I don’t remember whether my first exposure to Sherlock Holmes was reading a book or watching a film. My feeling is that it was the latter and I know with certainty that my first exposure to Sherlock Holmes on screen was Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson.

This series of films were very much part of my childhood. Black and white films that filled in weekends and evenings and until the Jeremy Brett incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, very much the mental picture I had in my head when reading the stories.

Of course there are multiple incarnations of Sherlock and Watson, both in terms of tv and film, many of which I have seen and some that I haven’t. I think I am very much stuck with Rathbone and Brett in my thoughts as being the archetypal embodiment of the characters of the stories on screen. I have some favorable feelings towards the Benedict Cumberbatch modernisation of the stories, but wherever you look there are many reimaginings and publications and productions of the stories or aspects of them.

Over the years I’ve been the recipient of many of these (when people find out you have an interest in something it’s very common for them to feed your interest at regular opportunities – birthdays, Christmas etc.) One that I finished reading recently was “Moriarty” by Anthony Horowitz

This is a take on the events after the story “The Final Problem” when Holmes and Moriarty apparently both plunge to their deaths at The Reichenbach Falls, and when Holmes is revealed to still be alive in “The Empty House”. The pedigree of the author is without question and it was a good read, but without giving too many spoilers it had a twist at the end which was taking things too far (imo). This I find to be a common problem with many non-Conan Doyle stories. Whilst the imitation of the characters in the stories many authors take a step towards making their take their own that they do something in the story that tests the believability of it.

I should of course know this after all the years that I’ve been reading the stories but of course when you enjoy something and immerse yourself in it, you look for things beyond the limits where the original author is not creating anything new. I think similarly with the original Inspector Morse stories. The fact that a believable tv series was created that followed the books and created new stories and that this then spawned two further related series but that the original author stated that there would be no new books means that there is a limit to what you can immerse yourself in, although there is quite a bit of material out there.

The problem with doing this though in the case of Sherlock Holmes is that there is so much stuff out there, that the cream doesn’t always rise to the top and some of what is there isn’t to my tastes. I’ve learnt therefore to only stick to what I know I’ve enjoyed, and only very carefully to consider other things and then in small doses.

Thanks for reading.

Grow What You Love To Eat

I doubt that I ever realised how much of our food used to come from our garden as a kid. My Dad used to grow us lots of things from potatoes to peas and runner beans to radishes as well as many things in between.

He started me on the growing bug young too, and I’ve done so most of my life. Having an allotment for nearly a third of my life and now with a garden of a similar size to that growing space much of our food comes from there.

We’ve had a bit of a break during the period upto and after moving house when we were winding down one space and not yet getting the new space ready.

Just before I came in to write these words, I was transplanting cabbage plants from their seed tray out into the garden proper and into the soil.

I’ve also just been thinking about our grocery list and what we don’t need to buy from the store this week because we have lettuce and a few other things.

The impact on the grocery bill is a visible one though, even if it is a bit of an illusion. The price of our grocery shop might be lower this week than normal, but I have had to buy seed and compost and many other things. Some of this is spread over the years or acquired at low or zero cost, but ultimately there are associated costs with growing your own food. Probably it is cheaper than just buying from the store but there are other things to think about and the fact that prices in supermarkets are probably artificially low when thinking about what the actual cost to farmers and growers is, so maybe if the true price were paid there would be a greater saving.

I guess as a kid my concept of exactly where different things came from was pretty limited, and certainly I had no sense of the cost of things. There was always something to eat, even if sometimes it was something that I’d profess to not liking. My sense though is that the differential in price was probably greater and the savings value of home grown food was greater.

Finally there is one other thing that is great about home grown food and that is the taste. It will always been fresher and tastier than anything that you can buy anywhere else.

Thanks for reading.

The last few weeks I’ve been in and out of hospital as a visitor. If you’ve had any recent experience yourself you’ll know that they are busy places. The corridors are a flowing mass of people moving from one point to another. The last time I had any experience was when I was visiting my Dad in hospital in 2016 and even my daily visits then the place seemed much quieter than it does today.

