the almshouses of hereford (the plan to get into town and how it went)

the almshouses of hereford (no.1 in a series)

price's almshouses and chapel 90-112 whitecross road

founded 1665.

this wasn't the purpose of his visit to hereford (his purpose was books) but seeing as he was there he took a few photos. it may take him a while longer to sort out the detail there being many slightly more famous william prices (including one who was the originator of our modern habits of cremation). 

horsemouth used the old railway line a fair bit at the start - it would have brought him out near to the hospice shop (but he'd diverted off by that point). 

books - accessions diary 24th august 2026

- the foot of clive (john berger) - £2.49 oxfam

- the separation (christopher priest) - £1.00 hospice

- in a lonely street: film noir, genre, masculinity (frank krutnik) - £1.00 hospice

- the ivington diaries (monty don) - £1.00 hospice

this being a great 'we went bankrupt and started gardening' story. horsemouth may even use it to aid his own diarising.

as you can see the hospice served him very well

indeed he could have picked up another beautiful and beautifully illustrated monty don (around the world in 80 gardens that sort of thing) for another quid but his head wasn't quite in the game yet. he got the monty don for his mum (honest). he thinks it will go down well.

he read a little of foot on the bus, a little of a lonely street before bed last night, the separation  may take him a while to get to. ivington he read the introduction. 

soon we re-enter the embers. soon after the autumn equinox. 

this morning a dream about a woman saying colin and a dream about living in a big party venue squat with sten. 

today a plan to get into town

during his eggs up the hill mission horsemouth paused to photograph some more corrugated iron structures. 

here we have a dutch barn (uk type) as assembled by f.h. dale of leominster (who, interestingly enough, are still going). 

horsemouth was listening to roy scranton talking about the dark mountain manifesto and paul kingsnorth. ('it comes in waves'). it's an interview hobbled by poor sound quality (and a certain amount of mutual incomprehension). 

later horsemouth watched much of sorcerer, the william friedkin remake of the wages of fear, four convicts transport sweaty nitro-glycerine 200 miles along treacherous roads (and all with a great tangerine dream soundtrack). 

and so to bed.

today a plan to get into town. 

it's not that bad (it only makes the story better)

well it was the birthday of claude debussy and of john lee hooker (again)

a wander round the common (counterclockwise).

to celebrate horsemouth went for a wander round the common. up the hill to the viewpoint then down to st. james's well then down by brimfield etc. emerging through someone's garden just up the road from his mum's.  he should have taken the camera.

a few days ago he took the camera up onto the common and attempted a few shots of corrugated iron buildings etc. near there. 

it's not that bad (it only makes the story better) 

so remarks the ukrainian girl (well at least the second part of it). whenever things got bad she would remark that it only makes the story better. and eventually there she is, in her house in the wilds with a functioning roof and electricity and heating (and a garden even) but the real problem is the water. there's no well, there's no water source, she is dependent on captured rainwater and that is failing due to global warming. 

indomitable she continues. ordering tankers full of water to fill up her alhibi (al jibes) or underground water storage cistern that formerly would have been filled by rainwater. (apparently they are big in mexico too). 

horsemouth started on a review of the youtubers he watches, maybe he should finish it off, or more likely, make a series. 

today (at some point) eggs up the hill. he may take the camera out and try to photograph some barns etc. 

monday horsemouth has a plan to get into town. 

yesterday, today, and tomorrow

yesterday 

horsemouth was hiding indoors while some work commissioned by his mother was performed outside. 

he is attempting to find snippets of good sense in his blogposts and transfer them to his substack in a fashion he has previously described as cut-and-shut. 

in the day he set off onto the common for a wander but then remembered that his mum didn't have a copy of the hereford times (with its very necessary TV guide) - so off to the village he went (and back again).

today

horsemouth doesn't know what he will do. he has a bit of a cold. he will post this up and then have a think and see if he has anything more to say. 

it was cold out there. horsemouth was wearing trousers and he wished he had a jacket. he left the conservatory door closed (so that it might heat up). 

it's one of those days again. on this date in previous years revolutionary students burnt down the british consulate in china during the cultural revolution. 

it's a saturday. because it is a saturday the health centre is shut. sunday it will be shut. monday it will also be shut (because it is a bank holiday). ok no monday it will be open - next monday is a bank holiday. 

oh dear mick luggy has died. horsemouth liked him a lot and owes him a fair bit. he can only think of one disagreement. he was smart and kind and will be missed. 

yesterday's rain (a change in the weather)

horsemouth's mum is not very well (this is a bit of a worry).

normally she is legendarily indomitable (today less so). 

a robin came to the window and looked in (or maybe it was looking for spiders round the window frame). 

yesterday rain

horsemouth would tell you if this were the case. (it did rain but not for long and not very heavily but then it rained heavily for a decently long time).

he'd put various buckets and water receptacles out to try and catch as much of it as possible.

it would take is several days/ weeks of actual proper rain to get the soil back to where it was (muddy but fertile).  

horsemouth will now return to a topic that is pleasurable to him energy bills, wholesale gas prices and insulation. andy burnham has let people off the VAT on their energy bills but then wholesale gas prices have risen so that will wipe out any savings people would have made. this will be the model for many of the changes he will attempt to make while in office.  small scale change swamped by wider economic forces. 

ok no bells for horsemouth last night - it's at the not-so-walkable church and his usual lift there was not going (which he should have anticipated really). 

