the corner office

I spoke too soon! A week later, the weekend after New Year's, I woke up in the middle of the night to see Ronwen staring out the window. It was snowing heavily, a white blanket over everything. "That's awesome," I thought, "it's going to be so beautiful in the morning" as I drifted off.

But of course, no. At some point in the night the weather turned, the temperature rose quickly and heavy snow became heavy rain, and by the next morning when I got up, nothing was left but a few patches in the lee of the house, and an hour later, even those were gone. It was, in fact, so not-snowy that I decided that it wasn't worth writing about yet, hopefully just a footnote to a snow report later in the winter (which, I realise, it sort-of now is).

This week, the cold snap continued. The weather forecasts had threatened snow and sleet, and it rained a bit, but nothing counting as real snow. Until Wednesday night, when it started coming down heavily again. We've been listening to a recent BBC radio version of The Dark is Rising this past week, and super fittingly, Wednesday night's listening was done with the lights off, the blinds open and snow coming down and blowing around the street lamps. Wonderful.

(Previously)

No snow (and between the gulf stream and global warming, why should there be?), and no storms, no rain, no freezing temperatures. But mist is a pretty neat consolation.

And to think, I was going to spend the afternoon catching up on admin.

I've intended to write more book reviews, and written none, but mention of Dartmoor is a good prompt for me to write this, which isn't a review, as much as a set-up, or a pre-review.

I bought my copy of Walden - part of a compilation ("... And Other Writings") in the US in 1999. I remember seeing it in a bookshop and buying it, intentionally, and thinking it appropriate to be buying it there, but I have no memory of how I knew about Thoreau, or Walden. I wasn't particularly literarily minded and my only guess is that I'd seen mention of it in a movie, or perhaps online (although even then, what manner of "online" would have led me to Walden in the late 90s, I couldn't say). Either way, I started reading it at the time, didn't get far, and it's sat on a bookshelf ever since, untouched, faithfully waiting for me to return to it (or at least, as faithfully as an inanimate, slowly-decaying block of paper can be. I digress).

We spent last Christmas in Dartmoor, and by the end of the year, I was exhausted. My stated intention for the holiday was to spend as much time as possible sitting in an armchair at a window with a view of the moors, with a blanket over my knees and a book at my side. Some of my old books had been on my mind, and I'd be spending a week sitting and staring at Nature, and being all contemplative and stuff, and it seemed like the perfect time and place to revisit Walden. I went hunting through the bookshelves, found my old copy, and stuck it in my bag.

Searching online, I see there are various books called "Walden and Other Writings", each with a slightly different collection of Thoreau's "other writings". The version I have is a Bantam Classics paperback, with an introduction written by Joseph Wood Krutch - a writer and naturalist in his own right, I've since discovered.

The introduction is well written, a helpful biography as well as explanation of Thoreau's philosophy. An engaging read - I got to the second page before I called my eldest over and read out part of the introduction, including this line:

They lived in an age of increasing complexity and great hope; we in an age of still greater complexity and growing despair.

"Sounds about right," he said. "It was written in 1962" was my reply. If Krutch had considered the early sixties to be a time of complexity and growing despair, what might he have made of now?

I kept reading, but progress was slow: it turned out that the view from the window was part moors, part courtyard backed by a hedge and a large, tree-filled garden, the courtyard with a collection of bird feeders, restocked each day. I spent more time with three bird books (one of them mine - a wild-card Christmas present, gratefully received, I hasten to add) than I did with Thoreau. He might have approved, though probably not the window and blanket over my knees bit.

And then we came home, and the book became my "bedtime reading", which usually means a few pages every night or few (and as opposed to "train reading", which is invariably flat-out reading until I'm done), and I eventually finished it some time later.

For some books, bedtime reading is best. The pace is slower, meaning more time to digest, more opportunity to think as I drift off at night, more inclination to go back and re-read bits, and generally savour the book. And savour it, I did. It took me almost a quarter of century to finally read Walden (and the other writings), but I'm glad I finally did.

I won't be writing much more about it now, apart from listing the contents, and I'll link these when (if) I manage more respectable reviews.

• A Week On the Concord and Merrimack Rivers - a travelogue (and a fair amount of Thoreau-esque rambling)
• Civil Disobedience - on refusing to support the US government (or pay taxes) on account of slavery in the South and the US war with Mexico
• Walden - building and living in a cabin in the woods (simplicity)
• Life Without Principle - an essay on life, and meaning, and greed
• The Maine Woods - another pair of travelogues (and a reflection on the ugliness of hunting)
• Cape Cod - a travelogue (and surprisingly funny in places)
• The Journal - excerpts from Thoreau's journals - reflections, observations, sketches

It was Ronwen's week off, and so she bundled all her sewing stuff into the car and repaired to her favourite place in the whole wide world, a small village in Dartmoor.

