Blue tits; Somerset; Grand Designs

Meant to update this last Wednesday from my parents’ place, but had no sooner settled down happily at their kitchen table with my laptop than I discovered that their broadband was out of action. After a brief rant in the direction of the cats, who looked unmoved, it dawned on me that having four days without access to the internet (as well as without mobile reception) would probably be good for me and create a calm meditative atmosphere conducive to periods of quiet reflection, etc. Spent a quiet day or so reading, looking through some old photographs and providing a lap for Emrys (left). Collected Ruth from the train on Friday morning and we spent a further quiet day before my parents arrived home on Saturday. The visit was enlivened by what Ruth termed 'Tit TV': the nesting box with attached camera that Ray gave Dad as a present a few years ago is being used this year, by blue tits - we were able to view the 12 little eggs and the cute little bird sitting on them. Eggs and tit are just visible in these pictures. They had yet to hatch when we left, though Dad reckoned that hatching was imminent.

As I didn’t fancy driving far on the Thursday I tasked myself with finding dinner from the local shop at Longtown 3 or 4 miles away. Although doubtless a useful resource, it doesn’t stock a huge range of food so ended up with a Linda McCartney macaroni cheese and a packet of sausages. Macaroni cheese isn’t something I usually eat, but it wasn’t bad.

Drove to Cheddar on Sunday morning to visit Ruth’s grandmother, with whom we had a pleasant lunch at local restaurant the Edelweiss. Lots of attractively wooded hills around, which look worthy of further exploration at some point although Ruth thinks Somerset is a ‘vile’ county from which one is lucky to escape without dengue fever or similar from torpor-inducing west coast air. Have done only limited probing as to reasons for this view. Drive back was certainly vile after we had switched off the satnav in a degree of frustration; I had tasked Ruth with directing me around (NB as opposed to into) Bristol to pick up the M4 somewhere around Chippenham, but this didn’t quite work, resulting in half an hour or so of frosty silence after I had driven several times around the same roundabout in Bristol city centre. Once onto the M4 we became caught up in road works, Sunday evening traffic and pelting rain. Cheered ourselves up later by going for dinner at the recently-revamped Griffin.

To recap over the previous week: election news: both Reading’s seats are now blue. Reading East’s Conservative MP Rob Wilson got back in, with an increased majority. There was a vacancy in Reading West due to the recent retirement of Labour’s Martin Salter, and the Conservative's Alok Sharma is now the new man there. Reading Borough Council remains NOC, though a Tory/LibDem coalition looks likely. I haven’t formed much opinion either way about Rob Wilson, but I understand he holds regular surgeries across his constituency, so I guess I could pop in with an issue if I wished. His publicity material is chiefly characterised by him reminding voters that he’s married, with four children – aside from obviously being a thinly-veiled “Yes, I’m Heterosexual”, can’t understand why this is thought relevant to politics – and from observations it does tend to be a Tory tactic; the publicity material for the Labour and Lib Dem candidates, entirely correctly, didn’t mention anything about their private lives. Personally I wouldn't care if my MP lived in a commune with seven other men, as long as he did good things for the community ...

We went up to Ray’s boat on the evening of Friday 7^th for what I had hoped would be a pleasant al fresco waterside drink on a balmy spring evening, but ended up being a huddle around the woodburning stove on a decidedly chilly evening. Made admiring noises as to how his tongue-and-groove panelling is progressing.

Trekked out to the ExCeL on Saturday 8^th to Grand Designs Live – quite fun, though unfortunately (given the cost of the ticket) by the time the day came around neither Ruth nor I were really in the mood and it was also rather more similar to the Ideal Home Show than I had been expecting. Our tickets entitled us to a complimentary copy of the Grand Designs magazine and a bag of rather random freebies, including a small packet of muesli and several free samples of fabric conditioner. The already quite long journey out to the ExCeL was lengthened by us getting on the wrong branch of the DLR at Canning Town (I blame Ruth) and having to wait around at West Silvertown for a return train. A bleak landscape – there’s a bit about the area here - but I did take this picture of the big golden syrup tin on the side of Tate & Lyle.

While at the show, queued to look around Eco Modular Living’s Ecohome. The company apparently markets recycled buildings ‘using a hybridisation of modular and container fabrication techniques’. Reminded me of my proposal, which I first expounded to Ray some years ago, for solving Britain’s housing problem by accommodating people in Functional Living Units (henceforth FLUs), medium-but-not-oversized living pods equipped with the essentials. Disappointingly, Ray always doggedly maintained that the idea wasn't viable, possibly because the plan included demolishing large swathes of the country's existing housing. I stick by it though.

A sold sign has gone up opposite UHO (see 14 April post), barely a few weeks after the house went on the market. This is good news. Remains to be seen whether the new owner will remove the nasty grey paint and metal windows.

Have recently written a letter of complaint to the (expensive) health club of which I am a member about the unpleasantly acrid smell in the steam room on several occasions recently. Am giving them a week or so to sort it out, but was briefly encouraged when I went to the gym on Monday to note that poolside was closed for maintenance, so hopefully this includes scrubbing the steam room or at least masking smell of wee with eucalyptus or similar. I live in hope.