Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Stop blog from Exeter Library
Back out in the country again - the place now dignifying itself as a regional capital (whatever one of those might be), bright and earlyish on Tuesday morning. For the first time in many years I have sampled cycle tracks, which were a bit bumpy on the rock hard miniscule tyres on my No.2 bicycle. One, the one back from the Turf Hotel, was crawling with small airborne flying objects. I even managed to eat a few. On the other hand, also had a ride out in the country, in open fields and what have you, something else I have not done for many years. Very pleasant - and very warm considering we are getting towards mid October.
Yesterday, back to the fancy church without visible means of (financial) support at Tavistock. Took the opportunity to take a closer look at the elaborate stained glass, occupying most of the large windows. Interesting close to, Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite, but not too impressive taken as a whole. The place did not seem, yesterday in the noon light anyway, particularly holy. Some of the stained glass work was strangely intricate. In particular, in one rather geometric panel with a lot of black frame work, with just one saint in the middle, the artist had gone to the bother of cutting out each frame and embedding each one in black lead work. There were lots of them and they were quite small, and I imagine that inserting all these small frames in lead made the whole weaker rather than stronger. And one could not tell without looking fairly carefully, so what was the point? Artistic integrity of the peice or something? Or am I just mistaken (remembering the statistical dictum that an interesting fact is probably a wrong fact) and the thing was not leaded up in this odd way at all?
There was also a lady saint holding an anchor (not a toy, but of usable size), next to a gentleman saint with a very large sword. The gent. might well have been Saint George, but not a clue as to the lady.
Then, the good weather holding, on to Cox Tor. Panoramic views down the Tamar Valley from the (unmarked) car park and super 360 degree views from the trig point at the top. That is to say, the nearest horizon was several miles away and the furthest horizon was a lot of miles away. Must have been good for lots of other people as there are pots of hits on Mr G. Then, on the way down, quite startled to find how easy it is to end up, after a couple of hundred yards, a couple of hundred yards off course. On this occasion I could see where I was going so not a big deal. But clearly could have been in the mist. Having gone to the bother of taking the compass to Florence - and used it a couple of times for urban navigation - I had not gone to the bother of taking it up the hill. Must be more careful in future.
Managed to get back to base without the car overheating again. The radiator sprung a modest leak last week and we ground to a halt a hundred yards short of the Exter tip, so have taken to carrying water and keeping an eye on levels, so far without scalding my hand. Having tried to make sense of the pipework below the reservoir, I have decided that my chances of doing anything about the leak are about zero. So will we take a chance and limp back home to London for professional attention there or will we get a country job done here? I have about 20 hours to make my mind up.
Having bought some shoulder pork in Moretonhampstead, turned it into soup on return. Coarsely dice the pork, add to boiling water. On this occasion using a pressure cooker with a glass plate on top, there not being an ordinary saucepan of appropriate size. Let's hope we do not catch anything unpleasant from using the banned aluminium to cook in. Add some cross sliced celery. Some time later add a few ounces of red lentils; enough to colour and thicken but not to the point where there is any chance of sticking. Some time later add some potato lumps and segmented onion. Towards the end add the smidgeon of thinly sliced crinkly cabbage we had to hand. All went down very well - but oddly did not taste so well in the morning, after a night in the fridge. Either it did not stand, it had absorbed something unpleasant from the fridge, or the soup did not go well with my toothpaste (oranges certainly do not). Not been a problem in the past but then it was the first time I had made this particular soup.
From the same establishment in Moretonhampstead, bought a white pudding. A bit thinner and a lot whiter than the white pudding from Cheam. Report further in due course.
Yesterday, back to the fancy church without visible means of (financial) support at Tavistock. Took the opportunity to take a closer look at the elaborate stained glass, occupying most of the large windows. Interesting close to, Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite, but not too impressive taken as a whole. The place did not seem, yesterday in the noon light anyway, particularly holy. Some of the stained glass work was strangely intricate. In particular, in one rather geometric panel with a lot of black frame work, with just one saint in the middle, the artist had gone to the bother of cutting out each frame and embedding each one in black lead work. There were lots of them and they were quite small, and I imagine that inserting all these small frames in lead made the whole weaker rather than stronger. And one could not tell without looking fairly carefully, so what was the point? Artistic integrity of the peice or something? Or am I just mistaken (remembering the statistical dictum that an interesting fact is probably a wrong fact) and the thing was not leaded up in this odd way at all?
There was also a lady saint holding an anchor (not a toy, but of usable size), next to a gentleman saint with a very large sword. The gent. might well have been Saint George, but not a clue as to the lady.
Then, the good weather holding, on to Cox Tor. Panoramic views down the Tamar Valley from the (unmarked) car park and super 360 degree views from the trig point at the top. That is to say, the nearest horizon was several miles away and the furthest horizon was a lot of miles away. Must have been good for lots of other people as there are pots of hits on Mr G. Then, on the way down, quite startled to find how easy it is to end up, after a couple of hundred yards, a couple of hundred yards off course. On this occasion I could see where I was going so not a big deal. But clearly could have been in the mist. Having gone to the bother of taking the compass to Florence - and used it a couple of times for urban navigation - I had not gone to the bother of taking it up the hill. Must be more careful in future.
Managed to get back to base without the car overheating again. The radiator sprung a modest leak last week and we ground to a halt a hundred yards short of the Exter tip, so have taken to carrying water and keeping an eye on levels, so far without scalding my hand. Having tried to make sense of the pipework below the reservoir, I have decided that my chances of doing anything about the leak are about zero. So will we take a chance and limp back home to London for professional attention there or will we get a country job done here? I have about 20 hours to make my mind up.
Having bought some shoulder pork in Moretonhampstead, turned it into soup on return. Coarsely dice the pork, add to boiling water. On this occasion using a pressure cooker with a glass plate on top, there not being an ordinary saucepan of appropriate size. Let's hope we do not catch anything unpleasant from using the banned aluminium to cook in. Add some cross sliced celery. Some time later add a few ounces of red lentils; enough to colour and thicken but not to the point where there is any chance of sticking. Some time later add some potato lumps and segmented onion. Towards the end add the smidgeon of thinly sliced crinkly cabbage we had to hand. All went down very well - but oddly did not taste so well in the morning, after a night in the fridge. Either it did not stand, it had absorbed something unpleasant from the fridge, or the soup did not go well with my toothpaste (oranges certainly do not). Not been a problem in the past but then it was the first time I had made this particular soup.
From the same establishment in Moretonhampstead, bought a white pudding. A bit thinner and a lot whiter than the white pudding from Cheam. Report further in due course.
# posted by Jim @ 2:59 AM 
