Wellingtonia 47

This pair of Wellingtonias was captured from the north bound carriageway on the A3, just coming up to the turning into Wisley, a little way short of the junction with the M25. Fairly sure that I have not already captured them on the ground, although I have yet to complete the check of the written record (reference 3) rather than my memory.

Perhaps about where it says 'A3' on the map above, re-orientated with north up, for the greater convenience of those not used to working with maps the wrong way up.

I tried to track them down on Satellite View, but that was hard, although I suppose it is possible that the first one, left in the first of the snaps above, is responsible for the shadow just reaching into the trial beds, top centre in the snap immediately above. With the thought being that it must take a good bit of training to learn how to use these maps. Maybe augment them with infrared filters and such like?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/wellingtonia-46.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=wgc&max-results=20&by-date=true. Lots more of it from the archives.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=wgc+wisley. For the avoidance of doubt, the same search at psmv3 draws a blank.

Group search key: wgc.

Trolley 432

Seemingly three weeks or so since the last trolley noticed in late September. So there is progress, but it is rather slow. Perhaps now that the art and theatre schools are back at Epsom, things will start to pick up, with this trolley picked up from the Laine Theatrical Arts annex next to Majestic Wine in East Street.

In reasonable condition. Just the sandwich wrapper to be disposed of before return to Kiln Lane.

Note the new nearside front wheel. Perhaps one of the trolley men has been told off to replace all the special wheels which have the yellow wheel locks, added in some previous maintenance cycle, but which have not been working for years.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/trolley-431.html.

The Rule of St. Benedict

It so happens that we visit Buckfast Abbey, on the banks of the River Dart at Buckfast, in Devon, four or fives a year. Probably more often than any of the other attractions nearer home, although Hampton Court Palace must be in with a chance.

Part of this is it being an interesting place with handsome gardens. It is, for example, home to a full size copy of the famous Aachen Barbarossaleuchter of reference 1. Another part being that it has a large free car park, a cafeteria – this last having had its wings trimmed a bit by the plague – and at least two shops. At the very least, a handy place to while away an hour or so while waiting to move onto something else.

On the last occasion, a little earlier in the month, I was tempted to buy a fat picture book about the abbey and its 20th century rebuilding, but in the end decided that I was not going to get my £35 worth. All very capricious on my part, considering the sorts of things I do spend my money on. I settled instead for a little booklet containing a translation of the Rule of St. Benedict, prepared by the abbot of a sister abbey in Atchison, Kansas. With both abbot and abbey being derived from the Aramaic – the language of our Lord – word for father. With the Atchison abbey being of a similar size to the present one, but quite different in outside appearance. See reference 2.

I was a little surprised to find an abbey there and wonder now from where they draw their faithful. I had always assumed that the Bible Belt stuck to some version of the true faith, that is to say the Protestant faith, but clearly I am in error. While we have Catholics in high places – for example in Downing Street – and they have at least one Catholic member of their Supreme Court. They clearly get everywhere.

A rather casual perusal of this rule has been a surprisingly interesting learning experience. So, it has a prologue and 73 chapters, each organised into short verses, as the Bible, the whole occupying 80 small format pages, perhaps four inches by seven, no simple fraction of the standard A4 page of offices and rather smaller than a standard paperback novel.

The rule is very hot on obedience, on humility and on being largely silent. The thought on silent seems to be that if one talks a lot, one is all too likely to talk rubbish or worse and to generally get into bad habits. While obedience, the submission to another, the suppression of one’s own desires and urges, seems to be the best way to godliness. Obedience seems to be more important than being right – say about the best way to line the well providing the monastery water. Do what you are told whatever you might think about it.

We are reminded that while it is good not to say bad things, the angels keep watch on what you think too, 24 by 7 as we would say now. And the only remedy for that is to confess you sin to your superior.

Monks are enjoined to run at things, at least metaphorically. Life is short and one needs to get one’s account books in a fit state to be inspected at the Pearly Gates. A state not to be attained by snoozing all day or sleeping all night. Much talk of shepherds accounting for the state of their flocks to their masters.

I have finally, after more than sixty years of instruction, learned about the seven Divine Offices – Prime, Lauds (dawn), Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers (dusk) and Compline – but with the magic seven confused by the occasional addition of the overnight Vigils. With the Divine Office forming the backbone of, or at least the background to, the elaborate Books of Hours, intended for lay use, to be found to this day in our museums and libraries. Not to mention on the Internet.

