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.

Christmas, New Year etc

Still catching up from Christmas. Have to go with when the muse strikes.

Amused, while browsing Waitrose’s array of Christmas produce, to see this product labelled ‘Christmas mashed potato’. It appeared to be in fact mashed potato, sans any additional cranberries, holly or similar. Didn’t look to see whether they also had Christmas washing powder, tampons etc.

Spent Christmas this year at Mum and Dad’s with the family, which was lovely though a veritable slew of present-opening and three-year-old excitement. Here’s Dave lighting the pudding, failing to impress Alys who’d obviously seen something much more interesting in the garden. Nia got a pair of Anna and Elsa dolls, amid a good deal of other Frozen merchandise, and carried them and her new Olaf doll around with her for much of the time she was there.

On Boxing Day we went out for a bit of a walk down to the river meadows (the river Usk impressively full) and back via the Linda Vista Gardens and the Hen & Chickens for a Boxing Day drink. Nia made her feelings known at one point by lying down in the middle of the meadows and refusing to go on, but was eventually persuaded by Nanna. Alys was adorably smiley for the whole walk despite it apparently running way into her nap time. 

Boxing Day drink at the Hen & Chickens

Set off on 27 December to Milton Keynes to check on my flat, rather prompted by the holiday burglary post-Christmas in 2013, though as my current rented place is on the second floor I’m hoping it’s rather more secure. Everything was indeed fine. Was joined later in the day by Ruth who, after months of frankly somewhat trying indecision over what she was going to do for Christmas, had made a late decision to go to her parents’ home in Norfolk. In the event it had evidently all worked out OK, helped by her mother having had friends visiting for a majority of the time.

We returned to Reading the following day and began a marathon of clearing the living room and hallway and then stripping wallpaper in readiness for Mark the plasterer, whom Ruth had booked in for 4 January. It turned out to be indeed a marathon task – the hallway paper came off easily but the living room proved a lot more troublesome, and we had to face the challenge of how exactly to strip the paper from the stairwell. Ruth managed part of it via ladder – being slightly squeamish about heights I refused to do it, so fair play to her – and we accomplished the rest by rigging up a sort of platform of a board across ladder and stairs, such as should never be seen by either of our mothers.

Discussed who should play us in any future documentary warning of the dangers of DIY. My suggestion that I should be played by Claire Danes was rudely received; Ruth’s counter-suggestion of Dawn French was equally rudely received by me. Ruth briefly toyed with having Janet McTeer play her, but then we decided that JMcT is tall enough probably not to need the ladder in the first place.

Met Jude for coffee in Starbucks on 30 December – hadn’t seen her since the last Progress South Central get-together I attended, which must be two or three years ago now. Jude is still working at Reading, as a Health & Safety Administrator, and currently has one of the university-owned flats, which sounds a reasonable deal. We had a very enjoyable catch-up over two absurdly large mugs of hot chocolate. In the evening, Ruth and I went for a drink with our neighbours at number 47, Kris and Laura. Kris, who seems a very friendly chap, has mooted the idea of a drink before and it’s never come off, so kudos to him for persevering. We braved the Fox & Hounds at the bottom of Westfield Road, a pub I’d never been into in the now ten years I’ve lived in the house in Caversham. It was a bit rough round the edges but perfectly pleasant and we had an enjoyable few drinks – Kris seemed up for making a bit more of a night of it but I wasn’t really up to that.

The Fox & Hounds’ main claim to fame is that John Lennon and Paul McCartney once performed there in 1960 as The Nerk Twins, before they were famous (apparently the pub used to be owned by McCartney’s cousin). Not sure whether that Beatles-inspired ale has yet been created.

Met Claire at The ex-Hobgoblin now-Alehouse on New Year’s Eve for an afternoon drink. Being much more of a party gal than I am, Claire was heading out that evening to the Rising Sun with Alison to see Dolly and the Clothespegs. I headed home to, as I generally do, stay in for the evening - I think we cooked and then probably watched something, but I forget what. Like the idea of going away for New Year, preferably somewhere remote by a lake, mountains etc, but never get around to actually thinking about it in time. Perhaps next year. Maybe.