Go back even further I remember when hospitals were very different to how they are today. Big long open wards with rows of beds either side, the only privacy you were offered were curtains that could be pulled around the bed or mobile screens moved into place to give you a sense of being hidden from view. Very different to the smaller rooms of today.

At various times as a child I’d accompany a parent to visit a sick relative in hospital. In some ways I remember them as being quite solemn occasions, even when the relative in question was in for something quite routine. “Visiting hours” were much more of a thing then than they are today and observed to the minute by the ward sisters or matron. Tones of conversation were often hushed so as not to disturb other patients, although in reality with the numbers of patients per ward and visitors I suspect it was more to not collectively be a racket.

I remember one exception when we were visiting on a Saturday and it was coincidentally the same day as the local football team had made it through to the self-final of the FA Cup. Televisions had been placed strategically on the ward so that all the patients and their visitors had sight of a screen. All were tuned to whatever channel was showing the match and the usual silence was broken by more oohs and aahs as the team did their best to make it all the way to the final. I don’t think they did on that occasion, despite having done so before but as this was a mens ward I think the televisions lifted most spirits that afternoon. Patients and staff.

Skip forward to today and there aren’t really “visiting hours” anymore. You might be asked to leave for a bit when the doctors are speaking to their patients but otherwise it seems. coming for a visit can happen when convenient. Every bed has a tv, although there’s a limited selection unless you’re prepared to pay upfront (I guess they don’t want to send you a bill at the end of your stay just in case you don’t actually leave).

But it is the busyness that strikes me the most. The staff seem very dedicated, but just always busy. The changes over the last few years are really noticeable. What will it be like in a few years more? I don’t know but it doesn’t seem to be sustainable at that rate of growth. I can see the system collapsing if there is more strain placed upon it.

I fully support the NHS as free at the point of use, but it does need more support to be able to tackle the challenges ahead. Whatever political party I don’t hear a coherent plan at present as to what the policy should be, and I wonder if they actually get it. Perhaps they actually need to visit without the fanfare of a media circus with them so that can actually see what it’s like?

Thanks for reading.

Paper Round

28

37

42

Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Times.

A couple of days after I saw a Wimpy burger shop I was walking the dog and realised that I was on part of my old paper round route. The house numbers above and the titles of the papers that they took each morning seem to be indelibly etched into my memory.

Each morning I would get up and with two other paper boys we delivered papers across our village. Delivering papers and coming home again with fingers black from the ink of the newsprint.

74

19

5

The Daily Telegraph and Financial Times, The Daily Express, The Sun.

I can remember the first part of the route pretty well, not all of the papers or all of the house numbers but the first few houses and papers are as vivid now as they were 40 years ago. The memories are as fresh today as they were back then. There’s a bit of a chill that runs down my back when this happens.

I also have all sorts of memories about different things that happened on different days. For example the dog at 60a who liked to come and greet me and take the paper from me and deliver it to his master. I’d say about half the time he used to greet me, whilst he’d save me the trip all the way to the letterbox, he always cost me some time because we had to say hello properly. He was a lovely dog.

By and large I never had problems with dogs, most were pretty amiable. There was a Jack Russell who tried to take a chunk out of my ankle once but got no further than hanging off of the back of my boot.

I walked a good part of the original route but didn’t intend to walk the whole thing as it used to be a lot of dead ends and u-turns. I planned on taking a diversion and heading over the downs and back home via the forest.

When we set out rain wasn’t forecast but as I’ve learnt since we’ve moved house the weather forecasts for this area are totally unreliable, and as we walked up on to the downs I could feel the first drops of rain. We weren’t dressed for the rain.

I hoped that we might get away with a short shower, and indeed we did but it was a heavy one.

There wasn’t much point in turning around as we’d have gotten just as wet so we carried on and as we left the downs and headed into the woods the rain eased and we were able to begin to dry out a little bit.

Wimp Out

I’ve done a couple of things in the last week or so that have led me to some quite powerful memories. I wish I could explain adequately just how simple the sight of something or being in a certain place can trigger a memory, but I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. Anyway I thought that I’d relate two of them for you. One this week and the second next week.

