Exploring Wimbledon Common, it’s hard to miss the windmill. Some things never change. In 1799 an enterprising cove sought permission to build a windmill but he was refused because he didn’t submit plans.
Like Bertie with a bone, I’m reluctant to leave Patrick O’Brian. His stepson is Count Nikolai Tolstoy and his eldest daughter is Countess Alexandra Tolstoy-Miloslavsky. May I digress?
Bertie is thirteen months old today. Yesterday I took him for a glorious walk round the perimeter of Richmond Park and his behaviour was exemplary until we were almost back at the car.
“I know what I want,” said Basil. “I want to be one of those people one heard about in 1919; the hard-faced men who did well out of the war.” (Put Out More Flags, Evelyn Waugh)
You may have noticed that there has been no mention of riparian walks up to Richmond recently. The towpath is narrow but walkers are good at stepping into the bushes to pass safely.
Yesterday’s post was fiction. Today’s sounds like fiction but is true. It starts in Pondolàndia – where? Is that what pretentious people call Poundland?
Patrick O’Brian wrote sustained passages conveying the tedium of life at sea, naval engagements and storms. Here HMS Surprise encounters a storm in the Antarctic Ocean.