Benedictines are also very keen on the Psalms, following in this the customs and traditions of the Jews from whom the early Christians sprang. I now know that there are 150 of them and the monks work their way through them once a month, roughly five to a day, with a few adjustments at the margins to allow for short days, short nights, short psalms and long psalms. Once to be found in Psalters, then in breviaries, missals and our own Book of Common Prayer. Where they have been shoe-horned into the morning and evening prayers into which the seven Divine Offices have been reduced: as good Protestants we need to leave a good clear space in the middle part of the day in which to do real work.

While the dictionary tells me that psalms are of Greek rather than Hebrew or Aramaic in origin, with the word originally having to do with the twanging of a harp or a cithara, so a song usually sung accompanied by same. Now usually restricted to the Psalms in the Bible, but once more inclusive, once including, for example, certain collections of Irish songs or chronicles, possibly also involving harps. See, for example, reference 9.

I get the impression that St. Benedict knew a lot about people and a lot about the management of people. He knew how to make a monastery, no doubt often including a very mixed bunch, work. Which is, no doubt, why his rule has survived as long as it has.

PS: the illustration above is taken from the oldest known copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict, from the eighth century, now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, once part of the famous Hatton collection of books and manuscripts. According to the people at reference 10: ‘Christopher Hatton, 1st Baron Hatton (1605-1670) was the eldest surviving son of Sir Christopher Hatton, the Elizabethan courtier. His strong royalist sympathies led him to retire to France in 1648, whence he returned after the Restoration. At various times he occupied minor political posts, but never rose to high office. He was a close friend of Clarendon and of a number of antiquaries, more especially Roger Dodsworth’.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/aachen-barbarossaleuchter.html. 

Reference 2: https://www.kansasmonks.org/. 

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Saint_Benedict. 

Reference 4: https://www.abbaziamontecassino.org/index.php/. St. Benedict’s last foundation, the site of much fighting and sacking over the centuries and the site of much fighting in the second world war – including costly – if ultimately successful – assaults by the allies. Not yet clear whether all this fighting was about capturing an important military position or about pillaging monastic gold and jewels.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirach. There are a number of references in the rule to the Book of Sirach, not to be found in either my King James Bible or my Good News Bible. Also known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus, but not to be confused with the Book of Ecclesiastes, this last word being closely related to our own ‘ecclesiastical’ and this last book is to be found in my King James Bible.

Reference 6: http://www.bible-researcher.com/cheltenham.html. 

Reference 7: https://christdesert.org/prayer/opus-dei. A useful supplement to the rule, the organisation and coverage of which leave something to be desired. Not exactly a recipe book for the wannabee abbot.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_hours. 

Reference 9: https://www.libraryireland.com/Pedigrees2/psalter-cashel.php. 

Reference 10: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/.

Fungal news

Arrived home yesterday to find that some large mushrooms had appeared at the margins of the No.2 compost heap of the last post, no doubt brought on by the heavy rain and otherwise warm weather of the past few weeks.

The one above was in the southwestern corner and about six inches across, so much the same and in much the same place as those which turned up about three months ago and noticed at reference 2, but not quite in the same league as those at reference 1, but then they had the advantage of cow dung.

While this one was in the southeastern corner and was rather smaller.

Temptingly edible looking, but we chickened out again. Not least because of the possibility of vulpine pollution.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/monster-mushrooms.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/something-going-down-bottom-of-garden.html.

Group search key: fungi, mushroom. Which might help in the event of some future search. Mushroom because I don't think that blog search is as relaxed about plurals as regular Google search.

Burial

Following the purchase of a new dressing gown noticed at reference 1, the old dressing gown was buried in the No.2 compost heap. Perhaps a foot below the loose surface, but not actually on the clay underneath.

The heap is made with prunings from trees and bushes, fallen leaves (in the Autumn) and various garden waste which is not convenient for the much smaller No.1 compost heap, the brick one. All this seems to rot down to grey crumbly soil, mixed in with woody waste which is still on the way. All very dry and livestock free, although I dare say a microscope would turn up eggs, seeds and other smaller livestock. I dare say also that the water arriving from above is sucked out by the roots of the surrounding trees.

