Exercise

I joined a u3a walk round Tunbridge Wells this morning taking in the plaques on buildings where sundry notables had lived or visited: Lord Dowding, Queen Victoria, W M Thackeray, a notable high-class whore and many others.  Not on the list, a building opposite the Queen Victoria plaque carries a blue plaque on a modest house where Clarissa Jerome, Winston Churchill’s grandmother, once lived.  One plaque commemorates the factory where Subbuteo table football sets were made, so I permitted myself the job of explaining the name.  The inventor, one Peter Adolph, a resident of our village, wanted to brand the name Hobby.  This was ruled to be too generic, so he went for the Latin name of the hobby, winged variety.  One of the members of our little group was, in her student days, one of the home workers who hand painted the model footballers, at a thoroughly abusive piece rate.

I proceeded to bore further by telling them why certain motor cars have their names.  Mr Horch, after falling out with Auto Union, which by then owned the Horch brand name, decided to go Latin as well: his name, which means hearken or listen in English, is, of course, in Latin, Audi.  One in the eye for the extinct Auto Union, even if it’s now just a VW with attitude.

I gave up about two thirds of the way round when I still had a relatively level walk back to where I’d parked.  My worse knee has swelled up a bit, so I think Something Will Have To Be Done.  Still, the iPhone tells me I dun close to 6700 steps, 3.6km, so it can’t be that bad.

First flowers today on the iris sibirica.  And the first rose to flower is one one of the cream flowered mini roses we were given last Christmas.