NAGging; church jumble; plants

In one of my sporadic, and usually short-lived, attempts to become more involved with the local community, I attended a meeting of the Lower Caversham Neighbourhood Action Group (NAG) last Thursday evening. The meeting was a public meeting to set the NAG’s priorities for the next year, and all of us present were given little coloured post-it notes to stick on various flipcharts indicating those things we thought should be priorities. The categories were pre-chosen and included such obvious things as Burglary, Antisocial Behaviour etc. We also had a talk from Inspector Penny MacKenzie, head of the Neighbourhood Policing Team. As is the way of these things, some of the older NAG members present did seem to tread that fine line between ‘concerned citizen’ and ‘annoying busybody’. On my way in I was greeted by an enthusiastic elderly gentleman who shook my hand for longer than necessary while thanking me profusely for coming, and then proceeded to put his arm round me while saying to somebody else ‘look, a new member’. Was tempted to say that if he continued the body contact it would be the last meeting I attended, but as I have occasionally been reminded of the need to be more tolerant of eccentrics/weirdos, refrained.

On the subject of eccentrics, seem to keep running into our neighbour-from-a-few-doors-down Norman following my encounter with him back in March. As seems to be the way of gents of a certain age and ilk, he does seem to spend a lot of time hanging around outside his property indulging in low-level chitchat with passers-by. Am trying to perfect technique of greeting him cheerily while not slowing brisk pace, in manner of one clearly on the way somewhere important, though was forced to slow down long enough on one occasion for him to tell me I looked nice in my gym kit. He doesn’t seem to speak to Ruth so am feeling unduly hand-picked for his attentions at the mo. It has been pointed out to me that he is no doubt well-meaning but lonely, which is no doubt true, but still.
In an attempt to support local events Ruth and I wandered down the road to Caversham Methodist Church on Saturday to support something billed in the paper as a ‘summer market’ – an overblown term for what turned out to be a pretty lowbrow and poorly attended jumble sale. The main room featured a handful of depressed-looking people sitting behind tables offering used toys, bedlinen etc, none of which looked like something you’d be drawn to buy. We made a beeline for the food stall and I bought a jar of marmalade, while Ruth bought a bag of dry-looking rock cakes. We then tried to escape but unfortunately someone offered us a cup of tea as we were heading for the door, which we felt obliged to accept. There did turn out to be books for sale in the main church itself, which redeemed the event a bit. The man in charge of the book stalls informed us that all religious books were free, but I refrained from taking any and paid 30p for a copy of ‘What Not To Wear’, which has occasional useful tips scattered among Susannah Constantine’s repeated banging on about her flabby arms.
Along with WNTW we picked up a small pamphlet published by The People's Friend in 1978 entitled Your Money Saving Diary, which includes a sobering list of money-saving tips, including how to salvage a cracked egg by rubbing the crack with dripping before putting the egg into water, and using the inner bags of cereal packets to line cake tins. Thrifty stuff.
We went over to Arborfield again on Sunday to check on the progress of Gail and Rob’s kittens (still cute). Gail then kindly drove us around to look at plants and pots, including a trip to the lovely Pudding Lane Nursery - plants laid out in attractive garden that one can meander through, with pleasing absence of the extraneous tat that garden centres feel obliged to sell in addition to plants (ghastly figurines; fridge magnets with inspirational sayings; giant ceramic blue tits etc – NB anybody in search of the latter should try the Henry Street Garden Centre). We bought several more grasses and a couple of large terracotta pots, one of which is now homing the oleander Dad gave me a few years ago.

Sticking with plants, have noted new growth on my spider plant at work. Bought this about a year ago in Homebase, on the grounds that it was a manky-looking specimen that I feared no one else would buy - probably not a sound basis on which to choose a plant, but I felt sorry for it. Have been feeding it for the past few weeks using a plant feed Ruth mixed for me. Feel nurturing and almost maternal.

As part of current attempt to get rid of backache by toning up core muscles etc, returned to Pilates on Tuesday evening, over a year after having done the original beginners course. Can feel stomach muscles today so assume it must have been doing something. Still sticking with gym routine, but have convinced Frazer that no, I don’t need to ‘up’ the routine quite yet, as am still struggling to do five minutes on the crosstrainer. Have a nasty feeling he is contemplating adding dumbbells to my squats.