Weekend Excitements

 

 

Despite Omicron, I actually went out and visited people last weekend, first time for a long time, including a lovely overnight stay with Graham and Lo just in their immaculate abode just inside the Devon-Dorset border. Not having seen each other for at least two years, (all three of us being cautious types !) we had a lot to catch up on. A country walk, good food, wine and fine conversation, who could ask for anything more ? On the way back I popped into Pat and James' at Maiden Bradley, where the same applied. All of this not that good for the diet perhaps, but it did wonders for my morale.

And on the way, I had also managed to effect an entry into the church at East Knoyle, where the ladies were preparing for Advent. This was at Peter's behest, as the Church is associated with Sir Christopher Wren, who was born in the village. How shameful that his very modest little birthplace was  cumulatively demolished over the last hundred years or so, surviving only as a grainy 19th Century photograph in the Church guide.

This weekend was not so adventurous, dominated by the woodburner and getting on with preparations for Christmas - general deck-clearing. I did manage my first walk up the hill for months. This was despite mist and drizzle, and in part inspired by a need to do something about the weight residue remaining after the excesses of the previous  weekend. The hills were wrapped in mist; it was all very atmospheric. Stripped of all foliage and long grass the often hidden and mysterious bones of the hills stood out well. The lines along the hillside are the remains of lynchets, cereal growing terraces,  probably 2000 years old.

I had company. A small herd of dark brown heifers; big girls, who, unusually, stood their ground eyeing me speculatively as I appeared through the mist. They blocked my way. Could it be a Mexican stand-off ? No, at the last moment, within six feet, the nerve of their obvious leader broke and she backed off in sudden alarm. I celebrated my victory  with breakfast (coffee and biscuit) sitting damply on the block of concrete that once anchored a barrage balloon that protected  the US airbase down in the Vale from the Germans. A little further on, where the path reaches the Wansdyke itself, I came across a young couple, obvious walkers,  having a rather determined picnic breakfast in the drizzle. We exchanged commiserations and I passed on.

During the week, I spotted the damage that those Roe deer had done in my copse. Nathan my part-time gardener was amazed at the way they had munched away at the laurel bushes. They're full of cyanide he said, so animals avoid them. Intrigued he did some research. Apparently that only applies to laurel grown in England. Ones imported from the Continent, it seems, are different- and decidedly inferior. All those fancy, foreign, new-fangled shades of green and yellow, rather than the comforting monotonous pea-green of British ones, come at the cost of safety from deer. I must have the alien variety. The rest of the laurels hadn't been touched. There's a convincing argument for Brexit, if you like.   

            Posting some Christmas cards for America involved a walk to the village and provided an opportunity for me to try out some fancy new walking boots/shoes I had just got from Scotland. 'Water-proof' they said. And they were right. Dry socks even at the end. Excellent. I did though come back loaded with sticky clayey mud  that was amazingly adhesive. It made me two inches taller. Towards the end, though,  each step was an effort. Much of this came from tramping across a field where the path is always ploughed over. I persist in asserting the right of way, not least because it's much shorter. It also offers a spectacular view of the house !  

 

            I've been doing some academic work too. This included a review essay on a couple of books on naval aviation in the Second World War. It was  overdue and the Penguins on top of the grandfather clock have been reminding me of the need to get on with it. My last duty of the day is to wind the clock, when its dark and I'm tired after yet another day of excess. Invariably the motion dislodges one or other of them; in a classic naval manoeuvre one or other dive bombs me, bouncing off my head. The review is now done and despatched. And they now stopped attacking me ! Case proved.

            This must all sound very dull, but just at the time of despatch - high drama. It was dark and raining. I suddenly became aware of a lot of mooing, very close by. Friends of the girls on the hill getting their own back ? No - a herd of escaped cows streaming down the road, and milling about, cars all over the place, a flashing police car parked in the drive. Quad bikes zooming around.  Not the local farmer's cows apparently - from Devizes. A quick check in the rain suggests they didn't get into the garden although they certainly unloaded  some cow pats on the drive and outside the garage. It was a close call, all my gates being open. This country living lark can sometimes seem a bit too exciting. ....... 

Fireworks !

 

 

It was freezingly cold on Saturday 28th November with the winds whipping down from the Arctic and cutting across the paddock. This made early ideas of a big bonfire as part of the commemoration of Cherry's birthday and passing plus the traditional start of our Christmas seem suicidal. But we persisted at least with the fireworks part of the occasion. We were fortified with fish and chips. Most huddled in the comparative shelter of the entrance to the annex, but the gallant few went out to  conduct the display. With frozen fingers, they wrestled with uncooperative fuses sealed with Chinese cunning by Sellotape that had to be unpicked. Tapers were lost, found again, went out. The candle in the jam-jar got snuffed out all too often. But we persisted. Rockets arched up and exploded, and got blown off course, showering the field over the road. It was great fun but we were all totally relieved when it was over and we coud decently get back inside to the comfort of the wood-burner.

Otherwise, it was the usual family weekend, the first time we had all assembled together in one place at one time from well before the start of the pandemic and given Omicron and birthing schedules, likely to be the last for some time too. The tree was admired. Admiral Nelson presided over the festivities. Chit-chat and gossip exchanged. It was great

The following day, by total contrast was calm and sunny, though still chilly. After the usual formal  breakfast around a table brought in from the annex to help accommodate us all, we walked the village in the sunshine. Down to and along the Kennet and Avon Canal and then back diagonally across a ploughed field that actually has a footpath running through it much to our local farmer's exasperation. A final lunch and then off everyone set, leaving behind a house that seemed eerily quiet.

