Thursday, 17 November 2016
Custardy
Much of the canopy has turned brown now and thinning. Last week, when I was passing, I observed that the custard maple was still in a lime jelly trifle stage, despite its taller neighbours being much further advanced toward winter. This morning it was doing the eponymous thing, so I took a couple of terrible snaps on my phone. I'd like to get a better picture when I have more time and when there is better lighting, but I suspect that this afternoon's weather is going to strip most of the remaining foliage.
Thursday, 10 November 2016
The same old road trip
The road was better washed today and the sky held on to remnants of water vapour. Clouds in thin slabs like broken paving mixed with smoke and a distant, sun-lit topping of cotton-wool. After I entered the trees the sun broke over the slabs and showed bare boughs, with just a few terminal leaves left on the birches. The thick carpets of discards glittered with wet gold, heaped with rust, sprinkled with crushed cinnamon.
The managed heath, where heather and gorse has been cut this year, lies like a mohair camel blanket. Grass flower stems are the fine whiskers and the autumn sward the fabric. This superficial appearance deceives. In detail the ecosystem is more fractal; giving equal detail at all visible levels of magnification. Amongst the grass: herbs, moss, lichen, the tiny resurgent heathland weeds and critters from mites to small mammals and amphibians roam.
Red deer were the morning's highlight, five crossing, relaxed; a stag and four hinds. The stag stood in the road and regarded me for a few seconds. I returned the favour.
The managed heath, where heather and gorse has been cut this year, lies like a mohair camel blanket. Grass flower stems are the fine whiskers and the autumn sward the fabric. This superficial appearance deceives. In detail the ecosystem is more fractal; giving equal detail at all visible levels of magnification. Amongst the grass: herbs, moss, lichen, the tiny resurgent heathland weeds and critters from mites to small mammals and amphibians roam.
Red deer were the morning's highlight, five crossing, relaxed; a stag and four hinds. The stag stood in the road and regarded me for a few seconds. I returned the favour.
Wednesday, 9 November 2016
When in Rome
Public transport is cheap and frequent. You will have to guess when it comes to where to buy a ticket; try a bar or a tobacconist.
The famous sites, the set-pieces are excellent and spectacular and likely to be crowded.
Walk if you are able. Between the well-known landmarks you will see an amazing range of ancient/ruined/re-purposed Roman artefacts.
Eat where the locals eat. Pizza, pasta and puddings were good everywhere.
Drink coffee. I found one excellent cup of tea in Rome, Assam, without milk, exquisite; you will probably not be so lucky.
The price of coffee is very simple. As a rough guide: in a back-street bar €1.20 at a table, €0.80 at the bar; On the tourist trail €3; in sight of a famous site €4; close to St Peter's €5.
If you want to see a particular place, say the inside of a museum, figure out whether it is possible to pre-book. There are special visitor tickets that offer museums and local transport inclusive which may save you money.
The large, square romanesque building next to Castel S. Angelo is not in the guidebooks. As far as my Italian will allow, it is the law court and police headquarters. Its frontage and the adjoining Piazza are well worth a look and are empty of tourists. There is a reasonable wine-bar there too.
I stayed near Termini, the main bus and train station. The guide books will suggest that if any area of Rome is rough, it is this one. I had no problems.
At the main tourist attractions there will be hawkers. How it is that the hospitals of Rome do not have to regularly surgically remove selfie-sticks from these people I will never know.
Earthquakes happen. The hotel staff were happy to measure the severity by the distance that the chandelier inside the main door swung in response to the quake.
During my visit, at the end of October, weather was 17-20 degrees (62-68 F) and I wore T-shirt and sandals with jeans, with a scarf after dark. I saw no Romans wearing sandals, my primary school teachers lied to me.
The famous sites, the set-pieces are excellent and spectacular and likely to be crowded.
Walk if you are able. Between the well-known landmarks you will see an amazing range of ancient/ruined/re-purposed Roman artefacts.
Eat where the locals eat. Pizza, pasta and puddings were good everywhere.
