Packwood House

 We met up with Frances and Ben at this National Trust property just south of Birmingham. Strangely we had never been before. I thought we had visited all the Trust properties within a fifty mile radius when we were members but somehow we overlooked this. 

The property is a Tudor house extensively rebuilt and renovated between the wars. The owner, a single man, entertained there but lost interest during WW11 and handed the property to the National Trust. We met up with Frances

We met up in the new café and had a snack. Matt and Alice were at a games fair in Birmingham and Frances, who is very busy most of the time, had a little leisure to meet up with us. Ben who has now done nearly a year at school is much as one would expect of a 5 year old. He was obviously a bit bored by the house but enjoyed racing along a narrow spiral path in the garden.

His boredom in the house was alleviated by a “spot the china Dalmatian” feature in the house. Nine in all, they were usually easy to find although one or two were a bit difficult. I was so busy trying to spot them I felt I didn’t do the house justice. The room volunteers were always ready to give a clue.

A feature of the house is its gardens. These included a walled ornamentals garden and a smaller walled kitchen garden.  The larger walled garden was perhaps the most impressive I have seen with mini buildings at each corner. Always elevated these were far more than gardeners weather shelters. A notable feature of one was a fireplace built against the wall in a sort of cellar. A notice explained the fire was used to warm the wall to protect plants against from slight frosts. I wouldn’t have thought the wall would conduct heat well enough but it was presumably just enough to make all the difference between frost damage and not.

Unfortunately it started to rain while we toured the grounds. The lake was very low. An interesting feature are the “follies” which include a miniature house built from parts of furniture and a giant four poster bed. These were built recently by the trust inspired by the original follies from the pre war period. The owner apparently enjoyed extravagant parties around the originals.

One nice touch was the garden games placed by the trust;  bowls, giant Connect 4 and others. The rain prevented us from enjoying them which disappointed Ben. While he had the solace of an ice cream we all retired again to the café. Amidst the crowded area I initially had to share a table.

 Now I’m rather elderly I find it easy, indeed natural, to strike up a conversation which I did with a middle aged couple who live nearby Packwood and are frequent visitors. I was never naturally gregarious when younger but I’m now like my father who also took to initiating a casual conversation with people in his later years. The irony was that as he grew older still deafness limited and eventually prevented this. I’m hoping that this won’t repeat with me. It became so severe with my father that when he was hospitalised once the doctor called on me to translate. When he eventually went into a home his deafness cut him off from fellow inmates. Hearing aids were much more primitive and he never got used to one.

Curiously he was very good with Stan, a friend who suffered. I recall Stan saying to me once that he liked to talk to my father because he spoke loudly and clearly with him. Stan was the husband of one of his great nieces although because of the way the generations worked they were more like his nieces with Stan his nephew in law. Stan and his wife Joan had children just a little younger than me and we used to go on little expeditions, the two families, when I was young.

Frances is now wearing braces on her teeth to correct problems we should have had fixed as a young person. I can only say that the proposed treatment then seemed far more drastic and involved the deliberate breaking of her jaw.

Diesel engines

I’m increasingly concerned at the demonization of diesel engines. I’m afraid there is a certain fashionable view that diesel engines are harmful, even dangerous. Like many technology stories while there is an element of fact these facts are distorted out of recognition.

Diesel engines like all internal combustion engines ( eg petrol engines ) produce potentially harmful emissions. It is only quite recently that the harm done by fine particles of soot was recognised. For at least 5 years it has been mandatory to fit diesel engines with particulate filters. More recently the danger of nitrogen dioxide emission has been countered by the addition of a urea solution ( often called Adblue ) to the exhaust gas. This has only been compulsory for a few years.

Public attention was called to the nitrogen dioxide problem because some car manufacturers, notably the Volkswagen group, were cheating emissions tests so that harmful engines appeared to meet recent requirements. It is a scandal that the tough enforcement taken in the US has not happened in Europe.

What the anti diesel claque forget is that diesel engines are both more efficient, and hence good for the user, but are also good for the environment producing less greenhouse gases.