SUMMER IS HERE (22/06/11)

So is the sun or it was, it appears to have turned a little damp again. Not proper rain as we are accustomed to. This is normal rain, it hits the ground and stays there. Rain over the past few days has hit the ground and ricocheted back from whence it came.

This morning we were out for six, back for seven, a quick bowl of muesli…….bird food to the uninitiated….then away for a circular walk of a few miles through Deepdale Wood just west of Barnard Castle. I really enjoy this wander but though I’ve done it several times it has never yielded a photograph. It didn’t disappoint in this respect today so back to a little filling in.

Last night I was dreaming of my early days……….the days when I was a tenth of my current age……..I recalled an old gardener who worked on some school grounds a few hundred yards from our house…….he seemed old. All of thirty years, I suspect. He was designing a rockery with a  pond  in the middle. His calculations for area seemed so inordinately complex to a six year old that I regarded him as a paragon of intellect. He was! Pegging out is a serious skill. I am for ever grateful, I love simple, neat mathematics and it doesn’t get much neater than this. I also love spherical trigonometry but although all it’s problems can be solved empirically……………it’s hardly riveting reading for the maths shy.

For those that want exact quantities of material for garden makeovers this method is quick and easy.

Picks Formula…………….Theorem,todays mathematicians prefer to call it. Georg Alexander Pick proved it in 1899. He may have had trouble spelling George but he new his maths……..sorry Knew.

                                                                       There it is ……..easy. If you want weight of chippings to purchase then one only has to times by the depth………four inches is about standard and a cubic metre or yard is around a ton. If you want a pond in the middle then life gets more complicated. Just e-mail. Peg out your area with string and stick………make sure the corners are square……..again simple, again, e-mail. If you want curves then guess………..it will be an educated guess! If you want to know what to plant then ask a Plantist………All I know is green side up.

Bet you’d hoped I’d finished for today………….HORST…….does this better than most……….certainly better than me.

SEE…………………

         Not very good…………cryptic………….begins with ‘C’.. four letters. An anagram of carp

This is better………………..

Hardly Turner……….but interesting………..but not very!

Have fun.