Last week I was giving another evening talk. As I was driving to the venue I had to pass through the town centre nearest to the church hall where I was due to speak. Stopping at a pedestrian crossing I looked over at the shops in the town centre and saw something that I don’t think I’ve seen since I was a kid. It instantly transported me back to being about 9 or 10 years old. A Wimpy burger shop.

Back when I was that age Wimpy stores were much more common than they are today. The likes of McDonalds and Burger King were far less prevalent, often only found in big cities like London, and if you wanted “junk food” Wimpy or KFC or the local chippie was where you went.

The memory that popped into my head was being taken to a Wimpy with my then best friend by my parents for a birthday treat. I was quite surprised by how powerful a memory it was, even though I don’t remember much detail about it. I remember where it was, (the Wimpy store there is long gone), and that it was a birthday treat and who was there, but other than that I don’t remember much else. Just the sight of that storefront and the red furniture, was enough to bring it back instantly.

It was one of those birthday treats that were the thing back at that age. Something special that you did on your birthday that you didn’t do at any other time of the year. Looking back I don’t think as a family we had much spare cash to eat out regularly, very occasional fish and chips but certainly not pubs and restaurants, so going to a Wimpy would have been a treat. At that time the country’s economy was pretty as much in the toilet as it is today, so there are some comparisons. If we went anywhere for a “day out” it would have been somewhere where we would have taken our own picnic and a flask of hot water with a little bottle of milk to make our own tea and a bottle of already diluted squash. I don’t feel at all like I missed out or we were hard done by. We made our own entertainment a lot of the time and I’d say had just as much fun.

If I’d had more time when I saw this Wimpy store, I might have stopped and gone in, but I guess that’ll have to be something for another time maybe.

Thanks for reading.

By the time I’d finished with full time education at around 21, I knew that I never wanted to go back and study like that again. I’d had enough. I’ve revisited that decision a few times when I thought that I might want to go back, and get another qualification but for many different reasons at different times ranging from unsupportive employers to personal situation I decided never to do so.

Looking back now I was lucky when I chose to do my degree because tuition fees weren’t a thing, and I doubt now whether I’d be prepared to take on the debt needed to gain that qualification, I think my education and career path would look very different.

Having said that I have embraced a number of short course thrown my way over the years by various employers mostly because the law suggests they have to: manual handling, first aid etc. and others that helped me to do whatever job I was supposed to be doing at the time.

When I went self-employed I also did a few courses, one on accountancy and tax for example but I’ve mostly learnt from reading as widely as possible and being curious about lots of different things that are both directly or indirectly related to what I do.

This last week however I learnt how to do something that I never thought I would. I’ve learnt how to give antibiotics intravenously. It wasn’t exactly a long course and it means that for the person on the receiving end of my ministrations doesn’t have to go into hospital everyday and can have their medication at home.

For me it meant attending two sessions and reading the instructions. The first was a demonstration where I sat on the sidelines and watched; the second was where I got to do it for real.

I won’t bore you with the detail but essentially (as you’d probably expect) hygiene is of upmost importance and it is fairly step-based in terms of doing the right things in the right order.

I don’t get a certificate for this and I would think I’ll probably forget everything I’ve learnt as soon as the last dose of drugs is given because it feels like one of those things where you need to repeat the steps regularly for them to stick. I doubt my two week stint will be long enough for my aged brain to remember everything in say six months time.

So this week I learnt something new, something a bit different, and something that is of use to another person.

Thanks for reading.

This is a roundup of a couple of things from the last week or so.

We’ve had a trail camera set in our garden since we moved in. It’s a good way to find out what’s “in” our garden when we’re not around. We’ve had the usual mix of neighbourhood cats, pigeons, nice and then last week a fox. It’s been back a few times since, it seems we’re on it’s usual “rounds”. It doesn’t seem to spend much time in our garden more as if it’s just passing through.

