Carex

One of the carex pendula noticed previously.

Group search key: ywa.

Box

The entrance to the box walk noticed previously. Probably seen better days.

Group search key: ywa.

Moss

The moss noticed in the last post. The sort of thing I associate with the far north of Scotland more than with chalk downland.

Group search key: ywa.

Lovelace

On Sunday, it being a fine day, we thought we ought to mark the google 'go' coup noticed at reference 1 in some way. After poring over the maps for a while, we lighted upon the notion of a picnic at Effingham Forest. once part of the estate belonging to the Earl of Lovelace, the husband of the first computer programmer in the world, also the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron (the chap who died for liberty in Greece), Ada Lovelace.

We found the right car park, roughly at gmaps 51.247029, -0.438276, but from there headed north into Sheepleas, being sure about the direction as for once we had thought to take our Montreal compass out - on what has turned out to be a rare outing. See reference 4.

Inspected the yew walk and found the box walk, the first time I have ever come across one of these last. Given that the big house, now the Horsley Park Hotel, was a few miles to the north and the area which included the two walks had been a famous old beech wood until most of the beeches were taken down in the hurricane of 1987, we were a bit puzzled why the walks were there - the sort of thing that was more usually an adjunct to the big house, rather than tucked away in the woods.

There were still some fine stands of old beech trees, but most of the ground was new growth. A lot of self seeded ash, with some planted oak, beech and wild cherry mixed in. It all looked rather well in the bright sunlight.

There was a lot of moss, rather odd considering we were on chalk downs, signs of bluebells to come and a reasonable showing of my favourite carex pendula. One notice of same being found at reference 3.

After our picnic we returned to the car, dumped the picnic gear and crossed the road to take a look at Effingham Forest proper, where we came across lots of handsome pine trees - at least we supposed they were pines. Tall evergreen trees with slender trunks which did not look at all like leylandii. Lots of rhododendrons growing among them. Some coppiced sweet chestnut. Plus a small bush with striking yellow flowers smelling of coconuts - aka gorse.

The famous bridges that Lovelace built, both so that he could ride around in greater comfort and so that he could better extract timber, will have to wait until the next occasion.

PS: on checking the record, I find that the last visit to this area was nearly six years ago, noticed at reference 2. Somewhat pulled up to see how much busier I was then than I feel like being now!

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/high-finance_9.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=feet+bathing.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/carex-pendula.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-quest-for-new-compass.html.

Group search key: ywa.

New lodger

The kitchen aloe had rather outgrown its bit of shelf in the kitchen and has been promoted to the study, where there is a window where it does fit because the curtains there are not used because of the contraption on which the laptop sits when it is in residence.

There was some palaver about repotting and we settled for a new pot which was more deep rather than more wide. Oddly few roots visible in the ball we took out of the old pot; perhaps these arid climate plants are more airlings than earthlings.

Watered as part of the operation which we subsequently read was all wrong, so we shall see how it gets on. But I think that the three suckers (to the left in the illustration) will do alright, even if the main plant does not - given that the whole thing was pretty vigorous in the kitchen, even if it did fall over. And it might even be that the better light upstairs will pull it back up again.

PS: I had thought that aerians was the proper word for beings that lived off air, there even being a few humans about a couple of years ago who claimed to pull this one off, but that is not the story at reference 1.

Reference 1: http://www.aerian.com/.

Catastrophe!

Something of a catastrophe with the 353rd batch of bread yesterday.

Mixing and first rise went along as normal. Knocking back and second rise went along as normal, with the shaped loaves placed in their dishes (one of which is on the left in the illustration) and lidded (one of the lids is upper right in the illustration).

For convenience of carrying and rising, the loaves are arranged one above the other, the flat bottoms of the lids making this possible - which it would not be with the expensive bread domes sold by the likes of John Lewis and Lakeland.

Unfortunately, on this occasion, the first time ever, something happened as I was taking the loaves out of the airing cupboard at the end of their second rise, and the top loaf - plate, loaf, lid and all - fell to the floor, up-side down.

With the result that the lid was badly dented and the loaf ended up in the lid rather than on the plate. Rise vanished, all the wind out of its sails. The last time that I lost rise, because I had allowed the second rise to go on for far too long, the bread refused to rise again, so I thought that I had lost this loaf. However, while the loaf which had not been dropped went into the oven, the loaf which had been was reshaped and put back in the airing cupboard - and rather to my surprise it started to rise again. After repeating the normal time of 90 minutes we had something not far short of a normal rise. Baked it and we had something not far short of a normal loaf, as illustrated. Even a touch of crackle as it cooled, just about visible when the illustration is enlarged.

I did not get to eat it fresh, but it was OK this morning. Catastrophe averted.

PS: in the margins I attempted a bit of panel beating on the bowl, the one illustrated, using a ball peen hammer with a bit of cloth for a pad. Not a bad job, and one could easily miss the damage now. Almost as good as new. Another first.

Reviews

Having lain low since reference 1, Napoléon Ier has surfaced again in a surprising way.

In the March 24th edition of the NYRB, Steven Englund reviews three new biographies of Napoleon: one written by a military historian, one by an Oxford don and one by a Frenchman. Now what most reviewers these days would do is to write an essay about Napoleon in the way of the chap noticed at reference 2, an essay which, for all I know about it, might easily have been lifted from wikipedia and given a wash & brush up. Tack a mention of the ostensible subject of the essay in somewhere along the way for decencies sake. Such an essay might well be interesting, which is why they get away with it, but it would not be a review. While, and this is the surprising bit, Englund actually takes each of these three books in turn and tells us something about each one. Something about the author, his approach, his strengths and weaknesses, and so on. Plus a bit of compare and contrast. Proper book review stuff.

So at the end of the article we are in a reasonable position to know which, if any of these books is going to be of interest. Whether to reach for the amazon button or not.

I wonder if there is any relevance in the fact that Englund's wikipedia entry is French rather than English, reflecting the fact that he is an American living in Paris and an expert on Napoleon in his own right. Do the French and the crypto-French do reviews in some special French way? See reference 3.

PS: will the reviews spark correspondence from the authors in a forthcoming issue?

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/napoleons-new-years-party.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/migration.html.

Reference 3: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Englund.