Picture 1, of our Headstocks, is here mainly to show how brilliant my 50mm Nikkor lens is. When you click it and see the picture full size you will notice that each spoke of the winding gear wheel is clearly defined and each fence post on the right hand side. It is almost lika Leica !John and Yvonne have returned from their continental peregrination and he has just rung. They preferred Avignon to Florence which seemed too packed with american tourists and too much scaffolding round the pretty bits. From the photos he sent Avignon seemed to have an Arabic influence on the architecture and is still a walled and embattlemented medieval city. And comparitively unspoilt. Alannah had been an excellent house-sitter and, far from trashing then place, had tidied up. Laura came down from Sheffield to spend some of the time with her. They are two sisters who really get on with eachother, which is lovely.
David rang me this morning and things are fine at Long Eaton. The house they were keen on just round the corner has been sold - but there will be another one - there always is.
Picture 2 is of Lawrence's aunty's house which still stands in the woods just off the disused railway track. We are always surprised that, with its DHL connections, somebody doesn't buy it and renovate it. Ok - it's in a bad state of repair but people 'do up' derelict barns.Y has a bad cold and cough, and I'm still suffering but I was quite determined to complete a small walk today, even if only a few yards. I achieved that, having assured Y that she didn't have to come with me. But she did. As game as she always has been. We had hoped for a little sun but all we got was a cold wind and a grey sky which was distinctly bad news for Y's cold and sore throat. The Buttercup Syrup is prominent.
I think that between them Madeline, Jill and Bungus successfully completed yesterday's crossword. But Saturday's is the prize one and we won't know till next weekend. There seems little doubt that they are right and the answers are 'drumbeat' and 'peanut' but the processes to reach 'peanut' from 'each name' are too obscure for me. However, we have found over the years, that a guess is invariably correct - based as they are on around half a century of crosswording. I used to do The Times puzzle when the small ads were on the front page. We don't do The Times nowadays but their crossword was never never inaccurate. Sometimes you can detect an incorrect tense or a syntax error in The Telegraph but certainly not in t'other.
Does anyone remember when the compilers regularly used quotations, with a missing word for the answer? Not seen a clue like that for ages.
Which leads me quite naturally to a quote which appeals :-
"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it."
TJ coming for lunch tomorrow and, as a change from lamb, I am cooking sirlon steaks with chips and mushrooms. Peter has butchered me the steaks around an inch thick and they are nearly purple and well marbled. So they should be tender, juicy, and tasty. Prolly with some fiery horseradish fit to bring one out in a sweat.
Andre Gide
TJ coming for lunch tomorrow and, as a change from lamb, I am cooking sirlon steaks with chips and mushrooms. Peter has butchered me the steaks around an inch thick and they are nearly purple and well marbled. So they should be tender, juicy, and tasty. Prolly with some fiery horseradish fit to bring one out in a sweat.
On Tuesday we have a Nat.Trust committee meeting, after the statutory blood-test, so I aim to take my laptop to Megatech to sort out the DVD problem. It may result in Radiogandy being off-air for a couple of days.
Coffee, read, radio and bed - in no particular order.
Coffee, read, radio and bed - in no particular order.
I suspect there could be difficulty servicing the DHL Aunty House. Probably no gas, electricity , phone line or sewerage – but those are difficulties which are these days much easier to overcome. Now may be the time to buy.
ReplyDeleteRe crosswords, I think you are right that a(n educated) guess is invariably correct – but I am never happy unless, by working backwards, I can prove it to myself, as with ‘peanut’.
I was never very happy with quotes because intelligence wasn’t called for; you either knew it or you didn’t and if you didn’t you could look it up if you had a book of quotations which contained it.
Of course, you could feel smug if it happened to be from a book you had studied for school cert. On balance, good riddance, i say. ي
There are often quotations in the big Saturday general knowledge one - which I find very unsatisfactory as a crossword. I can usually do about half - the other half I cannot do at all, unless I look up all the answers. (so why do I continue to do it?).
ReplyDeleteIs Y sure her cold isn't hay fever? I'm suffering mildy at the moment, it may be worse when you go on these country walks.
When you said Lawrence's auntie I thought Lawrence was another member of the Llewellyn/Marsden family I hadn't quite got to terms with - then the penny dropped.
Off for tea and battenberg cake, and another go at the crossword which I am finding hard today - please don't tell me you finished it by 9.00 this morning.