow shovel  meanwhile awaits initiation. Or will it remain, for this year at least, the charm against snow, which I have come to believe it is.

shirts worth it sea gulls

A gathering of shirts in a window.

One of the workmen repairing a sofit under the roof of our house, reminisces about parking difficulties . Problems haven't changed much since the 1980s. "I was unloading my van," he says; "the meter man said you can have five minutes. I said it will take longer than five minutes to unload this lot. So straight away he wrote out a notice and stuck it on the window. I picked it up and put it in his pocket. Then I hit him and he fell back. He sat down on his bottom. It cost me £60.00 - a fine of £50 and £10 00 for the parking. But it was worth worth it!"

The other day I remarked that sea gulls flew often over but never landed in The Grove. Today to prove me wrong a small flock of gulls flutters in one corner and settles over a heap of crumbs left by a well-wisher.  Until along comes the crow, which regularly asserts its authority over the park. Like a thick black arrow it makes for the crowd of gulls which rises up in the air in alarm, settles on the surrounding roofs to await the crow's departure.

python scrap enough

  Over Christmas and the New Year  a skating rink took the place of the old bandstand in Calverley Park. When this month, they move the equipment from Calverley Ground this pythonesque cable lies curled up by the path ready to swallow passers-by.

In considering what to stick in my scrap book I have to bear in mind what is truly compelling. The book with its bizarre contrasts and  trouvailles  could get out of hand if I do not begin to be severe in making choices. Today's neighbours are first  a magnificent photograph of two burkah-clad women in a vast desert-landscape in Afghanistan. The photograph spreads across two pages. The dessert is ochre, the sky ultramarine and the burkas themselves, a dazzling  cerulean blue. Next to it is a photo of a Land Rover battling through a snow-laden wood  beneath  a tunnel of lacy branches in Somerset.  On the same page is a 7 mm long New Guinea frog - the smallest frog in the world - is sitting on a dime coin.

Sometimes you know what people are going to say as they come towards you in the street. In today's bitter wind  I see Giles approaching in The High Street. He is hatted and muffled up like me.  I intone to myself, "cold enough for you?" And sure enough, he greeting is, "cold enough for you?"

composition pipe gulls

Blackbird, berries and chimney.

The smell of tobacco burning slowly in a pipe greets me as I walk down towards the High Street. I wonder if the man smoking it is enjoying it as much as I enjoy the result of his efforts. In the days when I smoked a pipe I always preferred the smell of the tobacco, raw or smouldering in the bowl, to the act of smoking itself. Keeping the pipe alight might have been an art but it was often more trouble than the pleasure produced was worth. In the same way I often (but not always) find that music overhead is more pleasurable than music intensively listened to. I find myself wondering if other pleasures half encountered, anticipated,  dreamt about  or remembered (a la Proust) may be preferable to their origins.

 I often see sea gulls singly or in groups over Mount Sion and The Grove,  invariably in the same flight line. But never have I seen  one on the ground here. Then I remember that apart from the ocean, gulls love tips, and that the direction they take is towards the refuse tip in the North Farm Industrial Estate where there are delicacies almost as rich  as those found in the sea, and certainly more plentiful.There is nothing for sea gulls in The Grove

path money wrong

 Path across  The Common. Paths reaching the brow of a hill have a charm and promise all of their own.

Monday mornings, when you have the choice, is the wrong time to visit the bank.  Entrepreneurs, are paying in their takings after the weekend. As I wait in the queue I watch tellers counting thousands of pounds (it seems). As  they put the bundles away each clasped by an elastic band, I can hear the money shuffling into the vaults, whispering to itself, snuggling down, keeping warm in the economy.

The telephone rings. Somebody says my name with confidence and not without familiarity. Then, "It's Diane. Diane Rhodes!"  I suppose I am not alone in forgetting the names of acquaintances. So I hesitate, but have to admit that I don't know her. Part of me expects a prompt, something like, "you know, we met on the stair case in Grand Central Station you caught me when I fell over my suitcase." Or, "it was on Bondai Beach. The shark swallowed your surfboard..." No such luck. A miserable anticlimax. I must have the wrong number". Still it is better than someone from a call-centre selling double-glazing.

path milk sarcococca

Into the wood. One of the paths leading from the London Road to The Common.

"We need milk" says a woman in the supermarket. She has a loud voice. She says it again to her little husband
who has it appears no voice at all. "We need milk," she says shouting this time." That's three times I told you."

O that scent again. Perfume I should say. Again I smell it and then hunt for the shrub. Sarcococca. There are two this time. In  a shrubbery in Calverley Ground,  proud of being able to identify it, I spot two of the bushes with their dark green leaves and small, star shaped white flowers. The aroma still makes me think of the warm smell of horses.

holly Siberian shorts

 Holly berries close to. I come in close to avoid the usual Christmas card view. A strident display like this one is supposed to promise a cold winter.

