Jottings

Various bits and bobs come up that don’t merit a post to themselves.

1. The next appointment to see a doctor at my local NHS surgery is in exactly one month.

2. A pair of tits have come to my feeders but the Blue City cars have gone away. The fleet was only ten and is supposed to increase to fifty by the autumn. As new charging points are installed what Blue City cars there are move to them. I’m glad I didn’t sign up.

3. I bought one of Olivia Musgrave’s bronzes last year. It has had a mishap. My zealous cleaner has rubbed off the patina on one side. It has to go back to the foundry to be stripped and re-treated. There have been a lot of tears shed over the Whitechapel Bell Foundry’s closure but don’t despair the Bronze Age Foundry is just down the road in Limehouse and is where I’m off to.

4. Brexit negotiations don’t seem to have got off to a good start. I bought a cotton shopping bag and three aprons from an American website. I had to pay £33.90 import duty when they were delivered. Things don’t look good for the UK going it alone.

5. But here’s something to lift your spirits – an extract from When William Came by Saki.

A friendly riot of fox terriers and spaniels greeted the carriage, leaping and rolling and yelping in an exuberance of sociability, as though horses and coachman and groom were comrades who had been absent for months instead of half an hour. An indiscriminately affectionate puppy lay flat and whimpering at Yeovil’s feet, sending up little showers of gravel with its wildly thumping tail, while two of the terriers raced each other madly across lawn and shrubbery, as though to show the blue roans what speed really was. The laughing-eyed young groom disentangled the puppy from between Yeovil’s legs, and then he was ushered into the grey silence of the entrance hall, leaving sunlight and noise and the stir of life behind him.

Saki likes to use chiaroscuro and the next bit is dark.