As you can see from Picture 1 Basil Rooting is making an annual guest appearance. The cuttings really are so easy to 'strike' in the garden parlance of this area. Four or five days is all that is needed for the roots to appear and, if I have time, 'I can pot him on' tomorrow.Bungus had hoped that Basil would keep Magwitch at bay. Unfortunately not so. It has been a painful 48hrs and in and out of the car has been worse than yelp-worthy. I prefer Y to walk away so she doesn't see my face when I transfer my weight from my seat to my legs.
We had a surprise invite to join an old friend Derek at the Bestwood Lodge Hotel for evening meal, and a splendid occasion it was. He has panache, and the menus were without prices. He has done this before and our meals were very good indeed.
The Hotel started life as a Hunting Lodge and the present building was built in 1865. Full blown Victorian Gothic seems to be the style sought, and achieved. If my description is not correct I expect our Architecture Desk to put it right.
Derek has been in the nearby Park Hospital for a urinary-tract operation on Friday. He seemed very chipper considering he has been told not to drive for a fortnight and that he would be sleepy all the time. Not so apparently. So he is making a little holiday of it and has been entertaining friends. Derek used to teach electrical engineering at what was Trent Polytechnic now is Trent University. He feels as we do that the government has let the country down badly in the field of education.
On retirement in 1984 he went to live on the Lincolnshire Coast but now regrets it and is seriously considering a return to Notts.Bestwood Country Park is a great place to be convalescing. His bedroom is a long way from the pub end of the hotel, and disco etc., and is completely quiet, in the middle of the wooded area and he awakes to birdsong rather than traffic.
A possible WoW morning I think, but they have probably been already.
Big day tomorrow. Over at Tracy's for our Anniversary do, (it will be great to see everybody). Then National Trust on Monday morning and on Tuesday, our actually anniversary and we are going to The Hardwick Inn for lunch.
Comments .... Can't reply to any comments - 'cos there weren't any.
Quotation time ...... I love this one.....
"Never knock on Death's door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!"
I thought this had been posted yesterday!
ReplyDeleteVery nice crags pics.
I was in no way being critical of your failing to keep me fully informed of all your former friends and acquaintances; just expressing surprise. I am now trying to think of someone famous that I know, just to throw at you! No, there’s nobody.
Possibly, I suppose Gordon Graham, a college lecturer who got me through finals and later becamne President of the RIBA and a partner in Norman Foster’s Practice.
(The gherkin name first appeared in The Guardian newspaper in 1996referring to that plan's highly unorthodox layout, and this was enthusiastically adopted by other media and the public. Due to the current building's somewhat phallic appearance, other inventive names have also been used for the building, including the Erotic Gherkin, the Towering Innuendo, the Crystal Phallus, and the Butt Plug). I like Crystal Phallus.
I like the Sterne quote. One of the houses at my old school was Sterne (the others Halifax, Dodsley and Chappell)
Rob
Rice weighs heavy but I don’t think 200 grains will shake the world.
Thank you for the very respectable mark for the cat and the pigeon (actually a collared dove).
Do you always mark out of twenty? I have only ever before been marked out of 10 or 100 (98% for Heating and Ventilation; 2 marks lost for lack of neatness in spelling my name). But 8o% must be a decent mark and much appreciated.
‘Spick and Span’
According to the Wordsworth Dictionary of Proverbs:
Originally Span new (now only found in dialect)
C 1300; Havelock. ‘And bouthe him clothes , al spannewe’.
C 1374: Chaucer.
1590: Nashe. ‘Hee offered her a spicke and spanne new Geneua Bible’.
‘There’s no spick nor crick’ means there is no flaw.
We have no snow.
ReplyDeletePleased to see Basil Rooting looking so well. Charming fellow and so tasteful.
Sory you are feeling incapacitated by Magwitch. Could I, would I, suggest that you don’t use the car until you are feeling better?
Victorian Gothic sounds right enough for Bestwood Lodge but there seems to me to be a Germanic or East European influence.
In spite of his present luxurious surroundings, I don’t envy your Derek! That said, the catheter I woke with from my op was never any bother and even it’s extraction caused little suffering. A lot of people move, frequently abroad, on retirement and later regret it. The old Sutton saying “Yo’ moan’t alter” (a free translation of my old school motto ‘Semper Eadem’) seems roughly appropriate.
Enjoy your Silver Anniversary celebrations. I hope the Hardwick Inn has improved since we last ate there (some seriously bad, ie uneatable, food and a cavalier approach to service). It was perhaps 15 years ago!
Comments. The one I should have posted yesterday is now on.
On Wed, Stephanie's boyfriend brought us two chickens, in feather, from his father’s flock. I plucked one on Friday and gutted it yesterday (a far more difficult and strenuous job than a pheasant or a turkey). It weighed nearly 6lb when oven ready. We had it for dinner last night (Delia’s lemon and tarragon) with veg. The sauce was delicious but the chicken had less flavour than a Tesco ready cooked one and the tarragon was undetectable. A disappointment. The other one is still hanging; perhaps that will give it more flavour as I cannot see to it until Monday.
So where is this global warming when you need it? If you believe the scientists. I should either be under water or picking apricots - and what am I doing? In April? Standing by the window (radiators full on) looking out at a snow-covered garden, late-flowering camellia withering and browning almost as I watch (frost last night) and large snow-flakes falling heavily from a leaden sky. And the D.Tel said yesterday that overall the world temperature has not got any warmer for the last ten years...
ReplyDeleteRant over - I do hope your present painful condition doesn't interfere with your enjoyment of today - perhaps someone can give you a lift? But the actual driving may not be the problem, it's getting in and out of car? An estate car where you could stretch out in?
I do hope all goes well, and look forward to hearing about it.