Sunday, August 05, 2007
Refurbs
Have now paid one and one half visits to the refurbished Halfway House at Earlsfield which used to be a convenient place at which to wait for trains. On a good day one had picked something up at the secondhand bookshop next door and had something to browse over one's quiet pint. So what was a perfectly decent Young's pub has now been tricked out with sofas and candles and seems to have very quickly acquired a large young trade. Perhaps also attracted by the throughtful reconstruction of the outside to provide a venue for puffers. Net result for me though is that the place is too crowded to be comfortable or to get served. Also rather noisy. So did not even bother to consumate my second visit, preferring to sit and wait on the platform instead.
The puffers bit of which reminds me of a wheelchair bound visitor to TB who smokes. In his case, having a fag is one of the few activities where he is not at a disadvantage to the rest of us: but will he continue to muster the energy to visit when he has to roll himself in and out of the bar when he needs his nictotine fix? I forget whether the exemption for residential homes for the handicapped survived the good intentions of the New Labour nannies.
The barman at the Duke of Devonshire in Balham High Road, another but much larger Young's establishment, told me that they are about to have £500,000 thrown at them to do a presumably similar job there. Another boozer bites the dust. In fairness, I suppose one should say that the place is probably far too large - like many pubs of its generation - for the custom it is now getting. They could make a lot more money than they do out of drink by knocking the thing down and putting up a block of flats. So given that the heritage folk won't let them do that, maybe we just have to put up with them making the place over for youth.
Mowed two thirds of the grass in the deer exclosure now. Second cut of the year and the grass is very tufty. Seems to want to grow in single plant clumps rather than in lawn mode. I suppose clump mode is more natural and ought therefore be encouraged. Another factor might be that I let the ground go to grass after having dug it over very roughly one Autumn without ever digging it over to a reasonably flat surface the following Spring. So the ground still retains all the humps and bumps of that first digging. Ants seem to like it.
The Morello cherry tree, which looked very sick for its first two years of life, is now starting to look a bit better - if still very small for a two year old. Maybe I will get some cherries off the thing one day. But to make up numbers, the James Grieve apple has started to look very sick. It acquired some sort of stem infection when it lost its main stem to the frost the year it was planted and has never really shook it off. Plus the two large rosy apples I took off it the other day turned out to be seriouly unripe despite their colour. James Grieve are supposed to be a bit sharp but not that sharp.
But the sickle I use for the mowing is good, if heavy on the wrist. Made by some people called Fussell with an elm handle enclosing a single peice of steel, tapered (in thickness) both from end to end and from side to side - the result being a well balanced tool which holds its edge. Unlike a lot of modern garden tools - or hand tools generally for that matter - which are made out of much cheaper steel and don't taper in any direction. Don't have no edge to speak of at all.
The puffers bit of which reminds me of a wheelchair bound visitor to TB who smokes. In his case, having a fag is one of the few activities where he is not at a disadvantage to the rest of us: but will he continue to muster the energy to visit when he has to roll himself in and out of the bar when he needs his nictotine fix? I forget whether the exemption for residential homes for the handicapped survived the good intentions of the New Labour nannies.
The barman at the Duke of Devonshire in Balham High Road, another but much larger Young's establishment, told me that they are about to have £500,000 thrown at them to do a presumably similar job there. Another boozer bites the dust. In fairness, I suppose one should say that the place is probably far too large - like many pubs of its generation - for the custom it is now getting. They could make a lot more money than they do out of drink by knocking the thing down and putting up a block of flats. So given that the heritage folk won't let them do that, maybe we just have to put up with them making the place over for youth.
Mowed two thirds of the grass in the deer exclosure now. Second cut of the year and the grass is very tufty. Seems to want to grow in single plant clumps rather than in lawn mode. I suppose clump mode is more natural and ought therefore be encouraged. Another factor might be that I let the ground go to grass after having dug it over very roughly one Autumn without ever digging it over to a reasonably flat surface the following Spring. So the ground still retains all the humps and bumps of that first digging. Ants seem to like it.
The Morello cherry tree, which looked very sick for its first two years of life, is now starting to look a bit better - if still very small for a two year old. Maybe I will get some cherries off the thing one day. But to make up numbers, the James Grieve apple has started to look very sick. It acquired some sort of stem infection when it lost its main stem to the frost the year it was planted and has never really shook it off. Plus the two large rosy apples I took off it the other day turned out to be seriouly unripe despite their colour. James Grieve are supposed to be a bit sharp but not that sharp.
But the sickle I use for the mowing is good, if heavy on the wrist. Made by some people called Fussell with an elm handle enclosing a single peice of steel, tapered (in thickness) both from end to end and from side to side - the result being a well balanced tool which holds its edge. Unlike a lot of modern garden tools - or hand tools generally for that matter - which are made out of much cheaper steel and don't taper in any direction. Don't have no edge to speak of at all.
# posted by Jim @ 2:34 AM 
