The Chalybeate

Eating out

2012-02-05T20:44:00.002Z

As the years go by, Moonface and I seem to eat out in Bristol less and less frequently. I suppose that some of the reason is meanness, being unwilling to pay the premium for having someone cook for us. There's the feeling that sometimes, we could have cooked just as well and done so just as quickly.

I suppose that our home eating habits have something to do with it, too. Most days, Moonface, Tom & I sit down to eat together so we do have a chance to talk and (literally??) chew the fat. But generally, I like cooking. It's a soothing ritual that distracts from other concerns, a break in a working day that may sometimes extend too far. Focussing my mind upon chopping vegetables or checking the rice or browning some meat is a means of excluding all the little niggles of life for however long it lasts. And usually, we can produce something tasty and reasonably speedy and reasonably priced.

However at the end of last month I managed to eat out four times in a week. Tom & Rio's birthdays both fall in late January, so we took them to the 70's bistro-styled Runcible Spoon. Three courses and alcohol for twenty quid a head - wonderful fresh food, even though there was little choice. I'll go there again.

On Saturday night a couple of mates & I went to the Royal Oak. Again, good food, but by 9:30 the pub part of the Oak was filling with noisy lairy lads, stout and red with beer, who looked as if they were just waiting for the chance of a fight. There was too much semi-good-natured joshing for it to remain a peaceful evening.

Moonface and I had a simple café lunch in Malmesbury on the Sunday, then on Monday evening Captain Skull persuaded me into a curry at Saffron. As usual we ordered too much, but it was fresh, tasty, well-cooked and above all a curry. I even took away the doggy-bag of our leftovers for the next day's lunch.

So on Friday's visit to the health nurse, she told me that I had put on little weight over the last two years. I wonder why?

:o)

Malmesbury

2012-01-29T20:12:00.003Z

We only live about thirty miles from Malmesbury, but until today we had never looked properly around the town. It's small, with a population of only a couple of thousand, with a central area set on a rise between two rivers with water on three sides, but it's oh so historic.

In the 10th century, Malmesbury was briefly the capital of England. A king is buried there, and the Abbey was so rich as a centre of learning that it rivalled anywhere else in the country. Moonface and I wandered around for several hours on a cold mizzly day, and enjoyed it in a low-key way. The town itself is unexceptional, pretty enough with no wonderful architecture but a consistent front in Cotswold stone and hard red brick. There are few signs to any of the points of interest, and nothing was open apart from the Abbey which is ancient but unspectacular. Within the Abbey, I like the solidity of the Romanesque apse, but the plethora of 19th century plaques to young men who died in the colonies distract from the consistency of the interior. There is a good Pre-Raphaelite stained glass window, and a strange stone sentry-box overlooking the central aisle.

Nowhere in the town did we discover a reference to Thomas Hobbes, one of the greatest political philosophers who was born and raised here. Why not? His ideas are still relevant today. No blue plaques, no nothing.

:o/

More coincidences

2012-01-20T21:00:00.004Z

Back in September, we had one of those intensely bitter-sweet days that will stay with us forever.

Rio started her professional, post graduation work and made us proud.
Ironically, on the same day Tom was told that he was losing his job. We had seen it coming, but it was still a terrible blow to his self-worth and our happiness. Bitter-sweet, as I said.

Today we celebrated Rio's birthday, and simultaneously Tom started a new job. It's only temporary, for a few months, but still it's great news.

No more bad news please, Fate.

:o/

Toes

2012-01-19T17:28:00.000Z

I've lived in this house for thirty years, so I can feel my way around it in the dark, knowing exactly where I am. I've had to do so when sneaking in after a late night, leaving very early in the morning before dawn for work or (more likely) getting up for a pee. Or rather, I used to be able to find my way around in the dark. Over the last three months I've had at least four painful mis-steps when walking around with my eyes closed. Twice I've miscounted the number of stairs so that I've stumbled down the last one, crashing & crushing onto my feet. Twice I've stubbed my toe on the bedfoot, and two nights ago I kicked a chair very hard. It hurt.

As a result, my toenails are a complete mess, variously chipped, bruised and broken. One big-toe nail is so split that I've had to use varnish on it. At least that disguises the purple-black bloody stains underneath. I don't really care about their appearance, as they still work. Moonface doesn't like the way they look, but then she's always thought that I've got ugly feet.

On the plus side, this morning as I was filing the nail-splinters down to stop my socks from ripping, I managed to touch my left toes to my forehead. I haven't tried that for years!

:o)

I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair

2012-01-15T19:13:00.000Z

Pablo Neruda:

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day

I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,

your hands the colour of a savage harvest,

hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,

I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,

the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,

I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,

hunting for you, for your hot heart,

like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Translated by Stephen Tapscott

Grown up

2012-01-12T18:18:00.000Z

Returning to Bristol from a business meeting in Northamptonshire, I stopped off to have a quick meal with Rio in MIlton Keynes. I picked her up from outside the factory in which she works, then we drove to a pub for food and a glass or so of wine for her. She looked so grown-up, businesslike and mature. The family dynamic is changed now that she works for a living and lives away from us, so that when she is in her own or a neutral environment, we are adults together: she is not a child at all.

It was a strange proud shifting moment, to realise that at last we are equals.

:o)

Not rats

2012-01-03T13:38:00.003Z

Since our infestation of young rats a few years ago, I've been a little nervous about their return in spite of the replacement grille which I put in the wall to prevent their ingress. That's why I was very concerned to find a small pile of rat dropping in the the corner of our dining room on yesterday morning. Except that when I examined them closely they turned out to be a little deposit of olive-stones, left over from our social on New Year's Eve.

Why do olive stones look so much like rat-shit?

The party in itself wasn't bad considering the late decision to host, with enough people to be convivial and sufficient drink and food and talk. It's been too long since we were hosts. I wasn't in the mood for dancing, so I didn't really miss that. In fact, I reckon that if we hadn't planned to have people around here, I would have happily stayed at home to watch TV by myself. I blame my cold, not my age. Yet.

:o)

False Alarm

2012-01-02T11:26:00.002Z

Nope, I'm not heading for a long period of incapacity, I'm recovering steadily. Thank gods for that, and let's roll on to a healthy and happy 2012.
I even managed to burn off some weight while sweating in my bed for three days. Silver linings, eh?

:o)

Nerves

2011-12-30T22:02:00.003Z

I'm worried. I've got some sort of fluey-cold thing, with aching joints and a pain in the lower back and kidneys. Intellectually I know it's just a cold or mild virus, but I don't like the way I ache and feel weak. I've needed to sleep in the afternoon or early evening for the last two days.

In 2003 I had a undiagnosed strange illness that left me weak, pathetic, unable to work well and needing to sleep every few hours. Over the course of four months I lost fourteen kg and remained weak for several months afterwards which impinged n my general outlook on life and what activities I could do. That bout of illness was prompted by a problem with my driving position, but I have no way of knowing -yet- whether this is a recurrence of something similar.

I'm worried.

