Richard's jottings

Once again my Christmas Cactus is living up its name, covered in bright pink flowers. I've had it for so long that I can'tremeber ho...

The phrase in the title was voiced by a television announcer recently. I find it entertaining to invent circumstances in which vacuous forms...

A while ago I thought I'd eaten the last of this year's homegrown tomatoes, but today I noticed that a couple of fruit I'd kept ...

I recently wrote a cheque to be enclosed in a Christmas card, and noticed that the last time I wrote a check it was to the same person, for ...

Last month I boasted about the unseasoable profusion of flowers in the garden. After a fairly sharp frost last night there are fewer flowers...

I'm still eating tomatoes grown by myself in the garden, and haven't needed to buy any tomatoes since early August. The plants expir...

In the 1950's one of my aunts had an operation. When she no longer needed full medical attention she moved to a convalescent home where ...

Among the minor irritants of modern life is the occasional need to free joints of meat from the snare of elasticated string In bygone days ...

Today I received four magazines, all delivered by Royal Mail. Three of them should have arrived at least three days ago. Most of the materia...

Many goods are sold, either completely encased in plastic, or in some combination of cardboard and plastic. In either case I need scissors t...

Pears are very frustrating fruit, changing from inedible hardness to repulsive mushiness so quickly that one usually misses the intermediate...

Even in this, the last week of November, there is still an abundance of flowers in the garden. As well as the Winter Jasmine which usually f...