Ordinary life and its challenges resumed. This year a combination of a lateish harvest and the onset of cold weather has encouraged the rats to come in from the fields, joining the mice that tend to be around all the time. One I know to have been busy in the garage roof. It has established a runway for itself in  the thatch and chewed holes in the membrane beneath it, so compromising its ability to help keep out the rain. It was very bold, totally ignoring my imprecations. It was very smelly too; rats don't have bladders so pee everywhere. Another, I am pretty sure, was in the loft above my bedroom trundling noisily about on my ceiling. They say rats are intelligent, certainly more than I am in one respect at least. For the life of me I can't work out how they get in and out.

Curiously in that empty Sunday afternoon, both were disposed of one by poison, another by shooting, and, so far at least, all has been quiet since. Not nice certainly. But necessary. I am haunted by the fate of the thatched cottage over the road that was nearly burnt down by mice chewing and shorting out the electric wiring of a freezer that conducted fire straight up to the roof. Interestingly, the wooden beams were more vulnerable than the thatch and much of the damage was caused by the unburnt thatch collapsing onto the building below. Afterwards the occupants found they couldn't burn the thatch and had to get the local farmer to take it away.

Later that same afternoon, I spotted two Roe deer sporting about in the paddock. Again I was mystified about how they had got in and managed to get out. They were close by and I could see that they didn't jump over the hedge. But no gaps were to be seen anywhere. A mystery.

No-one can say that life in the country is without its interest. This afternoon on my big loop walk to the village shop I came across about 15-20 people in country gear and a pack of yelping beagles chasing a hare in a field between the canal and the village. I accosted one of them on the path - a real Wiltshire country type, almost incomprehensible. 'Isn't hare coursing illegal ?' I said. He gave me to understand that it wasn't hare coursing and wasn't doing anything any harm. He wasn't local, didn't seem to know anything about the canal which I thought odd. Unconvinced I walked on and fiddled about with my phone to take a picture, although by that time the hare had got away and the dogs were back with the people. They were too far off anyway. Obviously my standing there attracted their attention.. One chap came over from a hundred yards away to talk to me. Quite different. Well dressed, articulate, friendly to the point of being charming, as hunting people always seem to be. No,  he said this wasn't hare coursing, that was done by gypsies with greyhounds, this was -and he used the phrase - upper class trailing. The law he explained only allowed the killing of animals already wounded by shooting. 'Hmm', I said, 'I'm not entirely sure you're being serious.' Oh I am he said, patting me on the shoulder. 'There are students there, taking pictures.' As a long time professor I didn't actually find that altogether reassuring. A bit further along I came across several more equally charming and decidedly 'county' types on the path. Greetings were exchanged.  I said, 'Your colleagues tell me you're not coursing hares.' 'Oh no, absolutely not' said a jolly woman, who I noticed, was carrying a gun. Onley later did I work out one possible explanation for this. At all events it was an interesting insight into the life of the 'upper ten thousand,' and their faithful retainers. 

One thing they shared with the rats and the roe deer though, was that I couldn't work out how they got there, because there were no posh land-rovers or anything around anywhere, just a few beaten up old cars on the track by the canal belonging no doubt to the people living on the barges by Woodway bridge.   

So country life isn't dull. Which is just as well for me because that's what it's going to be for quite some time yet. The combination of State Department delays with my new work visa and Omicron will extend the period of curiously hybrid operation for a while longer. Already a commitment in Brussels in two weeks' time is going virtual instead. Another year without patting the horse in the 'King of Spain.' But things continue.   

The Robin that kept a close eye on us on our walk....

       

Starting All Over

 

I have just returned from a few days in Clovelly. The idea was to celebrate the handing over of the book manuscript - a project which has preoccupied me for the better part of two years, and to make some plans for keeping me off the streets in the future. It was also to commemorate the fact that it's now very nearly four years since I lost Cherry. It's trite to say that it really doesn't seem like it, but it doesn't. The first time I did this, four years ago, the trip was rather a mixed success. The weather was pretty awful, the cottage was absolutely frozen and on my first morning I ran the car into an unseen kerb with such force the wheel had to be changed as well as the tyre ! This time was much better; the cottage was warmer, it didn't rain anything like as much and all the kerbs stayed where they were supposed to. This picture of the cottage makes it look particularly nice.

I did a lot of coastal walking and fossicking about on deserted beaches when I could get to them. It was very stormy  with high tides that seemed much higher than usual. So a couple of the well-established favourites were out of bounds. The usual little stream at the entrance of the beach at Duckpool was a raging foaming torrent and there was no way of getting across it. The entrance to Sandymouth was sprayed with a new waterfall from the cliff and getting round the corner was impossible.

Still Speke's mouth and Marsland were fine, so I got in all the beach-combing I could have wished. The waterfall at Speke's mouth was spectacular. The only problem was that the storms cast up a huge amount of mouth watering driftwood that was much too big to carry home for the fire in the cottage. Very frustrating. Hawker's hut (where he used to watch out for shipwrecks) was still there, plus two sodden little plastic boxes in the geo-cache.

                There were very few people around and mostly I had the beaches and cliffs to myself. Even the last morning down in Clovelly village itself, I sat outside the Red Lion on the quay having a farewell cappucino while a few locals were putting up their Christmas decorations. As far as I could see I was the only visitor around. It was delightful. The Covid restrictions on the local churches were all lifted so I was able to effect an entry into them all this time, including the one at Clovelly which I hadn't been inside for years. Kilkhampton (where I went  to buy the very splendid sausages that Moore's the butchers provide) even had a place where a candle for Cherry could be lit which was a bonus.

                It was the same story at Malmsmead and the Doone valley. It was deserted, even on a reasonably warm and sunny  Sunday afternoon. I didn't see anyone else as I walked along to what I fondly imagine to have been the waterslide that inspired R.D. Blackmore to use as the place where John and Lorna first met. Last time I was there I left Cherry's old (and now pretty useless) binoculars there. As the place where I go to have a picnic isn't obvious, I thought it faintly possible they might still be there amidst the whortleberry bushes. They weren't of course. I still enjoyed my lunch though.