:o(

Screwing

2011-04-17T21:04:00.004+01:00

It's not far off thirty years since we moved into this house, of which the first five years were spent renovating and improving the place from the 1930's and 50's technology which we found in place.

Since then we (or rather I) have done very little to improve things further, as we managed to make our home comfortable and livable; most changes since our children were born have been done by professionals rather than by my enthusiastic DIY bodgery.

This weekend, after five or so years of subtle and no-so-subtle nagging, I finally got around to repairing Moonface's allotment shed. It took me two full days in the sun to replace a door, fix another door in place of lots of crumbling tongue-and-groove cladding, then to treat and replace the bitumen on the roof. But I did it, and I feel pleasantly burned and sore after doing so.

Needing to fix the doors into place, I bought new screws to do so, and noted how the technology has again improved over time. When we moved into our home we had problems removing old screws from the walls and fittings because pre-60's screws had narrow, V -shaped slots which our newer screwdrivers wouldn't fit: they had squarer sectioned slots like an inverted ∏. At the same time, the old Phillips-headed cross-headed screws were being superseded by Posidriv and similar models. Now, another twenty-five years on, the design of the screw shaft itself has changed. The screws I bought were by Spax, with thinner central bodies but deeper, sharper, more steeply-inclined threads; more like self-tappers than old-fashioned woodscrews. They are all cross-headed, too, much more positive and easier to use than slotted screws. The finish is better, with some form of golden anodising which I assume is more corrosion-resistant than the old bright steel finish which used to rust away in damp wood.

The job is done. The shed is ready for use once more, and I hope that it doesn't leak now.

:o)

Life moves on, technology changes, even at this seemingly very simple level

Bristanbul

2011-04-13T18:21:00.002+01:00

The Gloucester Road seems to have every shop that we need for day-to-day needs and a fair bit more besides. The gap used to be the lack of fishmongers, but a small one opened about six months ago which is more than adequate. I don't go there every time I need fish, but often enough to feel I'm giving them some business.

The new shop is Bristanbul, which opened on Monday. It's a Turkish patisserie selling both sweet and savoury breads and cakes, and I'm a fan. Everything I've had from there so far, tastes great. When Rio comes home for the weekend we'll investigate more.

:o)

Dhal

2011-04-12T21:50:00.002+01:00

I've tried making dhal several times before as it's one of my favourite dishes, but I've never had real success. It's always turned out lumpy, or burned, or tasteless.

But tonight I managed it so I'm very pleased with myself. I've realised that the usual yellow colour of the dhal I've bought and eaten elsewhere is not due to the use of yellow lentils, but is the result of the turmeric dye in the mix. So using red lentils, onion and a tin of tomatoes as well as the right mixture of spices I made a very decent dhal, enjoying both the cooking and the eating. Moonface liked it too, but I'm not sure about Tom.

:0)

Major One

2011-04-06T21:56:00.004+01:00

Late last year I bought a bike from eBay, sight unseen and theoretically my size. It was a road single-speed, just what I wanted, but the 49cm size turned out to be too small for me. Damn. I had fun enough riding it but I was very aware that it wasn't quite right so when in January I saw that a woman on Singletrack was looking for an identical small bike to replace one that had been stolen I offered to sell mine. No joy. She decided to buy a better bike made by a different manufacturer, but also 49cm. I didn't know about that, of course.

A couple of weeks ago I dropped her an email asking if she was still interested in my bike and she told me that her new purchase turned out to be too large. So with a bit of havering and cash adjustments and parts-swapping we decided to exchange bikes. I'm pleased that we did.

I've ended up with a lovely single-speed carbon-forked cyclocross bike that's just a pleasure to ride, at a just-about-affordable price. It's rare for me to really like a bike from the outset, but this one feels just perfect for me. I hope that I remain strong enough to use it for a good long time.

Thank you, Juliet.

:o)

Rum Cocktails by Rail

2011-03-25T21:26:00.001Z

I hardly ever drink cocktails. For one thing, they're expensive and that offends my sense of meanness. For another, they are so often sweet and easy to drink that I'd find it too easy to become uproariously drunk in a very short time. However, John E Vistic and cohorts were playing at the Tunnels the other evening; Moonface and I like the music so we went on down.

AS part of the ticket price, early birds were given free rum cocktails - and they were really pleasant, just rum, lime and ginger beer . The music was good, too. We went early as Daisy Chapman was first on. He songs are so dark and twisted that I sometimes wonder about her upbringing: a cloudy mix of murder, obsession, incest, kidnapping and other unpleasantries.

We gave the folk style singer a miss.

Emily Breeze played with her new band: she looked as if she'd crawled off the cover of an early Roxy Music album after a bad night out, and she sounded like the offspring of Eartha Kitt and Ozzy Osborne.

JohnE Vistic was as rocking as ever, but Moonface & I decided to wimp out early, before the pole-dancers got going. We'd taken the train down and as the last return was impending, we nipped across the concourse and walked the last few minutes home from Montpelier. I do like going out by train.

:o)

Boosted!

2011-03-20T10:56:00.002Z

With Moonface out walking for the day, I decided to go for a cycle in Leigh Woods. Crossing the Downs was a pleasure with the sun on my face and primroses growing beside the paths. As the quarries that I use as a warm-up spot were free of kids I spent longer there than usual before pootling over towards & across the Bridge.

Where the paths start off North Road, there is a short steep gravelly section with a sharp bend half-way up. I arrived there just after three other cyclists , blokes in their late 20's - 30ish on newish bikes. I was riding my very tatty old singlespeed which I tend to use more an more when I'm out on my own.

And I burned them off! I overtook two and gained on the third; me with twenty-six fewer gears and at least twenty-six years older! I was so pleased with myself that I had a huge smirh=k on my face for the rest of the ride. Perhaps I'm not as unfit as I feared.

:o)

Disillusionment

2011-02-24T10:33:00.003Z

There's a band I've seen playing a few times which specialises in danceable jazzy swing music and seems to have a regular fan base so that the band's gigs are always busy. The members of the band seem to dress appropriately on stage, wearing loud clothes which hark back to various periods from the 40's to the 70's. The lead singer in particular always seemed very striking as he is tall and gangly with a chiselled face with an intense air about him.

But the last time we saw the band play was a disappointment of sorts. The music seemed less driven, and the lead singer looked grubby and uncared for instead of louche. His clothes were the same but they looked unkempt instead of smart, and seemed unwashed.

Then last weekend I saw the lead singer in the street, where I was quite disturbed by his experience. He just looked dirty, and not in a good way. He was walking along the pavement with that fixed stare and disregard for other pedestrians which I feel indicates a propensity for violence. He looked old, gaunt instead of slender, unshaven, unwashed, uncaring. His boots were unlaced, his trousers and jacket shiny with ingrained grease. In short, he looked unpleasant.
I don't think I want to go to another of their gigs.

:o(

Will I be a Siphon?

2011-02-22T21:58:00.001Z

Writing yesterday of giving back after receiving for many years and incipient thoughts of my own Third Age, prompts me to wonder whether the analogy of a siphon will be correct. I hope so.

