The View from the ParkSaturday, 11th September 2004 |
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Amongst the dull greens, one beech is showing yellow ochre/green autumn colour. The trees above our bench are sighing in the breeze and helicopter seeds parachute down from a lime. There are masses of purple loosestrife in the marshy area. I like the rural feel of Thornhill Park, and it's hillside situation. We're looking north across the valley towards Ossett which looks leafy from this angle with its large Victorian gardens and belt of trees by a park beyond. In medieval times this part of the parish was the 'South Wood'. It is remembered in street names such as Sowood Avenue.
There's a good crop of walnuts on the tree behind the old Rectory. Half a dozen of them, lying at the foot of the tree have been nibbled into, most likely by grey squirrels. France Inter
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However, if you want to listen to French speech radio, it's worth indulging
their Napoleonic attitude to surfing. Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk |
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Thornhill
Park, 3.30 p.m.
I've
just commented to Barbara that although the conkers (right) are
dropping from the horse chestnuts there are no conker
collectors in sight when a young girl on a bike hurtles down the slope,
followed a minute or two later by her father who is walking along behind
her, with a carrier bag stuffed with conkers.
While
binding the first batch of copies of my Saints and Serpents
Norfolk sketchbook, I decide that I'll try and improve my French.
Barbara and I haven't visited France since December 1999 and we
keep thinking about walks in Brittany, crêpes and galettes
and cafés in Paris. It's time we crossed the Channel again.
While
I was decorating this week I listened to the six cassettes of my
Linguaphone Visa French Programme again for perhaps the
30th or 40th time. As I now know it almost off by heart I thought
that this morning I'd try listening to French radio instead. The
long wave reception here isn't terribly good but, as I went to the
stereo to tune in, I realised that, now I've got broadband, I can
listen via the internet.
I
like France Inter because it gives me so much opportunity
to listen to different types of voices. This morning there was a
discussion on food and wine. One man with a rich rural accent seemed
to be going on about the old traditions of French charcuterie (pork
butchers) and choux (cabbages, I presume, I don't think they were
talking about puff pastry) while another character, who I pictured
as a trendy chef, was coming up with what I took to be new ideas
for cooking pork and cabbage.
France
Inter