Raq

Jackie is now providing morning coffee for Brown Brothers Builders, who are painting the downpipes.  I am not sure whether or not Gladys is doing the one o’clock tea (see post of 4th June).  I will soon expect a queue of tradespeople offering their services.

The atmosphere was dull, warm, and humid as I walked the Football Green/Bull Lane loop. Settling down for storm Cattle and ponies on the Green were settling down for the promised storm.

Raq and RuinI had originally planned a different route but was diverted by two collies racing in pursuit of I didn’t know what.  As I neared them I noticed John Edward Bartlett, otherwise known as Jeb, throwing something. Jeb and Rack and RuinOn closer inspection it proved to be a slingshot used to launch a rubber ball.  The dogs clearly enjoyed the game.  When the ball landed inside the roped off area, the smaller animal waited for permission to retrieve it, nipped through the gate, and gathered it up.  I am thinking of submitting my photograph for a Spot the Ball competition.

G. Bramwell Evens, Romany of the BBC, broadcast nature programmes in the 1930s and ’40s.  He also wrote numerous books.  His dog was a spaniel whose name caught the attention of my first brother-in-law, Bernard Murray who, in the 1960s, as a young teenager, named his pet after Romany’s companion.

Jeb described himself as head gardener of Malwood Lodge.  He was happy for me to photograph his activity and offered the names of his collies, ‘for [my] records’.  He had acquired the smaller dog first, and had always wanted to name a dog after Romany’s. He hadn’t told me the story of the name when I demonstrated that I knew how to spell it. He stopped me relating it, so he could do so himself.  The name was Raq.  Obviously being a man after my own heart he could not resist calling the second one Ruin.

Soay sheep with black lambs

When I was introduced to Soay sheep on 29th May, I had been told their lambs were black.  This was very clear today.

A shopping trip to Ringwood was followed by a diversion to Bransgore to have another look at the outside of 93 Burley Road (see 14th June post).  It’s still there.  Back at our flat we sat outside for a drink before our meal.  The temperature today has been 23c and we did not receive the expected rain.  Jackie’s hanging baskets are now full of colour.  Unfortunately they are all clustered on the lawn outside the back door because of Brown Brothers’ work on the house.  We also pondered about the little brown circular patches in the grass.  Probably nothing to do with the builders.  My guess is that they represent the toilet facilities for a small bitch who is brought out at 6 a.m. each morning to be emptied.  They are rather like those Paddy left on occasion on the Lindum House lawn.

Jackie made a delicious chili con carne (recipe) for our dinner.  I enjoyed it with Maipo reserva merlot 2012, while she drank Hoegaarden.

Sorting The Sheep From The Goats

On 24th May last year, I mentioned Worldwide on-line Scrabble. It was just before then that Becky had introduced me to this phenomenon. There is a very companionable network of people of all ages and nationalities who enjoy this game. It is possible to have numerous contests in progress at any one time because those on the other side of the world from each other do not all play at once.

Through this medium I have enjoyed more than 3,000 games and corresponded with many new friends.

Alfred Mosher Butts, during the Great Depression was a jobless American architect who invented and developed the game as entertainment for his own family. ScrabbleLike my friend Mike Kindred, the games inventor, he made the prototypes himself.  This pastime first saw life commercially in 1938, and by the time of his death in 1993, was popular the world over. I wonder whether he ever imagined how it has developed with the assistance of the World Wide Web.  A real board, tiles, racks, pencil, paper, and even dictionaries, can now be dispensed with, as we sit pressing keys.

The on-line facility is administered by Facebook, and has, until an arbitrary date last Sunday, been a free service without advertisements.  On that day the plug was pulled on all our existing games, 53 in my case;  the statistics of our performance were wiped out; and most importantly of all, we were no longer able to play with some people with whom we had formed long-distance corresponding relationships.  Overnight we were presented with a newly designed board with strange-looking icons, and a set of statistics, for all except three players, starting from the new date.

Some people may not be bothered about stats, but the more competitive of us enjoy trying to improve, or just hold onto our positions.  I personally don’t mind starting this from scratch, but do want it to make sense.  After only four completed games, Becky’s highest word score is 88; her highest game score is given as 85.  For those who don’t know the game, a word is part of a game.  Becky’s are not the only set that don’t compute.

There is a facility for starting a new game with a friend.  I merrily put in the names of some friends I had been playing with for months.  They were not known.  On the other hand, a row of Facebook friends, many of whom do not play Scrabble, was presented to me as containing potential opponents.

So, Barbara, if you read this, please understand I will not rest until I have found you again.

For many years Chambers Dictionary has been the standard one for use with Scrabble.  Not since last Sunday.  The only rather good improvement I have found is that it is now possible to play in a number of different languages.  Once you have realised that the standard one in use is American.  Most of us, of course, didn’t think to check that.  Our first games therefore rejected many familiar words until we sussed it.  And of course, it is not possible to select a different reference source during the course of a game.  Even the British English dictionary has changed.  The chosen one is now Collins.

There are a number of spritely young things like Barb and Christian around on the circuit, but most of those, like me, who have enough time to spend playing Scrabble, are a little resistant to change.  It’s not that we are stuck in the mud, as I am sometimes when I venture into the New Forest, but just that our memory sticks are a bit full.

Now why has this happened?  The cynic in me puts it down to commercialisation and the profit to be made from advertising.  Yes, the games are now interrupted by advertisements.  Ah, but you don’t have to have them.  You can pay for your games to be ad-free.  Either way, a profit is made.  Q.E.D. (For those who didn’t have the benefit of a Jesuit grammar school education, these three letters at the bottom of the proof of a theorem, stand for ‘quod erat demonstrandum’, or ‘so it has been proved’).

Having spent far too much time trying to get my head around this novelty, I walked the Football Green/Bull Lane loop. Soay sheep in field of buttercups The tinkling of bells in a field just after I entered the lane, heralded the presence of what I thought were rather small goats, the kids almost obscured by buttercups. Soay lamb I watched, fascinated, as these horned creatures enjoyed the pasture.  Pondering about the collective noun for goats, I thought it must be a herd, but on the other hand, perhaps it was a flock.  This uncertainty helped me with identification, for, further up the hill, a woman was sweeping her gravel driveway.  I asked her.  She confirmed it was a herd.  ‘Have you seen some?’, she asked, sounding intrigued.  ‘Yes, in that field’, I replied.  ‘They are not goats, they are sheep, Soay sheep.  They are prehistoric’, was her clarification. I thanked her.  Well, they did all have horns.

Jackie produced a tasty liver and bacon casserole dinner followed by dutch apple pie for our evening meal.  I finished the Carta Roja with it.