For much of my life I have read, watched, absorbed information from many sources, but I've not produced anything of consequence. Yes, I've written for work, I've benefitted my family & colleagues and associates, but nothing for the consumption of the wider world.

I hope that my vessel of knowledge & experience is full enough, and it has now flooded the outlet pipe to a level at which I will be able to pour it out to share around, so that I and others can gain from this.

Of course, this could be semi-drunk twaddle, and it needs a diagram, but still.............

;o)

Cameron's Big Society?

2011-02-20T21:33:00.002Z

The more time that this government spends in power, the more disillusioned I become. There's no forethought, no sense of commonwealth about the slimy fuckers who are now controlling our lives. Funny how they're not controlling the lives of the financial conjurers who helped our economy into the pits.

This morning I spent some time cutting back brambles at the Lake as a therapy for the hangover which I earned last night by drinking too much wine and eating too much cheese late at night. (Tom came along as well, which was really appreciated by the few other volunteers. I appreciated it even more. Thanks, Tom.)

I'd volunteered for this task and quite enjoyed the semi-somnambulant quality of the work, but was a little shocked by the small numbers of other volunteers there: only a half-dozen or so of the eighteen-hundred members. For the first day of the work part sessions a fortnight ago there were a ew more, but even so, that's far too few.

Does this make me fit for the Big Society bollocks beloved by Cameron? It's something which benefits many more fellows than are contributing, as is the time which I have spent in committee members. I won't pretend that I enjoy the meetings but somehow I feel that I ought to give something back to society at large for the benefits which I receive; yet this particular series of voluntary activities is really benefitting a small and rich section of society, namely the members of the Lake swimming club. It's a start, I suppose. It may also be a start to easing myself into the Third Age, beyond the time of either striving for or enjoying full employment.

:0)

Counting the days

2011-02-12T17:23:00.002Z

Since I started taking Lisinopril for my high blood pressure, over a year ago, I have become very aware of how the days are measured out by the calendar packs of pills by my bedside. From the fresh packet every fortnight the ritual of taking one every morning is reflected in the growing number of empty bubbles as the days go by.

Somehow this has given me a real sensation of time going by, much more immediate than is felt in the daily newspaper or change of location on a calendar. In itself this is ironic, because I hope that by taking these pharmaceutical reminders of time and mortality I am in fact improving my chances of reaching a very ripe old age. That's ripe as in mature, not ripe as is pungent.

;o)

One third of a Century

2010-12-27T21:21:00.003Z

Today, Moonface and I have been married for a third of a century.
Thirty-three and a third years!

:o)

Microwaves

2010-12-24T17:56:00.002Z

Our microwave died yesterday evening.
No more hot muesli this morning, and my coffee has to be heated over the gas stove.

We've had it since 1983, so it was nearly 28 years old. We could tell by the publication date of the cookery book which accompanied it and by the tasteful beige and brown colours it sported. Thank you, Toshiba, I'll be surprised if the next one lasts as long.

So this morning Moonface and i trotted down to Nailsea Electrical to buy another, hummed and hawed a few minutes, dithered a little, then bought a replacement. I borrowed a sack-truck to carry it home, then over the next hour or so I pulled out the old Tosh from the cupboard it has been sitting in for 25 years and replaced it with the new shiny new powerful microwave oven.

Hooray!
Hot muesli in the morning!

:o)

Northerners

2010-12-23T10:54:00.002Z

Since I'm deskbound most of the day, working from home, I appreciate a morning walk towards college with Moonface before we both switch on our computers and off to the world.

The streets were quiet today because of the combined start of the Christmas shutdown and the snow, but two people said "Hello" to me, which was most unusual and very welcome. Both were northerners: a tanker driver from the north-east and a Lancastrian woman sliding her way down towards the Gloucester Road.

How cheering, how typical.

:o)

Solstice

2010-12-21T18:06:00.000Z

Today marked the solstice and a lunar eclipse. In Bristol the times of sunrise and maximum occlusion were separated by only four minutes. I've no idea what that means to a good pagan, especially since we could see nothing of the sky through the lowering clouds and mist.

As the roads are snowy and unsafe we reluctantly decided not to drive to Avebury but still felt that we had to celebrate the turning of the year in some way. So Moonface, Tom, Biggsy and I left our homes in the pre-dawn cold and walked up through the snowy streets to the highest point of the Downs, not far from Sea Walls. Biggsy had brought some tea-lights so we picked some small sprigs of holly and ivy, planted those in the snow and surrounded them by the seven lights. We lit them at sunrise, welcomed the return of the sun and the moon together then walked home via a cafe and bacon sandwiches.

All in all it was a lovely quiet start to the new year which gave us a real feeling of being able to look forwards to spring, in spite of the snow and frost with which we are still surrounded.

:o)

Wikipedia Ascending

2010-12-19T20:25:00.005Z

Folly, Kings Weston House

Three weeks after first hearing Vaughan-Williams' "The Lark Ascending" for the first time and subsequently asking for a CD of the music as a Christmas present, I learned something more about its composition.

Moonface and I tried to get some exercise today by walking from home to Shirehampton via the Downs and Blaise, about six miles over quiet roads and snowy deserted open spaces. En route we stopped for a very civilised coffee and cake at Kings Weston House. In the potted history of the House which was provided for visitors, we read that it was there in 1920 that Vaughan Williams completed the composition of The Lark Ascending. Later we passed the compact Shirehampton village hall which was where the work was first performed, with the Avonmouth and Shirehampton Choral Society providing the chorus.

When I returned home (in darkness, it's been a short day) I tried to confirm the history and found that though this story is well attested locally, Wikipedia thought that the work was first performed in London. Bloody typical. So I edited Wikipedia to give the real version. This is my first ever edit of Wikipedia. It's so easy that I'll have to do it more.

:o)

Bench 2

2010-12-18T17:49:00.000Z

Sorry about that, Simon.

It was a great party, with lots of talk & good food & drink. I enjoyed the dancing enough to need to cool off, so I joined the smokers outside around the fire. In my defence, it seemed as if there was space on the bench and we didn't know that this one was rotten, either. It broke beneath our combined weights, so it wasn't entirely my fault, honestly.

Oops. Sorry again, Simon.

:o/

Corvids

2010-12-13T20:00:00.003Z

This morning I awoke clear-headed, alert and full of energy.
By early afternoon my hours of staring at a screen had made me heavy & torpid so I grabbed the chance to cycle around the Downs for half an hour or low bright sunlight.

There were so many corvids around, pecking at the turf or scavenging discarded food wrappers.
I saw crows, rooks, a couple of jackdaws, plenty of magpies and a solitary jay. Why so many? What's so special about the Downs?

:o)

The Way Through the Woods

2010-12-12T00:12:00.000Z

Thinking about the renascence of nature exemplified by the way our garden path had become overgrown by weeds and accretions of rich black soil, I was reminded of this poem. Of course, this is set in springtime, but there is also that sense of combined hope and melancholy within it.

