Observations from a Hill

Dorothea Quarry, Nantlle, North Wales: disused since 1969, it has over the years found favour with divers, due its depth and the interesting topography beneath its surface. In recent years it has been run by North Wales Technical Divers, a branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club, under license from the landowner. These days, admission is restricted to divers qualified to carry out mixed-gas decompression dives [source: Divernet]. There was a spate of fatalities there in the eighties and nineties, and diving was 'banned' to little or no effect due to the popularity of the place in the diving fraternity. Divernet this week reported yet another fatality: a 60-year-old diver was killed on 31st May, with North Wales Police stating that the death is not being treated as suspicious. On reading this piece quoted in a local online news outlet, I Googled the Nantlle quarries and came up with some interesting stuff that could possibly be relevant. First off the bat was an article from The Dai...

It’s strange how, when casting around for ideas to form the day’s blog entry - not always an easy task, especially as this particular blog is not themed - sometimes a forgotten document reappears at random from the hidden depths of one’s laptop. I’ve just experienced just such a serendipity. I was thinking of putting something down about a lovely piece I read in this weekend’s Financial Times Magazine, or even something on national debt with relation to Edward the First: but while I was idly searching for some note-taking templates - free, of course - a link I clicked on opened the app I’m now typing this on. Focuswriter is a tool I used for some time in the earlier days of the blog, but for some reason had stopped using some time ago. Anyway, the thing about the app is that it opens with whatever document was being worked on - or read, in this case - previously. The article that popped up onto the screen, was a 2017 paper, submitted by a Michael Peterson to the ‘Hazardous Time-scapes ...

Tasting notes from the lamb steak thing... The meat itself looked decidedly unpromising from the outset: no bone and very little fat. But I persisted until the thing was at last cooked, with a modicum of caramelisation in evidence, and rested the bugger for a good twenty minutes, whilst I deglazed the baking dish with some decent dry white wine to make a crude sauce. I sliced the meat, napped it with the juices and put a dollop of the newly-discovered harissa alongside. Three things. The lamb was actually very good; the deglaze - with more white wine - was brilliant; and the harissa was a marvel. The depth of flavour in the lamb and sauce was one thing, but the complexity of the harissa just kept on developing and revealing more and more layers of taste long after my plate was cleared. It starts with a fairly powerful hit of smokey-ness, and develops into a complex of flavours that will take some time to fathom; ending in a glorious, but not overwhelming chilli hit. An extraordinary co...

OK - as I said to Joe this evening, I've been banging my head against the family tree for a few days now, as I do from time to time. I can usually do about a week of it before my brain shrieks enough! This morning, my Southall investigations were at about the same depth of search as before: to my great-great-grandparents, with the previous generation still a little cloudy and unresolved by relevant data. By late afternoon, however, I have found stuff that takes my search back to the 1600s, and my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents; courtesy of the family tree of an unknown cousin of mine. As she has so much right in my directly-known history, I have little doubt that the older generations she cites are absolutely correct. Verification is in order, but as they say, the journey continues. Keep you posted. Addendum: When first posted, I incorrectly said incorrect, when I meant correct, regarding the cited, well, citations: alcohol-fuelled typo...