Strolled to the big house, to find that the snowdrops were just out in Herald Copse, not full-on out but certainly showing some white. Perhaps a month earlier than usual, certainly a month earlier than last year. See reference 1.
On round the stand of large pines and cedars on the other side of the house, which was looking well but the daffodils there, while showing, were not even in bud, never mind flower.
Quick visit to the café, to find that only one of the three Polish girls usually on duty had made it in, with a queue to match, so we decided to pass on elevenses, despite the attractive display of cake.
Back through the small dog-free field to the car park, where we came across a great squawking in the left hand hedge, a squawking which we at first put down to magpies, pigeons and parakeets jostling for position. Then we spotted a lady whom we thought was holding a microphone to it all but who turned out to be holding out a tasty morsel to lure her Harris hawk back down from the top of the hedge. Duly lured, we went over to inspect the (handsome) bird and have a chat with the owner, who was happy to share various bits and bobs of Harris lore with us, including, for example, the fact that Harris hawks hunted in family groups, with the males, of which this hawk was one, doing the beating and the rather bigger females doing the killing. And in their native California, they were often chased off their kills by jackals, which perhaps explained their tendency to be spooked by dogs.
Later in the day to Tooting, to see how things fared there. Wetherspoons was quiet for a Friday, which made conversation a bit more civilised, but busy enough, not what you would call quiet anywhere else. Library in good form, so I carried off three finds, one more or less new, possibly a donation from a grateful toper, rather than bought by the box from a dealer, presumably for next to nothing. Maybe the next box will include Volume I of the Dewey classification - the alphabetical index of Volume II already present not being that interesting by itself. New Year's resolution: to try to deposit more books than I remove.
I learned that Wetherspoons sold more fish and chips on a Friday than anyone else. And while I was not altogether clear what that might mean, from a statistical point of view, the fish that I saw looked pretty good, as good as that from the average chipper. Let down by their chips though.
There was an interesting discussion of the mechanics of theatrical black listing, a discussion prompted by the observation that Lawrence Olivier was apt, rather spitefully, to break any fellow luvvie who dared to cross him, that is to say break professionally speaking. My conclusion was that he probably could do such a thing so long as he was a big draw, so long as he could pull the punters. Once his power to pull faded, his power to break would not be long following.
There was a talkative drunk at the bus stop, pestering a sub-continental family. The family, which included two energetic small children charging about and one older female, scarfed up and not running about, were not impressed, but put up with it. Once on the bus, he battened onto someone else on the bus and eventually, most unusually for me, I invited him to shut up, to some grateful glances. The drunk seemed rather puzzled and hurt that not everyone found him fascinating.
I thought I spotted a aeroplane rising on the eastern horizon at Earsfield, rising and then abruptly vanishing. A puzzle which I only solved as I type now - the aeroplane must have actually been a large firework. Must have taken on too much wine to work this out at the time. But at least, on this occasion anyway, I was not talkative - although I have to confess, that does happen sometimes.
Well not very talkative. On the train, there was a group of young people sitting across the aisle from me, jabbering away in foreign. Now usually I can work out what sort of foreign it is, at least until the enlargement of the EU into far eastern Europe, even though I would have no idea what the foreigners were talking about - but on this occasion I could not, so I asked, to be told that they were speaking Spanish. Or rather, when I complained about the oddity of their Spanish, they they were speaking Andulasian. With the clip snipped from wikipedia above giving me at least some cover for my puzzlement.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/herald-copse.html.
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