January round-up

Ruth's birthday on 3 January ended up being a bit understated as we were still stripping wallpaper. We had booked to go to dinner at Myalacarte, but cancelled in the end so that we could continue stripping longer and not have to finish early to wash, don frocks etc. I think we had a Domino’s pizza. The glamour.

Also on 3 Jan we dropped off Harley for a week’s stay at Reading Rabbit Rescue in order that he’d be out of the plasterer’s way (being a bit too prone to showing interest and hopping about dangerously under people’s feet). Sandra again raised the question of whether we were intending to get another companion for him, and we raised concerns that she’d have to be a female who wouldn’t bully him and banish him from the ground floor as per Willow. Sandra then, quite kindly, voiced her opinion that Harley is “a little bit of a sex pest”, and that some of his rougher treatment by females might essentially have been asked for. We felt similarly to how parents must feel who have been claiming to the headteacher that their child is being put upon by other children, only to be told their child is in fact a bit of a sod. Sandra mooted the idea of possibly pairing Harley with a younger female who had been neutered early, the theory being that such a female would not achieve full typical female dominance, unlike a female such as Willow who had come to full maturity prior to being spayed. Sandra did show us a few young females she had in, who were indeed cute, but Ruth was undecided so we didn’t push it. As at the time of writing she appears still undecided.

I returned to work on 4 January leaving Ruth in the company of Mark the plasterer. Returned home on 8 January to attend a hospital gynaecology clinic appointment, at Townlands Hospital in Henley. I was mildly surprised to discover Townlands was even still open, but indeed it is and appears to be undergoing a major refurb. The clinic – along with a few other clinics – was operating out of a portacabin, but the receptionist and other staff appeared to be coping admirably. Spent a mere 15 minutes or so with the consultant, Miss Vijayanand, who has referred me for another hysteroscopy under general anaesthetic, currently scheduled for 22 February. Apparently I also had the previous one in 2009 under her team, though I think I must have seen her underlings on that occasion.

Lodge of Friar Park with blue sky behind

The day of my appointment at Townlands was a gorgeous wintry morning such as we have had precious few of this winter. Stayed in Henley for a while after the appointment, going for an initial short walk, then for a second breakfast at Patisserie Valerie, then for a second slightly longer walk, by which time the day was dulling a bit. Enjoyed walking around Henley again though. Strange to imagine that I lived there now – seems such a long time ago. Tempus fugit, etc.

River near Marsh Lock

Mark has, as ever, done a beautiful job of plastering, though with the teensy hitch that the living room external wall appears to have a damp problem, which he reckoned we should get sorted before he plastered it. He gave Ruth contact details for two damp specialists, one of whom we now have a quote from. Slightly tedious as the necessary treatment of removing the existing plaster and applying whatever medication is required will delay the living room project for a while.

Still, here's the living room chimney breast, pre-plastering on the left and post-plastering on the right. The debate over whether or not to install a wood-burning stove (or, in our case, smokeless fuel-burning stove) is still ongoing, with me maintaining that the room is far too small, I hate the faux country cottage look and the house isn't cold enough, plus it would mean displacing Herbert, our dead classy Buddha head, while Ruth maintains that real fires are cosy and apparently I Just Don't Do Cosy. This usually leads to me countering that she doesn't understand tidy and clutter-free, and things descend from there. I have, in fact, given in on this one, in the interests of stopping having conversations about it, and said that she can have a woodburner installed provided she pays for it. To date, the process of choosing one is still ongoing though.


Prior to plastering, Ruth and I briefly considered trying to remove the hallway and living room radiators ourselves and duly watched a couple of YouTube ‘how to’ videos. Realised we needed shut-off caps for the TRVs, and tried to find the ones we’d presumably been given at the time the radiators were fitted. Couldn’t find them – Ruth has a nasty feeling she may have chucked them. Went to Screwfix to try to buy some more, but bought the wrong size. Eventually Ruth cracked and rang Aqua-King, the company who fitted both our boiler and the radiators, to come and take them off at the same time as doing a boiler service. They did, didn’t have the right cap and managed to flood the living room carpet. FFS. We might as well have tried it ourselves.

As a belated 50th birthday present for Ray, Ruth and I bought him a little fan that sits on top of his stove and blows warm air from the stove around the boat. I’d never heard of these and was a bit sceptical, but he seemed pleased with it claiming that he has heard good things about them from other boaters. He called later the day we delivered it to say that his bedroom appeared warmer than usual, so there we are. Here he is sticking his fingers in it, in possibly ill-advised fashion.

As of January, Ruth and I have taken out a joint membership of the National Trust, at my suggestion – she is considerably less enthusiastic about it and considers it a mark of staid middle-age. I pointed out that Hannah and Henry are NT members, but not sure this was regarded as a particularly convincing argument. Our membership came with a free gift of an absurdly tiny pair of binoculars, seen here next to a biro. We haven’t yet attempted to use them to spot any birds through - indeed I am not a natural bird-spotter, being far too impatient - but perhaps that may come. Eager to make a start at using our membership, I drove us to our nearest NT property, Greys Court, an attractive Tudor house between Reading and Henley, on Saturday 16th. We didn't go into the house, preferring a walk around the grounds as it was a beautiful day. The house doesn't have extensive parkland but has some attractive walled gardens, though they were naturally looking a bit understated in mid-January. Ruth is keen to return later in the spring to see the walled gardens again, which I am regarding as a first minor NT success. Now, of course, we just have to make good use of our membership by going to loads more properties.

