I’m trying to be sensible…
This week: A moment of realisation!; Foul Medammes; Another piece of history;
I am surrounded by stone. My buildings are all made of stone, some the size of boulders that defy explanation about how they were ever lifted without JCB’s and cranes.
Then there are the small, soft sandstones which crumble as soon as any force is applied to them. Dry stone walls surround my orchards and there are the walls I have built myself.
Then there are the piles of “reclaimed” stones that I saved as I dismantled the old stables, pig sty and goat house, all just waiting for the “next big project”.
On Tuesday I was moving some stones which formed a dry stone wall that I dismantled. Just a few and nothing too heavy, however I realised that night that I had pulled a muscle or three in my side.
I certainly knew about it that night and on Wednesday I resorted to Paracetamol to help me sleep.
At the time I was doing the lifting, I didn’t feel anything, but I have certainly felt it since, so don’t make me laugh (or sneeze)!
It seems to be the chest wall external oblique muscle over ribs 6 to 10 which of course expand every time you breathe.
So I have really tried to be sensible this week, with no more heavy lifting, no stretching and generally just doing odd jobs and tidying up.
As of Saturday afternoon, I no longer feel as though I’ve been doing “Kick boxing”, so may be being sensible has paid off?
We have had a lovely week of weather. There was been wall to wall sunshine every day with the temperature reaching 28°C of Friday.
Lots of sunshine has meant the soils have rapidly dried out and I have started irrigating again. One of my Apricot trees has died above the graft union, although it has new suckers sprouting from the root area.
The Apricot next to it look sick, but is not dead yet. The leaves are small and curled. In previous years they have been loaded with fruit.
I am really not sure what is going on. After about 5 years, it is a little late for a graft union failure, however something is clearly wrong.
Both trees are sending sucker up from the root stock, so whatever the problem is, it is above the graft.
A moment of realisation!
On Monday morning, as I was tying in some grape vines along the top of the arbour, I realised that the arbour pieces which are rotting the fastest, are those which are laid horizontally.
The wood is a very rough Pine, not expensive, quick to grow and harvest and a very soft wood.
Looking at the new pieces, there a fissures in the wood along the length of each pole.
Moisture will be drawn into these fissures when the wood is horizontal and will remain there until the sun and wind evaporates it away.
In winter of course, with little sunshine, these fissures are likely to remain damp for long periods which will cause the wood to rot.
There is no alternative to laying the cross pieces flat, escept not having them at all. So I got to thinking about what I can do to minimise the exposure to penetrating moisture.
When I laid out the new poles I purchased, they all have vertical cracks in the timber. Here the new, light coloured poles next to one of the fractured poles I have removed.
Once again, some of this is about the difficulty of getting good quality materials here.
My new poles are not seconds, far from it. They were the best ones that I could find in the rack when I went to Bauhaus. Don’t even think about the worst!
You don’t have a choice, for example either by price or quality. It is either take it or leave it!
The other issue is being able to buy a suitable preservative. I have tried to buy creosote, probably the least worst of the current preservatives and certainly the oldest type in use.
Because it is a petro-chemical by product, it is relatively inexpensive and providing you don’t pour the liquid on the soil, does not leave a residue.
Buying Sadolin here in 0.7 litre tins at €14 each, is neither cost effective nor efficient.
So apart from accepting that I will have to replace the Arbour every 10 years, I’m just not sure what I should do!
Foul Medammes
This name always arouses a degree of mirth in people, rather like a Monty Python sketch…
My Broad Beans are fruiting well at the moment. They have enjoyed the damp, mild spring we have had here in Dol.
One of the reasons I grow them is because I like Foul Medammes. This is a Middle Eastern dish often called simple “fool” in Arabic (AR فول مدمس).
It is basically made of stewed broad beans (fava beans / grah) with mint and garlic. Then the cooked beans are mixed with spices, lemon juice, tahini and olive oil and served hot with bread or cold as a dip.
Around the garden, the early summer flowers are appearing. With the sunshine this week, my Passion Flowers, Passiflora_caerulea, have started to open.
