Growing Argonath

I mentioned Nunhead's own Argonath a few years back.  They have often seemed small and stunted. 

However, possibly as a result of all of the recent rain, they seem to be sprouting!  Lots of tender green growth from the tips of the branches.

Go and have a look...

The Norbiton Dragon

So last weekend we went to damp Norbiton to see friends get married.  Or rather to join in with the post-event meal.

Which turned out to involve multiple courses of Thai food.  Ten or more.  If the usual fare at the Dragon is anything like this (and we believe it may be), they should be highly commended - and recommended,

Trending, in a small way

So, Radio 4's The Reunion covered the building of The Globe, on London's South Bank of the Thames.

As it started, and while it continued, I notice there were a substantial number of extra views on my posting about the Sam Wannamaker Festival, just over a year ago.  As a reult of the Beeb, people had searched, and found the Trees!

When I spotted it, I found this leap quite exciting.  This must be what the twitterati feel like when they are trending...

The Pubs Around Nunhead 19: The Ivy House

So, after many rumours and stays of execution, it seems that The Ivy House in Upper Nunhead has finally closed.  See the posts on Transpontine, for example.

It has apparently been sold on by Enterprise Inns, and there is some discussion that it might be turned into residential properties by the new owners. 

However there has been an application for Grade II listed status lodged (in early December), so planning permission might be hard to come by.  Watch this (and other) spaces.

Nene Valley Railway, Today

On our way South on the A1 today, we needed a break...

Poem of the Week

The Convergence of the Twain
Thomas Hardy

I
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II
Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV
Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ...

VI
Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII
Prepared a sinister mate
For her — so gaily great —
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

VIII
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX
Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

X
Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

XI
Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

343

I have a vague memory that some years ago I corrected the Wikipedia entry on Nunhead by adding a reference to the 343 bus - that key transport connection for Upper Nunhead.

So I was very pleased to see the 343 mentioned in today's Guardian (albeit in the Loomus cartoon, offstage, being chased by a giant dog...)