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods….
But there is no road through the woods.

Rudyard Kipling, 1906.

:o)

Clearing up

2010-12-11T18:19:00.002Z

I don't do gardening.
I may mow the lawn or pick up odd lumps of cement that surface in the flower-beds from building works gone by, but generally I don't garden.

But today I cleared up the dead growth from the path leading to our front door, the dead flowers that were killed in the recent frosts and which have been lying there, blackening and giving silent reproach every time I walk by. Moonface, chief gardener, has been resistant to me clearing the path because she thinks it looks pretty when overgrown; so I waited until she's returned the right tool from the allotment, and had gone out for a while. Oh, it was satisfying to get rid of all that messy dead stuff and start to make it look somewhat tidier.

Sometime, I'll get around to hacking out some of the Lady's Mantle that is slowly forcing apart the flagstones in our back garden. That's a strange plant. I remember that when I was a child of five or so, my mother was quite excited by finding small growths of the stuff on the railway embankment near home as it was so rare. Perhaps that's because we were in the North, and winters were colder then. In our garden, it's a definite unruly weed.

Clearing the dead foliage from the front path gave me a curious sense of optimism in this cold grey time of year. Hacking the fronds away, I exposed astounding deposits of rich black soil which have magically accumulated over the last coupe of years and which would have acted as seed-beds for yet more plants if I hadn't cleared it away. I could see that in spite of man's imposition of brick and concrete, Gaia is slowly yet continually fighting back and how if left unattended, our cities would revert sooner rather than later. Like the Roman cities buried under English fields, our modern world would soon be covered and reborn as something different.

We are getting closer to the Solstice again.

:o)

oor Phil.

2010-12-06T09:56:00.002Z

I love Steve Bell's cartoons in the Guardian.

Phil & me are dead hard.

Bench

2010-12-05T22:07:00.003Z

Sorry about that, Lucy.

we were dancing, the room was hot and so were we, so someone had opened the window to let some air in. Once we had cooled down, it had to be shut again. The sash window wouldn't slide shut from the inside, so someone had to go outside to push it up. That was me. Mission accomplished, I turned to jump off the bench and promptly fell through the slats. Umm. As I was so relaxed by a tiny glass of red wine I didn't feel any pain from the scrape on my elbow, but I think that Matt may have some bench-mending to do. I think it was rotten anyway.

Sorry again, Lucy. And it was a great party.

:o/

:o)

the weight of years

2010-12-05T16:32:00.001Z

I've been out one way or another five nights in succession, and I'm feeling tired. I just can't take it anymore like I used to. Just look at my wrinkles.

Tuesday: Exhibition & evening meal in London, then straight back to the pub with the Tuesboyz. Not all of them, as two of the lads were on the same rain as me travelling up to the Smoke: Geoff the architect en route to a meeting, & Andy off to visit Fredka in Germany.

Wednesday: The Lake AGM. I''ve been elected to the committee. I don't know whether that's good, or lots of work.

Thursday: The Concretes at the Fleece. A great band with a wonderful new record, but only fifty in the audience. They need their brass, though. The cut-back band just doesn't cut so well.

Friday: The Bridge at the Polish Club. White reggae & dub for the middle-class & middle-aged and their late-teen offspring. Hey! I danced for the whole set and felt so much better for it, ins spite of the walk home at midnight.

Saturday: Dreadzone at the Trinity. More white reggae & dubstep, but for the festival crowd, poorer, younger, sweatier. Dreadzone also missed their brass section, but that's because half the band were stuck overseas with snow blocking the airports (either that or it's due to the Spanish air-traffic strike). We danced again, so I was all smiles. Then we nipped into Lucy's party for more talk and dancing, staggering home at two. It's a shame about the bench.

Sunday: I'm taking it easy today, just a walk down to the Lake to look at trees for trimming later in the winter. Moonface is now co-opted onto the Environmental Committee, too.

:0)

Choral

2010-11-28T22:41:00.000Z

I enjoy some classical music but Moonface isn't keen, so we rarely get to concerts.
She was ill and tired yesterday evening after an afternoon of art so I decided to go to the choral concert at the Colston Hall by myself. I'm so pleased that I did.
The programme was of three pieces from British composers between 1912-1917, so there was a clear theme and cohesion to the evening. It started with Holst's Hymn of Jesus which immediately sent me into a reverie-like state of intense peace, so much so that I just concentrated on the music for the next hour. The next piece was Vaughan-Williams' Lark Ascending, with such a soft start and subtle quiet playing that the whole audience was hushed and attentive throughout. It was wonderful.

I didn't even feel like a Billy-No-Mates, as I bumped into several people I knew in the interval and spent it nattering with John the Archer's Vicar and Lindsay. An easy evening with a good walk to finish.

:o)

Walking home

2010-11-21T21:45:00.002Z

Today was quintessential November: grey, cold, drizzly. We trolled around an art trail yesterday, so fancied a change today. I also needed to try my contact lenses for an extended period in which I wouldn't want to either read or use a computer, so a walk was the obvious answer. As I didn't want to drive anywhere Moonface & I took the local train to Shirehampton and walked home via the riverbank.

Seeing the Avon at low tide from this new perspective and at walking pace is to see it in a very different light as it's lined by low grey cliffs above the mud-line. The walk home is about six miles, of which only the last is through town, and there's about another quarter-mile of tarmac along the Portway to Black Rocks, before climbing up to the Downs.

A few observations: in spite of the weather and the omnipresent sound of traffic the walk had interest and was effectively rural. And I could see without glasses! Today must have been the first time for forty years that I have spent so long awake without glasses on my face. When I finally succeeded in the prolonged struggle to remove the contacts ( I hope that this gets easier with practice ) and replace my glasses, they felt very strange and unwelcome. I should have tried contacts years ago, before my ability to focus atrophied.

In the final mile we stopped for cake & coffee in a new-to-us caff on Whiteladies, then scouted for others to try on subsequent Sundays: winter is coming.

:o)

Tasty

2010-11-18T21:08:00.003Z

I like it when food turns out better than expected.
I knew that I couldn't be bothered to put lots of effort into cooking today, but what I did, worked. We had some rather old streaky bacon in the fridge, as well as a fraction of a chicken-breast that I had been intending to cook for my lunch, but hadn't got around to using. That too needed using. When I went shopping for the essentials of apples (Coxs) and bananas I saw that the greengrocer had some cheap bags of tomatoes & oyster mushrooms, so I bought those too. 50p per bag!

So we had pasta with:

120g streaky bacon, chopped & fried until starting to brown. Then add
1 large onion, finely chopped.
Fry gently until translucent.
Add:
70g chopped chicken breast
fry for 2-3 mins, then
5-600g tomatoes , chopped
150g oyster mushrooms
1 finely sliced cooking chorizo
dash of soy sauce
handful of mixed herbs

Cook for 10-12 mins while the pasta cooks & softens

Not bad at all.