In the herb border the Borage is in flower as well. Although in most of Europe it is an annual, because of the mild winters we experience in Dol, here it is a perennial.
Also the local “butterfly bush” the Lantana is in flower and attracting pollinators.
Walking through the citrus orchard at the moment delights both the eyes and the nose.
I have a bumper crop of blossom on the Orange, Lemon and Mandarin bushes. It should be a good year for citrus again.
Meanwhile on my Bottlebrush bush, Callistemon, the buds have just started to open. In a week or so it will be in full bloom.
The last of our Avian migrants arrived overnight last Saturday. The Golden Oriole were calling on Sunday morning. These noisy fruit thieves are striking with their black and yellow plumage.
For most of the day I have the sounds of a pair of European Kestrels to accompany me when I am outside. They are nesting in one of the tall pines behind my home.
Often they are sitting at the topmost point of a Mediterranean Cyprus less than 50 metres from my home.
They are barely a speck when compared to the tree, but sit there calling before launching into the air to hunt. Often they flow low and fast over the citrus and east orchards, looking for small prey.
They are so fast in flight that I have yet to manage to get a photograph of them.
Another piece of history
A fascinating book arrived from the UK this week.
The book was found in the loft of a house during a renovation after being sold. There is no information about exactly where it came from or how it got there.
Starting in January 1888 and running until 20th October 1889, there are no covers. So there is no clue about exactly where it was written.
Information has always been the stock-in-trade of policing. The hand written entries in this book are the circulations of crimes, wanted and missing persons, stolen property primarily and requests for information from the north east of England.
However there are circulation from as far away as Kent and Aberdeen, opposite ends of the country.
There has always been the Police Gazette. The first issue published in 1772 by the Chief Magistrate of Bow Street, John Fielding.
A printed copy was sent by Penny Post to every police station in the country.
However this book is more immediate and clearly comes from the area around the River Tyne.
While I have been resting my ribs, I have been reading the copper plate handwriting to try and establish who was the actual author and where they are from.
At this time in UK police history, there were still some tiny police forces. The Richmond Borough Police consisted of a Head Constable and three Constables. However here is the full notice from Head Constable Thomas Graham:
Borough of Richmond
In custody here and remanded until the 28th instant [January 1889], charged with frequenting the Market Place for the purpose of committing a felony.
1st – Robert Lee, supposed of false age about 56 years, height 5 ft 5½ ins, complexion pale, eyes blue, hair gray, bald on top of head, full beard and moustache, figure slender, refuses his address, trade Bookmaker, attends race meetings. Dressed black cloth coat and neat black and grey striped trousers, black felt hat (soft), white linen collar and lace up boots. Had also a rough brown bag and double peaked cap.
2nd John Iles (supposed false) age about 30 years, height 5 ft 1½ ins, complexion dark, eyes black, figure proportionate, hair brown, thin on top of head, clean shaven, refuses his address, trade Bookmaker, attends race meetings. Dressed green top coat, dark misetins [SP] coat and best, dark striped trousers, black hard felt hat, linen collar (white) and lace up boots. Had a large brown checked shawl which he used to cover his hands when picking pockets, had a black double peaked cap in his pockets.
Information to
Thomas Graham,
Borough Police Station
Richmond
Yorkshire
Thomas Graham was the Head Constable from 1880 to 1889. On amalgamation with the North Riding Constabulary on 1st April 1889, the force had a strength of just 4 officers.
The trade of “Bookmaker” is inextricably linked to horse racing. The nearest racecourse is close to Richmond at Catterick Bridge. The first race was run there in 1783.
By the mid 19th century, the flat racecourse was one of the most popular in Yorkshire, so it is unsurprising that travelling criminals would come to a course where there were large numbers of the public.
National Hunt racing takes place all year round with the biggest racing event taking place between October and April. The so called “Yorkshire Grand National” takes place at Catterick every January.
With around 200 pages and some of the hand writing being difficult to decipher, it is taking time to really transcribe the history of this book.
What isn’t in doubt is the social and historical context of this book. Apart from the names of wanted and arrested persons, a little bit of follow-up research into people shows the punishments they later received at courts. NCG