Friday, February 25, 2011
Chain saw gangs
The Epsom chapter has been on a fraternal visit to Vauxhall, where it seems their colleagues are about to waste a couple of mature mulberry trees near what used to be the Vauxhall pleasure gardens and is now a council estate. It seems that the juice from the squashed berries clashes with the latest municipal garden design directives sent down from Lambeth Town Hall, directives which mandate the use of granite sets for paving, sets which are badly stained by aforesaid mulberry juice. The idea that garden design directives might possibly fit in with or around mature trees in pre-existing gardens has not yet reached the Town Hall. The DT devoted a third of a page to the whole sorry business. It seems that some residents of Vauxhall really are disgusted; perhaps to the point of hugging the trees in question in order to keep the chain saw gang off.
Nearer home was interested yesterday morning by an example of memory loss. In one of my forgotten but self-important dreams, I must have been assigned to one of the Gateway teams which inspect government computer projects. A process known as peer review. So I woke up pondering about exactly these inspections were conducted. As I pondered I became a bit alarmed that I had so much trouble recalling the detail of a process which I must have led around 20 times over the last ten years. It is just now starting to come back to me, 24 hours later. Presumably in a couple of years or so, all I will remember is the name and the fact that I used to know about them.
Which reminds me of two snippets from people rather older than I. One, when we were turning over the pages of a a photograph album, remarked that such and such a couple used to be really good friends. But she couldn't even remember their names. The other, à propos of something or other, remarked that her husband, at that time dead for perhaps 20 twenty years, was no more than someone she used to know. Little more left than that, apart from her two children. These are memories which one might want to keep. When getting rid of books, it is rather different and my trick is to get rid of the memories first, by putting the books in a box in a roof. Once the memories have gone, one can dump the box without pain.
Feeling poetic, the image is of being a luxuriant island in a river. Covered with all sorts of exotic nature. Over time, the stream carries bits off. Some of which get snagged up nearby, for a bit. One can still see them. But then they get swept away and are lost. Perhaps just leaving an empty tinny speared on a twig overhead as a memento. Over time, the island gets smaller and smaller - until one day, the waters gently swirl in over the by-now barren lot. As it says in the good book, in a slightly different context, "as the waters cover the sea".
Perhaps an early visit to TB is indicated.
# posted by Jim @ 12:57 AM 