Written pre-Christmas but published a bit late

Some seasonal decorations now up at the house, including this one of my two small artificial Christmas trees. Ruth subsequently set up the second of the trees in the living room, claiming that I had used all my favourite decorations on the first one and not used any of hers. Quite right. Also these lights at the flat.

At this stage am feeling reasonably prepped for Christmas, though still have some last minute cooking to do at Mum’s. Among the slew of pre-Christmas magazines and gift catalogues, came across Museum Selection, full of an assortment of variously nostalgic and patriotic gifts, including ‘The Little Book of Whittling’, apparently an introduction to creating ‘useful and whimsical objects using a pocketknife, twigs and time’. Have a feeling it might take me quite a lot of time to create anything useful, or indeed whimsical. The catalogue also features a charming-sounding – presumably ironic?? – book titled All The Countries We’ve Ever Invaded (featuring interviews with grateful natives?), plus other books with titles along the lines of Reminders of Yesteryear, ‘Twas All Much Better Back Then, etc etc.

Whizzing back over the last month: spent the last weekend in November in Abergavenny to celebrate Mum’s birthday. We had two (2) cakes, one a coffee and walnut that Henry had baked (excellent) and one a plain sponge that Mum had bought as a plainer alternative, and also with a view to Nia decorating it. She did indeed write ‘Nanna’ quite creditably on the top of it with an icing pen. Here she is assisting Mum blowing out her candles.

A couple of nice new things have opened for public use in Reading recently. The new footbridge over the Thames at Christchurch Meadows is finally complete, and jolly nice it is too. It's lit up at night by lots of little LEDs. Link to picture gallery here.

Also, on 6 December we ceremonially walked recently through the newly opened Napier Road subway on our way to Homebase (and, at my persuading, Toys R Us to look at Barbies, Lego etc). It’s been closed for some years, but has now been re-opened for pedestrian use linking Napier Road (and hence the oddly blue-roofed flats at Luscinia View) to the Forbury retail park and the town centre without having to trail up to the roundabout to cross the railway. The tunnel apparently used to be a route for two dear little trains that carried biscuits from Huntley & Palmer to a siding at Reading station.

Ray introduced me a few months ago to the baroque quartet Red Priest so I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were giving a lunchtime pre-Christmas concert at the OU on 9 December. As he was eager to come up to the concert I took the morning off and we began with breakfast at Buskers before going for a walk around Linford Wood, somewhere I hadn’t been as yet. A few pics here. Well marked and surfaced paths – one of the finer features of going for a walk in MK, especially in the light of our later bog experience (see walk below) – and a series of cute wooden sculptures. The concert was well attended and held in the Hub Theatre rather than the church, so they must have been expecting a good few people. Red Priest are an amazingly lively act, particularly the recorder player Piers Adams, who bounds around the stage and switches rapidly between an array of different-sized recorders (far more types than I’d realised there were). Although the violin isn’t one of my favourite instruments, I was mightily impressed with the violinist Adam Summerhayes – though he’s not in fact a permanent member of the group but was standing in for their usual violinist Julia Bishop. I’d definitely go and see them again, and may seek out one of their CDs.

Linford Wood

Ruth and I went down to Chichester early on 12 Dec to pay a visit to her godmother Rosemary, as well as doing a bit of Christmas shopping in tasteful cathedral city, etc etc. We arrived at around 9.30 – actually a little later than I’d intended but the AA route planner took us on an ‘as the crow flies’ route along A-roads, which needed a bit more careful driving than just whizzing along the motorways. Parked up at the Premier Inn where we were staying for the Saturday night and walked into the city seeking a second breakfast, which we had at Artie’s Kitchen, a self-professed ‘Artisan Café’, which led to much scoffing at the modern over/mis-use of the word ‘artisan’ to mean home-made faux-rustic put together by leisured middle-class types goods. Our breakfast of muffins topped with bacon and poached eggs did indeed come with a tasteful mound of rocket on the side, which marked it out as dead classy.

