Hornbeam

The day of the notable scrabble, noticed at reference 1, was also the day of my first visit of the New Year to the Screwfix whitebeam, much noticed last year. It was wet, and I was not at full strength, so an abbreviated clockwise circuit - instead of the usual over-the-hill anti-clockwise. Half a moon ago now, to use a north American usage, common in the Westerns of my childhood.

Vehicle No.1 had reoccupied its slot outside the Ford Centre. But FLR have still failed to come up with the elusive No.39. Perhaps the registration plate collector, perhaps the original owner of the firm, has retired.

Whitebeam all present and correct. I will need to trim the ivy off it again at some point.

The stream down Longmead Road was doing quite well after all the rain, although not to the point of flooding down the other end. At least I had not seen or heard of any such thing.

The start of the overground section of the stream, at the junction with Hook Road.

Lots of worms on the paths. Maybe when the ground is too wet, they have to come to the surface to breathe?

Gemini points out what I should have thought of for myself, that worms do not have lungs and breathe in through their damp skin.

He offers various theories about why they surface after heavy rain - a commonly observed phenomenon - including the water in water-logged soil becoming anaerobic over time. Which looks the most likely story to me. Ought to be easy enough to check. Along with all the other checking I ought to be doing: except that Google have judged it right, in that while one might start out with good intentions, it is all too easy not to bother.

Rather fewer in Manor Green Road.

But I did notice this rather shabby sign, listing the contents of our Chase Estate - which I should say is at the other end of the road, well past TB, which most of the people in our road have not patronised since the 1970s.

The stream, back overground again, nearer home. This stretch is usually dry for most of the middle part of the year. Something to do with the chalk not being far below.

Odds and ends

A rare glitch at Abebooks today, when it thought I was from the US and tried to create a dollar denominated account. Which confused things for a bit, but it had sorted itself out by the time that we had finished breakfast. The result, I think, of accessing them via an advertisement, rather than going to them direct, which is what I usually do.

Then yesterday afternoon, turning the pages of the book about Edward Garnett first noticed at reference 2, I find that around 1890, the chattering classes were very ambivalent about Russia. On the one hand, our own stellar novelists having passed away, the likes of Dickens, Thackeray and Elliot - we were very enthusiastic (to say the least of it) about the Russian novelists. The novel for now! On the other hand, the awful political situation there was widely, and rightly, condemned. England was home to many talented exiles, some of whom took up with the Garnetts. With Constance Garnett being the best known translator of Russian novels when I was young. She also appears to have had a complicated and difficult private life. Arty type.

A fancy 2019 edition of a Garnett translation from Vancouver. But why does Jane Austen appear top right?

Inkflight themselves seem to be rather elusive, which is also odd, but their books are out there. One wonders who buys this sort of thing - and whether they actually read them. Are they just a higher grade coffee table book? In any event, not my sort of thing at all. I would rather eat (and drink) the money. 

While yesterday evening, turning the pages of reference 4, a book which seems very old-fashioned now, I read of people in the hills of New Guinea who did not appear to go in for households of our sort at all. The married women lived with their children in huts, while the men lived in the men's house. Pigs were an important part of the social furniture. A rather violent people, with a lot of disputes being settled by armed fights. Is there a connection here?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/still-more-scrabble.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/01/midwife.html.

Reference 3: The uncommon reader: A life of Edward Garnett - Helen Smith - 2017. A book grand enough to incorporate a ribbon by way of built-in bookmark. The Rencontre Simenon does them too.

Reference 4: Determinants and origins of aggressive behavior – edited by Jan de Wit, Willard W Hartup – 1974.