'wait(ing)... for the year to end' (bloomsbury photographs)

 'I drank coffee and read old books and waited for the year to end' 

- richard brautigan, trout fishing in america.

great line but not quite right for this time of year (just yet). 

vegetables

yesterday morning horsemouth was digging up the potatoes. he's left them to dry in the garage before trying to get the mud off them and then store them in paper bags in the dark. there will inevitably be some he has missed/ places where potatoes were planted but that he has now forgotten. 

he has grubbed up the runner beans and most of the marrow plants. that just leaves the spinach and the nasturtiums. the beetroot and onions are long gone. he's dug over where the runner beans were. the garden is beginning to pack down for winter. 

there are some broad bean plants in that have come up - horsemouth wants to see if he can get early broad beans next year. 

there are a few tomatoes in the greenhouse still (but their chances of fully ripening are limited). the peppers are done but horsemouth will leave them in their pots to see if the plants survive the winter. (similarly with the pepper plants in the conservatory). 

music

howard has sent him a couple of duet versions (one of I have come from the land above). he's listening to them now. of course he now has no idea what he was doing back then (he supposes it would mostly come back if they were to play it again because horsemouth's playing relies on a number of basic 'tricks'). 

'the general welfare, the great business of the universe, will go on though I have no further share in promoting it...' - mr. clare's deathbed speech in caleb williams by william godwin. 

books mostly 

saturday afternoon zoom beers with howard (two bottles each). 

howard is reading more on virginia woolf and her set - bloomsbury photographs etc. and empireland  by sathnam sanghera. he's been visiting loads of royal palaces (as a result of some scheme or other). 

horsemouth was reading wylder's hand by j. sheridan le fanu having finished memoirs of an egotist by stendhal. the first started a debate on that whole anglo-irish protestant ascendancy thing, the second a discussion of writing, autobiography (the usual horsemouth/ howard topics). 

the le fanu lead to a discussion of carmilla (but this did not lead to a discussion of terror in the crypt). horsemouth recommended le fanu's horror.

today a wander to the village (hereford times and possibly some eggs).