Clarted with dirt

clart or clort A clart is a lump of mud or something else unpleasant. A clart is also a dirty mess. The word is perhaps from Middle English biclarten defile.

It's a credit to central London that I found it difficult to find anything clarted in dirt. This uninspired picture is of the wall of an Underground tunnel, opposite the platform on which I was waiting for a train to take me from Euston to King's Cross on the Northern Line.

At King's Cross, I met Fred, who was very smartly dressed in a suit as he had just been for an interview. This greatly surprised and unnerved his mother who we met off the train from Edinburgh. We waited out the rush hour in style, with a glass of wine and a platter of cheese at the Searcy's restaurant in St Pancras station. Then, once home, dinner in the garden, with Whisky hiding in the shadows because there was a new person in the flat - he's such a scaredy-cat. He returned to the flat once everyone was safely tucked up in bed, and stayed on my head until morning.