Outraged of Dorking; car maltreatment; big bamboos

Penned my first missive to the Milton Keynes Citizen last week in response to a ludicrously stupid headline adorning their weekly ‘Feedback’ slot, in which members of the MK public are asked for their views on a chosen question of the week. “Giving offence is a social faux pas” – yes, those days when it was quite acceptable were much better. Idiots. Bears out my long-held suspicion that people who rail against ‘political correctness’ (whatever that is) are just peeved they’re no longer allowed to beat their wives and stick signs saying ‘No Coloureds’ in shop windows. I Ask You.

Ruth and I went round to Ray’s on Friday evening for a pleasant dinner, if not strictly home-cooked – I had volunteered to bring the food and had done something resembling a supermarket trolley dash around Waitrose on the way. The evening started badly when I unaccountably drifted while driving along the private road leading to the marina and had to swerve sharply off the road to avoid an oncoming car, unfortunately into a deep pothole, flattening one of my tyres and bending the wheel rim. Drove more cautiously than usual back to MK on the spare on Monday morning, but car seemed to handle fine so hopefully there’s no damage to the suspension. It’s booked in at the garage next Monday so will find out the damage then.

On Saturday morning Ray drove us over to Riverside Nurseries in Bisham, a wholesale nursery from which he and Darren obtain a lot of their plants for work, to choose the new bamboo for the garden that he had offered us as a Christmas present out of some of his credit there (some unique footage here). Picked out a fine tall specimen with thick green stems, which we managed with a bit of manipulation to get into Ray’s van, though it looked initially as though we’d made a bit of an error of judgement. We got it back to the house and Ruth planted it up that afternoon, fairly nobly as a) it was raining by then and b) I asked her to replant it further forward as I didn’t like the position of the first hole she’d dug. It looks splendid. Hoping it will now grow like the blazes.

When I went outside to critique/admire the new installation, I decided to christen the Pocket Coat that Ruth had bought on holiday in New Zealand in 2008 but never worn. Didn’t realise it was quite as disposable as it evidently was – when I went to unfasten a couple of the poppers I’d done up, it tore clean across (though the poppers stayed resolutely done up). Consigned it to the bin. Disposable coats aren’t what they used to be. This young Korean couple modelling Pocket Coats on the packaging look very happy though.

Yellow peril

Made myself press on with some jobs in the house during the rest of the weekend, starting with applying MDF primer to the lengths of MDF that are hopefully destined to become a wall of shelving in the attic. After that, steeled myself to continue stripping wallpaper from the little cupboard in bedroom 1, a job I started on New Year’s Eve and abandoned when I removed the paper from the ceiling and, perhaps inevitably, a load of the plaster also fell down. We had been hoping to get away without having the cupboard plaster-skimmed but it was not to be, so the intention is to get that done as soon as I’ve finished removing the paper. The woodchip is coming off reasonably easily (though thank God for our Bosch steam stripper) but under it there lurks a cunning layer of a foul yellow wallpaper, such as one cannot believe people ever put on their walls, which is proving much trickier. Perseverance is going to be necessary.

Brunei Gallery

Accompanied Judith to a HESA seminar today on the new KIS return, thankfully not at their Cheltenham headquarters but at SOAS' Brunei Gallery, a shorter and easier journey. Judith had announced her intention the day before of taking as late a train as possible, but as that's completely against my personality type I took an earlier train and arrived with about an hour and a half to spare. Wandered down Tottenham Court Road and popped into Cilantro for a second breakfast. The experience just goes to show that looks aren't everything; civilised-looking place with quite posh decor, but was served one of the most watery cups of coffee I've ever had (and in a glass, which was slightly bizarre) and, though I'd ordered a pain au chocolat, what arrived was a croissant with chocolate sauce drizzled over the top. In fairness, the young waitress was polite and did come along to ask me how everything was, so I took the opportunity to say that the coffee was very weak; they took it away with no quibbling and produced a replacement cup which was indeed a great improvement. Just serve that in the first place? Formed an interesting contrast with the rather spit-and-sawdust Caffe Quattro near Waterloo that Ray and I breakfasted at in January, which nonetheless serves thoroughly excellent coffee.