:o)

Contact

2010-11-17T16:48:00.000Z

I've not worn contact lenses for nigh on twenty years until today, when I was given (sold) a trial by my opticians. I remember the itchiness and the way that my eyes contracted into slits when I was using the semi-permeable hard lenses back then, but today's trial went much better. I've taken them out now after 2½ hours since my older eyes can't focus closely enough to read or use the computer easily with them in, and because I was advised to start slowly. I was so pleased that I suffered very little discomfort except for the fiddliness of removing the damn things from my narrow eyes. Let's see how I get on with wearing them for a longer period. It'll be nice to walk in the rain without becoming blinded by the raindrops obscuring my glasses.

As a plus, I will also have to improve the way in which I care for my fingernails so that I don't scratch myself. Anything that forces an improvement in my hygiene & appearance must be good.

:o)

83

2010-11-13T17:09:00.003Z

I've been away on business three times over the last month or so, so have exercised less than usual whilst eating more than is good for me. This morning, my first at home for a week, Moonface patted my tummy and remarked that I'd grown.

She is right, I have. I weighed myself at 83kg, the heaviest I've been since I lost so much back in 2003. Yes, I was 82 kg a couple of years ago, but I don't like it. Time to up my exercise and watch what I eat. No wonder my clothes are feeling tight.

To think that at the tail-end of our Cuban holiday in January 2004, I'd dropped down to 71. Perhaps that should be my aim again. It would make cycling uphill much faster than now.

:o(

Jack

2010-11-09T18:07:00.000Z

Moonface and I paid our annual visit the RWA Autumn exhibition show on Sunday, and enjoyed it more than usual. There were several stand-outs, but one portrait caught my eye: something that looked remarkably like Rio's suave friend, Jack Willingham. I asked Moonface, who agreed that it could be him. Then we checked the catalogue: it was titled "Jack" .

So I sent Jack a message on facebook, and he replied yes. So that's his portrait above.

:o)

Nosebleeds

2010-10-29T17:14:00.000+01:00

A week or so ago I was showering and realised that I hadn't had a nosebleed for ages, which was a surprise. I've suffered from random nosebleeds since I was a teenager, especially when stressed or when I have a cold, but for several months I haven't had a single one. I guess that it was down to the drugs I've been taking for my hypertension.

Then yesterday whilst at breakfast in Bratislava, my nose spontaneously started leaking blood, huge drops of the stuff on my plate and napkin. It must have been because of the humid warmth of the restaurant contrasting with the crisp cold air outside - we'd been for a fifteen-minute stretch before eating - but whatever the cause it was still annoying. Fortunately it was as painless as usual, as were the subsequent sessions by the Soviet war memorial. Let's hope that it heals again.

One week later - no re-occurrences. There's a tiny part of me that puts the bleed down to another, paranormal, reason. But I'm unlikely to discover whether that's right or not.

:o\

Zipties

2010-10-03T20:34:00.001+01:00

I went off to the Welsh mountains cycling with the lads again last weekend. Although we started off as one big party, as usual we split into smaller groups after the half-way (ish) point, so that the weaker (or more realistic, or wiser) members could take an easier way back. Just Antony & I decided to retrace our path along the ridge of Offa's Dyke, so we cycled and talked together. I was explaining my love of bodgery and simple mechanics when we heard a loud bang, and my rear tyre immediately flattened & weaved from side to side.

It turned out that it wasn't simply a punctured tube, but a 3" split in the tyre wall itself, not reapairable. It was going to be a long walk back to our base, probably eight miles. So I improvised. I always try to carry a number of zipties with me as they are so useful for odds and ends. I was so grateful to have them with me this time, as after replacing the tube I used three zippies to bind the tyre and to stop the inner from bulging out like an embolism. We cycled slowly back, with me trying to put all my weight over the front, and being extra-specially careful over the bumps and edges; but I made it.

Frankly, I was really pleased with myself, both for having the zippies and for thinking up the idea of how to use them. Smug is not the word.

:o)

Last swim

2010-09-25T14:48:00.002+01:00

I've just finished my last Lake swim of the year and I'm so chilled that typing is difficult. It was 13c in there, on a bright sunny day with a cold wind from the North. Two laps with a T-shirt, then a bit of splashing and a dive or two in just trunks. While I was in the water I felt fine, then warm while dressing in the sunny changing room but now I feel shivery and weak. It was worth it, though.

:o)

Bicycles:

2010-09-22T00:12:00.000+01:00

“The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.”

Ann Strong, Minneapolis Tribune, 1895

********************************************

"To prepare for a race there is nothing better than a good pheasant, some champagne and a woman."

Jacques Anquetil, 5 times winner of the Tour de France.

I must prepare a bit more..........

:o)

A tale of Two Curries

2010-09-21T09:22:00.003+01:00

I've eaten curry twice in the last week; two very different meals in very different surroundings.

Thursday last week was Andrew's funeral. As he had been serving with the Gurkhas when he was hit and as he enjoyed curry himself, the funeral supper was a rich Nepali curry served in the formal surroundings of the officers' mess. There were paintings & ceremonial plate on the walls and all the men were either in medalled uniform or formal suits. Even those in suits often showed some military background by wearing regimental ties or flashing cuff-links with military insignia. Many drank to remember and drank to forget: it was befittingly sombre.
The food was excellent, freshly made with fresh spices, very meaty and rich.

Last night, another curry, another Andrew, very much alive. Scully gave me a call yesterday afternoon to say that he'd be overnighting in Bristol, and did we want to go out? The Thali Cafe is in Montpelier about twenty minutes' walk from home and I'd been intending to go there ever since it opened about ten years ago. The food was also excellent but light and vegetarian, and the surroundings were such a contrast to last week, slightly shabby hippy-chic, almost a hangover from the 70's. It was also pretty cheap, definitely good value. (Although it didn't help that I'd forgotten to take all my cash so that Scully paid more than his fair share). The diners were different, too. They wore beads & bangles instead of medals, were scruffy not smart, and the conversations seemed genuine not forced. Worlds of difference.

On our way home we popped into the Cadbury House for a swift drink. It's also the site of a celebrated meeting or worlds: it's where Samantha Cameron claims that Tricky taught her to play pool. He denies it, I hear.

:o/

Racing

2010-09-20T09:15:00.002+01:00

Just north & above Bristol Zoo and across the road, on the Downs, there is a path winding its way down towards Bridge Valley Road. It's a track that I regularly cycle. Yesterday as I pootled along it a buzzard swooped down from a tree to my left and raced me through the clearing. It won, of course, its silent buff wings only about three metres from me and at the same height as my head. Then it cheated by flying over the next bushes that I had to cycle around, and it was gone.

Magical.

:0)

Long

2010-09-19T11:40:00.002+01:00

Last night marked the end of summer.

Moonface and I went for a light meal with Neil, then on to a musical evening / Dave's 4oth birthday party at the Folkhouse. I wore jeans for the first time since the end of May, when the weather warmed up. Since then I haven't worn long trousers except when I've been in a suit or away on business. I've no idea why I prefer shorts or cut-offs: they just seem more practical and more comfortable to me. It must by my hardy upbringing, since my parents have film of me as a boy wearing regulation school shorts in the snow.