                The problem with all this self-indulgent pleasure was that I really didn't have the expected time for a bit of a think about what I want to do with the next few months and years. The immediate problems and issues of the present kept intruding. So I'll probably end up going with the flow as usual, but hopefully at a slower pace than recently which has been a bit too frantic for my taste. Not being able to make decisions like this tends to mean that I react to other people's timetables, which isn't ideal. I will try harder.

                Back at the house the immediate pressure was to start catching up on all the things I have pushed onto the back burner these past few weeks. Included in this of course is all the rigmarole involved in applying for another work visa. Getting my I -1129, so I could access the DS-160 for my O1A  (Outstanding Ability - over-the-top Americanese for getting a foreigner in to do something a US citizen could do perfectly well so not to be taken seriously) work visa and then begin filling up the exact dates of my last 5 visits to the United States - and off we go again, 'starting all over.'    

Crossing the Line at Last

 

This is  going to be a short one partly because it’s late and partly because I am in recovery mode after several really hectic weeks. They ended in  triumph with my handing over the book manuscript to the Publisher exactly on time after two 15 hour work days. That won't be the end of the saga as there's all the nausea of copyright searches, marketing suggestions, proofing  and all the rest if it to come but it still feels like a historic day. The end of the major stage of a two year effort !

                 The relaxation wasn’t immediate because just two days after I had a two day conference at Newport that was very technical and well outside my confidence zone, but which they had asked me to speak at anyway. I really needed to do some prep for this - and was banging away on the laptop up to minutes before my sessions. It all went OK even the screen sharing. The conference was on abstruse subject of the effect on navies of Artificial Intelligence, machine-learning and quantum computing and I was faintly amused to see that quite a few other people had trouble with screen sharing. One slightly disconcerting thing about the session was winning the informal competition for having the most interesting/attractive background. I’ve come across this before. Americans really seem to like the view they get of my study over my shoulder !  A young lady with blue hair even asked if she could visit !! It was an interesting couple of days but being in the US ended late at 2200 -ish both evenings, so not very restful.   

                So the relative 'downtime' only begins at the weekend. I am working on a plan to get away from it all in Clovelly next week which will be when the chilling out’  will actually kick in. Not least because there’s no wifi there. I am really looking forwards to it.

                But of course despite all this ridiculous intensity happening the usual routines had to go on, like eating, cooking,  and sleeping etc. Fortunately I seem to have been adopted by Wiltshire Fast Foods, which despite the name is a national company which Philippa says is the successor of ‘Meals on Wheels.’ They keep checking up on me to see if I’m alright – well at least that’s what they say. I get Chinese and Indian meals as a change from the usual stuff I can manage easily enough. Its very convenient – especially when a conference session ends very late. Normally though my culinary efforts are largely concentrated on ploughing through my garden produce. The last batch of runner beans came in earlier in the week  - and I am about to investigate the turnips and swedes, which all look fine.

                I have had the occasional distraction though. One was the latest round of the rodent wars. I was amazed and appalled in equal measure to discover in one drawer of Cherry’s dressing table in the bedroom that a little pack of deoderants I had got on line four days before  had been attacked. Each top corner of the heavy plastic casing had been chewed off. Astonishing. Mice worry me because the fire that nearly destroyed the cottage over the road. They chewed on the wiring and that caused a fire. So I took both defensive and offensive action. Successfully I think,  cross fingers. But it's a reminder that now I have no excuse but to get on with a host of domestic and garden chores that should have been done weeks ago. No rest for the wicked I suppose.

Old Codgers re-united

 

The big event was a whole day in London. The opportunity for this was again provided by the IISS, who made things very easy by sending a car. They were also nice enough to agree that the return trip could be later in the evening. This meant I could attend a Kings' event in the evening which the absence of trains home would otherwise have been very difficult. I was collected at 0700 by someone seduced by their satnav into the village who I had to rescue and guide to me. 'Describe where you are', I say, 'Is Manor Farm on your left or on your right ?' ....and so it goes on. My driver was Rumanian and I could tell he was on the verge of panic. He was an interesting companion though with admiring views about being in the UK and absolutely no intention of going back, as far as I could see. Lots of reminiscences about Ceasescu and the old days.

Although, no Insulate fanatics were sticking themselves to the road, it still took 3 hours of so to get to inner London and I had to slide into my seat a few minutes late at 1000. The occasion was a meeting of the heads of the RN and the Indian navy and a discussion about the general situation in the Indian Ocean. I thought our man, Admiral Radakin, was looking pretty chipper - and so was not surprised to hear the following day that he had been promoted as the new Chief of the Defence Staff, which is pretty much as high as a military man can get. There were only about 12 of us involved, half in India and it was all very interesting and topical. Also a real bonus - lunch - with the nicest steak I've had for a very long time indeed. In fact the only steak I've had since before the lock-down.

I spent the afternoon working on the book (will it never end ? ) at the Army and Navy - again for the first time since the pandemic began. I really enjoyed this, knocking back the coffees. Being with people still feels unusual ! In the evening it was the 60th birthday party of my old King's War Studies  Department. For the occasion they had issues a little booklet and yours truly was one of the two old codgers who they had dug out as students from the old days.

The other was in the same year as me in the History Department. He went on to a great career and ended up running the History department at Leeds. We kept in touch and worked together on the old Journal of Strategic Studies. He was much brighter than me, but we both got a whole page in the publication ! It was all huge fun as I met a lot of former colleagues and there was wine and nibbles along with the speeches. the event was held at Bush House at the Aldwych, the old BBC home. It was the first time I had been in it since it was snaffled by Kings. Spectacular views of London from the roof terrace. And so home having had a great day.

