Interlude

A small picking, from the same spot as first fruits, now getting towards the end. Some large, some small and some rather past their best. But plenty enough for present purposes. An interlude before we move into more serious picking again.

A word I have been reminded of by my reading the Forsyte Saga, consisting as it does of three volumes, separated by two interludes. Now getting near the end of the third volume. Not a bad read, and as one might expect, rather more nuanced than either television adaptation, even the 26 episode effort from BBC. Even some humour of a vaguely Dickensian variety. Presumably a very successful saga as it earned Galsworthy a Nobel Prize, an honour accorded to Kipling but not to Conrad or Lawrence. English language poets generally seem to do well. Presumably all a bit of a lottery, with a fair proportion of laureates subsequently vanishing without trace. But I see that Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf of reference 4 got one. As did our own Winston Churchill.

I have got through the first saga fast enough. We shall see if I get through the next two - making up more or less the totality of the Forsyte Chronicles. Presumably too good an earner for Galsworthy to jump ship, even had he wanted to.

Back with the blackberries, on the way, cycling up the cycling designated footpath along Christchurch Road, I saw my first deer for a while, bounding out of what had been the Manor Hospital, now the Manor Park estate, back into the Common. Perhaps it had been grazing in the allotment gardens adjacent, taking me back to the time of my deer fence, noticed at reference 6. Not to mention the probably more serious deer problems at the allotments to the west of Horton Lane, that is to say to the east of gmaps reference 51.3381883, -0.2943447. Also previously noticed.

Then while picking, I was passed by a mixed group of maybe twenty cyclists, all ages and sexes, perhaps a church outing or something of that sort. But whoever they were, they clearly understood about picking blackberries and I got a good number of cheery greetings.

Reminded of the bad state of some of Horton Lane. West Ewell, Longmead Road then up Lower Court Road to find the Bentley and the Range Rover at home, but not the Lamborghini. See reference 5.

On the way, I managed to turn out of Longmead Road into Pound Lane, a turn I often take on foot, but which is not allowed on the road. Luckily no-one much about and I was able to cut across onto the Pound Lane cycle lane without fuss or honk.

Home, having managed to use the cycle lanes provided for maybe two thirds of the distance.

PS: unresolved problem: why is the '0.294...' bit of the gmaps reference above getting highlighted as if it were a link to something? Peering at the HTML reveals nothing. A quirk of Microsoft and Edge rather than a quirk of Google and Chrome?

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/second-fruits.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/move-over-maigret.html.

Reference 3: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/uncategorized/all-nobel-prizes-in-literature/.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=holgersson%27s.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/further-to.html.

Reference 6: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=deer+fence+allotment.