It were grim up North.

The evening bash itself was fun but rather restrained. Although Ro & Cedar played bouncing music that I'd have liked to dance to, the arrangement of chairs and tables meant that the atmosphere just wasn't right. It seemed more like a polite concert rather than a gig so Moonface & I walked home before the last band played. The birthday cakes were excellent, though. Thank you, Sophie's mum.

:o)

Arithmetic on the Frontier

2010-09-13T09:39:00.001+01:00

Rudyard Kipling, 1886.

Not one of his better poems by any means, but it's apposite this week.

RIP Andrew.

A great and glorious thing it is

To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe--
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."

Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in "villainous saltpetre!"
And after--ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our 'ologies.

A scrimmage in a Border Station--
A canter down some dark defile--
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail--
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar's downward blow
Strike hard who cares--shoot straight who can--
The odds are on the cheaper man.

One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.

With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troop-ships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.

The "captives of our bow and spear"
Are cheap--alas! as we are dear.

:-(

Clothes Shopping

2010-09-11T19:34:00.002+01:00

Well, it had to be done.
All of my shorts are past wearing, one way or another.
There's the pair I binned last week,
The pair that need binning now.
The pair with the ripped flies and
the pair with the oil stains.

I guess I should have chucked most of them earlier, but I didn't. So it was time to buy another pair or two. Charity shops (my first port of call and preference); nothing.
Outdoor shops, three of them; nowt.
TK Maxx, my usual standby, zilch.
Gurt trendy cool shops in Slavers' Quarter; bugger-all. Any of 'em.

So I ended up in M&S which had plenty to choose from, several in my size, one or two in acceptable styles & colours. So I became M&S middle-class man again and bought some. Heigh ho. Next time I'll have to cut out the hours or roaming around and go straight there. It may be bad for my self-credibility, but it'll save time.

:o)

More rips

2010-09-07T21:42:00.002+01:00

This time it's a rip current.
I went down with the cycling lads to Treyarnon for the weekend, arriving at the hostel just in time to take a swim at sunset. The water was bracingly cold although no worse than the Lake, but close to the shore was a scary rip. I was swimming steadily north along the shore and the current was dragging me slowly south and out. Not nice. I changed direction to escape and was fine, but it was a salutary lesson in tides and something that I'd not experienced before.

Two days later a bunch of us went for a mid-morning swim from the same beach, just below the hostel, and although Andy and I went straight across the current two of our party who were just behind us were swept along and out, so had to be rescued by the coastguard. Frighteningly, neither Andy nor I noticed the action as we were looking in the opposite direction. If the coastguard hadn't been there, it might have been nasty.

Strangely, half an hour later the tidal conditions had changed so much that the water was benign, good for body-boarding, and quite safe. We should have waited.

:o/

Rips

2010-09-02T09:36:00.003+01:00

While dressing this morning I found a tear in the seat of my favourite shorts. That's two pairs I've worn out this summer so I guess I'll have to buy some more.

It's good to actually wear clothes until they start falling apart rather than just becoming bored by them, but it does mean that there is effort involved in the forced replacement. And I hate clothes shopping.

:o(

Recalibrating

2010-08-29T19:28:00.001+01:00

I've been in the USA for almost a week and I can detect the ways in which my tastes are changing.
In food, the pervading sweetness and large portion sizes (compared with European standards) are becoming normalised.

In a pub last night I found myself looking at women whose comfort-sized waists and arses would exclude themselves totally from consideration back home. It's just that large has become normalised. Even the Metro exit gates seem larger than those in London.

:-o

Surreal

2010-08-16T09:57:00.002+01:00

I'm feeling glad to be ordinary.

Yesterday was a relaxed pleasant day which seemed to be just the right mix of activity & idleness.
We'd woken early and started to get on with things: Moonface gardening & me preparing some food for the evening. Together we heaved a hundredweight of sodden vegetation from the pond so that it could revert from being a swamp to a proper water-feature again.

As the weather was fine but the ground soaked and slippy from the previous days' rain we walked over Cotham to the Bristol Gallery to see an exhibition of prints, mainly Miro & Salvador Dali. I didn't think much of them as what was on offer seemed like pot-boiler work, the equivalent of a novelist's journalism. The Miros especially seemed as if the series of similar prints were dashed off in a short time to trade on the artist's name rather than having a considered artistic output in them. Both they and the Dalis looked pretty cursory to me.

On the other hand there was a small number of paintings at the rear of the gallery which did attract me. There were surrealist works by Dirk Larsen and Kevin O'Keefe (not Georgia) which were very appealing. The Larsen's combined "traditional" representational surrealism in oils with loose flaps of canvas obscuring the work below, each painting needing a good time to study.
O'Keefe paints big bright bold cartoons, intensely painted with flat colours. I didn't understand any of his work, but I'd like some.

And then we had lunch by the waterside before walking slowly home and whiling the late afternoon away in the sun or shade as we felt fit. I watched the Red Arrows' aerobatics from the roof, ate well, slept adequately while wondering if our house-guests were actually going to catch the right coach in the morning.

:0)

Little B

2010-08-12T13:52:00.002+01:00

Treading upon bees with ones bare feet is not a good idea. Bee-stings hurt, and my whole foot is now tingling painfully.

Ow.

:o(

Threee Months

2010-08-11T09:53:00.003+01:00

It's been three months since I wrote anything here.
Why the hiatus?
I guess that times have changed and I have other distractions in my life. I've not been enjoying my job as much as before although that is about to change again and I write in other places, too.

Facebook is an alternative to the blog, and I correspond with friends via instant messaging and Skype.

It's not been an empty three months, though. The van has arrived and been used, we've had a great early summer, I've been to Scotland and Wales and done lots. Life is alright.

[I regret not making more postings, so I may put some pre-dated jottings in. Let's see how it goes]

:o)

Monday night

2010-05-11T08:10:00.002+01:00

The Thekla's a good walk from home: forty minutes over Cotham and through the Centre. Last night we went to see a couple of loud, fun bands from Sunderland. Futureheads headlined with early '80's punk thrash, yet in thses days of not government they made us think about the possibilities of returns to 80's politics by referencing "Boys from the Blackstuff" and the changes to Sunderland's industrial landscape. (Sunderland's also where the Thekla was built).

Quote of the evening: "Have you ever been in Middlesbrough on a Saturday night? It's like Middle Earth!"

The support was from Frankie and the Heartstrings, as we missed Dutch Uncle.
Oh, Frankie. This act referenced 50s Rock'n'Roll with an androgynous lead singer who strutted like a trainee Presley and pouted like Jagger. In their short set of great, danceable pop they made me wish I'd seen them headline when they toured recently, as the pretty boy needed so much more space to move in, than he had in the cramped belly of the ship's stage.

Then a relaxing walk home through surprisingly quiet streets.

