A Dull Spring

We're mostly having a wet and overcast spring here in London. Not excessively cold for the time of year, though, and the magnolia and some blossom trees are out already. 

I had a good wander through Bushy Park and Chiswick Garden last weekend, saw the deer, had a coffee and took some pictures. 

Then this weekend had a little wander up through Brompton Cemetery and over Albert Bridge, which as you can see is only open to bikes and pedestrians at the moment as they've found something wrong (you can also see that there was blue sky when I was at the cemetery but by the time I was coming home it had got cloudy again. Raining now.)

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

 ..and I have a cold. But as I had a day off work today anyway (two more days to take before April. I'm a person who believes in taking all my holiday allowance) I trekked up to Myddelton House Gardens  for snowdrop spotting (with sturdy vintage umbrella) and cream tea - I think the only other time I've been up to that bit of Greater London was when I was doing the Enfield Lock bit of the London Loop - and then doubled back and went to the V&A East Storehouse, which recently opened up in the Olympic park area. 

Happy New Year 2026

I'm having a quiet New Year, having been staying in two other people's houses over the festive period up until yesterday. 

Which gives me plenty of time to get this post into shape before I relax with a glass of something celebratory. 

Like this gin, ginger ale and lime juice I had in August

Or this Harvey Wallbanger from January 2025

It's been quite a good year for walks.  

a long trek up the Phoenician steps in Capri

and up Vesuvius

and down the valley and up the other side in Matera

As well as places nearer home like Oxford and Brighton and Sheffield and my ongoing project to complete the Grand Union Canal, and of course London:

Its not been a bad year for books either. I gave C P Snow a whirl for the first and second time, read a Nina Bawden for the first time since I don't know how long (I read a lot of her as a child but never really got into her books for adults), read four books in translation and got seriously stuck into books by Catherine Aird, George Bellairs and of course E C R Lorac

Full list pasted below:

Black Beadle - E C R Lorac

The Affair in Thor's Head - E C R Lorac

The Long Shadow - Celia Fremlin

Army Without Banners - Ann Stafford

The Religious Body - Catherine Aird

The Captain of the Pole Star - Arthur Conan Doyle

Passing Strange - Catherine Aird

Parting Breath - Catherine Aird

Murder as a Fine Art - Carol Carnac

After Effects - Catherine Aird

A Going Concern - Catherine Aird

A Dead Liberty - Catherine Aird

Henrietta Who? - Catherine Aird

A Late Phoenix - Catherine Aird

Wild Chamber - Christopher Fowler

Guilty by Definition - Susie Dent

The Stately Home Murder - Catherine Aird

Some Die Eloquent - Catherine Aird

Talking to my Daughter about the Economy - Yanis Varoufakis

Slight Mourning - Catherine Aird

The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman

Murder is Easy - Agatha Christie

Deadly Duo - Margery Allingham

We Solve Murders - Richard Osman

City Adrift - Naresh Fernandes

The Point of Distraction - Will Eaves

Scandalise my Name - Fiona Sinclair

Not to be Taken - Anthony Berkeley

Jumping Jenny = Anthony Berkeley

Leaving Beirut - Mai Ghoussoub

Underground, Overground - Andrew Martin

Cat and Mouse - Christianna Brand

Learning to Talk - Hilary Mantel

Ghost Cat - Beverley Butler

The Last Children of Tokyo - Yoko Tawada

Death Under Sail - C P Snow

Duplicate Death - Georgette Heyer

Black Plumes - Margery Allingham

Murder Makes Mistakes - George Bellairs

Death in the Fearful Night - George Bellairs

Death on a Dark Sea - R A Bentley

The House of Silence - E Nesbit

Excellent intentions - Richard Hull

Death of a Tin God - George Bellairs

A Strange Manor of Death - R A Bentley

Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

What Katy Did Next - Susan Coolidge

Clover - Susan Coolidge

In the High Valley - Susan Coolidge

The Greenwell Mystery - E C R Lorac

The House of Footsteps - Mathew West

Unnatural Causes - Richard Shepherd

Stone and Sky - Ben Aaronovitch

Colonel Marchand - E C R Lorac

The Perfect Alibi - Christopher St John Sprigg

A Flat Place - Noreen Masud

Death in Room Five - George Bellairs

Lonelyheart 4122 - Colin Watson

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

A Legal Fiction - Elizabeth Ferrars

Murder in the Basement - Anthony Berkeley

The Mystery of Henri Pick - David Foenkinos

Death Stops the Frolic - George Bellairs

How to Stop Spending Money Your Don't Have on Clothes You Don't Wear - Jodie Gillarty

