Physio

A close-up of a stone ball, bought some years ago from a small tower built into the wall of the esplanade just south of Ryde Pier: I did once know what sort of stone it was but will need to refresh my memory. But the present point is that the Lumia, despite the use of the half click to focus feature is struggling a bit. I think there is something more complicated that I could do, so I clearly need to read the close up section of the manual - or at least when there is a slot in my busy diary.

The next point is the ball's use in a new-to-me exercise devised a couple of mornings ago, with part of the value of the exercise being in the weight of the ball, 6 pounds and 8½ ounces. Another part being the height of the study ceiling, 8 feet and ¼ inch, this being the standard for an outer suburban house built between the two wars. Now down, I think, to 7 feet and 6 inches.

With the exercise being to hold the ball with two hands and to move it from the floor to the ceiling, gently touching both, twenty times. There are no particular rules about how exactly you do this but you get extra points for a smooth motion with no bumps or crashes. You are disqualified if you drop the ball. Maybe in time I will get to fifty but, for now, twenty is enough.

Turning to memory refresh, Professor Google suggests that the stone may be a form of gneiss: it has certainly been through the geological mill, quite apart from having been machined to something quite close to a sphere, so agrees with gneiss to that extent, but the quartz intrusions (if that is what the white bands cutting across the brown bands are) make me pause. None of the many images offered by the Professor seem to have them.

PS: the Professor may not have scored on what the stone was but he does score on where it came from: Appley Tower, Appley Walk, Appley Lane, Ryde, Isle of Wight, PO33 1QX.