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ok horsemouth has done the chickens and he has done the milk. he's wearing trousers and a shirt on top of his t-shirt. the windows are closed. feels like a change in the weather. 

still it looks like it will be a beautiful day. 

meanwhile thrift-a-life (aka. bookpilled) has re-activated his clothing re-sale line. horsemouth very much enjoys watching this. it's just great watching him do what he does and how he thinks about it.

(not that horsemouth cares about clothes). 

horsemouth has , however, chopped out his mustache and beard. it makes him look uglier but younger. 

horsemouth and his notebook of particulars

horsemouth is awake and he has his coffee. matter of fact now he's on to round two of the coffee. 

he has published a photo of himself out drinking in forest hill (following the great trek to the horniman museum from st. pauls). it has garnered some 'likes' as they say.

this is the well deserved first pint (thereafter they rapidly become distinctly less virtuous). 

the photo is on film and was taken by howard. 

last night some spots of rain. horsemouth has been out to check the water butts to see if there was appreciable harvesting (but he thinks not). 

an email from the commons water people - levels in the tanks are still low (the lowest they've seen). horsemouth should pay more attention to reducing usage. 

when his dad was complaining about water shortages (way back) horsemouth suggested getting a cistern of some sort. when it rains a lot of water comes off the common - it is a shame it can't be kept until it is needed. 

yesterday the eggs to the crossroads and the TESCO food delivery taken in and put away. the usual stuff with the garden, the greenhouses and the chickens. right now (yesterday afternoon as will be) it looks like it might rain. 

here we see horsemouth again (again photographed by howard) 

this time on their walk from walthamstow wood street to st. pauls. here they pause at the powerscroft road book box for horsemouth to assess how it is doing without him. (not that well it would seem). 

in bruno's dream by iris murdoch one of the characters keeps a very detailled notebook of particulars trying to cut out the distressing influences of 'real life' by focusing on aestheticised  minutiae, 

meanwhile murdoch makes a disturbing and chaotic novel out of the 'real life' going on around him. now this book horsemouth bought (he didn't find it in a book-box). 

horsemouth wants to get more books (because he misses the thrill of the chase not because he wants to read more books). he's not sure if he will get away to do it today though. 

'all that is air crystallises into solid'

horsemouth noted a new possible overground station on the top end of the old surrey canal that himself and howard walked during their last visit. 

this is not in the bit that himself and howard walked but further up into millwall FC country. 

he was interested to read about the croydon canal. he thought south london was basically a canal free zone (but it turns out not to have been the case). 

horsemouth and his enthusiasm for infrastructure development projects 

please forgive horsemouth for his enthusiasm for infrastructure development projects (a railway station here, a tram line there). he suffers from the romance of development. it's not that he doesn't recognise that there are costs and losers with development it is just that he likes capitalism in its productive/ creative aspect, it gives him hope that production and creation and improvement are possible and could even be made to happen after capitalism.

of course if you improve transport infrastructure you increase movement, you increase footfall and trade (probably), you increase property values and drive a whole new incident of gentrification and clearances. the cheap and cheerful interstices where culture can thrive are cleansed and replaced by sterilised pseudo-public spaces.

(now that he puts it like that it sounds less appealing)

the culture, the edge, moves in search of cheaper rents. but then again horsemouth will come and visit. 

it's not that the promises of development have to be fulfilled - it is just that the development has to happen to maintain the illusion of a productive creative capitalism, to hide its actual dependency on the clearances of people/ robbery of space that this involves. 

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horsemouth is waiting for the rain. he thinks that when it rains his generalised spiritual malaise will clear. 

horsemouth cooked 

the day before yesterday horsemouth cooked (such was the depth of his spiritual malaise). it was a chilli (without being a chilli) and a vegetable curry (without being a curry). he fried tomatoes and onions from the garden and then added the potato, runner bean leftovers and red kidney beans. he added some basil also. then he cooked some rice to go with it. he was pleased with it. it met with approval. 

yesterday horsemouth cooked again something similar again but with pasta (to considerably less acclaim). his mum seemed to be running a fever and was off her food. eventually horsemouth found working batteries to get the thermometer working which pronounced it a mild fever. having cursed (and f'd and blinded) through cooking the meal, horsemouth carried on cursing and f'ing and blinding through the health emergency. (great)

at one point (when he thought it was just dinner he was dealing with) he had a small tin of beer. 

today (as will be) the tesco food order arrives. but probably the day will be tied up with other things.