Lisinopril Christmas

I've known for some time that I have high blood pressure, which was confirmed last March when I took part in the Biobank project and resulted in a visit to the doctor. It's not caused me any problems so far, but I'd rather not suffer from a heart-attack or stroke as my friend Eddy recently did. After a couple more visits with little change in my condition, the doctor gave me a prescription for an ACE inhibitor, Lisinopril, which he tells me I will have to take for the rest of my life.

So to celebrate my new-found servitude and gratitude to the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry, I took the first dose on Christmas day.

Yesterday we went down to Southampton to meet my brother and some of his family. He's four years younger than me, but he told me that he has been on a similar drug for some years, plus a cocktail of others. There's an alpha-blocker in there somewhere, but I don't know what else. Our other brother is younger still, but he is also on medications so it seems as if I am the last to start.

I'm not worried, though. My parents came from large families and between them they have eight siblings. All ten of that generation are still alive, all ten are over eighty, so if all goes well I have every chance of being bright and mobile at ninety. So there's a long way to go, yet.

:0)

23:30

It's 11:30 at night and five men, all over fifty, full of curry and beer, are strolling home through the quiet empty streets in the inner suburbs. We've been to the Tuesboyz Christmas curry night and we are all behaving responsibly on our ways back home.

The streets are sheeted with white ice, so we frequently scamper along to gain speed then slide along the hard car tracks where the slush has frozen again into a perfect line of shining slickness. We are acting like ten-year olds, except that we know that this dry powdery snow is no good for making snowballs so we don't bother.

We find a discarded office chair by the side of the path down the slope of Cotham Gardens, so we grab Dan, seat him in it, then slide him down the ice while he grabs onto the arm-rests. He crashes into a tree while we hoot with laughter.

There is hardly anyone else around. The difficulties of driving have kept most other people indoors, and the snow deadens the sound of any traffic from further afield. It's a peaceful, contented walk back, the only source of noise the crisp crunch of of our feet as we break the new-frozen crust of the old snow.

:0)

Winter Solstice MMIX

Today was the best Solstice ceremony that I've been to, and the most difficult to travel to. Last night it snowed heavily in Bristol so leaving the city took much longer than usual. The motorways were down to two lanes, traffic slowed to 40-50 miles per hour.

Once at Avebury, however, it was magical.
The crisp snow lit the ground as I haven't seen it for years, so that the celebrants in the circle were stamping their feet. For a non-religious ceremony, it felt special.

The sun wasn't visible from the stones at first because of the snow-clouds, but the clarity of the air was vitalising.

:o)

Hitcher II

Returning from a cold and frosty walk on the Ridgeway and the first meeting with Fiona for at least a year, we stopped to pick up a hitcher. It's only been a month or so since I last gave a lift, so I was surprised to see another man thumbing so soon.

And that is a relection upon how rare hitch-hiking is these days.

This guy looked like a tramp, with a long coat, woolly hat and long unkempt beard. Moonface told me that he smelled like a tramp, too, but my sense of smell seems to have disappeared again after a recent series of nosebleeds. Anyway, he was a decent enough man, a little terse but open enough, with a lovely Durham accent and a respect for the car: he suggested putting his rucksacks in the boot to keep our interior clean. Nice guy, no money, I hope that he managed to get to his destination before nightfall as it's cold out there tonight.

:o)

Fiddlers

To the Fiddler's last night, to see Phanton Limb. South of the river, we don't expect to meet people we know, but we did. Andy and Philippa were there from around the corner, and Rita from Moonface's Glastonbury crew. She had brought mad Arnie the lover/lodger whom she has tried to throw out a few times, but failed through compassion.

Moonface had booked the tickets, on the strength of the support band, Emily Breeze. She was superb as usual, singing her own punk/rock songs with her horse face mouth open wide, skinny-hipped leather trousers and oh-so-gravellly voice. God, she's great. John E Vistic was her guitarist, sweaty-browed as usual, bowed to his guitar and loud,his greased quiff flopping over his forehead.

