Mulberry

I've often passed the mulberry tree (after which the surrounding lawn is named, even on the blip map), but have never noticed it fruiting before. A tape barrier had been put up surrounding it so I couldn't get very close - was this to discourage browsers, I wonder? There was a mulberry tree near where I grew up and I was once given a fruit to taste - I liked it, I think, but it's so long ago I still had a child's palate and can't offer a description.

The journey home was not good; after I changed trains at Crewe I could find nowhere to sit apart from the floor in the vestibule until after Preston. Not uncomfortable (thanks to yoga for that), but the carpet was filthy. I got home in the black-est of glooms - which I eventually diagnosed as having started from my reading of the newspaper on the train. Chemical weapons, a Pinochet anniversary, 9-11....probably worst of all was the report of the rape/murder trial in Delhi. Realised I was just suffering the customary shame of being human. Time to stop reading the news again for a while.

Mr H supplied me with a beer and a hot bath - just the job.