:o)

The Night Manager

2010-04-27T22:12:00.002+01:00

Another year, another re-reading of a Le Carré novel, this time "The Night Manager".
For a change the hero gets the girl in the end, but there is the same beautiful exact prose describing loss, betrayal and yearning to belong which flows through all of his books.

I'm pleased that I re-read it, as the sentiments mesh with my spring melancholy in spite of the wonderful sunny April.

:o)

Stir-fry

2010-04-20T18:47:00.003+01:00

I'd been planning to have leftover curry for dinner tonight, but didn't fancy it.
As Moonface wasn't eating, I ransacked the fridge.

100g cooked pork, leftover.
A large carrot, slightly wrinkled
Some rather old broccoli
A few mushrooms
A small aubergine (very cheap this week)
oil, soya sauce,

chopped, mixed, chucked into the wok to make a stir-fry

The result was very good indeed, and very quick to cook.
Tom liked it, too.

:o)

Sparrowhawk

2010-04-19T13:30:00.000+01:00

On this sunny Spring day I walked into the garden for a blast of fresh air, to see a flash of grey fly past me on pointed wings. It followed the contours of the wall and shrubs, then rose to perch on the neighbour's roof.

A sparrowhawk: small, fast, beautiful and deadly.

:o)

Blue Skies

2010-04-16T08:19:00.002+01:00

It's a clear, cloudless morning: the most perfect I have seen for years.

For once there are no contrails blazing above us since all flights above the UK have been grounded due to volcanic ash in the air from Iceland. I really cannot remember how long it is since I saw the sky like this. It's quiet, too, as we live under one of the flight-paths from Bristol airport.

:0)

Goodbye, van

2010-04-15T13:30:00.002+01:00

I sold the Iveco van last night, and both Moonface and I felt strangely sad about it, so much so that as it drove away (picture above) I was almost tearful.
We'd had some good times with the Iveco, Moonface more than myself since it was her festival hotel, and selling it was a wrench but with the new Ducato under construction it was time.

There were curious symmetries about our ownership. Both our first and last nights aboard were spent at Dead Woman's Ditch in the Quantocks, and after being prompted into this quick purchase of the van by the death of a doctor friend through cancer, we sold it to a woman doctor who has recently been diagnosed and has just started treatment for it, too.

We know that she'll have a good time with the Iveco.

:o/

Monday Morning

2010-02-15T09:19:00.002Z

It's twenty past nine.
This morning I have already:
Cut my hair,
Been to the doctor (repeat prescription)
Done some shopping
Ignored a phone call, and
Put the washing on.

It's a good start to the week.

:o)

Impressions of Belgium, i. Antwerpen Station.

2010-02-09T20:20:00.002Z

Antwerp's main railway station is an object lesson in how to modernise and improve a fine Victorian building. At ground level is an uncluttered, clear area for passengers, well-signed and with few interruptions to a straight stroll across the platforms. The shops are information booths are arranged in the old arches around the periphery: a great contrast to the messy stalls and shops which clutter British stations making the places so difficult and unpleasant to navigate. High above the main entrance is a magnificent rose window set in a series of arches, a testament to imagination and appreciation of art and good architecture for the public’s sake.

What has been changed is below ground level: three layers of underground platforms taking the majority of trains through high halls of concrete and red-brick columns, retaining the light and spacious feel of the older constructions. The passengers have lots of space, there's no feeling of being crowded at all.

The contrast with any new British station is depressing: why can’t we manage to build something as good? St Pancras is vaunted as a trimph but it’s nothing in comparison to the job done in Antwerp.

:o)

As I Walked Out One Evening

2010-02-03T08:32:00.001Z

As I Walked Out One Evening
WH Auden, 1937.

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked nelghbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

Staying In

2010-01-31T19:55:00.002Z

Yes, I know that Saturday night is for going out to enjoy yourself, but last night I stayed in on my own while Tom & Moonface went their various ways with their various friends. Admittedly I was tired after a day spend mostly walking or cycling around town and a short night's sleep following Friday's band, but I just fancied a night in on my own.

So I settled down with the Saturday paper, a bottle of red wine, a film on the box and the laptop to distract me and had a thoroughly restful and pleasant evening. Very nice.

:o)

The Ex

2010-01-30T20:59:00.003Z

It's all mosh-pit at the Fleece.
Last night Moonface & I saw the Ex there, in a sold-out sweaty gig which really was the best I have seen for years. Imagine a line of seven blokes ranging from their late thirties to late fifties, consummate musicians, putting their souls into making jazz and punk come true. Nominally Dutch, the band includes an American, a Swede & a Sicilian trumpeter with a clit-tickler 'tache, and a generous pot belly, a pair of saxophonists whose spit sprayed into the spotlit air like lawn-sprinkers in summer, guitarists whose fire had never left them (were two of them father and son??) , and a wild trombonist it a '70s safari suit. I know that's more than seven, but I don't know the nationalities of the individual players. The drummer was a fine Dutch woman, who sang us an Hungarian folksong at some stage in the gig, presumably to allow the dancers (us included) to slow down.

I still haven't worked out what genre the band plays, but it's not relevant. We had a fantastic boogie evening, dancing and grooving. It's good to know people, as we (Moonface, to be honest) had a couple of festival friends and an ex-colleague come up to us to say "Hi". She wasn't that pleased that the ex-colleague told her that he'd spotted her silver hair across the venue. It's the penalty for being the greyest girl at the gig.

We walked most of the way home with Graham & Dave. It's the next day now, and we're shattered.

:o)

Knight's Move

2010-01-25T20:40:00.003Z

Work's interesting at the moment.
After working for three months unpaid, I was told at our recent sales conference (for which I have received my expenses, at least) that I am now back on the payroll with new duties.

There will be less pure sales and more "account management", which looks like meaning that I'm sweeping up after the bits that my colleagues have left. This may mean that I take the blame, but it may also mean that I keep out of the firing line. More travel, more big accounts, more interest.

It's two along and one across: a knight's move. Let's hope it gets me somewhere.

:o)

Dangling

2010-01-22T19:34:00.001Z

The other "clumsy" thing I did last week was to totally mess up my climbing. Admittedly it had been a months since I'd been, but there was no strength in my arms, and I found that simple climbs became hard.

But this week was different, I seemed able to find routes and scale walls that I hadn't before. It helped that I had an easier partner, but things just went right. I climbed around an overhang, made effective stretches, and generally enjoyed myself.

Climbing up an artificial chimney I found it easy to swap feet and handholds, and positively enjoyed it when I had to hang from my hands when both feet were reaching into fresh air.
It's coming together.

:o)

Getting Off

2010-01-21T13:02:00.003Z

One of the great things about giving parties, or being sociable in general, is that it allows us to introduce people to each other and let them talk.

We gave a party in (I think) March '08 where a friend and a woman whom he was interested in, "got off" with each other. We received the invitation to their wedding today, and I am so chuffed.

And at November's party, another couple of single friends seemed to get on together. We had to drop some hints to get them to go out, but that special friendship has at least started. Let's hope it goes well, too.