My Chambers dictionary defines ‘artisan’ as ‘a handicraftsman or mechanic, a skilled manual worker’. At the time Ray worked at Temple Golf Club in the 1990s, there was an ‘Artisans’ club separate from the main club, to which working chaps such as himself could belong. (From what I recall, he had his membership terminated through non-payment of fees.) This site notes that ‘artisan golf was created in the 19th century to give working men the chance to play on good courses affordably’. I assume there are a number of such clubs across the country, as there’s an Artisan Golfers’ Association. It seems rather anachronistic these days but if it enabled play on quality courses at a reduced fee, I guess it was a good thing (though I can’t recall now whether Temple Artisans also required members to play at off-peak times, e.g. 3am, in the pouring rain, etc. Let’s hope not). The Artisans at Temple had their own clubhouse separate from the main clubhouse, presumably so as not to contaminate the company directors with their rough-hewn workaday qualities.

Southgate basin

Returning to Chichester: after breakfast, we continued into the city and did a spot of browsing, including around the Christmas market – reasonably busy but nothing like the pre-Christmas nightmare in Winchester a few years ago. We arrived at midday at the nursing home where Rosemary is now resident, to find her nowhere in sight – a member of staff confirmed that she wasn’t in her room and someone else chirped up that Rosemary had been seen leaving the premises some while earlier. In something of a panic Ruth hot-footed it back into town to the Côte Brasserie, where we had arranged to meet (I scuttled behind in manner of small panting person), to find Rosemary sitting at a table waiting for us. We had a pleasant light lunch (divine tuna carpaccio starter) though made somewhat frustrating by communication struggles due to Rosemary being slightly hard of hearing coupled with the ambient noise in the restaurant. After lunch we returned to the nursing home via a branch of Thorntons for R to buy a box of chocs for the home staff.

Bishop's Palace Gardens

We had a nice dinner at Wildwood on the Saturday evening. Made two attempts to visit the cathedral during the time we were in Chichester, but miscalculated rather as there were services on on both occasions. It looked jolly nice from the outside though. On the Sunday morning I had an early solo walk around the town, including a circuit of Southgate basin, the Chichester end of the Chichester Canal, before meeting Ruth for breakfast at Carluccio's. After breakfast we went for a stroll around the Bishop's Palace Gardens before heading home.

Had our first Strategy & Information Office joint Christmas 'do' on 15 December; pictures here. An attempt had been made to combine traditions from both former teams, which meant merging the Information Office 'tradition' of going out around 12 noon, having a largely sober lunch and coming back to work again, with the Strategy Office's rather more fun tradition of going out around 5pm after work for a meal and then on for drinks. The upshot was we went for a 2pm lunch at The Banana Tree, a pan-Asian chain that has a branch in The Hub, and around 10 of us went on for drinks at Missoula afterwards. The Banana Tree's Christmas menu contained pretty much nothing resembling a traditional UK Christmas lunch, which didn't bother me but there were mutterings to be heard beforehand from certain colleagues. There seemed general agreement though that the food was very nice. Jan and Louisa from the Strategy Office had brought several festive hats into work that day and the bar session was largely spent passing them around and taking photos of each other.

Among all the pre-Christmas chocolates being passed around in the office, Bart produced what were claimed to be dried worms, and had a good go at persuading all his colleagues to try one. I managed to resist, but several people did try them. I like to think I am quite open to trying new things, but certain things I'd have to be pretty much starving before trying.

Set out on the morning of Saturday 19th with Ray for a refreshing five and a half mile walk out of ‘Rambling for Pleasure around Reading’, this time the ‘Chapman’s Farm and Chalkhouse Green’ walk. A few pictures here. We parked in the car park next to Clayfield Copse at the top of Caversham Park Village and had a pleasant walk via alternately footpaths and country roads. VERY muddy in places, to a tedious degree that involved a choice between sinking into a bog or getting tangled in brambles (some law decrees that lanes prone to extreme muddiness must also be fringed with prickly bushes). I had artfully packed a picnic lunch, which we enjoyed sitting by the Millennium Green in Sonning Common, before heading across to Chalkhouse Green and thence down Chalkhousegreen Lane back to Emmer Green. Stopped briefly to look at the Emmer Green water tower before heading back to the car via Tower Close and Clayfield Copse.