The rest of the week was pretty busy too. I had another all-nighter in Singapore which went well but it immediately preceded a big events at Newport, so I got only about 4 hours sleep over two days. They say oldies don't need so much sleep - and I must say my experience seems to confirm that. I was fine.

But talking of Newport, a major impediment has occurred and I seem to be back in the toils of mindless bureaucracy once again - as I was at the beginning of this great adventure. The State Department renewed my work visa, but two weeks later revoked it as they had discovered that  I wasn't actually in the US, so now a new one has to be acquired and that took three months last time. So despite their lifting Covid regulations on November 8th it doesn't look as though I will be heading back until some time next year. My colleagues in the Department are furious but are pitching in to handle my car problem. This means emptying all the stuff I jammed into it as I left in a hurry at the end of June 2020 with the stuff in my office. But that all needs to be moved too as they are refurbishing the whole building. Then the car has to be returned to the dealer !  So complicated. I begin to wonder in fact whether I will ever get back for real ! Certainly not for a long time.

Otherwise a quiet period, flogging on through the book the eye firmly on the hand-over date at the end of the month. Beginning to batten down the hatches for winter, although it still seems very mild. In fact today, the last of the potatoes came up, the last of the apple fallers peeled and stewed and I picked nearly a hundred raspberries ! All-in-all I reflected as I wended my way home from a walk to the village shop that even if I am 'stuck' at home for the next few months, I'm pretty lucky to be where I am.

 

Monsters from the Deep

 

It's harvest time. This always keeps me busy and even though I am frantically busy trying to finish off this wretched book by the end of October I still find that I have to devote considerable time to picking things and digging them up. I'm sure it's good for me but it does take up an awful lot of time. I’ll be quite glad, actually, when it’s all over – and in fact I’ve noticed a big crop reduction in the last few distinctly autumnal days, so the end of the season is close I think. Much of the time lost  includes the extra preparation of things that don't come all nicely manicured as they appear in supermarket plastic bags. One unlooked for problem was the fact that my potatoes were badly affected by blight, although they looked absolutely fine from the surface. The consequent rescue work involved making loads of mashed potato and then freezing it, which they say you can do. This wasn't pleasant and if I hadn't been so anti-waste, I might have given up, cast them on the compost heap and got myself a nice clean bag of uncomplicated potatoes from Morrisons. 

            Less of a trial were my carrots, which attracted a certain amount of ridicule from a recent family visit. They looked huge from the top but when I dug them up from ground, that seemed to have set like concrete, they were the most extraordinary looking things one can imagine. All points and growths, nameless horrors, that required massive surgery to make them fit to eat. They end up as cubes, and on the plate don't look right at all. But I have to say that the taste is spectacular – much, much nicer than their hygienic, properly shaped Morrisons equivalent.

            An additional harvest time accompaniment that I could seriously do without is a plague of fruit flies. Tiny little things that can apparently get into anything. I daresay they are too small to do much harm but I hate the way a little cloud of them appears whenever one leaves anything tasty around for more than a few seconds. I take a malevolent pleasure in sucking them up with a hand-held vacuum cleaner.

            Another diversion of precious time was a necessary trip to Salisbury. It was at a time of petrol crisis when I don't have much fuel in the tank, but I felt I had to go all the same. Irritating, because the evening before the crisis blew up I thought about getting some petrol on my way back from town and didn't want to take up the time. It was a classic example of saving time now but probably losing a lot more later on. Anyhow I went into Salisbury, parked in the Cathedral close as I always do, took advantage of a free pot of tea from the refectory for breakfast and thereafter had a very nice day. I collected my camera, expensively repaired since that disaster in Sussex, and took in Aunt Ethel's clock which I had knocked over and upset when I was trying to stop it chiming twelve times. This was once when I was in the midst of a broadcast to the world. I got some shopping had some cappuccino,  reading improving material on my little laptop, and had time for a quick poke around the Close and the Museum.

            The Close is a place of recurrent memory since that was where I went to school. One of my best University friends was Dean there. Amazingly, I, of all people, was several times given the Close as my round for the extra Christmas postal service when I was a student. An extraordinary coincidence. The round couldn't possibly have been given to a more grateful recipient who had no way of influencing the decision. Some of the residents got to know me, including a couple of Bishops, as I remember. I distinctly recall being given some seasonal sherry and mince pies here and there ! And I was being paid for it !  I also remember buying old history books from a stall outside Beaches’ iconic book shop, just the other side of the main gateway, for a penny or two, and reading them at various stopping places I found, Sadly Beaches is an up-market pizza restaurant now.  

            Much later, a retired Admiral who I knew rented a strange but charming building in the Close and I visited him a few times. More recently still the Salisbury Cathedral library was where I unexpectedly found the book that set me off on my current academic project. I went back to read it a few days later but arrived in the middle of a city-wide electricity failure. They kindly diverted me from the Library to the Treasure building where in some strange way there was electricity, thereby notching up yet another building in the Close that I have been inside ! The whole place is full of happy and fun memories. I didn’t know Ted Heath who lived at Arundells so that’s one building I haven’t been to. They do tours these days so I can repair that deficiency, although it would feel like cheating.     

            Otherwise, it’s been a quiet couple of weeks. But there’s always something happening. One morning it was spotting a new fungus growing at the base of a dead chestnut tree I hadn't seen and which got bigger each day.

On another one of my walks around what I fondly call the estate I almost trod on a woodpigeon, sitting on the path. I got close and personal and took a picture. It looked exhausted, so I wondered if it was an off-course racer, but there was no ring. I left it to recover, A few hours later, though, there was sadly just a pile of feathers. Sic transit gloria mundi.  Not in fact that woodpigeons are that glorious. They are a real pain in the veggie garden, but sad all the same.

