flemmings | (no subject)

Heat melts the brain so I've forgotten what yesterday was like, only that it wasn't as hot as today. Only went out to put out the garbage and ask Mrs. Professor if she knew what the tall plants in the front garden are. She thought it looked like a savannah grass. Googling suggests that it is indeed quack grass and impossible to root out.

Today was the unbreathable pillow of heat kind of day so all windows were closed and fans on in both bedrooms and downstairs. Ran the window AC last night and for part of today, at a conservative 20C because the house will hold cold for at least two days unless we get to 35C/95F. Humidex was probably in the high 30s but I was having no part of Outside until the wind started to blow in the late afternoon. Did not blow in cool but did blow in dry, so I went out to the library and Baskin Robbins. I need to move and I didn't move yesterday because everything hurt too much.

Been reading Anne Granger mysteries. The Campbell and Carter ones go down quickly, one a day, only now I realize I forget almost everything about them, including Who Dunnit. Am also reading The Aosawa Murders, translated from the Japanese, which is a downer for no reason I can think of, except that it reads more and more like one of Ruth Rendell's psychological horror stories. I really liked it at the start since it's clearly set in Kanazawa, and the remarks on how the city is laid out took me back to my one and only trip there. My sister and I had a map and were confident we could walk from our hotel near the station to Kenrokuen, the famous garden. Ha ha ha no. Kanazawa is laid out with a view to making it impossible for invading warlords to get anywhere, and still defeats tourists. We eventually realized this and took a cab.

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We’re having it hot today here in England - well, hit by UK standards, not as hot as you. Sympathy.

While in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that neither physical nor Google maps take the hills and dips into account while navigating the city. Plus cobbles. No doubt good exercise, but ouch.

Maps really ought to warn you about places like Edinburgh and San Francisco but as ever, one must rely on word of mouth.

The logic of cobblestones defeats me. Horrible for both man and horse, and laid down when men wore heels. Makes no sense.

You never read about Georgian or Regency _men_ in high heels spraining their ankles, though logic suggests they must have . . .

Maybe they always travelled in carriages or carrying chairs or on horseback. Though why didn't the horses sprain their ankles, one wonders.

I suppose "broke leg from stumbling on cobbles" never made it into _Black Beauty_ - though thinking about it, I think I recall one point from that story where the protagonist stumbles on freshly laid stones and cuts his knees open. (Though it's been a while since I read it...)

Well, one can cut their knees open on theoretically flat sidewalks, so there's that. (Using a walker teaches you just how theoretic the flatness of sidewalks is.)

Never read Black Beauty, actually. Possibly I just never an across a copy, possibly I just had no interest in horses.

I wasn't interested in horses either - I just hoovered up everything in sight as a child.