Wednesday 7 August 2013

Highlights of the past few blog-free months:

Electrical work in house
Had a second batch of electrical work done in the house recently, this time by local sparky Chris Catt of Compass Electrical, whom we located via Round and About. This included having some additional sockets installed in the living room, necessary since Ruth’s re-locating of the TV; spotlights installed in the kitchen and hallway, and a pendant light installed in the dining room. The latter was an affordable design from John Lewis that I had liked and that, in the surroundings of a brightly lit shop floor, had appeared to emit an acceptable amount of light – however, once installed, it doesn’t light the room anything like as much as I had hoped. Possibly a teensy flaw in the design, or possibly I should have bought more than one. The type of light it provides would be quite suitable for late-night poker games, but we don’t host many of those.

Trip to Bristol, May
Took myself down to Bristol for a couple of nights in May for reasons that seemed well-defined at the time, involving awareness of needing to look for next job move and a desire to do some sensible research this time on places I might actually not mind relocating to, assuming I can’t turn up something within daily commuting distance of Reading. Booked myself into the Premier Inn (naturally) at Filton, this being the one with the cheapest deal on – on arrival I could see why as it’s in dispiriting surroundings in a low-budget retail park. Spent the Thursday afternoon and the Friday variously walking and bussing around, and visited Hannah in the studio flat she is currently occupying in Buchanans Wharf.   

Arts Trail follow-up, Sunday 19 May
Took a walk around Caversham Heights to get heart moving etc and visited one final property on the Caversham Arts Trail, this one in Ridge Hall Close where we viewed Glenda Hemken’s slightly odd paintings. There’s some detail here on the Reading Forum about Ridge Hall, the house that was apparently demolished around 1970 to make way for the new houses. No pics, though, which is a shame. Could go to the library’s local history section and look for one, but probably won't get around to it.  

Visit from Mum
Visit from Mum at the end of May. On the first afternoon we went up to Whiteknights partly to purchase kimchi from the Korean shop and partly to visit the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, as I’d never visited it while a student and thought it might provide a focus for an afternoon. It’s housed within Reading’s Classics department (not sure how it still manages to have one of these) and I had always assumed that it consisted of a classroom containing a few half-heartedly arranged urns, but it’s actually a bit more impressive than this – indeed, a proper little museum.On the Saturday we went up to Kensal Green Cemetery for a nose around, starting with the Sean Smith photography exhibition in the Dissenters’ Chapel. Initially this appeared to be locked up but a young man eventually let us in, seeming a bit surprised at the exhibition – titled ‘On the Margins’ – actually having any visitors. We were the only other people there, though as the photographs were largely of bloody corpses/war zones/disaffected people on sink estates, it perhaps wasn’t going to have mainstream appeal. The cemetery itself has an impressive collection of enormous tombs and a long list of ‘notable burials’, though we kept to a stroll along the main thoroughfare rather than hunting for specific graves. Dad apparently has a relative buried in the Catholic cemetery at the north-western end but we didn’t venture in there, as Mum decided it was something for the two of them to do at a later date.

In readiness for the weekend I had been out to Argos to purchase a new airbed, as the quite expensive ‘Aerobed’ I purchased a few years ago disappointingly seems to have sprung a bit of a leak. Ended up purchasing a double-height black monster that took forever to inflate. Here’s Mum looking slightly intimidated by it.

Random recent films watched

Frankenweenie
Ruth’s choice from LoveFilm. Sparky lives, Sparky dies, Sparky lives. FFS.  

No Sex Please, We’re British
Embarrassingly, my choice. Just felt I should expand my knowledge of old-fashioned humorous British cinematic romps. Made in 1973, it was the film of a long-running stage show; I’ve no idea how the film compared to the stage version. The lead role of chief cashier Brian Runnicles was originally played by Michael Crawford in the stage show, and later, apparently, by David Jason (and probably others). The film version stars Ronnie Corbett (Crawford apparently turned it down). The films is moderately tedious but an OK way to pass an hour or so, and Ian Ogilvy and Susan Penhaligon are both easy on the eye as the young assistant bank manager and his new bride. The level of shock and outrage apparently surrounding a few dirty postcards (and subsequently books) is hard to fathom today – indeed, surely this was a bit anachronistic even for the 1970s? Perhaps not; it’s not as though I can remember. The stage show played in the West End for sixteen years, so somebody must have liked it.  