Ray sourced me a Yule log in Clayfield Copse, after a short while communing with the woodland gods. It was duly carried ceremonially into the house, only to be immediately carried out again by Ruth shrieking about moss and spores. Carried it back in again while she was out of the room. Made it look pretty and dead spiritual.

In the evening Ruth and I went for dinner on Ray's boat - he has recently been getting back into slow cookery and had prepared us a shoulder of lamb, which was lovely. I had assumed that one could only prepare stew-type things in a slow cooker, but no. He also did a divine baked Camembert as a starter, with the result that we ate slightly less of the lamb than we might have done otherwise. Apparently it got used up though.

Walk around Caversham, 3.3 miles

24 January 2016

Left the house, walked up Peppard Road a way and turned right into Derby Road. We'd spotted one of these newish houses in Derby Villas in the Chronicle property pages and Ruth had expressed interest, so I said I'd show her where it actually was, as despite having lived in Caversham a while now she appears to retain little local street knowledge.

Derby Villas

Derby Road is a reasonably exclusive road that's labelled no access to through traffic, though you can walk down it. Found this website for the Derby Road community, though whoever maintains it could do with going on a course, judging by this example of an attempt to cram as many font sizes and hues as possible onto one page:

After lurking outside the Derby Villas property briefly, we continued, turning left into Grosvenor Road and returning to Peppard Road. Walked a bit further up, crossed and walked along Surley Row and out onto Rotherfield Way. Strode manfully up Oakley Road (bit of a hill) to Albert Road. Crossed Albert and walked down Highmoor, crossing the A4074 Woodcote Road. Turned left into St Peter's Avenue and walked down to The Warren with a brief detour into Wychcotes.

Returned to Caversham centre via St Peter's churchyard and Caversham Court Gardens.

Autumn snippets

A rundown of activity since the last blog post:

September

Mind Body Spirit festival

 

Caffe Chai, Warwick

Few hours spent at the Mind Body Spirit Wellbeing Festival at the NEC on 12 September. I had acquired two reduced-price tickets via Amazon Local thinking it might be a bit of a laugh. Ray obligingly said he would come with me – perhaps feeling morally obligated after postponing a get-together the previous Saturday to take his dad to a football match – and offered to drive, so we set off early and took a detour into Warwick where we found a café for breakfast. Here I am outside it looking somewhat simple.

We arrived at the NEC – my first visit; main impression was of acres of car parks, that, cheekily, charge quite an expensive parking fee. The ‘festival’ itself was OK, though in a rather cramped arena. I tried to book in for a meditation session that was already booked up. We sat listening to some live singing for a while. Feeling I should try out one of the various sessions on offer, I decided to have a psychic reading – costing £30, as did all the ‘readings’ on offer; I’m quite surprised I paid for it – and foolishly took the first psychic that was free, an angel card reader named Rani. Can’t say I felt the 15 minutes was worth the money, but didn’t have the balls to ask for a refund, though the booker-in had told me that I could do so if I didn’t feel the reading had helped me. Rani dealt various cards and made a series of mainly inaccurate suggestions about me (Rani: “I feel you’re the sort of person others come to with their problems”; Me: “No, not really”), a series of banal observations based on things I had just told her, and displayed a startling lack of any psychic ability throughout. (When I mentioned having some discussions with my partner currently about what to do with our house, Rani responded with a suggestion about “him” – “Ah, she didn’t work that out then?” Ray scoffed over lunch). Left the reading when my time was up thinking I should have had my aura photographed instead.

What are angel cards anyway? According to Wikipedia they fall under the category of ‘OH cards’, though whether that stands for anything I’ve no idea. They seem to have their enthusiastic adherents, such as this woman quoted in an online forum re angel cards I found on a Google search:

“I truely [sic] believe in Angels too - especially when I have lost things I ask the Arc Angel Chamuelle for help in finding things … Also when I am feeling low I just talk to the Angels and within minutes see a single white feather so I know they are around us.”

