Chalk streams are streams that flow through chalk hills towards the sea.  They are typically wide and shallow, and due to the filtering effect of the chalk their waters are alkaline and clear.  There are at least 210 chalk streams in the world, and 160 of those are in England.  Chalk streams are popular with fly fishermen who fish for trout on these rivers.  Chalk is a highly porous and permeable rock and rain falling onto chalk topography percolates directly into the ground, where the chalk acts as an aquifer.  The groundwater flows through the chalk bedrock, re-emerging lower down the slope in springs.  The chalk acts as a temporary reservoir by regulating the amount of water supplied to the springs.  This is why many chalk streams in the UK have stable flow regimes that vary only slightly over time.  The temperature of the emerging surface water is fairly stable and rarely deviates from 10 °C (50 °F).  On cold winter mornings, water vapour from the relatively warm stream condenses in the cold air above to form fog.  Although chalk streams are generally watercourses originating from chalk hills, including winterbournes, streams and rivers, the term chalk stream is used even for larger rivers, which would normally be too large for the term stream.  The Somme River in Northern France is a chalk stream on a larger scale.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk_stream

Kenneth Grahame had Mole, Ratty, Badger and Toad lark about a chalk stream in Wind in the Willows.  The poets Ted Hughes and Sir John Betjeman wrote of trout weaving their lazy path over the gravel beds and in 1820 John Constable captured the beauty of the Avon in front of Salisbury Cathedral.  Joe Shute  Read more and see pictures at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/06/why-britains-chalk-rivers-are-under-threat/

The Wind in the Willows, a linked series of animal tales by Kenneth Grahame, considered a classic of English children’s literature. The book was begun as a series of bedtime stories for Grahame’s son and was published in 1908.  The tales relate the adventures of four animal friends and neighbours in the English countryside—Mole, Rat, Toad (of Toad Hall), and Badger.  Although the animals converse, philosophize, and behave like humans (Toad drives a motorcar, for example, though badly), each creature also retains its distinctive animal habits.  Cathy Lowne  https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Wind-in-the-Willows  In 1929 A.A. Milne adapted children’s classic, The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall.  https://www.britannica.com/biography/A-A-Milne#ref894008

Read The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/289/289-h/289-h.htm or borrow from a public library.

PULPY MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE  The Paper House is an actual house made from paper.  Newspaper.  It was built by Mr. Elis F. Stenman, a mechanical engineer who designed the machines that make paper clips, began building his Rockport summer home out of paper as a hobby.  That was in 1922.  Link to interview, admission, directions and hours at https://www.paperhouserockport.com/about.html

In this article from 19 October 1998, Gyles Brandreth gives an account of his late-life friendship with Christopher Robin Milne   The other day, on a television programme in America, I was introduced as "a guy with a true claim to fame--he once shook the hand that held the paw of Winnie the Pooh".  Yes, I knew Christopher Robin, the real Christopher Robin, the most famous small boy in literature.  We first met about 18 years ago when I was writing a musical play about his father, AA Milne.  I made the pilgrimage to Dartmouth in Devon where Christopher, then about 60, and his wife, Lesley, owned and ran a bookshop and cared for their severely disabled, grown-up daughter, Clare.  Christopher--slim, a little bent, owlish glasses, tweed jacket--was not at all as I had expected.  I had been told I would find him painfully shy, distant, introspective, diffident about his parents, reluctant to talk about Pooh.  He surprised me at once.  He was consciously charming, courteous, kindly, gentle but forthcoming, amusing, amused.  He said:  "Of course we must talk about Pooh."  He had a mischievous twinkle.  "It's been something of a love-hate relationship down the years, but it's all right now."  "Now we are sixty," I said.  He laughed.   "Yes, believe it or not, I can look at those four books without flinching.  I'm quite fond of them really."  Read more and see pictures at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/i-knew-christopher-robin--the-real-christopher-robin/

Goodbye Christopher Robin is a 2017 British biographical drama film about the lives of Winnie-the-Pooh creator A. A. Milne (rhymes with kiln) and his family, especially his son Christopher Robin.  Christopher Robin is a 2018 American fantasy comedy-drama film. 

In 1921, as a first-birthday present, Christopher Robin Milne received a small stuffed bear, which had been purchased at Harrods in London. Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, and Tigger soon joined Winnie-the-Pooh as Christopher's playmates and the inspiration for the children's classics When We Were Very Young (1924), Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Now We Are Six (1927), and The House at Pooh Corner (1928), written by his father, A.A. Milne, and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.  Brought to the United States in 1947, the toys remained with the American publisher E.P. Dutton until 1987, when they were donated to The New York Public Library.  They are all now happily ensconced in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.  http://exhibitions.nypl.org/treasures/items/show/28

British author Alan Alexander Milne was born in London, England, on January 18, 1882.  After attending the University of Cambridge's Trinity College and writing for the literary magazines Granta and Punch, Milne began a successful career as a novelist, poet and playwright in the 1920s.  His best known works are his two collections of children's poetry, When We Were Young and Now We Are Six, and his two books of stories about the lovable bear Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends.  https://www.biography.com/people/aa-milne-9409137

Christopher Robin Milne, bookseller and writer:  born London 21 August 1920; author of The Enchanted Places 1974, The Path Through the Trees 1979, The Hollow on the Hill 1982, The Windfall 1985, The Open Garden 1988; married 1948 Lesley de Selincourt (one daughter); died Totnes, Devon 20 April 1996.  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-christopher-milne-1306346.html

The site of the Dolomites comprises a mountain range in the northern Italian Alps, numbering 18 peaks which rise to above 3,000 metres and cover 141,903 ha.  It features some of the most beautiful mountain landscapes anywhere, with vertical walls, sheer cliffs and a high density of narrow, deep and long valleys.  A serial property of nine areas that present a diversity of spectacular landscapes of international significance for geomorphology marked by steeples, pinnacles and rock walls, the site also contains glacial landforms and karst systems.  It is characterized by dynamic processes with frequent landslides, floods and avalanches.  The property also features one of the best examples of the preservation of Mesozoic carbonate platform systems, with fossil records.  Read more and see picture at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1237

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1962  October 2, 2018