Drink coffee. I found one excellent cup of tea in Rome, Assam, without milk, exquisite; you will probably not be so lucky.
The price of coffee is very simple. As a rough guide: in a back-street bar €1.20 at a table, €0.80 at the bar; On the tourist trail €3; in sight of a famous site €4; close to St Peter's €5.
If you want to see a particular place, say the inside of a museum, figure out whether it is possible to pre-book. There are special visitor tickets that offer museums and local transport inclusive which may save you money.
The large, square romanesque building next to Castel S. Angelo is not in the guidebooks. As far as my Italian will allow, it is the law court and police headquarters. Its frontage and the adjoining Piazza are well worth a look and are empty of tourists. There is a reasonable wine-bar there too.
I stayed near Termini, the main bus and train station. The guide books will suggest that if any area of Rome is rough, it is this one. I had no problems.
At the main tourist attractions there will be hawkers. How it is that the hospitals of Rome do not have to regularly surgically remove selfie-sticks from these people I will never know.
Earthquakes happen. The hotel staff were happy to measure the severity by the distance that the chandelier inside the main door swung in response to the quake.
During my visit, at the end of October, weather was 17-20 degrees (62-68 F) and I wore T-shirt and sandals with jeans, with a scarf after dark. I saw no Romans wearing sandals, my primary school teachers lied to me.
Holy Zarquon singing fish (bird autumn)
No frost today and, unusually, no blackbirds foraged under the apple tree this morning. Just the bobbing motion of a robin searching for invertebrates amongst the pecked-out apples and crinkled brown leaves.
Birds in pairs as I left the village, on the longer route, offering time for reflection. Pigeons first, then magpies. Houses gave way to lawn and ponies in small groups; no more cars and then, just before the second bridge, a grey heron close to the road in the bog.
The bracken has all turned. Every shade of fudge from plain to deepest chocolate.
Recent rain has stuck the autumnal litter to the road and its pattern reflects the sequence of trees: beech, birch, oak, a corner broadly strewn with discarded maple, the dust of needles and clusters of pine cones. Smaller brown birds are swept up before the car, chaffinches, but also gold finches and later, pipits.
I found the missing blackbirds and almost killed one. A heart wrenching moment when a bird disappeared below the line of the front of the car. I watched the mirror, expecting disaster, but this bird must have landed and gone underneath, because in the rear-view I saw it fly back up, apparently hale.
Autumn pigs; the usual herd of cows. From the plain the sky showed baby-blue North in ragged cloud and the Southern horizon was painted in a rough, narrow ribbon with layers of paler cloud hanging over a crack of sunlight just above the distant trees.
Birds in pairs as I left the village, on the longer route, offering time for reflection. Pigeons first, then magpies. Houses gave way to lawn and ponies in small groups; no more cars and then, just before the second bridge, a grey heron close to the road in the bog.
The bracken has all turned. Every shade of fudge from plain to deepest chocolate.
Recent rain has stuck the autumnal litter to the road and its pattern reflects the sequence of trees: beech, birch, oak, a corner broadly strewn with discarded maple, the dust of needles and clusters of pine cones. Smaller brown birds are swept up before the car, chaffinches, but also gold finches and later, pipits.
I found the missing blackbirds and almost killed one. A heart wrenching moment when a bird disappeared below the line of the front of the car. I watched the mirror, expecting disaster, but this bird must have landed and gone underneath, because in the rear-view I saw it fly back up, apparently hale.
Autumn pigs; the usual herd of cows. From the plain the sky showed baby-blue North in ragged cloud and the Southern horizon was painted in a rough, narrow ribbon with layers of paler cloud hanging over a crack of sunlight just above the distant trees.
Monday, 24 October 2016
visitors
Our eldest came to visit for the second time, over the weekend. The first visit was 19 years but this was just a couple of days.