          

  Team Powell have been hit by Covid at long last. No doubt through the school connection. The Pandemic  certainly hasn’t gone away. So far wooziness, tiredness and loss of taste and smell. Hopefully it’ll be on its way out soon. Just like Harvest time.....

Back to Abnormal

 

The last two weeks have underlined the fact, that no doubt like many other people, my ‘new normal’ isn’t in fact any kind of normal, because things happen all the time that make one day or one week quite unlike anything that happened in recent days or weeks. Not normal at all.

In my case, for example, last week saw the arrival of The Family (mine, not the mafia) for the normal apple-crushing-and-turning-into-apple-juice weekend. But it wasn’t normal because the late savage frost in the spring that decimated the garden meant there weren’t enough apples to warrant getting all the necessary kit out of the stables. (And no plums either come to that, except rather strangely, for a good crop of greengages, my favourite). Moreover it was weekend of constant coming and going, with the senior Powells coming for the Friday night unloading their spawn (their phrase not mine) and departing the following morning for a wedding in Surrey, only returning on Sunday morning when, normally all the work would have been done and cleared away). The Simon/Ruth/Violet combo arrived as is their wont shortly after dawn – or would have done had a flashing light on the dashboard of their car suggested (falsely) an imminent explosion. Christopher and Beth arrived later Saturday morning.

            We all set to work, relaxing, the weather being unusually cooperative and allowing lounging around in deck chairs in the garden. Chuntering. A brief excursion around the village to see the cows and along the canal to what is now known as otter bridge, in order to confirm that we wouldn’t see one. The stars of the event though were the two young dogs in the barn conversion where the local farmer’s elder son lives. They growled at us ferociously then rather spoilt the deterrent effect by trying desperately to squeeze through tiny gaps in the gate in order slavishly to lick hands. Christopher in particular was besotted. 

After that triumph we found some straw bales on the hill and of course had some harmless fun with them. Later that evening the customary barbecue. The weather still amazingly cooperative. 

            Philippa and Chiff returned the following morning, in time for an impromptu birthday party for Christopher. 

As I suspected it turned out to be too complicated  for us to grace the annual All Cannings garden party with our collective presence, a shame as that is one of the few occasions to link up with the locals. But first things first.

            Otherwise, it’s been a quiet time. The end of the book is in sight, with a deadline of the end of October.  I have reached the stage where I am heartily sick of the subject and wish I had never started the wretched thing. Also I have renewed my determination never to write another one. All the same, I keep discovering new things that just have to go into it, so the manuscript is getting longer and longer, which means it gets more expensive so fewer people will read it. It’s just one of the things I cite to counter other peoples’ admiration for being able to write a book. It’s not an achievement, it’s a curse. The compulsion is similar to a drug addict’s. But this time, it really will be the last one. Other academic things intrude too, though further delaying things. Odd really. ‘No’ is just two letters after all.

            One of these distractions occurred the following Saturday, an engagement in Trieste at an Italian conference on seapower. It was awful. The chairman of my panel, though efficient, young and capable seeming, instead of briefly introducing his three speakers went off on a meandering, waffling, high-sounding but vacuous talk only vaguely related to the subject under review. The first speaker I thought even worse. His subject was America and its maritime approach and he chuntered on for over twice his allotted time. The only thing I remember about it was the great significance he attached to the fact that General Custer’s parents were German, though I was far from clear about what that had to do with anything. My young female interpreter who sounded competent seemed equally bemused, so I don’t think this was great substance lost in translation. The word anthropological was used a lot. It was already clear to me that we were going to run seriously out of time. The second speaker on China wasn’t too bad and didn’t over-run by as much, but I still had to gabble though my session in 15 minutes and the session stopped when I did, the chairman apologising to the audience and admitting blame. No discussion, no question and answer as promised.  The one consolation for me was that although, as is customary, one leaves the video on to show that one is actually there, I managed covertly to tidy my study and do a lot of e-mails and What’s Apps to fill in the time - a commodity not to be wasted.

            It was  an anti-climax to what had been a very nice day with the Friends of Wiltshire Churches. This involved a tour of one of our old stamping grounds ‘back in the day’ as the Americans rather charmingly put it, North Dorset. It didn’t start well with my sat-nav taking me to the wrong place via a network of tiny lanes wriggling through beautiful back country. I ended up in a farmyard. ‘Oh no,’ said the farm lady, ‘There’s no Church here.’ It turned out I was somewhere else altogether. Her instructions were admirably clear and I followed them blindly. I spotted a cul de sac lane (more of a track) called Church Row and squeezed up it, abandoning the car at the end rather than parking it, and following a tiny unpromising path found the church in question. Concerned that I hadn’t seen any other cars or people I was relieved to find my party as well, just finishing the tour. They had arrived in a more orthodox manner from the other direction and were parked decorously in and around the church car park. Otherwise everything else worked admirably. The weather was glorious and so were the sights. I was particularly taken by the tiny Church at Winterbourne Tomson (sic  - a place not even on my map). Charming, quite unspoiled and in another farmyard.  Redundant of course but cared for, thank heaven.

            This was the northern part of Hardy country, so we just had to go to Bere Regis to inspect the Turbeville window under which the tragic Tess learned all about her family antecedents. Underneath the window Hardy’s succinct description of  the remains of their tomb is exact and most affecting. I am a great one one for family histories, real or imagined. That scene gets me every time. Hardy was one of the few things that Cherry and I totally disagreed about.  She had no patience with his heroines. How could they be so stupid, she would say. Not at all impressed by the inexorable pressures of fate. They should get a grip. Quite right too. 

            Sadly I had to leave the tour day early in order to get to waste my time in Trieste. I was though flattered to be asked to take over the group as Chairman but of course turned it down on the basis partly that I don’t know anyone and partly because of my expectations of a partial return to Newport (not that the glacial pace of events at the US State Department suggests this will be any time soon) but it was nice to be asked. Maybe I will think about it when the book is done and things do eventually get back to normal.  

