1. While I am impatiently grating a carrot I catch Bettany bobbing up and down in time to my aggressive strokes.
2. On what might be the last warm day of the year, to pack a flask of tea, two mugs, some biscuits and an emergency banana for an afternoon walk on the common. We find a pile of hay which Alec 'bayonets' and then rebuilds several times, helped by Bettany trotting up and down with wispy handfuls. We find what might be a troll hiding in the bushes and the bones of what Alec says is a Meat Eater.
3. I loathe people who mindlessly destroy mushrooms -- but I do love to see Alec stamping on puffballs to make a smoky cloud of spores. I have taught him test them first: only leathery ones that yield to a gentle poke can puff. I hope it will encourage his interest in natural history to branch out from dinosaurs and yetis.
Path, stars and wisteria.
1. The Common has dried out a lot since I was last out. There is a dusty path beaten smooth across the spot that is still rutted and ridged ...
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1. The shortest night and the longest day. I was up at Wellington Rocks with Anna, Paul and Jason. We couldn't see the sun through the m...
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1. Oli has written a poem describing how Tunbridge Wells makes him veer between wanting to fall in love and wanting to shoot people. Which i...
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1. The cottage across the carpark is covered in scaffolding. Now that the roofers have gone home, the family has climbed up to see the view ...