Jen has a list that she began  in 2003. The list originally consisted of a single name: Aspatria. Lists begin like that. Knitting patterns, baking recipes, shopping, birthdays and even diaries turn into lists for Jen. It may be that she gets deep seated pleasure out of lists. I have no idea.

I just know that when you mention List, in Germany, eyes are narrowed and breath is sharply inhaled.

The List is something she began in 2003 consist of places with vague Natural History connections. It is also  a list of places to visit – “in a certain order” – when she has a long enough list.  

List, the place, is located on the North Sea island of Sylt close to Denmark in the district of Nordfriesland in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. It is the last place on Jen’s 2003 list that she intends to visit. Aspatria is the first place. The List, I was informed last Lammas, is almost long enough now.

Jen has never told me what order she intends visiting the places . Jen has not said how she will visit these places. Jen has not said why she will visit these places. The only information she readily gives up is, “it all begins at Aspatria”. The whole list thing is something from a secret part of her life that nobody really understands.

Logically: visiting will begin something at the August Bank Holiday. August Bank Holiday means Solfest. Solfest is near Aspatria. Quests and list are not, however, logical. So it could start anywhere at anytime.

The List of places I have may not be complete. It is split into two sections: animals and plants. It might well be a list of places with historically significant knitting patterns. This is as plausible as the possibility of wanting to spend a night at each place.

The List is separated into two parts: Plant and Animal. At one time, it looked to be almost in alphabetical order. The List does not start with Aspatria and does not include List. The last I saw it, the list appeared to be something like this: Animal: Berkshire, Goldfinch Bottom; Cornwall, Mousehole; Dorset, Chaldon Herring; Hampshire, Anthill Common; Lancashire, Cow Ark; Leicestershire, Sheepy Magna; Nottinghamshire, Bunny; Oxfordshire, Brill; South London, Elephant and Castle; Surrey, Donkey Town; Wiltshire, Cuckoo’s Knob; Devon, Dead Cow Point and Dog Village; Dumfries and Galloway, Beeswing; Kent, Badgers Mount; Scottish Borders, Blackadder; Plant: Cumbria, Aspatria; Somerset, Cowslip Green; Camarthenshire, Red Roses; and,  Merseyside, Knotty Ash. It has changed.

I know that Jen has contemplated the List Quest as she calls it. Spending most of her time knitting or medicated – a wander around the country might benefit her. She always feels better after going to Solfest. It might just be the start of some strange Knitting Quest.

Since January, she has been knitting twenty small tea cosies. Over  the years, bought twenty small sheesham wood boxes. The domed kind. Covered in brass inlay work. I discovered these in 2005 when I opened her airing cupboard and they fell on top of me. Each one seems to be being steeped in a slightly different set of aromatic oils. The tea cosies fit snugly over the top. There were twenty one of them in 2009 when I last looked. It is not quite what you expect to find.

We were setting off North when Jen announced – to nobody in particular: Dolphin, Flintshire; Goosey, Oxfordshire; and, Hedgehog Bridge, Lincolnshire. Hearing Hedgehog Bridge uttered with a solemn sense of finality did prompt me to ask if her List Quest was nigh. It prompted an icy silence. I suspect that was a yes silence not a no silence.

Which is how I came to be writing about the end of Alchemy and Phlogiston. In a field in Solway as the sound of music pleasantly distracted me. For reasons not divulged to me, I was asked to explain the Phlogiston Theory and when the Full and New Moons would be.

This is what I had written.

In 1666 There was the Great Fire of London. Fire was in the air. In 1667 Johann Joachim Becher the noted German Cameralist, published, “Physical Education” which revised Alchemical Theory.  It was a sort of tidying up of the four elements theory. This tidying had been done numerous times by numerous philosophers. Becher was no different. According to published cameralist academic texts, the State should focus on maintaining law and promoting collective prosperity. Cameralism sought the mobilisation of land and population in service of the common good. Tidying Alchemy into lists would be a worthy endeavour for any Cameralist. It was the dawning of Science Administration.

Alchemists classically considered there to be four elements: fire, water, air, and earth. Becher eliminated fire and air and replaced them with three forms of earth: terra lapidea, terra fluida, and terra pinguis. This resulted in a new theory of four elements. In this theory the role of terra pinguis was exactly the opposite of Oxygen. The essence of the system became a triad of Earths and Water – both physically very obvious elements. The notions of Air and Fire being derived from those as kinds of compounds.

Terra pinguis imparted oily, sulphurous, or combustible properties as a key feature of the process of combusting and was released when a combustible substances burned. Terra pinguis translates as “the rich earth” or the “land of the rich”. In 1703 Georg Ernst Stahl – another Cameralist - Professor of medicine and chemistry at Halle, proposed a variant of the theory in which he renamed Becher’s terra pinguis to phlogiston. Jen had always been more interested in the Becher version of the story.

According to Phlogiston Theory when things were burned  they should lose weight. The problem of weight gain after combustion was explained by the physical property of phlogiston having negative weight. That physical property became more doubtful in the Eighteenth Century. Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier and Joseph Priestly entered into a debate which resulted in Lavoisier inventing Calories and Phlogiston ceasing to exist.

In “Reflections on Phlogiston,” published in 1783, Lavoisier demonstrated that the Phlogiston Theory was inconsistent. He may also have, inadvertently invented all of the groundwork for modern dieting.

Which was more or less written beside the Dhrystone Stage while Jenzilla did her thing in the Dance Tent.

The reason that Jen says she likes the Phlogiston Theory is that Phlogiston explains things badly. The List Quest will also explain things badly. I have no idea what those things will be or why they will need to be explained; or why bad explanations will be a good thing.

As it turned out we got to the end of Solfest and Jen had written out a list of the four elements. Twenty four different combinations of  the words: terra pinguis, terra lapidea, terra fluida and incognita. As ex-boyfriend I get no clues as to how this list relates to the List Quest list; but, the list of full moons and new moons would total twenty four dates. As a friend, I do get to admire the fact this was done in the dance tent after midnight.

There will be no departing on a quest in the near future and I am not going to be part of that  quest. It is something that Jen is going to do by herself.