The Hatton flight

This woman on Netmums (not my usual port of call for anything; it just came up in a Google search) says “I recently had my cards read, using Angel cards, and couldn't believe how accurate they were”. There you go then. There seem to be plenty available via Amazon, for example these, featuring a quite masculine-looking hunk of angel on the cover.

After having enough of the festival we retraced our steps towards Warwick and had lunch at the Hatton Arms, a large and quite smart pub near the Grand Union Canal. After lunch we walked down to the nearby Hatton Locks and had a look at the impressive flight. According to this history, the stretch of water that hosts the locks was the Warwick & Birmingham canal when it opened in 1799, part of a chain of eight canals connecting London and the Midlands. The Grand Union Canal Company took over the entire stretch in 1929 and did some modernizing in the form of widening the locks to allow boats to double up and traffic to thereby pass through more quickly.

Birth of Emily

Gail and Rob’s baby, Emily Charlotte Joyce, was born in early September. We visited Gail in the RBH the day after Emily was born and then again at home around a week later, when these pictures were taken. Emily has an insane shock of dark hair, which is very cute. 

Ruth actually had an hour alone with her a week or so ago while Gail went to a dental appointment, and apparently did manage to give her a bottle, but escaped having to change a nappy.

OpenHouse London

 

Alexandra Road estate

London OpenHouse weekend on 19-20 September and I had been determined to go this year, having missed out the last couple of years. Got over my moaning at the fact that you now have to pay for the hard copy catalogue of what’s on offer, and we bought one.

Inevitably with these things you end up not being able to pack in as many things as you think you’ll be able to. I had been keen for the last few years to see the Alexandra Road estate in Camden and go on the tour they offer of the interior of one of the flats, so we headed up there as our first port of call. When we arrived there was already quite a substantial queue for the flat tour, moving very slowly as they were only allowing four in at a time (due to the flat’s compactness) and evidently more people had turned up than the OH volunteers had expected, as they eventually started issuing people with timed tickets and asking us to come back later. We went off to have the tour of the estate garden that was on offer, and then returned to the flat an hour or so later, when, thankfully, we were admitted. Beautiful and well designed little space with a lovely balcony area that felt more like a little courtyard garden. The flat open to the public was evidently one that had had few changes made to it – the guide did say that a lot of the flats have had their interiors altered, but that there’s an attempt at clamping down on this with one chap in trouble currently for making some changes he wasn’t supposed to.

The estate was listed Grade II* in 1993, apparently the first post-war housing estate to be listed. Neave Brown, the architect, is distinguished by having had all his UK work listed, which seems incredible for a modernist architect. Go Neave. Though apparently he didn’t work in the UK again (he’s American) after Alexandra Road, thanks to the public enquiry into the project following its completion because it had cost so much.

Lunch outside at Poem

Bunhill Energy Centre

After spending more time than we’d planned to at AR because of the length of the wait, we sought out lunch nearby and settled on Poem, on the corner of Abbey Road and Boundary Road, where we had an OK light lunch. After this, we made our way over to the City area to visit Ruth’s choice, the Bunhill Heat and Power Energy Centre, a weeny little place doing all sorts of good things with energy in a way that I didn’t properly understand, probably through not being quite as interested as I should be. It opened in 2012 and supplies energy to three nearby estates.

At Salvador & Amanda

Returned to London on 26 September for celebrations of my university friend Helen’s 40th birthday. Ruth and I met Helen and seven or eight other people at Brown’s on St Martin’s Lane for afternoon tea – arranged to suit people who couldn’t stay out for an evening meal – then most of us went on for cocktails and dinner at the nearby Salvador & Amanda, a cellar restaurant on Great Newport Street. There was some disappointment with afternoon tea, mainly around the slowness of the service – though Ruth and I have enjoyed two pre-theatre dinners at that branch of Brown’s and not noticed any problems – but the dinner was nice and cellars are always atmospheric.

