Good morning and welcome to a bumper edition of the Befouled Weakly News stuffed to overflowing with all sorts of bits and pieces, titbits and nibbles. We’ve got some spring flowers, a lovely stroll around the neighbourhood in Radway, our old village, a murmuration of starlings, the 100 “best” novels, the best place to read stories to your granddaughter, a lunch celebrating no food waste and baseball (finally) returns to our televisions this week. Wow! We’ve been busy!
Last Sunday was one of those days which makes you feel that the months of rain, cold, grey and dreary weather was almost worth it.
Almost.
It was warm, bright, sunny, and clear with bright blue skies. The buds on the trees are swollen to bursting point and the daffodils, narcissi and primrose decided to put on a colourful show. It was gorgeous.
The day was so inviting we arranged to meet up with Nick, Lucy and Annabelle for a walk in Radway – up Hill Ground, along the woods at the top and down Buffin just like the old days. It’s hard to think that it’s seventeen years ago we left there. There have been lots of changes but it’s essentially still the same – we were all struck by how quiet it was which is undoubtedly one of the things we miss.
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The weather on Sunday was so grand that the media, once again, got somewhat carried away. I was waiting in the queue at the Post Office on Monday and, while waiting I glanced at the headlines of some of the newspapers laid out on the side. The Daily Mail’s headline was Britain set for two-week heatwave and the article went on to describe how forecasters were predicting temperatures into the 90s! Now remember, the Daily Mail is perhaps best known for making stories up so it’s not surprising to find them making ludicrous claims once again. The irony is that Monday, when I was reading this headline, the temperature was easily ten degrees colder than it had been on Sunday – it was grey and overcast with a biting north wind.
And while the rest of the week has been decent (early morning fog has given way to clearer skies and modest temperatures), to describe it as a “heatwave” would be somewhat misleading, much like most of what the Daily Mail writes.
As well as our lovely walk on Sunday, Nick and Annabelle also came for a bit of a play day last Friday and, at one point, Annabelle wanted Penny to read her a couple of stories. Pen is always one to oblige such requests from her granddaughter so she collected her assortment of books and asked which one Annabelle wanted first. After the choice was made, however, Annabelle insisted that the two of them retire to the privacy and secrecy of Annabelle’s favourite hiding place behind the curtains in the lounge.
I was browsing the Guardian on Monday morning and I came across an article which was part of a series – the 100 best novels. What caught my eye was that the review that day was of the novel which came 25th on the list – Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome.
Most of you know that Three Men in a Boat is one of Penny and my all-time favourites and if you’ve ever had the misfortune of punting down a river with us somewhere you very probably were subjected to a reading. Indeed, our performance at last summer’s XCstravaganza celebrations featured a reading from the book as well as a rousing rendition of Floating in a Kayak on a Lake George afternoon (sung to the tune of Cruising Down the River).
If you’ve never had the pleasure of having Ms Playchute read you passages from the book or if you’ve never read it for yourself, do so without delay. (If you do read it yourself, you need to do so with an English accent to get the most from it!) You can download a PDF version or, if you prefer, a version formatted for the Kindle here.
There are dozens of snippets I could quote to give you a feel for it but we might as well use one at the very beginning of the book which provides the “excuse” for the trip – Jerome and his companions are feeling a bit under the weather and conclude that they need a relaxing vacation. The author relates a recent visit to the British Museum where he discovers that he is suffering from virtually every malady known to medical science apart from Housemaid’s Knee:
I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into some fearful, devastating scourge, I know and, before I had glanced half down the list of premonitory symptoms, it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever read the symptoms discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitas’s Dance found, as I expected, that I had that too, began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaids knee.
I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn’t I got housemaids knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaids knee. Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood. There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.
I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view, what an acquisition I should be to a class! Students would have no need to walk the hospitals, if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.
Absolutely marvellous.
Dad sent me a link to the following You Tube video of a starling murmuration, a truly fabulous sight (and, a wonderful word – murmuration!). We’ve seen such a spectacle on a couple of occasions in various places and it is truly mesmerising, absolute majestic poetry – how do they not fly into one another as they twist and turn? It reminded me of the wonderful time we had when we visited Susie in Portland and had the opportunity to watch the Chapman School swifts on a couple of occasions. Truly extraordinary.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88UVJpQGi88
I was down in south Oxfordshire the other day pretending to do a bit of work and was able to combine my outing with a bit of pleasure – I had lunch at the Treehouse School which happened to coincide with their celebration of 100 days with no food waste. You will remember, the Treehouse School is an alternative primary school created by some friends who were depressed by how badly most state primary schools try to educate the children in their charge. Successive governments’ obsession with final test results as the objective of education rather than the process of developing well-rounded, enthusiastic and inquisitive students with a love of learning encouraged them to start the school which is now a thriving success.
One of the things they wanted to do at the Treehouse was to encourage their children to develop healthy lifestyles and one way in which they try to do this is to involve the students in growing food, preparing lunch and eating together. At the beginning, the children were not used to some of the healthier options which were being prepared and so tended to leave a bit of their lunch at the end of the meal. Now, however, the kids have learned to be increasingly adventurous in their eating and the day I visited marked the 100th successive day when there was no food waste – a terrific achievement which was celebrated by the school with a three-course, restaurant style meal and very tasty it was too!
And while we are on the subject of food, how about this article in the LA Times about the continuing debate amongst asparagus lovers – skinny or fat asparagus spears? Which camp do you fall into?
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On a somewhat more frivolous note, how about this amazing timelapse video of a young artist, Heather Rooney, recreating Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar Selfie?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNaA9wUo6GE
Astonishing! And if you haven’t seen the original, where have you been? You can catch a glimpse here or Google “Oscar Selfie” for a selection of alternative versions.
Finally, baseball makes its long-overdue and much anticipated return to British televisions this week. Thank goodness! As Penny says, there just isn’t enough sport on the television for me to enjoy.
The following was posted by Kimberly McComb Garcia (my first cousin, once removed, since someone asked) on Facebook the other day. Her son Vinny is number 9 and I guess it’s his team waiting for their game to commence. I thought it was a terrific photo which encapsulates the joy, excitement, anticipation and optimism that is the beginning of the baseball season – the Boys of Summer no less.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg