The Lady of the Rescues insisted I’d get wet today. She was wrong. While it’s true that I was walking through some almost serious spitting, it wasn’t enough to get me even close to damp.
And the rest of the day I remained dry. In fact, on the way home from Waitrose, I even managed to have a sit on a bench and read a bit of 10% Human by Alanna Collen, a book which has me constantly engrossed.
Having reluctantly dragged myself away from Alanna and her microbial treatise, I returned to walking home but was brought up short by a very small bit of fence.
A few years ago I started taking photos of the extension being built on Deers Leap House. There was a very handy opening between the trees which afforded an excellent view of the work. It was the edge of a sheer drop which explains why it’s called Deers Leap but, unless you kept walking, it was never particularly dangerous.
Clearly, however, someone has deemed it too dangerous and there is now this small fence panel closing the gap and rendering it safe. I’m not saying that to make any kind of political statement about people being risk averse, but merely to point out the small changes that happen around us without our being aware.
Actually, at a glance it looks like a garden gate. If it was a garden gate, stepping through it might just be the last gate you ever step through.
Moving on…The gardeners came today.
Gardener Dave and I spent a bit of time admiring Neighbour Dave’s courgettes over the fence. I told Gardener Dave that I’d been given a particularly delicious one in the week. Gardener Dave was jealous to the point of claiming I was a lucky bastard.
Then, just as Gardener Dave and Andy were leaving, Neighbour Dave gave me two more courgettes to try. Gardener Dave was dead jealous.
We ate the one on the bottom of the photo tonight with roast sea bass. It was a different variety to the one the other day but equally as tasty. Talk about being spoiled by our neighbours.
But, moving on to the title of this post. Tonight I attended my third Western Front Association webinar. This week’s lecture was a comparison of officer training and selection for both world wars and was given by Prof Gary Sheffield.
The talk was excellent with a lot of stuff about class and coming up through the ranks and how the lower classes didn’t like serving under someone they didn’t consider one of their ‘betters’ which just shows how ingrained the aristocracy was. And still is in many places. Brexit for instance.
He told a lovely anecdote about meeting with Julian Fellowes. He told Julian that he thought the representation of the different classes and attitudes between them was excellent in Downton Abbey. Julian turned to Gary and said he was the only historian to say anything positive about Downton Abbey.
While I wasn’t particularly interested in the Second World War stuff, the talk was very good. The only thing that spoiled it was Gary’s squeaky chair. And it looked like he was in a cupboard though that was just amusing. In a Harry Potter kind of way.