Greys Court

Day in London with Ruth on Saturday 23rd. Caught the 205 over to the Old Street area and called first on Ruth’s intermittent boss Patrick and his girlfriend Barbara, who live in a flat on one of the side streets off Old Street. Patrick was Ruth’s line manager during her stint at HCT Group and, coincidentally, is again managing her during her current contract with Voiceability. Patrick – an American, though evidently something of an Anglophile – seems a very nice chap; indeed I have since taken to checking that Ruth is being nice to him, to a point where she may be regretting having introduced us.

Tea at Barbican Kitchen

After leaving their flat we made our way over towards the Barbican, via lunch at The Iskele on Whitecross Street. Lunch was underwhelming and somewhat indigestible – though perhaps I just chose the wrong thing – but we did like the décor with the lovely coloured lanterns.

We had gone to Barbican to see the exhibition ‘The World of Charles and Ray Eames’, though in the event we bodged it a bit – after paying the £14.50 to get in, we managed to fail to notice that the exhibition had a whole upper floor, so only got about half of our money’s worth. What we saw was interesting, though not all very accessible to people not already pretty expert on the Eameses and their activities. Ruth's and my knowledge of them pretty much extended to the famous lounger, so I was interested to see the photos of the houses they'd been involved in building, including their own. By the time we’d made it through the ground floor rooms we were, admittedly, flagging a bit – possibly due to lunch – and went for a cup of tea at Barbican Kitchen, before returning to Paddington via a brief visit to Heal's and Habitat on Tottenham Court Road.

January ended on a sad note with Uncle Dan’s death on 19th, followed by attendance at the funeral on Friday 29th at Westerleigh Crematorium. As I had already arranged to visit Mum and Dad for the Saturday and Sunday, took the Friday off work and incorporated this into the weekend. Set off, as often happens, rather later than I intended so having to abandon my tentative plan of visiting a National Trust property en route to start getting my money’s worth. The crematorium thankfully proved easy to locate, being not far from junction 18 of the M4. Met up with the parents, Dave, Hazel, Hannah and Henry, and we lurked in an ante room until Uncle Dan’s wife Jean and my cousins Owen and Robyn, plus their partners, joined us.

The short service featured two hymns, Lord of all Hopefulness and Cwm Rhondda – as Dan’s family had kept the numbers to immediate family only (in fact Dad had been obliged to check with Robyn that his offspring were actually invited) we only filled the first two rows, so the pallbearers filed into the row behind to flesh out the singing. This was a good thing though a little startling, and I had to struggle not to meet Hannah’s eyes at points or there would have been a risk of inappropriate sniggering. After the service, Jean and the others vanished to a nearby pub, and as only Mum and Dad had been officially invited to join them, the rest of us hung around briefly not too sure whether we should go along – eventually we decided against it and Dave, Hazel and I drove to a pub we’d passed on the way in and had a drink there.

After we parted I headed for the Premier Inn at Cribbs Causeway, where I had booked Ruth and myself in for the night, and successfully arrived with only minimal veering wildly across lanes waving at other drivers. I had arranged to pick Ruth up from Bristol Parkway and chose that evening to experiment with the satnav facility of Google Maps. As satnavs tend to do, it chose a route that was probably the most direct but not necessarily the easiest to someone not familiar with the city – the journey of what can only have been a few miles took me what seemed like a good 20 minutes of missing a crucial slip road and carrying on towards the centre of Bristol, finding somewhere to turn round and then doing the whole thing again, not helped by darkness and heavy rain. On about the third attempt I managed to be in the correct lane to take the slip road and sometime later actually managed to pull into the station forecourt, where I erroneously turned into the taxi rank, to immediate protest from taxi drivers, left and pulled into the bus station, yelling at Ruth – whom luckily I had spotted – to hurry up and get in. Left the station possibly on two wheels and managed to retrace the route back to the hotel, where I calmed down after a large glass of wine. We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant due to the rain and lack of familiarity with our surroundings.

The following morning we drove to the nearby Portway Park and Ride and took the bus into the city centre, where I went to meet Hannah for coffee and Ruth stayed on the bus as far as Cabot Circus for a spot of shopping. Spent a pleasant couple of hours with Hannah at the Boston Tea Party on Whiteladies Road, before walking back down into the city and locating Ruth in Waterstones. Headed to Abergavenny around midday and spent the afternoon at Mum and Dad’s – the plan had been for the four of us to have dinner at Abergavenny’s new branch of Prezzo on the Saturday evening, but Ruth managed to contract some sort of 24-hour stomach bug and ended up staying in the house, so Mum, Dad and I went on our own. Restaurant was certainly busy that evening so I hope it does well.

We got this flyer through the door recently from the estate agents Philip Baker. Personally I would be hoping to get a bit more than that for the house. Think this may need some re-wording.