I stayed home with the boys, and one morning, while in the kitchen, I got to overhear this gem from the breakfast table:

"I had a really bad dream. Dad let us swear as much as we wanted and we lived on nothing but Dominos and McDonalds" (the youngest)

"What's bad about that that?" (the eldest, incredulously)

"It wasn't real."

If you devotedly visit my blog, looking to see if there's something new to read (hello, dear!), you might be forgiven for thinking "wait a minute, all these posts weren't here last week...?"

You would be right, and in truth, I'd fallen back into the bad habit of writing blog posts and not publishing them. This blog lives on my computer before it gets synced up to the web server, and as in years past, if I'm not quite happy about the wording of a post, or not sure whether I really want something to be published at all, I'll hold off, allowing myself time to come back and tweak or edit a little more.

All well and good, but there's "allowing myself time" and then there's "this has become a bit ridiculous". What it's meant is that I've been blogging away happily for ages, with a readership of "me". It wasn't until Ronwen grumbled, recently, "hey, where are all these blog posts you keep promising me?" that I decided it was time to sort myself out and get up to date. And so a final review, another tweak to Boy in the Woods, and deciding that a post about an airconditioned train, rain clouds and a sourdough boule didn't really need to see the light of day.

And... here we go. Synced again.

I was out for an early morning walk. I'd turned off a path, popular with dog walkers, and apart from one or two people stirring at a row of houses on a country lane, I'd not seen another person for a mile or two.

I was walking across a field, thinking about this, when I heard voices on the wind. Darn, so much for solitude.

Were they behind me or ahead of me? I couldn't tell. I kept walking, over the field, into a wood, turned left, and then along the side of a valley. Every now and then I'd hear the voices again - they were behind me, closer after I'd stopped to check the map on my phone.

Soon, in addition to the voices, I heard a strange clanging, metallic sound. What on earth was I hearing?

Now, I don't know what the rules are when it comes to optimal personal space while out in the countryside, but unless there are plenty of people about, my own preference is "the whole field". It's awkward and feels rude to turn around and look at people, as though you're letting them know that you know they're there, and perhaps passive-aggressively hinting that you'd rather your morning stroll didn't involve having to turn around to see who was behind you.

And so I kept walking, the occasional voices, the odd clanging, but I didn't look back. Until the suspense was too much, and I allowed myself a brief glance as I stopped to admire the view across the valley. I saw two women, and a large labradoodle-like dog gambolling around them, a weird cow-bell like thing on its neck.

On we went, half-a-field apart. My imagination soon kicked in. My mind went to the lyrics of an old Robert Johnson song, "got to keep moving" ... it had been the briefest of glances, and was I wrong? Had I imagined the bell, or were they chains clanking, and was this lively and cheerful mutt not in fact perhaps a Hellhound on my trail?

Across the next field, amused by this thought (and composing the rudiments of this blog post, I'll admit), and before long I was in woodland again. Still, the voices and occasional clanging, but now, I could make out footsteps approaching, fast. Again, too awkward to turn around and look, but not the ladies and the dog, surely? (unless they were truly after me?)

Eventually the footsteps were very close. I decided to stop, stepped off the path, ostensibly to check my map, and looked up. A woman, in black lycra, a yummy mummy in the vernacular, full make up and duck lips. "Thank yeeeeew", she smiled as she steamed past.

I set off, but very soon after, was overtaken again. This time a man, shortish, walking fast, grey hair, stylishly cut, fashionable but awkwardly-fitting tracksuit bottoms, and expensive-looking white trainers not designed for countryside mud. Was he yummy mummy's partner, battling to keep up, I wondered? A slightly breathless "mornin'" and he was past me, too.

A few minutes later I reached a fork in the path. I went left. Cerberus and his keepers must have gone right; soon, I heard them no more.

A few days later, I was out walking again, somewhere else. I heard the same clanging, but this time, it was a little old lady, and the bell was on a fox terrier. Doggie fashion these days, I guess, though I've not heard that sound since.

I saw the movie 84 Charing Cross Road when I was younger. I loved the movie, and read the book, written by Helene Hanff, some years after, and loved that too.

I work in the area and I've walked along Charing Cross Road countless times, and it embarasses me to admit that it took me some years before I thought to actually find number 84.