How to Save Money - Ann Russell

How to Clean Everything - Ann Russell

The Library of Unrequited Love - Sophie Divry

Hybrid Humans - Harry Parker

W is for Wasted - Sue Grafton

Smoke Without Fire - E X Ferrars

Insomniac City - Bill Hayes

Family Money - Nina Bawden

Crime in Kensington - Christopher St John Sprigg

Fatality in Fleet Street - Christopher St John Sprigg

The Gentleman in the Parlour - W Somerset Maugham

Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie

Homecomings -  C P Snow

A predominance of crime fiction as always (50 out of 77 books), 14 non-fiction books. Approximately two thirds women authors. Stand out books for me were both non-fiction: Noreen Masud's A Flat Place and Bill Hayes' Insomniac City. 

So on to 2026. My only resolutions are to declutter 12 more things than I bring into the place (this sounds a doddle, but in my experience is harder than you'd think. We seem programmed, both individually and collectively, for accumulation) and end 2026 at least a few pounds lighter than I am now. No unrealistic goals, or absurd regimes, just a bit of running and fewer fried potato products. 

So Happy New Year all. See you in 2026

 

Some London Pictures

This is the first properly cold day I think we've had for a while. It's been mostly wet and nippy in the wind, in London, very much the last days of autumn rather than the shift into winter, but this morning coming back from the opticians across the park it was that bright, misty cold that comes off the grass as if it's exhaling. 

It's very near the solstice now - the days get longer from tomorrow. 

I've mostly been Christmas shopping just lately but have spent time in some museums as well. 

All the above from Sambourne and Leighton Houses

Both the above from the V&A on a Friday evening - the best time to go as it's reasonably quiet. 

As you can see here. This is the WC off the café and I genuinely don't know if it has always been like this and I've never noticed because it's usually full of people or they've recently refurbished and reopened - but isn't it lovely? 

Another thing I've never noticed before is the lifts in the Heals in Tottenham Court Rd. This is a very large building that I assumed once had multiple floors of goods but a quick google shows that manufacturing happened on site, so perhaps not. I also assumed it was meant to be a department store but actually it's a furniture store. Either way it always feels like it should be huge when you walk in but actually a lot of it seems to be offices. 

These are the lifts that service those offices though. Unfortunately as the space is quite confined I'm not doing them justice but they really are very nice.  

and obligatory Christmas shot of the staircase, again nicer if you can get there to see it yourself. 

BTLS has been in Italy (again)

 

The Case of Colonel Marchand - E C R Lorac

Firstly - quick warning - this book is not widely available. I utilised the British Library again to get my paws on a copy. 

It's a shame because I really enjoyed it, even though (perhaps because) there was nothing incredibly innovative or original about it.

Following on directly from A Greenwell Mystery by the same author, I was relieved to get a relatively straightforward murder mystery with a reasonably straightforward cast of characters.

First of those is Colonel Marchand, merry if maturing bachelor of old London town twixt the wars. 

Irritatingly as I read this book a little while back I can't actually remember if we ever see the Colonel alive. What I do know however is that the Colonel has invited a young lady to tea, and the servants are below stairs discussing what a nice young lady she is and how often she has visited him now, and should such a nice young lady really be seeing the Colonel, who at the age of 50 has been attractive to women all his adult life and knows it. 

All this conversation over and around a game of bridge, which passes the time until the bell is rung for the butler to take away the tea things (I admit to being a little surprised by this. I have always associated bridge with little baize card tables and cocktails or sherry up in the drawing room, not servants round a kitchen table). 