There was also quite a lot of paper left over from some previously buried, previously treasured books. I dare say quite a lot of it could have been recovered by an expert and re-read, but as it was, it was just crumbled up. More sturdy were the plastic films which seem to cover the covers of modern paperbacks. Several of these were removed and transferred to the household waste, that is to say the black, dustbin, for onward transfer to a proper landfill site.

The cover in the middle suggests that at least some of the treasures in question were novels written by Ian McEwan, acquisition of which may well have been prompted by the lecture noticed at reference 3. So just five years to make the passage from a first class lecture to the bottom of my compost heap.

The mattock - last mentioned at reference 2 and to be seen above right - was just the thing for breaking into the heap, while the spade above left was best for getting the loose dirt out, despite the blister promoting plastic handle. The shovel might have held the dirt better, but would have been too big and too light to be driven down into it, what with all the wood still there.

PS 1: over the past few days I have been sampling a three year old, blended Scotch whisky, a Waitrose own brand, a litre of which was bought in-store here at Epsom. Perhaps with a description of 'rich and warming', I should have known better, but in anything more than the most modest doses, as well as being a bit rough on the palette, it seems to be a reliable inducer of morning headaches, something which I do not get from Bells or Jameson's. Nor from Calvados for that matter. So the present thought is that the remainder, perhaps a pint of the stuff, will be poured onto the grave of this dressing gown, by way of a libation, after the fashion of the ancient Greeks and Romans. And no doubt others. It will be interesting to see if it promotes interesting activity there.

PS 2: later on: BH thought that turning it all over to a libation was a bit wasteful, so we compromised. Half a pint put aside for Christmas puddings and such like in an empty water bottle - with real glass seeming a better bet than plastic - the rather larger balance libated, as advertised above.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/brahms-and-dressing-gowns.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/04/swinging-mattock.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/04/thoughts-of-and-prompted-by-mcewan.html. Slightly alarmed by how little of this I had remembered. I suppose that is part of the point of writing it all down.

Village stores

Village stores have a hard time of it these days, even in remote places like Dartmoor, so it was interesting to visit the community village store at Holne this week. Holne Moor being the place where they have cuckoos, first noticed more than four years ago at reference 2.

Amongst other things, over a couple of visits, we bought a respectable cabbage, with plenty of tasty green, a more floppy version of a chou pointu, and some respectable potatoes. 

Then came some raspberries which I thought a bit improbable for a village store, but they turned out to be from Morocco, and a good deal better than those which Sainsbury's has been offering us of late at their large store in Epsom. Then some large oranges, a more likely item for a village store in the sense that oranges keep better. Again, a good deal better than we have been getting from Sainsbury's recently, with the quality of their oranges fluctuating wildly. To the point where BH has more or less given up relying on either price or appearance.

Lastly, having called before their bread delivery, we took some brown rolls in a plastic bag. The rolls were perfectly adequate - if not exactly fresh white breakfast rolls - which are, to be fair, are more or less unobtainable these days, even in quite fancy hotels and restaurants - but we did wonder about the label. What on earth was 'Premium Roll Concentrate' at 3.9%. Rather a big number for an e-number. But given the allergy advice, presumably something to do with soya.

References

Reference 1: https://holnevillage.co.uk/community-shop-and-tearoom/.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/05/tweets.html.

A funny thing happened on the way to the oak room

An odd thing happened a little while ago, while I was taking a short time out. Lying down on my right hand side, eyes shut, quiet but awake.

The best I can do to describe it is to say that it was something like what happens when an electric light blows as you turn it on. You get a flash of light, then it goes dead. This flash of light appeared to come from some point at the very top of my head, illuminating the top of the brain from the inside. Sensed rather than seen, as whatever was going on did not seem to be anything to do with the eyes. But it so happens that one of my right hand fingers was touching that very part of the head, and it felt a short pulse. Although there is no way of knowing whether there had actually been anything to feel or whether this feeling was a fake, a construct.

It all happened very quickly, and the only consequence seems to have been that I opened my eyes, slightly startled, then shut them again.

PS: the Oak Room of the Royal Lion Hotel in Lyme Regis being the next destination of the day. Maybe we will get some piano. See references 1 and 2.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/piano-5.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/dining-in-oak-room.html.