But one morning on the way to work, I did. Starting at St Martin-in-the-Fields, I made my way up the road, counting off the building numbers. And the numbers started getting pretty close, and I came to Shaftesbury Avenue, and crossed over, and then I found it, and laughed. The irony!

If you look for 84 Charing Cross Road today, all you'll find is a small round plaque (plenty of photos online), saying:

The booksellers Marks & Co were on this site which became world renowned through the book by Helene Hanff.

What made me laugh, is that the plaque is next to the entrance to the Cambridge Circus McDonalds.

Ironic in two ways. The obvious, that a location made famous by a book about love of literature should now be a fast food joint, but really, it's been more than half a century since the shop closed down. Searching online I see it's been many things since then, including a restaurant, other fast food places, and a record store. (What's more remarkable perhaps, is that I'd guess that Charing Cross Road was a bookseller's street, a bit like Denmark Street around the corner is for musical instruments, and a few booksellers, small and large, are still there, or down side streets, although at least one or two have closed down since I first explored this area, more than a decade ago).

But no, the main reason it was ironic to me, is that this is a McDonalds with which I was very well acquainted.

In the first few years after starting my current job, I'd commute into London early to beat rush hour, and find places to sit and read or study, before heading into the office. And for a while, the Cambridge Circus McDonalds was one of my haunts. It was quiet first thing in the morning, and I'd usually be able to find a table in a corner.

(Now, even after all this time, there will be those who care about me making Good Choices, who will be reading this disapprovingly. Obviously I'd never have sat there each morning without buying something, and all I'll say is this: often I'd just get coffee, and many times I'd order oats. And I'll leave you to draw the Venn diagrams for yourself, while I get on with the story.)

Some days I'd people watch. The Chinese pensioners who'd all gather at a large round table for coffee each morning. The gangsterish dude whose girlfriend became more cloying and obsequious, the more dismissive and rude he was to her. The Australian and the South African in suits, loudly discussing the meaning of life (the first time I heard the three essentials for happiness quote).

But mostly, I'd put in my earphones, block out the world, and study.

At the time, I was teaching myself an area of maths I'd not studied at university. I enjoyed doing it at the time, and that was reason enough to do it, but after all these years, I've forgotten much of it, and I have little to show for my time, apart from my notes and proofs and drawings in a ring-bound notebook, lost somewhere on a shelf at home.

Which, in a round-about way, is the tenuous point of this post. These were the days before two things substantially changed how I studied, and how productive my studies actually were. The first of these was spaced repetition (using Anki), which I'm not likely to write much about, and then a couple of years later, my approach to note-taking, which came to encompass more than just academic interests, and which I do intend to write a bit more about.

(I wrote the first draft of this post years ago, and then in the past year or two, started to develop an interest in "reading" and "literature", and put the book back onto my to-read list to see what Hanff was interested in. Then a few months ago, I actually re-read it. So this is likely to be a set-up for a couple of other things too, including a book review, in good time, perhaps).

You might guess which of the seasons is my least favourite.

(... and a month later, once the rapeseed had been harvested):

Rapeseed is a weird plant.

And by weird, I mean weird-ass science-fiction alien plant kind of weird.

As luck would have it, I started reading Seneca this weekend, and right there, at the start of his seventh letter:

You ask me to say what you should consider it particularly important to avoid. My answer is this: a mass crowd.

Seneca wasn't talking about riots per se, but I think he has it about right.

Had election day been a week or two later, we may yet have descended to the headline "Sun rises in blow to Sunak". The news people were trying their best to make it all dramatic and nailbiting, but I think the only two questions anyone really had were "how much will Labour win by?" (and now we know the answer: lots), and "how much will taxes be going up by?" (and to that we can probably guess the answer: lots).

Tax rises. Much poring over manifesto promises and speeches trying to divine just what is in store for us, but how seriously does anyone take manifesto pledges? Today, Rachel Reeves rolled out the dreaded "difficult decisions" line (deployed repeatedly during the early Tory/Lib Dem coalition days in 2010, as I recall), and it's not a stretch to imagine what comes next: "omg things are so much worse than we imagined who could possibly have foreseen this?" (edit: 4 weeks later lol that didn't take long)

And then, how long before something something regrettably, something something broadest shoulders? (edit: 8 weeks later do I laugh or cry?)

Either way, Sir Keir is now in charge. He seems a serious-minded and well-meaning fellow, and his successes will now be our successes, and all that. But so will be his failures, a detail the platitude omits. His rosette may be a different colour, but the chalice is no less poisoned than before.