Resting on Labor Day

 

The weather promised to be good, and all my colleagues in Newport are taking the day off. So I thought I would indulge myself with a day off too.  Moreover I thought I deserved a rest and so indulged myself with a long delayed trip to the New Forest, where I am actually writing this. It’s pretty quiet although a little way off, I can hear some people come and go at Turf Hill. At one stage a cow rounded a big gorse bush in front of me just as I was making tea, saw me, stopped and backed off visibly dismayed. That was the main excitement of the day.

                I took a long walk this morning, re-discovering the fact that there’s a lot more to this place than our frequent but usually brief visits to this convenient northern fringe of the forest usually have time for. I went all the way up the chillingly named Deadman Bottom (I believe there was one on a gibbet on the road above on the hill behind)   looped around Millersford enclosure at the end and returned via  what was the original Turf hill enclosure. Getting on for 10,000 steps- and it was hot !

                The valley was used for practice by the Dam Busters in the war and the whole area has lots of reminders, if you know where to look for them, of its history as one of Bomber Command’s bombing ranges. Anciently, the end of the valley near Cunniger crossing, which has a touch of Dartmoor about it (although Dartmoor doesn't have that distinctive sweet coconut smell of heather and broom) was last visited by me in biking days across the Forest, a good 50 years ago. Things have changed a bit but it’s all quite recognisable. The pine saplings commanding hill-slopes I remember are now big trees and have turned into little copses of big trees

                On my return, I spent three hours or so sitting in the shade under a large pine-tree. As a academic gesture I did a first review read of Chapter 6 of The Book, which I see was started in ay of last year when I was still in Newport. This was part of my first review of the whole MS and I could  see that it does indeed need quite a bit of revision to fit in with all the rest and to resolve all the problems I ducked out of the first time through. I had a pic-nic lunch as ell which worked well, com notwithstanding.

                Although comparatively quiet the two weeks since the Clovelly holiday had been quite arduous. My IT guru+ Nathan  (my part-time gardener) came to the rescue when the keyboard of my main machine failed. I'm now operating much faster with a new one and all sorts of internal gizmos, the very latest version of Word etc. I had what engineers call a lash-up while this was being done and had to set up shop in the kitchen, which actually worked quite well and I haven't moved back yet since it's all been fixed.  Not as nice though, in some ways at least as my office in the Forest.(the pink blob on the left is my finger I think)  

                Progress has also been made with the garden too. The paddock is now back under control with what I grandly call the Avenue clearly demarcated. In this connection we both tried out my almost new little tractor mower which was a great success.   I don’t think I will be doing the environmentally good thing of leaving large areas of grass so long next time, as I did this year on advice in Garden magazine. They said it was good for pollinating insects and no doubt it was. They also said it was win-win because it saves you mowing time. That is simply not true. Clearing it all at the end, which even they say you need to do, is extremely time consuming and really hard work. Worst  of all it encourages the ants. One small triangular block of grass in front of the gazebo had over 32 big ants’ nests. This puts a bit of a strain on my environmentally –friendly instincts !

                Its also harvest time. Although much has been disappointing this year because of this weird combination of a savagely cold snap in spring which killed all my Broad Beans and most of the plum and apple blossom and a prolonged period of drought. However, I have loads of raspberries,  runners,  onions, bonus blackberries, and enough apple fallers to keep me busily peeling and chopping in the evenings.

                There was also some wry amusement, to be had which from a package which arrived from the 'Office of Naval Attacks,' according to Devizes post-office.  A while back I did a conference opener for the Thais  ‘in’ Bangkok (virtually of course). At the time, they asked me for my address as they wanted to send me a present.  It arrived this week, from the Naval Attaches office of the Thai Embassy. . A charmingly deferential letter of thanks. A conference tee-shirt, quite stylish, XL but their sizes being different from the standard European quite uncomfortable. A very nice naval tie-pin with a classic Jim Thompson tie with elephants on it. (Jim Thompson was an American ex-pat who ‘went native’ set up a shop but disappeared in the jungle and was never seen again.  There’s a charming shop in Bangkok in his name that we visited a couple of times which I remember for its cappuccinos and water features). The only snag is that I have only used a tie once this year - but they will be nice additions to the collections of both. The problem was that they hadn’t paid enough postage so I had to shell out £3.50 for this lot, dubious value-for-money. One consolation though. I did a  bit of teaching in Newport this week, and one of the students, a Thai, had attended the conference been there and seemed amusingly dazed by discovering I was a real person.

                So, all in all I think I deserved this New Forest treat. In the US of course, it's Labor Day – so a day off for them with nothing arriving on my souped up laptop, so I thought, since the weather was going to be good, why not ? So here I am, or at least here I was.

Resuming Contact ! Grey Skies, Drizzle and Poor Surf...

 

On the basis that there’s nothing more boring than other peoples’ holidays, this is going to be a short transmission.  There’s another couple of reasons for brevity too. At Clovelly connectivity is very weak and so one builds up a massive avalanche of e-mails and the like which have to dealt with on one’s return, just when, after a fortnight of relaxing holiday,  one is feeling quite exhausted.

                On top of that, the keyboard on my main laptop has misfunctioned. Every time  I tried to log on, my password was rejected. It took me some time to realise that the I and k keys on the keyboard weren’t working so the letters weren’t registering in the password – hence the rejection and the delayed transmission. Such is my fear of modern technology that this realisation was something of a relief in that I had managed to deduce what the problem was. Next stage – on a Sunday – arranging to get it fixed. This took some time, but Trevor,  my marvellous IT guru reckons he can do so in a few days. In the meantime, I had to fall back on my steam-driven little portable, where everything takes much longer and which isn’t set up for blogging  and other such ambitious projects. Nothing like a bit of disobliging technology to get one off to a good start in post-holiday recovery !  