But let's face it, Phantom Limb left me cold. Folk-related blues, with an Irish-American emphasis. I wanted to dancce; no-one was even jigging around. I was not amused. Yes, I could appreciate the quality of their music, but it appealed only to my cerebrum, not my emotions. I was cold.

Moonface said that she was feeling poorly so she asked if we could go home early, which pleased me. I'd have left earlier if it were purely my choice.

:o/

Mother's Ruin

On Wednesday Moonface and I risked a new club, Mother's Ruin. It was so snug that I'm ashamed that I hadn't been there before. It had a cosy atmosphere, cheap drinks, and an upper floor where they played music. We went along because I wanted to hear the new incarnation of Annette Berlin's band. I've seen her twice before: once at the Folk-House in an acoustic session and once playing raucous thrash at Mr Wolf's. The latter I hated and walked out, the former was great. My real interest was Katy Tucker's voice, pure and strong, but it does get lost when she's not leading.

We didn't stop for the headlining act; we must be getting old. We didn't even walk there, but that was because of the icy rain and wind.

;0)

New Music

I may have written before that I am feeling jaded by the types of music which we've been listening to over the last couple of years. This was brought home to me last July by comparing Dot's collection of music on her phone with what was on my computer: hers was much more eclectic & varied. So apart from listening to stuff that she's sent me I thought that I should make the effort to look and hear.

The Polish club on Saturday night was a good start. Two bands played, neither in a style that I would normally have chosen but both were great fun to listen to. We didn't dance enough to the first one, as M is shy, but we did to East Pole, a strange combination of blues, jazz, middle-eastern scales, folk and...well, I think that they are uncategorisable. The band itself self seemed to be four members of the family plus one, which could account for their comfortable airs on stage.

Troyka were more of a fun band, also a weird combination of instruments: a guitarist, a harmonica and drum. Very east-European folky, great fun.

The Polish Club itself is interesting, as it's a huge cellar under a house in Clifton. It could be really atmospheric but as it's just one huge space with 1960's style chairs and tables it seems more like an underground youth club or soulless village hall. All it needs is better furniture.

:o)

Niggly

I've been felling niggly and acting irritably recently, for no obvious reason. Generally it's the small things in life that make me react badly rather than the major setbacks, which I suppose is because the big things need one to do something about them, rather than just complaining.

A couple of stupid examples:

A sheet came out of the wash looking worse than it had started, because it had been put in with an opened duvet which then proceeded to swallow most of the rest of the load and stop it washing properly. So I snapped at at this stupid little thing, and put us all into a short strop.

Then on Saturday night, waiting nearly an hour in the pub for some friends to arrive before going on to the Polish Club, I was quite rude because the meeting-point had been misunderstood. Luckily I'd guessed what had happened, so realised which pub they'd be waiting in instead, but I still felt out of sorts for the rest of the evening.


:0/

Reggae & Motown

We went down to the Prom last night to see a covers band playing some very tight reggae, ska and Motown. The band, Regz7, had great lead vocalist, cool black girl singers, and an excellent pair of horns blasting away. We danced most of the evening and came away feeling fine. More music tonight, too!

:o)

Blood and steam

Last night, after two hours' climbing, I found that my feet were bleeding. It was worth it.

On the way home from St Werburghs, crossing the footbridge beneath Ashley Hill, billows of steam were rising from the water as the stream exited the culvert.

:o)

Chocolate Orange

Years ago, I think in 1983, Moonface and I had a holiday in what was then Czechoslovakia, behind the Iron Curtain. We drove there across Europe and were struck by the paucity of foodstuffs in the shops and of general goods for sale. Nevertheless, my memories are of an excellent and exciting holiday.

Since we drove there, we had stocked up with food to eat on the journey and somehow an orange had rolled under a seat and become lost for a week or so. We found it again, looking dessicated and tired, when we were staying at a campsite somewhere in the Czech countryside. (As an aside, the campsite was overrun with voles: their burrows were everywhere and we could see them beneath our tent groundsheet in the evenings). We were about to dump the orange when we were asked about it by the couple next to us, they had not eaten one for years. So of course we gave it to them, feeling thoroughly guilty about our Western ignorance of their relative poverty.