Berberian Sound Studio
Ruth’s choice again, but more interesting than F. Weenie. Terribly sad bit about the chiffchaffs though.

Star Trek
JJ Abrams’ 2009 version; watched to fill in the gap after having seen Into Darkness recently. Definitely V.G. – and it’s a nice touch that the featured romantic relationship is between Uhura and Spock. Indeed, I don’t think Kirk gets a snog throughout the entire film. Hurrah for parallel universes.  

Week at Annedd Bach in June
Spent a few days at my parents’ house in June, house-sitting while they had a short break away on the Sussex coast. As Annedd Bach is now on the market (in fact now SSTC at time of writing), I was keen to make time for a few days’ visit. Spent a quiet first couple of days as Ruth wasn’t able to join me until the Thursday evening; occupied myself in going out for a bike ride on my new irritating bike (see next section) which developed a flat tyre on Day 2, and going through some financial bumf I had taken with me. Mum’s page or so of written notes/instructions included the somewhat disconcerting “If Emrys dies, put him in a binbag in the freezer”. Luckily he contrived to remain alive for the duration of my visit. My parents returned on the Friday and we went over to Dave and Hazel’s for a few hours on the Saturday for Dad to assist Dave doing things with plasterboard. Mum and I took Nia for a stroll around the nearby park, which was quite pleasant, though Nia slept pretty much the whole time.

New bike irritations
Partly encouraged by Ray, who remains disturbingly obsessed with cycling in addition to enquiring regularly after my obesity levels (a greater frankness has crept into our relationship since separating), I recently purchased an additional bicycle to keep at the house, with a view to being able to cycle on weekend mornings as well as during the week. Went for the Raleigh Alana Hybrid bike from Halfords, as a relatively cheap utilitarian-looking little number. Duly collected it from Halfords in Milton Keynes and managed after a good deal of struggling to get it into my car for transport back to Reading; it is lighter than my other bike but I’m guessing no adult-sized bike is particularly amenable to being stuffed into the back of a Ford Fiesta. Took it out for one ride at my parents’ house the following week (see previous) after which it developed a flat tyre. Assured by Mum that no one she knows mends their own punctures any more, I took it in to A W Cycles on the Henley Road, a local specialist bike shop within wheeling distance of the house (and where, moreover, Orlando Bloom was spotted a couple of years ago). I took it in to be greeted with “That’s been built wrong” from the none-too-cheery bloke manning the workshop reception, and left it with assurances that they’d fix everything else wrong with it in addition to mending the flat. Despite having been assured on the phone that it would be a half day job, I eventually got it back several days later, with its problems supposedly fixed but with the saddle altered to the wrong height and with one set of brakes touching the wheel. Should probably have just taken it straight back and asked them to fix it, but was insufficiently assertive to do this, with the result that it’s been languishing in the garage for the best part of a month.

As of this Monday, it is possibly now fixed, as Ray came round for coffee and a bacon sandwich on Monday morning and tinkered with it a bit. I now have to try it out again next weekend, when it will probably develop yet another problem.  

Continuing abuse of Teddy by Ruth’s bear Fred
Another narrow escape for Teddy on 10 June when I found him stuffed into the bedroom fireplace along with paper and matches. He was, obviously, snatched clear once I obtained this photographic evidence.  

Harley operation
Took Harley to the vet about a month ago as Ruth was concerned re an apparent fall-off in his appetite. We were quickly informed that the problem was his teeth, which apparently had grown back again to monstrous proportions and were ulcerating the inside of his mouth, necessitating another operation for rasping, following the one he had a couple of years ago. They were able to do this the same day and we returned late afternoon to collect him, to be barraged by gush from one of the nurses re what a cute little thing he is, and a mild lecture from the operating vet regarding the state his teeth had got into. Ruth is still mad about this and at Harley for playing up the pathetic little bunny angle with the veterinary staff. True to form, not long after the operation he was back to his usual self, and Ruth abandoned giving him his medication after a few days when he slashed her across the stomach leaving a scar that looks like a somewhat hamfisted appendix removal. He seems fine. Evidently we will be having to get his teeth checked more regularly in future though.