At about 6.30 though the butler (Gibbs) starts to think it odd that the bell hasn't been rung, and off he goes upstairs on his own initiative, finding the lady gone and the Colonel dead.  

Then, after some tangles where the secretary and the dead man's nephew go all gentlemanly and refuse to share the name of the Colonel's tea time companion with our old friend MacDonald of the Yard, and he points out they're doing her no favours but they still don't budge, she reads about the case in the paper and very sensibly comes forward of her own accord (making them look even sillier than they already did but, well, early 1930s, lingering Victorian chivalry, you know the drill).

It struck me at this point in the book how hard it would be to get that element right if you set a book in the era. A young woman could live independently (as this one does) travel across the globe (she's Australian) have an occupation (she's a musician) and yet there this lingering sensibility about needing to protect her in this hugely unhelpful way.  

Just as complex as what women themselves understood (or didn't understand) about their relationships with men - also illustrated rather nicely in this case because Karin (her name is Karin) has to explain to MacDonald that she had an on-off friendship with the dead man, refusing and shying away whenever he tried for anything more, but responding when he contacted her again because she really did like him and enjoyed his company and they had things like music in common. 

Again this feels very much of it's time. To a modern mind it's so obvious the Colonel was never going to get over it and be friends, and a Victorian miss would of course be chaperoned, but Karin is kind of caught in the middle of those two cultures and really rather naïve.   

As she tells it to MacDonald she only properly understood Marchand was serious when, on the afternoon of his murder, he proposed to her over the tea things, presenting her with his grandmother's pearls and an engagement ring, and becoming terribly hurt and shocked when she declined him (he being about as good at listening to what the other person is actually saying as she is, apparently, but again it makes perfect sense in it's era - he's been successful with the ladies before, is a good catch financially speaking, and perhaps doesn't get that things have changed and women who say no aren't just holding out for marriage.). 

Anyway, appalled at what she had done and not knowing how to fix it, Karin simply ran out to the hall, grabbed her things and left. 

Thus we have a motive and also a mystery. Marchand was not killed in the tea or cakes, he did not take patent medicines and yet he was poisoned. And although the jewellery boxes are still there the ring and pearls are gone... 

Anyway, really enjoyed this one. Hopefully if not republished it will be available in the public domain fairly shortly as I believe copyright should expire in 2028 in the UK and a little later elsewhere. 

Canal Walk - quick catch up and Wolverton to Fenny Stratford

I've done a few more sections of the Grand Union Canal since I last posted about it. Some hasn't changed much since I last did it over 10 years ago. Some seems to be much busier (Stoke Buerne, in particular, had a small museum, a decent size café, boat rides and ice cream), or far more developed - walking around the Braunston tunnel (you can't walk through) was better signposted, and the path led through an open park with landscaped grass. 

I have done a bit more wandering this time - checked out Rugby, which felt like a town of two halves - lovely thatched cottages seen from the bus, well kept bits and then the shopping centre and the part near the station where there is clearly less money (found a good chip shop though). 

Rugby Station, February

There are still long stretches of not very much. 

Busier though, the more it moves south. Locks and villages and new flats. Up market pubs where it's table service and feels a bit awkward just asking for crisps and cider (although the staff have been consistently fine about it) and little local ones with cheese rolls and Kitkats on the bar because they can't get kitchen staff. 

As part of exploring more off the canal I also visited the library and small museum at Rugby and nosed around a few churches. I've read quite a lot of plaques and notices about Bletchley Park and how people were billeted around and the buses they took, and others about long-gone railways and factories. 

In one eye and out the other, some of it, but it's giving me a sense of the place I didn't get last time. 

Then there are big things - like the huge Milton Keynes park and fun fair I realised I was skirting yesterday and decided to go and look at.  

Fenny Stratford, where I finished yesterday, is still served by the railway - a small train that shuttles back and forth on the same tracks between Bedford and Bletchley. So my plan is to go to Bletchley, actually have a wander there first (although probably not visit Bletchley Park as that feels like a whole day thing) and then head to Fenny Stratford and continue the walk.