pumpkinstrokemarrow

Spider still turning in appearances on the window cill germination box. And have tried new food in the Tequila bottle, which had failed to get beyond the grey mould stage. New food being some rather elderly sunflower seeds which have been sitting on the desk (vintage Vauxhall overground station) behind the window for some time. Quite a few of them have now germinated and the tallest is getting on for two inches high. Need to think about whether it will be a good plan to let them out of the top of the bottle. Got a few days before it goes critical.

Hampton Court in good fettle yesterday. Daffodils a little past their peak now but still looking rather good. Plenty of hyacinths in full flower and plenty of tulips not far behind. The large formal garden in good form; a tasteful composition now involving a fair bit of blue and white in addition to the winter greens. The two sunken gardens in top form; almost breathtaking when you first glimpse the first. Second not quite so flashy but still a very fine garden. And not all of us relate to flashy anyway. The mystery grey green leaved plants from our last visit (29 March) now look to be phloxes. Definitely not crown imperials. One point to me. BH & FIL were in the crown imperial camp. The plants which really were crown imperials looking very well.

Home to bread and cheese: cheese from Mr S. and bread from Cheam. The cheese was, I think, described as taste the difference and looked like rather pale cheddar. It was called applegate or some such. And just to make sure you could taste the stuff, it had been dusted with paprika pepper and impregnated with smoke flavour, this last guaranteed to be neither organic nor natural and so not to contain any of the carcinogens associated with organic smoke.

I close with more vocabulary. I woke up the other day wondering where a sledge hammer came from and what its connection with sledges was. A special sort of hammer for knocking the wedges out of a deconstructible sledge? No. OED tells me that there are two quite different sledge words in English, both derived from the Baltic, one meaning a heavy hammer, the sort of thing a blacksmith might use and the other meaning a sledge. I suppose we have come to append the originally superfluous hammer to sledge as the things became less and less common. Less common than the snowy sort in most peoples' experience. How many youngsters have ever swung one? Not that I can talk. I find now that about 10 swings of a 14lb hammer and I have to pause for breath. Odd that such a constrained activity takes so much out of one.