Anyhow, back to the fortnight in Clovelly, with Team Powell. The weather was the worst I have ever known on a summer holiday –with endless grey skies, cold winds, drizzle and every now and again enough of a cruel gleam of hazy sunshine to remind us all of what we were missing, plus the second fact that the surf at Sandymouth, Duckpool and Northcott mouth was the weakest I have every encountered. These two undisputed facts sound as though they should combine to suggest that the holiday was a total disaster, but of course it wasn’t. There were numbers of exhilarating coastal walks with fantastic views, including a complicated arrangement by which we left one car at Northcott and the other at Duckpool, and walked from the first to the second, with a tea stop en route and a beach-day and barbecue at the end. It all worked just fine.  

During our various beach visits (there were some - Team Powell are very determined !)  I sneaked off for a bit of beach combing - there are few things I enjoy more. Driftwood, useful pieces of string, rope, a plastic hook ideal for hanging spades on, a rather good quality broom, and a large blue water-carrier for the tree saplings at the end of the paddock. The RNLI lady at the top of Sandymouth beach was intrigued by the broom but understood that we thought we should tidy up the part of the beach we used when we left. I would like to say that this is all about recycling and saving the planet, but I have to say I would do it anyway !  

 There were also cream teas to be had at Morwenstowe, pasties and many other such delights. Intellectually this proved to be interesting : it confirms the fact that you put on weight no matter how much exercise you take if you eat too much !  High levels of activity, including days when the step-counting is up to twice the amount recommended -and that doesn’t include frolicking about in the sea of course -  really doesn’t do much to compensate. Hence the even grimmer post-holiday recovery period ! 

An evening treat of the outdoor ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ at Hartland Abbey  was another highlight. Arriving early we able to set up camp in the front row so certainly had a good view, Within spitting distance, but fortunately the five young and active role-shifting players, didn’t. It also chose not to rain that evening which was nice. It won’t be long, I predict, before that play comes into question about its political correctness ! When the kids (not that they are that anymore) were taken  off to do more energetic things like assault courses t water-parks I went off on various solo nostalgic visits such as Shipload Bay where Christopher was originally conceived (as a project, not literally). The following year we (including Grandma) went down the steep now collapsed path down to the beach when the result was quite imminent to show the bay that the project was nearing completion.

 Another individual treat was  two days on Exmoor on arrival and departure. Six books from my favourite book shop, in Dulverton, on the way and  a very long walk to the Doone valley on my return journey home. This is a picture of my favourite thorn tree in all the world - in Lankcombe, miles from anywhere. I like to find the places that inspired R.D. Blackmore with the story -especially the waterslide. So much so that I inadvertently left an old pair of binoculars there. I discovered this only when I got back late to the car but just couldn't face going back 5 miles or so for them. Perhaps they will be waiting for me next time....Anyway I have a better set waiting for me in my car in Newport !  

Of course it was the variety from my normal life and the prolonged exposure to Team Powell, which really made the holiday something to look back on with pleasure, despite the drizzle, cold wind and poor surf.             

Unexpected Visitors

 

It's been for me quite a fortnight, with a variety of surprises. The first was discovering a frog inside the house about to hop up the stairs to the bedroom. For the life of me I couldn't work out how or why it had got there as the journey there from the back door in about 30 feet and mostly over carpet. Moreover I go the distinct impression it was on its way upstairs. I spoke kindly to it but since it didn't turn into a beautiful princess, I gathered it up and returned it to the vicinity of the pond whence I presume it came. Mind you, I am not at all sure what my course of action would have been had it been transformed into a princess, so was rather relieved that it didn't.

The second unexpected visitor was more prosaic but extremely welcome for all that. Pat who I haven't seen for long before the Covid outbreak  was on a ramble in the hills behind the house and having forgotten her phone decided to drop in on the off-chance. It all worked very well, and it was good that I was, for once, looking fairly respectable ! Over tea and biscuits we caught up on what has been an action packed lockdown period for them and me.

The third set of visitors were much less interesting but a real surprise for all that.  I have always tried to avoid Amazon as I don't approve of big outfits that make life so difficult for small ones - and who don't seem to pay their fair share of taxes. But having got the last chapter of my book (on the Chinese Navy) vetted by an authority back in the US, there were a couple of old books I needed to get in a hurry, I succumbed and went into the Amazon website.  They were flagged up immediately and I ordered both. It took seconds. Also they showed some purchases I had made maybe two years ago several of which needed renewing (slippers, secateurs, diary books) so of course I ticked them too. Another ten seconds. And that was it. No card details needed, just an address confirmed for the first of the package. This was about 1600 on a Friday afternoon and I was frankly disbelieving when they said  the extras would arrive the following day and the books on Sunday. But so it was. I tell this story not as an advert, though it sounds like it, but more in concern about the relentless efficiency of the outfit which must set an extremely high bar for everyone else to get over, and for the uneasy feelings about how much information about me they must have. One has to make a positive and time-consuming effort not to be sucked into it all.

The last was news of an imminent and totally unexpected arrival rather than a visitor. For the first stage of a family gathering in Cross-in-Hand I was at Burgess Hill, when a phone call came through to Philippa asking us all to take a test for the following morning. Not unnaturally she asked why and her face was an absolute picture when she heard the reason.  I had seen that expression before and I guessed the reason seconds before she burst out with it. Grandchild no 4 was on the way ! Absolutely brilliant news. Just tinged with sadness that Cherry wasn't still around to enjoy it too.

The gathering - all of us in the same place for the first time in a long time and virtuously outside was splendid. As was the weather which was totally cooperative.   

