Today's posts

Today’s first post is not a poem but a letter to Gilbert White.

A genuine enthusiast is a pleasure to meet, and Gilbert White was such a man.  He quietly observed the birds, beasts and plants around his home, The Wakes, in Selborne, Hampshire, in the south of England in the 18^th century. His letters about his discoveries are poems in prose. Not a single word is out of place.

Here is part of a letter he wrote in October, 1770 about a tortoise, Timothy, who belonged to his aunt, Rebecca, who lived at Ringmere near Lewes in Sussex.

‘Milky plants such as lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles are its favourite dish.  In a neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to be an hundred years old.  An instance of longevity in such a poor reptile.’

Eventually Rebecca gave Timothy to Gilbert and in a letter dated April 21, 1780, he tells how he brought Timothy to The Wakes.

‘Dear Sir,

The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property.  I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by hissing; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises.  The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden;  however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and continues still concealed.’

So this week, I am posting, what an apt word here, across time, a letter to Gilbert White.  It does not deal with tortoises but with ants.

It first appeared as one of the ‘Letters from my terrace in Palma’.   If you enjoy reading it, you can find other ‘Letters from my terrace’ earlier in the blog.

You now have two things to do: the first is easy but the second is harder. 

First read some of White’s letters which are published as ‘The Natural History of Selborne’.  They describe a pace of life which has, regrettably, long passed by for most of us.

Then, go to England, visit White’s house, The Wakes, in Selborne in Hampshire and walk round Timothy’s garden.

 

‘The Tall Girl from Somerset.’   On the road.  Day after day Harvey and Jake make their way towards Australia.   

 

 

‘The woman who was jealous of herself.’ Yet another phone call. This one is from James to Henry.