The Mists Part

So Jack the Ripper wasn't a man in an opera cloak after all- not royalty, not the Queen's gynaecologist, not Walter Sickert, not any sort of criminal mastermind-  just a man so obscure he didn't even leave a photograph behind. His name was Aaron Kosminski, a misogynist and compulsive onanist who heard voices and used to eat from the gutter because of his fear of prepared food. He spent most of his adult life in asylums and died- of gangrene- in 1919.

Is anyone surprised?

Nerves

I was running late anyway.  I switched the radio on and the volume was way too high ( it has to be high because of my mother's deafness but not as high as this was) so I reached for the knob and it was the tuning knob not the volume knob and the radio made awful noises and I twiddled and Ailz twiddled and the radio continued to hack and splutter and neither of us could get it back on the station and I've spent the rest of the day wanting to throw things.

A teapot through a plate glass window. Now that would be nice...

Nature Notes

Birds are using the feeders very little right now. I suppose this is because (a) it's autumn and there's plenty of food out there in the world and (b) they're not feeding chicks any more.

Wasps are dying all over the place.

I sit in the corner of the field and listen to the beech nuts falling round me.