New TV
My old Beko TV is now no more, having eventually deteriorated to a point where it was necessary to switch it on around 30 minutes before wanting to actually watch it, as it would start out each time by just showing you a blank screen with a line across it, for an increasingly long period. Setting up the new Samsung Smart TV took some time, as we had elected not to pay John Lewis to do this for us (though we did pay them to take away the Beko) and had failed to realise the necessity for an HDMI cable, then once we’d obtained one of these, realised that our Virgin Media box didn’t have anywhere to plug it in to, so Ruth had to obtain a more up-to-date model from Virgin Media, an arrangement that seems to have resulted in us signing up for another year’s contract. The new TV is dead nice though and in theory does all sorts of clever things including allowing you to access the internet, not that either of us has worked out how to do that yet. Here’s a farewell picture of me with the Beko.  


Redemption of Bedroom 3
Bedroom 3 is now carpeted, with pretty much the cheapest carpet CarpetRight do. And it has a new wooden blind. My reaction is best summed up by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir here.  

Oxford interview, 23 July
Went to Oxford on 23 July for an (as it turned out unsuccessful) interview for a Planning Officer post in the University of Oxford’s University Administration and Services. Around 20 minutes before the interview, as I was setting out to walk to the venue from the cafe where I'd been lurking, the heavens opened in a freak downpour that actually seemed to manage to turn the streets into lakes within a matter of minutes. There was no time to take shelter without being late for the interview, so I was forced to turn up looking like a drowned rat, spend 40 minutes sitting in an open-plan office working through a series of tests, and then a further c. 40 minutes being interviewed, while trying to rise above concern for appearance. I was asked more than once whether I needed to go and dry off, but as it was more than could be remedied with a couple of paper towels, I didn’t bother. Emerged from the interview into, perversely, bright sunlight. Went for a croque monsieur at Patisserie Valerie and then wandered through a bit of the Ashmolean seeking tranquillity among the Buddhist and Hindu artefacts.

Stately home-ing
Ruth came up to MK for the last weekend in July; although part of the weekend was spent in seeking out a printing service to print out some PQQ documents she needed to read urgently for Monday morning (thank you, Staples), we also managed a little trip out on the Saturday to Wrest Park, an English Heritage property in Bedfordshire. I'd never heard of the place, perhaps unsurprising as it's only been open to visitors since 2006, but Ruth happened upon it while having a quick Google for local gardens. After a bit of a detour thanks to a re-routing of the A421 post-production of my road atlas, we arrived and spent I guess a couple of hours wandering around, before becoming almost overcome by the heat and having to retreat for a cup of tea.

Wrest's grounds feature a Mithraic Altar, which I was mildly intrigued by - not a genuine antiquity though, it was built in the 18th century. It's logged on www.waymarking.com.  

Wine man
Had a visit on Saturday evening from a man I shall call only ‘John C’, a local wine-making enthusiast who came round a year or so ago to pick the grapes from the grapevine in the garden after Ruth made contact with him via the Reading ‘Freegle’ network. He had promised us a bottle or so of the product once it had reached a state for drinking, and duly turned up with three bottles of red wine, which we may term ‘Chateau 49’, along with two large and unsolicited bottles of his plum wine, and a couple of taster bottles. We sampled both kinds; I thought both pretty rough though the red improved with a bit of sugar to take the edge off. I think we’ve agreed to let it rest for a few more months; perhaps a treat for Christmas.

We had got the impression re John C of a bit of an eccentric, as one email Ruth sent him to try and arrange a date for the bottle handover received this reply in tabular form detailing the arrangements in his diary so far for May through to July:

We were mildly intrigued at someone who would share their diary with a relative stranger, as well as at the busy time John C appeared to have planned with Alan, Per and Stephen. Takes all sorts.