Plumbing.

It is amazing how a scene can suddenly take you back in time to unlock and unleash long forgotten memories. One minute I was shuffling through the grass and the next I was back in October 1963,  listening to my first ever undergraduate botany lecture. The lecture was being given by Regius Professor Paul Weatherly, Fellow of the Royal Society, on the topic of water movement through plants. I remembered his wise words as if it were yesterday; "Oak trees or dandelions, they are all the same when it comes to their plumbing". He was, of course, encouraging us to see the big picture, and to ask the big questions, and not to get bogged down in detail. It also reminded me that in those days eminent professors still taught the first year undergraduates! How things have changed.