Life, the Universe and Everything

Picture says it all, really

Just three apples  from my Ashmead's Kernel  tree this year. Had over 100 good ones last season which is  possibly the reason. It's tired out poor thing although the scientists call it "biennial bearing" and further damn the variety as "erratic". I think it's building itself up for next year, it's got about twice the normal number of leaves (see pic) so it should have made a whole lot of sugar.  It'll need a good cold winter though to make sure of a good crop. The cold tells the tree that it's really had a winter and now it's spring and kicks off the springy things like blossom. If trees had evolved wearing digital watches, it would have been simpler and, err, more digital. If you see an apple tree that does have a watch strapped to the trunk, let me know…. More about the Ashmead's Kernal

This is a bush we have in most of the gardens along my street. One of the less civilised Hypericums (aka St John's Wort), it's scruffy and self seeds fairly easily. No one has grubbed it out and replaced it with an "official" plant from a Garden Centre and if I ever upgrade this blog to scratch'n'sniff you'll understand why. When it's sunny, the whole plant (not just the flowers) has a gorgeous and powerful scent. Think warm treacle, tobacco and rubber. You'll sometimes see me leaning over garden walls and sniffing furtively at other people's tidy Hypericums. I'm just checking they haven't caught up with our variety :-)

Regular readers - and I think there's at least two of you :-) will know that I don't do multitasking. Talk to me (or worse still, witter) when I'm dancing and it all goes to pot and I probably won't ask you to dance again.   But wait, at the Sidmouth Festival recently, I danced and talked with A all at the same time and it worked! And thinking about it, I've done that with her before.  So what's going on? Well, she's a very fine dancer. So perhaps she makes it so easy for me that my brain has the capacity for conversation? Could be.  Another possibility is that she has the sensitivity to know when I've got the capacity to talk and listen and when I haven't. Pretty good either way. Unfortunately, I think she has a boyfriend. Not surprising really...

BBC Radio 4 recently did a documentary on Hulme , part of Manchester. If you're quick, you can Listen Again   It's a fascinating story of Tamil refugees, deck-access flats, squatting, demolition, a no-go area for the police and a rich alternative culture. My connection? A few years ago, I got a day's work delivering some training to an organisation based there. In preparation, I used Multimap to plan a route. Having got a small-scale map of my approach, I zoomed in for more detail. Something went horribly wrong - the layout of the streets on the large-scale map was almost completely different. When I finally arrived, it was clear that a large part of the area had only just been rebuilt. Multimap must have used some mapping from before and after. Here's links to some less geeky stuff: Wikipedia on Hulme Photos of the old Hulme

It's a café in Cheltenham town centre between Tesco and the taxi office. It's old fashioned - a throwback to the 1960s. Not quite authentic - the ketchup is not in a tomato-shaped container and the wartime posters are reproductions. They don't talk about cholesterol, they just DO it. Popped in there at lunchtime today and realised I hadn't had a proper breakfast so I ordered one. They didn't bat an eyelid. The kitchen is in the basement so the girl leaned out of the back window and shouted the order down. All the puddings are served with the option of custard or ice-cream. They do coffee but don't get clever and try ordering cappuccino. It's probably the last of it's kind - I'm sure there are others in less sophisticated towns like Gloucester but we are Cheltenham Spa .

Our ancient and venerable legal system sent me a text. They've made me redundant - it's over. Quick reflections: It's interesting in parts But take a book for the boring bits