Warm days in January are a bit disturbing. Nature up the spout. Global warming in action. Now they are beginning to talk about snow and ice or at least frost.  I feel a sense of relief. But not everyone likes it cold. "Do you think we're going to have a Siberian winter?" says a neighbour as we pass in the street.  Siberian? Now that would be climate change.

It is cold already today. In Mount Pleasant I pass a man of middle age staggering up the hill. He has bow legs, one of those Australian, leather cowboy hats and is wearing shorts and short socks. Sturdy is the word which comes to mind as the best to describe him.

doodle wash dear, dear

 One of the recent "doodles" which I have very deliberately made with water colours. I call them doodles in spite of their serious intent, out of a sense of uncertainty as to their true nature, but they could equally well be described as postcard-sized drawings or paintings. Some, like this one  are abstract. Others which will appear here in due course are more representational. The most difficult  to do are the abstract ones. 

In the gents in Calverley Ground the hand dryer is more approachable than most of its genre. I admire the simplicity of its design. There is one opening into which you insert your hands and three buttons labelled soap, water and air. Each of them works. The manufacturer Wallgate deserves to be named here. As some comperes might say: "Please put your hands together" for it.

"A neatly dressed grey-haired man is sitting opposite me in the train. There is a table between us. He is wearing a fawn raincoat.  From beneath the coat peeps a tweed lapel, a modestly patterned  tie and one of those check shirts which betoken a certain kind of quiet, middle-class aspiration.  He is engaged in a crossword. ""Oh dear, dear," he says to himself, as he shifts his position and folds his paper  into tighter oblong.

proportion fashion humming

 If you were a few millimetres tall this face would represent a good climb. As it is it is a part of the outcrop of rocks only a few meters high at the top of Tunbridge Wells Common, it is less of a challenge, but photographs can be deceptive.

A sign of  limited intelligence is to identify people and objects by dominant features rather than by closer detail. I fear that my own limitations are revealed where fashion is concerned. Today  a woman in the train, with short cropped grey hair  with blond highlights could be one of our neighbours. I realise that she  is  not the neighbour only  because I know that the neighbour is on holiday. This haircut seems to be quite common among women in a certain age group.

Ahead of me an old man with a white stick walks cheerfully along. He is humming. He wears a red baseball cap. When I overtake him I see that the cap is inscribed with the  logo  St Dunstan's which is a school for the blind.

stripes alarm how

Vapour trails and branches in the evening sky.

As I walk across The Grove a burglar-alarm is ringing. Its demented obsessive song persists as I move out of earshot on my way to Mount Pleasant. On my return it is still ringing. No sign of fleeing burglars. No screaming police cars. All sorts of innocent explanations are given for alarms being set off. Undue vibration due to building works nearby is a common one. Another is spiders or insects picked up  by the sensor. I know that if I were a burglar I would find that the din upset my concentration no end. The job must be stressful enough as it is!

In the convenience store this morning the proprietor greets me with,  "and how are you do day?" I tell him and wander off in search of milk. On my return to the counter, as he takes my payment, he asks again: "How are you today?" Nothing has changed since we last spoke. But I tell him. This afternoon I remember that I forgot to buy some juice.  I feel a little foolish going back to the store for the second time in one day. I go straight to the shelf where the juice resides. When I proffer payment, "how are you today?" says the proprietor.

crow age pony-tail

 Another family photo. I can't resist it when Mr Crow in a posing state of mind allows me to approach to within a few feet.

Paul Johnson, the historian, essayist and former editor, proclaims the achievements of old age in the edition of The Spectator.   Lord Palmerston was eighty when he died, and still in office, as prime minister, he reminds us.   His age in no sense impeded the quickness of his wits. A fortnight before his death he attended a military review in Hyde Park with Queen Victoria. When she complained of the smell of the sweaty soldiers, he replied "Yes Ma, am, it is known as esprit de corps." His last recorded remark, delivered with his staccato laugh,  was "Die, my dear doctor? That's the last thing I will do."

In Mount Pleasant, a smartly dressed young man in a suit and Trilby hat stops to light a cigarette. Protruding from beneath his hat is a beautifully coiffured pony tail. Noticeable for its chestnut sheen, it hangs above the collar  of his jacket like a question mark.

way scrap marmalade

 Part of a logo familiar to almost everyone in this country. It is normally attached to the single word "footpath". On his own this man, because he is no longer merely indicative, seems to have gained in  personality and presence. Even in ambiguity.

Labels which have to be peeled off individual, supermarket fruit such as apples or pears showing their provenance or variety can be a nuisance, but when the labels are removed and stuck into my scrap book next door to something inappropriate such as a Turner landscape or a nude by Cranach, they can take on a new and surprising significance.

Nine jars of Seville Orange  marmalade still hot and ready to be labelled are my reward for today's chopping, boiling and ladling.

morning percentages forecast

 Cold and frosty morning in The Grove.

