Up the junction

Last week saw a return to the junction, that is to say the Falcon at Clapham Junction, a famous public house, noticed in these pages from time to time, for example at reference 1.

The day started with a first visit to the dentist since the plague kicked in. While poking around, she told me that the practise was only actually shut for about three weeks, and even then there was a duty dentist to dish out advice and antibiotics as a temporary measure. Emergencies to some special hospital facility, presumably all kitted out with space suits and so forth. As it happened, the duty hygienist had had a cancellation, so after whiling away half an hour in the nearby library with an improving book about the biology of cancerous cells, went for the double whammy.

Retired home, then back out again later in the morning, by which time it was much warmer.

The new car park at Station Approach, first noticed at reference 2, had a record attendance of six vehicles. Plus a rather cross looking older lady trying to pay for her slot using her telephone. Not something I was going to be able to help with.

Fig tree to the west of the the town platforms doing well, as was the hop (or something of that sort) left. I guess it likes the warm spot, facing SSE with no buildings near enough to block the sun in the middle of the day.

Off the train at Vauxhall to pick up a Bullingdon on which to get a bit of exercise, pedalling back to Clapham Junction. Got in a muddle coming out of the Vauxhall station road complex, ending up in Wandsworth Road, rather than the Nine Elms Lane I had intended. The second time running I have got this one wrong. Luckily, after a while, I picked up Thessaly Road and was able to get back on track for the Dogs' Home.

Took my sandwiches sitting on a wall by the stand in Falcon Road, more or less opposite the useful International Stores. And so refreshed, onto the Falcon for a spot of their Sauvignon Blanc. Very good. But a lady of middle years who did not know how to manage her dog. Very poor.

Otherwise the passers-by, inside and out were all very mixed and all very entertaining.

The conversation happened to turn to teaching, and I was reminded of the amount of marking my mother used to do in the evening. Which prompted a bit of mental arithmetic. Say five classes of thirty (secondary) children a day. My mother was an English teacher who took her English and her teaching of it seriously, so say the five classes generated two bits of homework, which I imagine took the form of a short essay. So sixty essays to mark, five days a week during the term.

I also imagine that she took her marking seriously. No point in setting homework if you do not take it seriously. And you have to be seen to be taking it seriously if the children are going to keep it up. At five minutes an essay, that comes out at five hours, when I would have guessed two or three hours. But certainly a lot, the cumulative strain of which no doubt contributed to her breakdown in her fifties. Perhaps English homework is all multiple choice now (as it is for the Microsoft Engineer examinations) and you can get the classroom assistant to do the marking.

We then moved onto the relative advantages of enduring powers of attorney which can be cooked up by a lawyer and deputyships which are cooked up by the Court of Protection. The former having the big advantage of not getting you tangled in the toils of the Court of Protection. The big disadvantage that the person being protected needs to be in a position to give consent, not necessarily available.

Then, no doubt, sundry other matters of varying weight and importance. Then sufficiently fortified, we returned to the International Store where I was able to stock up on Turkish flat bread, Kosovan sausage and Palestinian dates. The bread went the same day, we finished the sausage this lunch time (in a lentil based stew, as at reference 4) and the dates will probably be done by tomorrow. All very satisfactory.

From the shop to the Raynes Park platform library where I picked up two useful books, surprising given how thin the stock was. First, an introduction to the mineral kingdom - what appears to be a well known book, rather like a stretched version of the Observer books I used to like as a child. I now know that rubies and sapphires are made of Aluminium Oxide, plus a bit of impurity to supply colour. Not as simple as a diamond, but not that far off. While carborundum is made of Silicon Carbide and is completely different. And which when crunched up and stuck back together in a suitable shape gives us the well known carborundum stone.

Second, an introduction to the proper volcanos north of Naples, rather than the showy one to the south. A find which has already prompted the post at reference 5. The cave right used to be home to the Cumaean Sibyl of the famous books, important to the Romans of the classical era. I'm not yet clear whether it was also the Gate of Hell, or Hades as it was known at the time. See reference 6.

PS 1: more recently I have been trying to recover the name of the bush which used to fill the left hand side of the path to our front door. Taken out shortly after we arrived, to be replaced by the hawthorn which is there now and which gives us a fine show in the spring. But a change probably fuelled by a more or less unconscious desire to put my stamp on our new house as much as anything else: the bush looked quite well too. Whatever it was, I think it was quite fashionable at the time, with lots of them to be seen in front gardens.

The trying to recover was prompted by the bush snapped above. Thinking that it was a short word with started with an A, I tried working on that. That failing, I went through the alphabet. To no avail. Next stop the laptop, where the combined efforts of Bing and Google on the key 'flower spike bush' turned up lots of candidate images. Not spirea, as at first thought by BH. Maybe Lysimachia clethroides, the gooseneck loosestrife. Probably not Veronica longifolia, first lady speedwell. These speedwells come in various colours, but the flowers are too big and there are too many of them. Probably not Clethra Anifolia , because while it looks promising it is deciduous. 

Then, one evening the name came to me, but I did not think to write it down and it disappeared again. Then, this morning it came again, and this time I took more care with it: Hebe, to be found at reference 3, who doubles as the Greek goddess of eternal youth, with Canova's take of her being included above. Plenty of the vegetable one. And they look right, including the paired decussate leaves. So while it does not start with an 'A', the name is short. So all find and dandy, but where does the loosestrife fit in, for which BH continues to bat?

PS 2: there is also the matter of being lion hearted, prompted by coming across an old diagram of a lion's claw and its attachment to limb. Better than the one above. What is so brave about being a lion when you have armament like that? A bit like saying the Bismark was brave for smashing up a few merchantmen. What is so brave about being Richard the Lion-heart if you are bigger, better armed and better trained than anyone else? Then why do we never talk about wolves being brave, wolves who will tackle animals which might be much larger, in relative terms, than those which a lion tackles. Something to be thought about when I next have trouble getting to sleep - which might well be next week, with the temperatures we are being promised.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/06/cheese-bacon-and-egg.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/trolley-508.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebe_(plant).

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/kosova-suxhuk.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/07/volcanoes.html.

Reference 6: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cave-of-the-sibyl-antro-della-sibilla.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Obscura.