2011 — 4 October: Tuesday
I suppose it's nice, in a way, to have a stranger confirm that at least one of my books is now worth rather more than the £14-95 I paid1 for it in 1980. Though that still doesn't mean I wish to sell it, of course. Even at today's suggested price of $65.
Time for my next cuppa and some of that breakfast stuff. I have a tediously busy day ahead (see yesterday evening). The things one does for one's son, heh? He rang three times from a Tube train on his way home somewhat after 23:00 before realising that his journey wasn't quite as "above ground" as he'd thought :-)
Lowland clearances
My friendly tree-surgeon,2 having called in to confirm the effectiveness of last week's chemical campaign against the wasps that had set up shop in some of the discarded foliage from earlier in the year, has just finished clearing the débris and noisily reducing the current high value of entropy out in my little local jungle patch:
He also agreed a "decent price" to take down the larger of the two trees which was in any case approaching the end of its "natural" span. Counting the rings at the lowest point of the stump suggests it was 31 years old, where 25 is the more usual number for this particular model of conifer (he says).
You can see it (and Christa) back at the dawn of time, as it were, here.
I must say, today's weather would have been much better for our recent walk. We've planned one for tomorrow. Meanwhile, there's a little ol' dear sitting in a care home not too far from here. And I'm getting hungry — again. I nipped out earlier for a brief burst of supplies shopping. I'm left wondering (rhetorically): is there no end to the endless round?
:-)
Chalk up a court ruling to common sense. (Not that I have the slightest interest in watching football.) The European Court of Justice said "A prohibition on using foreign decoder cards would go beyond what is necessary to ensure appropriate remuneration for the holders of the rights concerned."
The tine was nigh...
... to bring Christa's garden fork / rake / thingy back into the garden. It's been leaning against the outside wall for over four years, slowly rusting, but otherwise completely unmolested. In a rush of gardenic enthusiasm, I decided its exile could now be ended. Right! I'm off to see dear Mama before the clouds burst. (I'm assured, by the way, that the next heavy rain will clean up the brown bits of the one remaining conifer tree very nicely.)
And back, without malingering long enough to get depressed. While I never did know Christa's long-term plans for the garden (beyond making it as low maintenance as she could for me) I'm pretty sure she had had it in mind to "do something" about the trees. The back garden looks a whole lot airier and lighter now.
Come to think of it, the Bonsai was not the only tree we left behind in our Old Windsor garden. There was a conifer far too close to the house, that made the kitchen very dark...
...and had essentially been doomed by the clothes line wire wrapped tightly around its trunk years before we got there. Inspecting Google's overhead imagery suggests it has now been felled. My major remaining more local arboreal worry is the too tall sycamore across the road, but currently shedding its leaves like crazy into my guttering.
It's 16:55 and still dry, though very cloudy.
Austen tasty
My double bill tonight started with the 1995 Ang Lee "Sense and Sensibility" and is about to move on to the 1995 Roger Michell "Persuasion". That woman was a genius.