In these hard times shops are closing. It is the season of percentages. Fifty percent off in one instance. Seventy-five in another. But always with the weasel words "Up to" skillfully inserted so as not to be noticed by customers eager for a bargain.

Weather forecasts, professional and amateur, are unhelpful most of the time . Black clouds are massing in the West. It's going to rain. But where? Not here. Or there. but not down the road. There is no precision. My own all-purpose weather saw is:
  " All signs and portents do ignore
    't will rain when it rains, not one minute after,
     not one before".

cloud alive silver

Pigeons flying across a cloud wheel in the wind.

As I am leaving the train a woman points to an almost deflated balloon. It is bright green and still has enough gas in it to make it bob up and down on the floor beside a seat as though it has a vestige of life in it. A woman waiting for the train door to open points it out to me. I think it scares her. "I thought it was a plastic bag", she says.  You can't be too careful nowadays.

The sky is silver over The Grove this afternoon. In places where the sun is, dazzling; in others, its tones reduced. Higher up there is a hint of pale blue, but other colours are scarce. In the foreground: the trunks of silver birches.

dry quiet ferret

 Rose fruit in Winter.

Although cars are parked in The High Street, none is to be seen passing in the road. It is quiet. Not much on in town this morning. You can hear the light rain falling. I am on my way to the station. London should be busier.

In the Strand a man in army fatigues and  a hooded jacket walks with his arms crossed in front of him. Curled up in his arms is a ferret.

bee moss stones

  An early bee alights on a packet of tobacco outside the pub.

I leave the path on The Common and walk across sparse grass and moss which is springy under foot. Just to be walking on such a surface on a brisk, fine day is enough. Enough for what? Enough to sing about.

Dave Bonta, poet and poetry editor, writes on The Small Stones or River of Stones idea, which is to be found on a blog called Walking Our Way Home, in praise of brevity. His own Morning Porch observations (a limit of 140  characters) have been made regularly on a daily basis over several years have fulfilled many of the Small Stone objectives (ie to notice something properly every day and write it down). I believe that I have been doing the same sort of thing for the last five years, while Clare Grant, from whom I copied her idea of Three Beautiful Things to be noted daily, has been doing it for at least six years. "Bad writing," says Dave, "happens when decent writers are unwilling to let go of any felicitous expression." Few who aspire to write well will disagree with those words and may share a general inclination towards what is brief and yet complete in itself.

textures moo context

 Cracks and shadows.

"I can almost hear it mooing."  Comment by  the late Denis Thatcher, husband of the prime minister,  on a very underdone steak.

Sometimes you can only see something properly when it outside its usual context.

camellia sparrows puff

 First camellia. Another annual photograph in the same spot in Grove Avenue.

One of the houses in Belgrove has a tall holly tree in the garden. It is alive with sparrows. You can't see them except every now and then as they flutter in and out of their domain, but you can hear them, ringing like bicycle bells,  long before the tree comes into sight.

 On The Common I am walking down hill towards the town. Coming up the steep path towards me is a woman with five little dogs, two of them on leads.  She is wearing a pink anorak and a white, woolly hat. In response to my "good morning" she says: "I'm out of breath. It's my age."

peeling axe books

 Paint peeling from brickwork reveals the shadow of an animal.

 Two log stories.  And a half. Outside the pub a man appears and selects a log from the stack. He few minutes later he brings it back and replaces it. " A ball stuck up a tree," he says by way of explanation. Later, one of the pub staff arrives with an axe. "Don't worry,  " he says, as though the sight of a man with an axe might evoke a scene from a horror film. " I want to chop a log up to make some kindling. Customers are complaining that it is getting cold". The word "blog", I have always supposed, is derived from the phrase "web log".  Another log then.

 While talking the other day about the difference between reading a book or on an eReader, I am reminded of a passage in Albert Camus' unfinished, largely autobiographical novel, The First Man. Describing his discovery of books as a child in a lending library in Algiers, Camus writes. I translate loosely:  "Each book, moreover, had a particular scent derived from the paper on which it was printed, a scent, refined and secret, that J would have been able to distinguish  with his eyes closed ... And each of these scents before he had even begun to read,  overwhelmed him and drew him into another universe full of promise, obscuring the room where he was, the quarter in which he lived, the town and the entire world...."

berry apocolypse age

 Rowan berry with robin.

There is something apocalyptic about the notices advertising sales on the windows of shops which are closing down. Not the least of them, if you argue from the particular to the general, is "Everything Must Go.

Go over the notes from last year's check up the optician remarks: "Next year you will be 80." My reaction is a typical instance of intuitive rather than careful thinking. She must be wrong, I think.  At my last birthday in September I was 78 and at my next birthday in September 2012, I will be 79. But she is right: at this time next year, a year from now, I will be 80.