Fireworks; Jacksons; slow cookery

Park House

After work on Thursday went up to Park House for the Senior Common Room’s annual firework display. Had to fight for a seat in the bar beforehand for our pre-fireworks drink (Batemans 'Miss Luscious'¹ for me; some appley concoction (Olde English) for Ruth) and dinner – I partook of an uninspiring chicken korma, rebranded for the evening as ‘Fireworks Chicken Curry’. The fireworks were punctuated by the traditional ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ and, as a sign of the times, were preceded by announcements about first aiders, fire blankets, buckets of water, standing well back etc etc. Then went home and watched yet more fireworks out of the living room window.

Ruth and I spent several hours in town on Saturday that included paying a rare visit to Jacksons, a prominent Reading department store that against all the odds, has resisted modernisation and is now a true museum piece – uneven floors, menswear departments staffed by doddery looking elderly gentlemen with tape measures round their neck and a peculiar system of dispensing change that means that if change is required it has to come down a tube from several floors above (one visualises a little old lady sitting in a dusty room on an upper floor – this site has a bit about the system; intriguing). Ruth bought a couple of hunting-themed Christmas presents for her family and had to wait some minutes after handing over a note before change appeared. God knows what would happen if you tried to pay with a credit card.

In the evening we had dinner afloat – Ray had been hopeful that his gas supply would be fitted by that time, but ‘twas not to be (the latest piece of advice he has been given is to look out someone at the marina site called ‘Bill the Pipe’). Instead, we had a slow-cooked stew that had a lovely flavour, but contained potatoes that had resolutely refused to cook despite having apparently been on for around 10 hours. I received a phone call the following morning to say that both the leftover stew and the slow cooker had been thrown out.

We gave Ray a gift of a canal-goer’s log book and a salt and pepper shaker painted in a traditional canal-boat design. His delight at receiving the latter can be seen in this heartwarming photo (I blame the motion of the boat, rather than the claret, for the lack of focus).

¹Actually I didn’t like the ML all that much, but the only other choice was Brakspear Bitter which is over-bitter for my palate – am not yet enough of a hardened real-ale drinker.