I was reminded of this by Dorota when we met in Wroclaw earlier this year, as her memories of pre-'89 Poland include having oranges only at Christmas: the feast and the fruit are firmly linked in her mind. She also likes chocolate, so I determined to buy her a Terry's Chocolate Orange when she visited England in September. But I forgot to buy one for her. We met three times, each time I forgot to look for one beforehand, each time I remembered as soon as we met but never mentioned that I wanted to give her one.

She's recently found a new boyfriend, an Englishman living in Poland. When she told me that he was flying home to Manchester for a long weekend I told Dorota about the Chocolate Orange, and suggested that she ask him for one. She wouldn't, of course. I was quite tempted to dig out his email address from the internet and suggest it to him, but that would have been creepy and interfering and she'd have screamed at me. So I didn't.

Then, last weekend when Moonface and I were walking around Clifton I spotted a pile ready for sale before Christmas, and told her about the ungiven gift. She sneered a little. I think.

And last Monday I spoke to Dorota after her boyfriend had returned from the UK and spent the weekend with her. He had brought her a Terry's Chocolate Orange as a present.

How on earth did he know?

:o/

Arty-farty

We've looked at a fair bit of art over the last couple of weekends. Two Fridays ago Moonface and I went to some of the preview evenings at the N.Bristol Arts Trail, then several of the other open houses on the following day.

Last Saturday was unusual for us as we spent a very coupley day together in Bristol, much more so than normal: it was almost like being out on an extended date. After the usual Saturday morning shopping and chores we walked over Cotham to the RWA and spent a couple of hours in the Autumn exhibition. For some reason the show was almost empty but that gave us a better chance of browsing and looking so we took longer than usual. I also reckoned that the show was a real improvement upon last year, with many more pictures worth taking home. I should have taken my camera, but the weather wasn't conducive. Frighteningly, I really liked one small watercolour landscape of Wales and then found that it was painted by Prince Charles. There were others which I liked more, so my credibility isn't quite blown.

After the RWA we wandered down Park Street window shopping, then over to the Watershed for something to eat before the film.

Yes, a film. Moonface has been nagging / persuading me to see more cinema for years, but somehow I have never been enthusiastic. Dorota is also nagging / persuading me, so with two of them to one, I need to expand my cultural horizons.

"A Serious Man" wasn't the most fun film that I've seen, with some excruciatingly embarrassing moments in it and no resolution at all, but there was certainly lots to talk about on the way home so overall it was very worthwhile. But what was the importance of the strange separate story set in 19th Century Poland at the beginning?

:o)

Hitchers

There are very few hitch-hikers on the roads these days, especially the types with rucksacks, so I was surprised to see someone at the motorway services trying to thumb a lift from the traffic.

Since I have fond memories of doing lots of hitching in my youth, I stopped and took the guy for fifty miles towards his destination. He wasn't the best of company, I must admit, as he was slightly creepy with an over-smiley face and brushed-forward straight hair, something like Bruce Glover who played Mr Wint, the gay Bond villain in Diamonds are Forever. My hitch-hiker was Dutch, lived with his mother, had never owned a mobile phone or had sent an email, and his destination was a Youth Hostel where he knew the warden. Still, he needed the lift, I was pleased to give it, and we both got where we wanted a little faster than otherwise. In my case it was because I drove slightly faster to get rid of him quicker.

I still like the principle of giving lifts to strangers.

:o/

Holland Park

I arrived early in London for my first meeting, with 90 minutes spare to make a 40-minute journey, so I decided to walk. From Paddington to Olympia isn't a bad stroll: it took me just over an hour via the perimeter of Hyde Park, Notting Hill and my introduction to Holland Park. I'd never passed through that park before, so I really enjoyed myself. It was noisy with birdsong rather than traffic hum, probably die to its being on a rise and surrounded by trees.

And what birds! A heron flapped steadily overhead, a small hawk zipped through some scrub, and there was a surrealistic green flock of parakeets feeding in the formal garden. I've never been as close to wild parrots, ever.

And I was still early for my meeting.

:o)