We don’t plan on actively feeding it and it hasn’t so far at least, helped itself to anything in the garden. It’s possible that it has an earth nearby, there’s plenty of space where it could den undisturbed, whether or not we might see cubs at a later date it’s hard to say.

Our camera isn’t one that we can watch live, I have to swap out a memory card whenever I want to view the footage, which I do on a fairly ad-hoc basis, although I’ve realised that Ruby our dog is a pretty good detective in terms of being able to tell me whether or not we’ve had a visitor.

Hopefully we might get some more footage in due course.

Lots of butterflies about at the moment. The original “butter-coloured fly” the Brimstone and this gorgeous Speckled Wood are regular sightings along with Peacocks.

Thanks for reading.

The Return of a Lost Icon?

A little over two months ago I wrote about the changes in local bird populations and whether I would ever hear a Cuckoo again given their generally declining populations (numbers have dropped over 65% since the 1980’s) and the fact that I haven’t heard one for many years.

Just over a week ago I was walking with Ruby through the Yew escarpment which is a quiet and tranquil space that is mostly Yew and Beech trees. As I often do in the mornings I was listening to a podcast on a single earbud when I thought that I heard something in the birdsong that I hadn’t heard for many a year.

I scrambled to disconnect my earbud and open up the audio recording app on my phone. Here’s what I captured:

The Festival of Michaelmas

Before we get started here, I’d like to welcome new subscribers of which there have been a few recently, some as a result of the Substack Platform introducing the new “notes” service.

Welcome to you all, this newsletter started out as a reminiscent of 50 things when I turned 50 years of age and I just didn’t stop, now it’s all sorts of different things.

If you are a new subscriber and this isn’t quite what you thought it was going to be, you can always unsubscribe via the link at the bottom of this email. I hope you don’t but no hard feelings if you do.

For the time being the paid and free tiers are exactly the same, I’m planning to introduce something more for the paid tier in due course but for the moment paying contributors are supporting me make this newsletter each week for everyone.

The last couple of weeks I’ve given a few talks on growing vegetables and turning them into good food. These “Plot to Plate” talks also include a look at some of the more obscure festivals that celebrate growing and eating and I thought I’d recount one of those stories as part of this week’s newsletter.

Let’s talk about Goose Day or as it’s more correctly known Michaelmas

Michaelmas, or the Feast of Michael and All Angels, is celebrated on the 29th of September every year. It falls near the equinox, and is one of the “quarter days” in the year the others being Lady Day on 25th March, Midsummer 24th June, and Christmas Day.

Traditionally these are the days when servants were hired, rents due or leases begun. It was said that Michaelmas marked the end of the productive season of gardening / farming and the beginning of a new cycle of growing.

Traditionally, in the British Isles, a well fattened goose, fed on the stubble from the fields after the harvest, is eaten to protect against financial need in the family for the next year; and as the saying goes:

“Eat a goose on Michaelmas Day,
Want not for money all the year”.

Consequently Michaelmas also became known as “Goose Day” and goose fairs were held. It is told that the reason goose is eaten is because this is what Queen Elizabeth I was eating when she heard of the defeat of the Spanish Armada and she resolved to eat it on Michaelmas Day each year thereafter. Perhaps more believable is because that a goose was offered in lieu of payment of rents or debts and a way of gaining a delay in payment if you couldn’t afford your bills or dues.

Interestingly when I had an allotment our site fees were always due around this time, but I never tried to bribe the site manager with a goose! In modern financial terms a Goose is probably more expensive than my allotment fees ever were!

It’s also said that Michaelmas is the last time of the year when wild blackberries should be picked and eaten. Old English Folklore says that when Lucifer was expelled from Heaven, he fell from the skies, straight onto a blackberry bush. He then cursed the fruit, scorched them with his fiery breath, spat and stamped on them and made them unfit for consumption!

More recently Michaelmas has become less celebrated. This could be because when Henry VIII split from the Catholic Church and the more commonly celebrated Harvest Festival took its place, but there are many other stories of what you should do on Michaelmas which you might also want to check out.

Thanks for reading.