Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
‘So you’ve reached your legacy years?’ said a colleague as we discussed photographs. Not so much photographs as photography. I’d just admitted to spending many evenings scanning or digitising strips of photographic negatives.
I was sitting by a window, rereading some of the short chapters that make The Hidden Life of Trees so easy to follow and enjoy. It had been raining hard throughout the night. The term ‘pelting’ had come to my sleepy mind as gusts of wind drove the raindrops onto our windows, sounding like the huge hail that sometimes makes us doubt the strength of glass.
Yeasts as carbon dioxide strippers. What a concept! Suddenly you are thinking of National Collection of Yeast Cultures in Norwich or the Center for Bread Flavour outside Brussels? Wrong countries. I’m thinking of Austria. But first, we’ll need to go to the UAE, Oman and Cyprus where you might be able to see rocks soaking up CO2.
It seems I was wrong about how sunflowers transport their water to the tip of the plant. I have just read that science doesn’t really know how a tree transports water from the soil to the crowns of trees. Ask yourself the simple question I forgot to ask: how does the world famous redwood called Hyperion get water to its crown 115 m above the ground? It must be properly hydrated given that it’s over 900 years old.
The Dalkey Archive features a swimming spot from when it was for gentleman bathers only. It was in a cave near there that De Selby encountered St Augustine and surrealistic visions of eternity. This was the Vico Swimming Club, a real place I frequented as a child and student. Today, some call it The Ramparts. Others call it the Vico Baths. Yet others call it The Men’s Bathing Place despite today’s gender neutrality.
Science and experience both tell us that it may become harder to learn as we get older. On the grounds that it’s never too late to learn, I was thinking about science books overnight. Which is the best? Could it be The Selfish Gene? Or perhaps The Periodic Table? Maybe The Emperor of All Maladies? Or Factfulness?
So I thought a web search would help remind me of some that I have read. Where better to start than the annual Royal Society Prizes for Science Books?