October

My digital life

Since early October am now studying my fourth OU module, this time the Level 1 module My digital life. Very interesting so far; it’s a broad-based module with a bit of programming, a bit of HTML and XML, a bit of (moderately) technical detail on networks and wireless communications, and no doubt other stuff to come. Am keeping a somewhat intermittent study blog on the OU's student blog area. Students are supposed to keep 'learning journals' but I find all that frankly a bit tedious. I consider myself to have done well if I spend time studying in the evenings after work, never mind then writing about it.

Discretionary increment

Pleased/smug in October to receive a merit award from the OU for the second year running. A certain number of these are made available to each unit every year as a way of rewarding specified individuals' performance. Judith handed me my letter with some kind words about the past year’s efforts. The additional increment on the pay scale doesn’t amount to a lot of extra money, but it’s better than a slap in the face.

Outing with Clarks

Went over to Maidenhead on 3 October and had lunch with Ray’s parents at Maidenhead Conservative Club. It was some years since I’d been there and I remembered the place as fairly dingy and thick with cigarette smoke, but it appeared much brighter and pleasanter on this occasion, no doubt substantially due to the smoking ban but I think also it might have had a coat of paint. Had a pleasant lunch with Ray senior and Carol and we then drove over to Hurley Riverside Park, where Ray’s sister Sharon now lives with her boyfriend Keith. Lovely setting; we admired Sharon’s garden and Carol, Sharon and I went for a walk down to the river, where I introduced them to the term ‘gongoozling’. Sharon and Keith have apparently been having issues with a mildly lunatic neighbour, which hopefully will be resolved soon.

Boat trip

Ruth and I were both pleased to have our first trip out on Ray’s boat for some time on 10 October. We went eastwards down the river as far as Sonning and moored up on the side of the river away from the path, where we had a lovely and leisurely breakfast. We passed the red spoon sculpture that Uri Geller had had erected by the Thames Path prior to his recent departure for Israel (audacious behaviour) - I attempted to take a picture of it, but there was plant life in the way, plus a number of other people on the path also taking pictures of it. Shortly after the spoon's installation, questions arose as to whether it had planning permission and a rude message was found taped to it. It then disappeared altogether, to be replaced with an actual bent spoon. It later turned out Uri himself had requested its removal, suspecting, quite probably correctly, that it wouldn't get planning permission. Geller's parting shot to the local council appears to have been "You can take my spoon, but you'll never be able to bend my creative freedom." Stirring stuff.

View of spoon through the trees

After breakfast we continued down river as far as Shiplake Lock, before turning round and returning to the marina. Ray has decided for the moment to pass up the prospect of moving to Enslow and is staying at Thames & Kennet for the time being. He has some grand refurb plans for the winter, including replacing his current cassette toilet with a pump out toilet, partly as this should prove easier for the klutzier visitor (e.g., me) to operate.  

November (first bit of)

Parents in MK

Tree Cathedral

Mum and Dad came for a visit the first weekend in November, Dad’s first to my Wolverton flat. I had carefully reserved them a space with my car in the Electrolux parking area – parking issues at Wolverton Park being the subject of a good deal of ranting on the Facebook group lately – and done a token tidy up. The Saturday was ushered in with possibly the worst weather I’ve seen since living here – lashing rain and really quite strong wind – and I was wondering slightly nervously what I would do with them for the afternoon if we couldn’t go outside, hoping not to be reduced to visiting the National Badminton Museum. We stalled for time once they arrived by having some lunch, but Dad, in a somewhat unusual display of optimism, thought we should go out anyway and perhaps it would clear up. Drove them (through increasingly heavy rain; asked at one point whether there was anything they wanted in John Lewis) to the Peace Pagoda car park and parked up, and we walked to the Pagoda and admired it briefly, by which point the rain was, thankfully, easing off.

