bookmarks

Cruck Frames

Jackie spent most of the morning watering the garden. I managed a token dead heading session which nevertheless filled two trugs. Nugget even followed me around. It helps if you use his name.

Regular readers will know of my penchant for leaving bookmarks or other tokens in my books, for posterity’s pondering.

Occasionally previous owners of my second hand copies have had the same idea. The volume I finished reading this afternoon contained two examples.

One is an engraving or possibly a linocut clearly cut from another book. I wonder whether I will ever see the original?

The other is a transparent bookmark. Who left it? Perhaps a rep for CIBA; perhaps a sufferer of chronic bronchitis. Could it have been Kellettt (or perhaps Kenneth) Carding whose name appears inscribed upside down on the bottom left-hand corner of the endpaper? If so would that explain the equally sized clip taken from the top right hand corner of the flyleaf; perhaps the name of an earlier owner?

If the first is an engraving, although charming, it lacks the finesse of the work of Robert Gibbings, whose ‘Sweet Thames run Softly’ is the book concerned.

This is the first of the author’s meanderings along an eponymous river. Originally published in 1940, my copy is the third imprint – darted 1941.

Gibbings blends elegant descriptive prose into simple philosophy, amusing anecdote, sensitive observation, and informative history; profusely illustrated with fine wood engravings.

Here I present

sample pages

displaying both the author’s engaging writing and his exquisite illustrations.

With a work of Robert Gibbings, my delight is often enhanced by his material having been covered by me, either in prose or photography;

an example of a cruck built house as described above, is more fully featured in my post “Afternoon Tea”.

This final sentence would surely not be out of place in any publication today.

Later, I retouched this image of my Grandpa Hunter, Mum, and Uncles Ben and Roy taken at Conwy c1926. The sandcastle being built may have heralded Ben’s later employment as Clerk of Works.

This evening Jackie produced a meal of roast chicken marinaded in Nando’s spicy Chilli and Mango sauce on a bed of succulent peppers and mushrooms; crunchy carrots; and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Domaine Franc Maine Bergerac 2016 – one of Lidl’s finest.

Bookmarks To Treasure

I had a shower this morning.

Only those who have for any length of time been confined to strip washes and a head over the kitchen sink can fully appreciate the joy expressed in that statement.

At the southern end of the garden stretches the Back Drive which, as far as I am concerned might have been Antarctica for the last few weeks. I have usually opened the gate at the bottom for Aaron on a Sunday morning so he can bring his van in without having to jump out to open it. This morning he was able to drive straight in.

I have to admit to having dozed off on the odd occasion during the second half of England’s World Cup Wrestling match against Panama this afternoon.

It is not my birthday for a fortnight, yet yesterday I received what looked like a card from our good friend Pauline https://thecontentedcrafter.com Well, at this time there has also been Father’s Day and the need for Get Well cards. I received a get well card from Jessica and Imogen and a Father’s Day card from Louisa, both before Dad’s Day. I opened them both. One a little early. I considered Pauline’s, all the way from New Zealand, must be wishing me well, so I opened it this morning to find that it was

both for my birthday and for getting better. A beautifully crafted handmade card came with three wonderful bookmarks. Now I have a dilemma. I normally leave bookmarks in books as a surprise for the next reader. How can I possibly do that with these?

I didn’t go to sleep while watching the highlights of the fifth One Day (cricket) International between England and Australia.

After this we dined on a rack of pork spare ribs in barbecue sauce, served on Jackie’s superb vegetable rice.

This morning I finished reading ‘The Remorseful Day’ by Colin Dexter. This is the final novel in his series about the cerebral Chief Inspector Morse. A pleasant and intelligent detective story which ends appropriately, if far less dramatically than the acclaimed television series. I found it impossible to read without visualising, and indeed, hearing, John Thaw in the eponymous role; Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis; and James Grout as Chief Superintendent Strange. A superb piece of casting if ever there was one. Indeed, I am told that the author himself began to write with John Thaw in mind.

For a number of years now I have been playing a little game with future readers of my collection of books. I leave a bookmark inside. This can be a train ticket; a boarding pass; the visiting cards of restaurants, hairdressers, or any other profession; even a shopping list. That will give them something to think about, I imagine. A couple of times I have been hoisted by my own petard. This is only one of the beauties of second-hand books. One paperback I had had for some thirty years before actually reading it contained not one, but two bus tickets. One was the old stiff card type of ticket issued on country buses, from a route in Surrey; the other the kind which came off a roll dispensed by the conductor on London transport. He (always a he in those days) would wind a handle to produce the printed ticket. The blanks were like minature toilet rolls. These were given out on the trolleybuses mentioned in my post of 17th. May. If you were lucky a generous conductor might give you a whole roll to take home to play with. The ticket in my book was for the 52 bus which ran very close to Sutherland Place in W2 where I was living at the time and finally reading the book. Frances once knew a librarian who found the weirdest objects in returned books, perhaps none so mind-boggling as the rasher of bacon.

My copy of E. Annie Proux’s ‘The Shipping News’ contains a postcard written in German sent to a woman in London soon after the novel was published. As I know no German any confidentially is preserved until the book is picked up by a German reader. ‘The Remorseful Day’, however, contains something potentially more intriguing. This second-hand hardback purchased in the charity bookshop in the grounds of Morden Hall Park (all hardbacks £1, paperbacks 50p) has no need of a bookmark because it has a ribbon attached to the binding. What it does have, however, inscribed in ballpoint pen, is an outer London telephone number on the penultimate page. So far, I have resisted calling the number. Will the next reader be able to refrain?

Soon after mid-day rain set in for keeps and I gave up composting the final prepared beds. We all decided to troop off to the antiques centre at Wickham, only to find it closed. Every visitor to the village had had the same idea, namely to take shelter in one of the two tea rooms which were open. We were unable to get into Lilly’s but managed to squeeze into The Bay Tree Walk tea rooms where various beverages were enjoyed until we returned to The Firs and Jackie and I continued planting in the rain. Trooping around Wickham I had used a folding umbrella. It takes me so long to work out how to open and close these things that there is hardly any point. I did of course leave it in the tea rooms and then again in Chris’s car. By this method I never normally manage to keep an umbrella for more than one trip, unless, of course, I am as well chaperoned as I was today.

In the evening, when everyone else had departed, Elizabeth, Jackie, and I ate out at Eastern Nights in Thornhill. Just up the road, this Bangladeshi restaurant was very good. We have tried many in the area and this was one of the best.