Over the hill

Thursday saw me back over the hill, via Meadway, to inspect the cork oak on Clay Hill Green, last noticed at reference 1. It looked well enough, with most of its leaves seemingly present, albeit a little curled. Baby acorns still present, if still rather small. Will the leaves uncurl now that conditions have improved?

The change in the weather has brought out a fresh crop of something borage flavoured on the path through Court Recreation Ground connecting the shops end of Manor Green Road to town. For some reason they look a lot more yellow here than they did in real life. Perhaps the telephone can detect trouble unseen by the human eye?

The giant reed in the instant garden on Manor Green Road, last noticed at reference 2, was doing well, putting on a good bit of growth in the couple of weeks or so since I last saw it.

Oddly dark considering how bright and light it is two snaps down. I suppose the sun had gone behind a cloud.

A bit further down, work on the house once occupied by a select group of adults with special needs, then empty for a good while, is well under way.

Presumably they will get around to taking the creeper off the east wall. And I continue to wonder what state the back garden had got into, given the amount of stuff which had sprung up in the front garden. Presumably home to various kinds of four legged livestock and probably a cause for irritation if not concern for the two houses next door.

Is the place destined to become a family home again?

The gas men seem to have nearly finished in the roads that I use, with lots of neatly mended holes in the sidewalks, but I still came across this new to me piece of equipment at the bottom of Christchurch Mount. Probably not a giant endoscope, although the gas men do deploy those too.

Later on, out to inspect the pond, where I noticed this rather damaged crab apple tree. There were a few apples within reach but not enough to bother with - and I was not going to bring up a ladder big enough to capture the ones nearer the top.

The pond proper, looking well in the early evening light. Neither coots nor geese to be seen; perhaps they have settled down wherever they landed up when they fled our pond in search of water.

Plenty of squawking and quaking from the ducks. What were they up to?

Back home, up the back of the garden to inspect the brick compost heap. Hopefully back to emptying the compost bucket before too long. In the meantime, the white dwarf cyclamen have appeared, slowly spreading from what started as a single clump.

PS: after posting this, I noticed the piece at reference 3. Is it really that different from President Putin getting edgy about NATO pushing into the Ukraine? A pair of paranoid old men; but I guess they both have some cause, even if the aggression of the one takes a different form from that of the other. Will the deal stick, or is it yet another case of collecting chickens before they have hatched?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-first-short-circuit.html. A post which resisted the usually very reliable blog search in the first instance. Maybe it was me.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/09/fast-and-loose.html.

Reference 3: Donald Trump says US has deal with Denmark for ‘control’ of Greenland’s security: Danish government says agreement could be signed next week and will respect territory’s sovereignty - Amy Mackinnon in Washington, Richard Milne in Oslo, Peter Wells in New York and Ilya Gridneff, Financial Times - 2026. '... Greenland Energy intends to spend $60mn on initial drilling alongside UK mining company 80 Mile to exploit what it claims is “a trillion dollars” of oil lying beneath Greenland...'.

Group search key: 20260917.