Other than that a really busy couple of weeks. I finished a chapter for someone in the US about maritime security in the Gulf and the Iranians attacked an Israeli ship with a drone a few hours after I sent it off. That's the trouble with writing about things in real time, they keep changing. Another time issue is dealing with Singapore. I had two workshops/conferences in a row and since they are currently 7 hours ahead of us, that effectively meant working through the night. After a normal day's activity I fund it quite taxing to start logging in for the next day at 0030, two days in a row. I like to think that was the reason why I forgot to silence the old chiming clock that Aunt Ethel used to have. It started going off as I was in full flight to my audience of several hundred. And in my haste to quieten it I knocked it  over and it sadly doesn't work any more. An expensive hostage to time !   

Otherwise the time that was left over was devoted to walks to the village shop and trying to get control of the garden. Nathan stepped in for Chris and did the hedges but otherwise it's a close battle. Excellent onions though and a row of carrots on the right, plus freebie potatoes dotted around. Little chance of starving to death at any rate. 

 

Off on holiday soon, so there will be a short hiatus before normal service is resumed on 23rd August, all being well.

The Case of the Counterfeit Cat

 

I was roundly pulled up by Philippa for the cat picture in the last blog.  Of course it wasn't of Lyra, the new addition to the Team Powell household. Instead not being fully master of the associated technologies, I had muddled up my What'sApp pictures. It was of the nameless  cat of a new colleague over in Newport that had gone missing when they moved there recently from Wisconsin. It turned up later of course, cats being cats.  Clearly Lyra is more attractive and superior in every way.

            However, now that she's safely settled in her new home she seems to be taking her adoring hosts rather more for granted and casually than they would like. No lap-sitting , and even nose rubbing has markedly declined. I suggested that when she’s put in a cattery in a few weeks for the summer holiday in Devon & Cornwall, the people there should be  asked to kick her around a bit to make her more grateful for a secure and loving home when she's collected !

           My capacity to observe all this was provided by the great family get together at Cross-in-Hand  in Sussex over the weekend. The first time we have all been together for months. Barbecues, splashing around in their huge somewhat milky looking paddling  pool, frisby throwing and needle matches in boules were the order of a splendid day.  This was great. It was also nice in that the gathering gave me the excuse to do some more fun family researching in West Sussex on the way there and back. With the advantage  of a new large scale survey map  I have managed to locate the ‘Northwode’ that Thomas Tille rented from the Earl of Arundel in 1376. It’s now ‘Northwood Farm’, just where I expected it to be. The building itself is basically 16^th Century, and therefore long after the event in question of course. I dropped in on the off-chance and had a wander around but sadly no-one was in.

On the way back after the gathering, on a blisteringly hot Sunday I went up to the Trundle above Singleton. I was surprised that it was so unpopulated. ‘Everyone’s at the beach’ explained the ice cream man  there. On my way round the earthwork,  I realised how over-the-top my pleasure at seeing ‘pyramidical orchids’ in my re-wilded/neglected  bits of the garden was. At the Trundle, instead of one or two dotted around, there were hundreds of them on the slopes of the big ditch.

Common as muck apparently. I popped into the local churchyard to look at the Till gravestone there. Decades ago they uprooted them all to make grass cutting easier. Ours was in a corner the third one long, going West. Now its completely covered in ivy. Its a good job I took down all the details many years ago. Some of the other ones are still perfectly legible ones, almost as good as new. It's the luck of the draw I suppose. The last visit on the return journey was to Ludgershall castle. Its unmanned and quiet. I had it all to myself and took coffee in the shade of the Great Tower  

  

Reverting to the counterfeit cat, it seems likely that at some stage, I will actually meet its owner, my new Newport colleague in person because the College is, rather to my surprise, clearly pursuing my preferred option of a part-time extension to the contract.  To their surprise, however, they have discovered that the current arrangement is 'non compliant with higher DOD directives.'  Presumably for security reasons, employees are not allowed to 'telework' from outside the United States, though there are waivers. The realisation that of all people an 'alien' is doing it may have to be swept under the nearest carpet. Sorting all this out will take time, which is fine as far as I am concerned ! 

Otherwise life goes on, pleasantly enough. One major project was industrial scale stewing of rhubarb one rainy weekend.  Twenty pots should keep me going and make up for the fact that so far the raspberries are not looking too good and the gooseberry harvest may be significantly less than last year. I realised halfway through that I had run out of sweetener so threw in a lot of currents plus some bottom of the jar scraps of Devon honey.

  The result isn't too bad - it doesn't bring quite so many tears to the eyes, at least.  All this rain is making everything grow - especially things one doesn't necessarily want to grow. I found one route over the Ditch into the paddock completely blocked by some kind of greenery - and in fact only found the ditch by falling into it. Chris the Gardener hasn't been able to come recently, and it shows.

A pleasant interruption occurred last Sunday. As I was bustling about, I noticed three people over the road who seemed very interested in the house. I didn't pay much attention as this quite often happens but an older lady came over and asked if they could come in and take a photo  of it. It turned out she lived here as a very young child but rather oddly at virtually the same time - the early part of the Second World War - as the other group who popped by this time last year. I invited them in for a tour and what turned out to be a fascinating chat.  Apparently she was the daughter of a French family who were evacuated to London from France just before its fall. They then moved to Herne Bay, but who had to move again with the possibility of invasion. They ended up renting the cottage when it came vacant (probably after last year's family left). I was very impressed by the quality of her memory at 84 and was pleased when what she said about the house confirmed all the conclusions I had come to about the way the main house has been altered over the years. They went off for a visit to the next place she had  moved to in Somerset, but we parted very pleased with each other  and with promises of the exchange of questions, answers and photographs.  A special census was done in late 1939 as part of preparing for the war- so now I have a name to look for - Guy, when, of course,  I have time ! How I wish there was more of it !