While he slept off his half term in a familiar bed, we went to visit the boat. No time to sail unfortunately, we just had time to re-inflate the tender's air chambers, check on the mooring and watch the water-world go by for ten minutes. A neap tide was just turning from ebb to flood, water fowl of all sorts were lining the shore. It was one of those slightly mad, cool, breezy and bright mornings that characterise this time of year. Although motor bound, we could feel the power in the passing sails of radical dinghies and enjoy the slight waves that re-doubled the glare of the low sun.
On the boat we had a good sighting of a black swan, following a more usual mute around. I had seen them fly over together from the tender and assumed, while I wrinkled my irises against the light, that the slightly grey bird was a signet that hadn't quite whitened up yet. On the lake it was obviously the different species; very black, very red beak.
While he slept off his half term in a familiar bed, we went to visit the boat. No time to sail unfortunately, we just had time to re-inflate the tender's air chambers, check on the mooring and watch the water-world go by for ten minutes. A neap tide was just turning from ebb to flood, water fowl of all sorts were lining the shore. It was one of those slightly mad, cool, breezy and bright mornings that characterise this time of year. Although motor bound, we could feel the power in the passing sails of radical dinghies and enjoy the slight waves that re-doubled the glare of the low sun.
On the boat we had a good sighting of a black swan, following a more usual mute around. I had seen them fly over together from the tender and assumed, while I wrinkled my irises against the light, that the slightly grey bird was a signet that hadn't quite whitened up yet. On the lake it was obviously the different species; very black, very red beak.
Monday, 17 October 2016
An unsailed breeze
I may complain about sleep, but I generally sleep well once I'm in bed (It is getting to that point that seems hard). Last night was an exception that found me wide awake in the dark. I know the period of wakefulnes covered 04:50 because I visited the kitchen at that time; I know it began before that and continued past 06:00 because of the number of trains I heard.
I think the problem was a subliminal rattling sound that early morning prowling established as belonging to one of my son's bedroom door. He has taken to sleeping with a window wide open and the wind direction must have been such that this was the cause. I quietened the door by stuffing a sock in the gap - I'll try and find a better fix tonight, but I have to say that the sock was effective. Once I'd solved that problem there was a heavy rain shower that didn't help my return to nod. Whenever that stopped I must have slept again until I was aware of my 07:00 alarm.
The garden looked rinsed this morning; no use trying to take the green waste to the tip in this damp state. The Forest had a light, contour hugging mist, uniformly eight feet deep. Cows in the road were too busy licking the rain off each others coats to notice cars trying to pass. The gutters were still quite full, even an hour after the rain stopped, but this is generally the state of the forest - it drains poorly and it would be strange to walk the paths here without finding some mud, even during periods that in our English way we describe as drought.
Not sailing for the weekend left time to start on the wilding state of the garden. I find that, although swift-walking fit, I am not pick-axe fit by any means. Removing the largest of the self-sown ash trees was enough for my lower back and using heavy loppers to cut up the wood just began to trouble last year's tennis elbow. I think of fire, or pigs.
I think the problem was a subliminal rattling sound that early morning prowling established as belonging to one of my son's bedroom door. He has taken to sleeping with a window wide open and the wind direction must have been such that this was the cause. I quietened the door by stuffing a sock in the gap - I'll try and find a better fix tonight, but I have to say that the sock was effective. Once I'd solved that problem there was a heavy rain shower that didn't help my return to nod. Whenever that stopped I must have slept again until I was aware of my 07:00 alarm.
The garden looked rinsed this morning; no use trying to take the green waste to the tip in this damp state. The Forest had a light, contour hugging mist, uniformly eight feet deep. Cows in the road were too busy licking the rain off each others coats to notice cars trying to pass. The gutters were still quite full, even an hour after the rain stopped, but this is generally the state of the forest - it drains poorly and it would be strange to walk the paths here without finding some mud, even during periods that in our English way we describe as drought.
Not sailing for the weekend left time to start on the wilding state of the garden. I find that, although swift-walking fit, I am not pick-axe fit by any means. Removing the largest of the self-sown ash trees was enough for my lower back and using heavy loppers to cut up the wood just began to trouble last year's tennis elbow. I think of fire, or pigs.
Tuesday, 4 October 2016
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