The rain in Berlin

Among other things Gutta percha strongly evokes colonial horse-riding women, saddles, stirrups, whips and boots. Pavements, paddles, disgust, gotcha, gutting of predator fish, to kill a mocking bird, a pair of chas… guttural cries, perchance to dream, pervanche, peridots, perched high in a tree, pandemonium.

They used to put it in the middle of golf balls. Do you remember opening golf balls? Carefully slicing through the tightly-wound elastic which sprang off vigorously, jumping all over the place, being careful not to burst the bag of white stuff in the middle but eventually getting to it…

Another concept from the plant world that knocks me out: Understory.
“the term for the area of a forest which grows in the shade of the emergent or forest canopy. Plants in the understory consist of a mixture of seedlings and saplings of canopy trees together with understory shrubs and herbs. Young canopy trees often persist as suppressed juveniles for decades while they wait for an opening in the forest overstory which will enable their growth into the canopy. On the other hand, understory shrubs are able to complete their life cycle in the shade of the forest canopy. Also some small trees such as dogwood and holly rarely grow tall and are generally understory trees.”

This left my mind reeling. “suppressed juveniles”. Nature can be so cruel.
My son is struggling through adolescence, natural sloth mostly winning over my attempts to goad him into action. “You must have some idea of what you would like to do” I said. He replied: “It’s like, we’re in France and you keep asking me what the weather is like in Berlin".