Hawker discard

Two months ago (see reference 1) I reported the acquisition of volume I of the diary of one Colonel Peter Hawker, a noted gun of the first half of the nineteenth century.

Sadly, I now have to record that the diary is about to be recycled to the Oxfam bin at Kiln Lane. Given that I am still buying books, as opposed to lifting them from the Wetherspoon's library at Tooting and that I am trying to operate a policy of one in, one out, something has to give, and on this occasion it is the diary, slightly dipped but largely unread. I feel a bit guilty about not returning it to Tooting but I do offer a valedictory snippet.

On July 1st 1815, not long after his no-show for the Waterloo campaign (although there is a gap in the diary for that particular period), he went minnow fishing at dusk, with the only fish being caught being the one that had swallowed and got away with his tackle on some previous occasion. I can only suppose that, given that the colonel probably knew his minnow from a minotaur, what he probably meant was that he went fishing with minnows for something else, possibly pike. He also complains that in the whole season he only managed 62 brace of trout, a catch he had nearly managed in a single day in a better year.

I did better with the cherries, with there being a good supply in the market yesterday. Some very dark red ones going cheap at a fiver or so for a two and a half kilo box (similar to the sort of box which mushrooms arrive at shops and stalls in), but which I thought were rather past their best. So played safe with the slightly less dark ones going for £2.50 the pound. So far they have been very good, with no duds at all.

The whole two pounds illustrated on arrival, in the meat dish, appropriately decorated with cherries and which was once the property of my father's eldest sister. The eldest sister whom I remember telling some anecdote about driving a horse and cart, the cart full of cherries, from Huntington to the market at Cambridge. Down a road which then had the crowns of trees meeting overhead and which is now the large & busy A14, having been the A604 when I was a child. It is true that my grandfather grew fruit for sale, but I wonder now if either memory or anecdote is true.

PS: the telephone had trouble with focus with the cherries. Maybe it couldn't decide whether to do the plate or the cherries, not being able to manage both at once.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-library.html.