I was mindful of not planning too long a walk, in deference to Dad’s recent bout of pneumonia, but he seemed up for a bit of a stroll so we walked past the Japanese temple and had a bit of a stroll around the garden, before carrying on to the bird hide on the south bit of North Willen Lake near the V10, where Mum and Dad had a sit down and a peruse of far-off birds, before concluding that it was a bit pointless as they’d forgotten their binoculars. We continued and had a brief visit to the Tree Cathedral – sun had come out by this point – before returning to the car and my flat. In the evening, we caught a bus into Stony Stratford and went for a couple of drinks at The Vaults before going for a nice dinner at the Calcutta. The next morning we went for a post-breakfast walk along the canal as far as the aqueduct, before retracing steps to my flat. After a brief sandwich lunch at Buskers they set off back to Wales.

Near the Peace Pagoda we noted the memorial of the Rev. Seiji Handa, with a small photo and a number of flowers. We couldn't really tell who he was - other than presumably a monk at the temple - but he would appear to have been this chap. What an unfortunate way to die.

On a more tranquil note - and hopefully no lawnmowers in sight - there's a brief commentary-free video about the Peace Pagoda and Buddhist temple here.  

Book Group

Got to go to my first Book Group meeting in a while on 13 November, as Claire M had kindly prevailed on the rest of the group to host the meeting on a Friday so that I could come. 6 out of the 8 of us (missing Lesley, and Sarah who hasn’t yet rejoined the group following the birth of her baby) met in Claire’s cosy back room to discuss Barbara Taylor’s ‘The Last Asylum’. Only Helen, Ali and myself had actually made any headway with reading the book, so it was a bit of a limited discussion, but we agreed that psychoanalysis is a bit of a mystery, and certainly can only have been the province of a rich (and leisured) few.

The book's cover photo is of the scarily long corridor at Friern Hospital in Barnet, the asylum referred to in the book's title where Taylor spent time as an in-patient in the 1980s. The building's now been converted into a luxury flat development called Princess Park Manor, which manages to avoid mentioning on its 'History' page that it was once a mental hospital. No clue whether they left the corridor intact.

Rambling for Pleasure

On the Sunday of that weekend I attempted to drag Ruth for a walk out of ‘Rambling for Pleasure around Reading’. I’d picked a walk around Arborfield with the sweetener of visiting Gail and Rob afterwards and then possibly going for a cheese toastie at Dobbies (that being about as grand as my gestures get). Entirely through my inept navigation, we started badly by walking quite a way down the wrong road, unsurprisingly being unable to find the entrance to Pudding Lane and having to retrace our steps to the Bull roundabout, where we picked up the correct road. As we’d used up a bit of time doing this, I cut the route short and we took a route back past Arborfield church, which appeared veritably packed with worshippers (Gail later told us that Arborfield's congregation is of a somewhat happy-clappy persuasion, including apparently sticking name badges on people when they arrive for a service) and thence slightly hazardously along the B3030 Sindlesham Road for a stretch before arriving back at the village.

St Bartholomew's, Arborfield

We paid a brief visit to Rob and Gail and said good morning to Emily, who was dozing peacefully in her baby carrier when we arrived, but was duly lifted up and passed around. In a laudable attempt to share Emily out, Gail whipped her off Ruth’s lap, where she’d just settled down relatively peacefully, and put her onto mine, where she perhaps understandably set up a lusty bawl and was duly removed, to be walked soothingly up and down the hallway.

We had a brief lunch in a crowded Dobbies, and may have bought some stuff but I forget now.

Henley

Went over to Henley for a few hours the following Saturday – I’ve hardly been at all the past few years but it is indeed a pleasant place for a wander around. Not sure whether my recent low iron levels were making me feel the cold more than usual, but it appeared bl**dy cold – we did go for a short stroll along the river but even I couldn’t face spending too much time on it. We spent most of the time having a wander around the shops and the Christmas market, and had a pleasant lunch at The Argyll. We went into Tudor House Antiques – don’t think I’d ever been inside while living in Henley, probably because neither Ray nor I care for antiques, but as Ruth likes them we went in and passed a mildly excruciating (at least from my point of view) 15 minutes or so staring at old stuff and banging my head on beams. Lingered for a while in Central Home, a new arrival in Henley, where I coveted a few things but didn’t buy them. Ruth bought a ring.

Must rest awhile before bringing this account up to date, as I am weary and must stitch a while on my sampler.