Tuesday, 19 April 2011

WELCOME TO MY WORLD

WELCOME TO MY WORLD

watch

One of my favourite watches.

We humans always like to welcome new members into our various clubs, and I'm as willing and enthusiastic as anyone else to do exactly that, which is why I welcome such smiling and benevolent characters as Mormon or Christian Scientist missionaries when they knock my door, not that they do that very often these days – they've probably heard that it's dangerous for men in possession of an absurd faith to get into a learned conversation with little me, or they are getting fewer and further between as a consequence of an increase in rational thought. Anyway, the whole conversation that may ensue is fair enough because we're both playing the same game. They want to convert me and I will (given long enough) convert them.

It's the same in other walks of life, and you're always welcome to my club.

I've got a sort of addiction to things that wind up.

gramophone

This machine works really well, has astounding volume fort something that is little more than a horn, and runs at a constant speed.

I love old gramophones and the wonderfully primitive way they reproduce sounds even though a decent MP3 player sounds quite a percentage better. So I might drool and dribble as I extol the virtue of a 78 rpm recording of King Elvis which scratches its way through his Jailhouse Rock and listen with supreme indifference to the same track from a modern MP-something player with its crystal-clear intonation and undistorted range of musical tones. So I have hundreds of old recordings |(from the 1950s), though I'm prepared to share the following snippet with you: I hardly ever listen to any of them. The machines wind up and work and the music plays as well as it ever did, which the cynical might suggest wasn't very well, , and that's all I really care.

Then take time. It's no secret that I have a penchant for clocks and watches, of which there are two main varieties: either clockwork (where the word comes from, for goodness' sake) and quartz, though there are a few hybrid mechanisms in which a battery keeps a spring wound up, and that spring drives the clock. It's basically clockwork with the heavy duty work taken out! So I spend quite a bit of my time winding things up. I have clocks that need winding daily, others that last for a week and a couple more that only need winding up on a monthly basis. And, of course, quite a lot of staunchly reliable and accurate quartz clocks that rarely need any attention at all until they catch me out by requiring a change of battery. Like the old gramophone, though, I get all weak at the knees when I think of my clockwork clocks (and watches – I have some of those, too) and can dismiss the more accurate quartz ones with barely any acknowledgement of their worth.

Sibsey Trader windmill clock

This clock is a particular favourite because it's beautiful and yet I bought it from the manager of the Sibsey Trader Windmill in Lincolnshire, a clock and (joy of joys) windmill enthusiast.

Finally, and with a shuddering heart after glancing at the last photograph, I love windmills, real ones rather than the modern affairs that generate electricity - mills rather than turbines, that is. You don't have to wind them up, of course (think of the power a spring would need to grind the tons of wheat into flour that a decent windmill gets through every day), but they are sort of related in my mind. Nature does the work, the winds that blow even gently can produce enough flour for a fair few loaves of bread! And they rotate, don't they? Clockwise?

Windmill

It only seems right and proper that, if I'm going to include an illustration of a windmill, it should be the Sibsey Trader Windmill, where I bought the aforementioned clock.

So we have springs that, when put under tension, store the strength of my muscles and then release it slowly, either to play a record or move a couple of hands around a clock or watch face, and we have the wind that contains within it enough raw power to grind massive stones together when those stones weigh tons!

I must remember those things next time the missionaries knock my door. I must remember to explain that they work according to well-understood natural laws that always have and always will be in place, and not a breath of magic anywhere! And they'd be welcome into my club any day, to listen to strains of scratchy 1950s rock 'n' roll and the sonorous bongs of my clocks on the hour. And if they're amenable I might even offer them a slice of bread filled with the goodness of the wild, wild winds.

© Peter Rogerson 19.04.11


Monday, 18 April 2011

A WEEK IN PICTURES

A WEEK IN PICTURES

caravan

We're back after having spent a week in Boston in the caravan.

Now, I reckon that I have friends on Gather in the four corners of the planet and maybe they don't all know what I mean by Boston, so I'll explain that Boston is a town in Lincolnshire, England from which the famous Pilgrim Fathers tried to flee our country in the seventeenth century in search of religious freedom, They were caught in the act as escaping the country was a criminal offence back then and eventually had to seek an alternative. Many places here still bear the word “Pilgrim” in their names, notably the large hospital in Boston, the Pilgrim Hospital where my wife and I spent several hours last week visiting her daughter, who was receiving chemotherapy for cancer.

But what of the rest of the “week in Boston in the caravan” bit? Is that clear enough or do different versions of the English language translate the words differently? I'm not so sure, so I'll be really explicit, which will give me an opportunity to incorporate some photos of the place.



entrance

The entrance from a minor road to the camp-site



daffodils

The view across the road from the camp-site – a field of daffodils, which are grown commercially in parts of Lincolnshire.



tree,bush

One of the many attractive bushes and shrubs that encircle the field we park on.

tree,green

Another view of the perimeter.



tree,blossom

A third glance at the verdant décor

field,caravan

Our caravan as seen from the tap (not shown) which provides fresh water, and the car which tows the caravan when we need to move back home.,.



caravan

The caravan in which we sleep, eat, bathe and watch telly,

Campsite in Boston

Magazine-reading Dorothy



grass

I think wild-flowers, even daisies and dandelions, are worth a second look.

And there you have it: a graphic account of our past week. I hope it puts our absence from Gather into some sort of context!!!

© Peter Rogerson 17.04.11