:o)

Oh yes, that's another memory from years ago: E & M. They met at one of our parties, too.
She was 39, two kids, divorcing. He was a fair bit older, a bit of a roué but a charmer. She told me later that he was the first man to giver her an orgasm, is spite of the several lovers in her past. He was something of a rebound special in that case, as she soon found another man with whom she is still settled.

:-0

Fluoride

2010-01-21T11:49:00.002Z

I've just returned from the dentist where I had a root canal cleaned & filled, so I'm unable to speak properly and cannot make the work calls I should be doing.

With my mouth full of anaesthetic, one of the things which I bitterly regret about being born when I was, is the poor state of my teeth. Brought up in the 1950's in a soft-water area, it was before the days of water fluoridation and fluoride toothpaste so as a child I suffered lots of fillings and a few lost teeth. The poor post-war diet didn't help, either. My children seem to have fared much better, with very few fillings at all inspite of Tom's disregard for dental hygiene.

It's expensive, too, is having bad teeth. Each major treatment seems to be hundreds of pounds, and the NHS doesn't seem interested in this aspect of health, as there are few dentists who take NHS patients. At least the fillings are white, my dentist seems pretty good, and I'm in a much better state than many of my contempories.

:o(

Sunlight

2010-01-17T21:02:00.000Z

We arrived home from showing Michele around Bristol, on the first truly sunny day for some weeks. At just around 3:45, the sun shone in the notch between our neighbour's kitchen roofline and the facades of the rows of houses below us.

It lit the far end of the kitchen, giving it a glow we had not seen for months.
Spring is coming.

:o)

Butterfingers

2010-01-14T21:32:00.000Z

I don't wreck stuff, don't cause much damage at home, and it's been ages since I broke more than a glass or so in the kitchen. Except for this week.

On Tuesday I took a full bottle of milk out of the fridge. It was still damp from the snow that had fallen on it during the night, so it slipped straight from my hands onto the floor. Ugh. One pint of milk mixed with tiny shards of broken glass: just what I needed to clear up before breakfast. I hope the stuff that ran under the work-units won't smell too much.

Then today I took a pyrex dish out of the microwave, half-full of venison stew and cous-cous. Then I dropped it, smashing it to pieces. That wasn't fun to clear up, either.

My biorhythms must be at a low phase, or I'm just getting old & clumsy.

:o/

Van II, Stage 1

2010-01-02T21:49:00.000Z

The Iveco van has been great fun over the last three years, so much so that we have decided to go better, and have a newer & better one built for ourselves.

This is the shell, bought on New Year's Eve. Stage 1 completed.

New Year's Eve

2010-01-01T01:40:00.002Z

I hate this. I've had a great evening with people I like, but I'm drunk. My head is spinning, there's nothing I can do to stop the forthcoming headache and hangover - I just have to wait. Why do I do it? I'm a fool. I know that I've had too much alcohol, but once it's in my system, I am helpless......

Lisinopril Christmas

2009-12-28T09:36:00.002Z

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

2009-12-22T23:58:00.005Z

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

2009-12-21T17:35:00.003Z

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

2009-12-20T17:35:00.002Z

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

2009-12-19T21:10:00.002Z

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

2009-12-18T13:50:00.004Z

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

2009-12-17T10:39:00.000Z

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

2009-12-14T11:52:00.004Z

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

2009-12-12T18:06:00.002Z

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

2009-12-11T08:55:00.003Z

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

2009-12-10T11:24:00.004Z

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

2009-12-08T12:07:00.000Z

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

2009-12-04T22:00:00.003Z

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

2009-12-02T21:04:00.004Z

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)

Progressive Supper

2009-11-29T12:29:00.002Z

Last night, Moonface and I took part in a Progressive Supper. (Should that be capitalised?)

We've been meaning to get on the supper circuit for years, but somehow it never happened. The idea is interesting in principle and stimulating in practice: a number of people eat one course at one house then each couple goes on to another house to eat the next, then the next. So for each course, one is sharing a table with different people, then for coffee all the participants meet up at one designated house. In theory, it means that you only have to prepare one course and supply one course's worth of wine.

We had a good evening, meeting new people with whom we could get on from the immediate neighbourhood and having a decent natter with old friends who we didn't talk to properly at our party last week because we were too busy. The food was good, the wine was plentiful and the conversation flowed freely, too. We hope to do it again next year.

:o)

Bodies

2009-11-26T22:23:00.002Z

Looking back at the photographs of myself in my 20's and 30's, I didn't have a bad figure. It was quite good, in fact. I'm aware of how times have changed, and an evening in the bouldering hall at the climbing centre certainly rubbed it in.

It was a woman's wet dream: the young men were stripped to the waist, some still wearing crotch-enhancing harnesses, and with musculature to die for. Not obviously body-built, but with broad shoulders and a wiriness to their arms and legs that was obviously functional rather than just developed for effect. Because of their youth most were more-or-less hairless (or they shaved) which accentuated their shapes. Bastards!

There weren't many women there worth ogling, this evening. Shame.

:o/

Googled

2009-11-24T20:25:00.004Z

I idly Googled someone's name today, the friend of a friend. I was thoroughly told off for doing so, as it was none of my business, I didn't personally know the person whose name I searched upon, and I foolishly let my own chum know that I done so. It was amazingly easy to find some basic information in a minute or so, however. Sorry, D, but he had admitted lying.

Chastened, I Googled myself for the first time in a year of so, and was quite shocked. I'm there on the internet, with a hundred or so real results and half my professional life visible. I seem to have written a fair number of comments to (mainly technical) blogs and a few letters to newspapers; this all on top of my holding website, my current employer and the presentation I made in France last year. There are no videos, however, which is just as well.

So much for anonymity.
Still, with any luck it may help me find a new job more easily. (If in fact one is needed)

:o/

3:30 am.

2009-11-22T03:31:00.003Z

It's half past three in the morning, and the last guests left about twenty minutes ago.
I've finished the first round of tidying up, clearing the bottles and cleaning the tables. Bed, now.

It was a good party with lots of conversation and plenty of people.

:o)

No cobras, though.

:o(

Anticipation

2009-11-21T18:31:00.003Z

The few hours before hosting a party are always the same, a mixture of nerves and hope.

Have we bought enough food and drink? Will everything go OK? And most worryingly, will anyone turn up? If so, will there be five people or fifty, and will they enjoy themselves?

Every time, I worry. Every time, I head for the shops at the last minute and buy too much so that we spend the next few days living on a diet of leftover french bread and dips, and drinking the dregs of half-finished bottles of cheap wine. And of course every time I am tempted to have that pre-party drink that ensures that by the time that guests arrive, I no longer care.

:o)

It's been a good eighteen months since we last gave a bash, and I'm looking forwards to this evening. This time the weather has been so poor that we haven't wanted to go out for the day, and Moonface has actually managed to do some work in the late afternoon.

:o)

Getting Physical

2009-11-21T00:03:00.001Z

It's three days since my second climbing lesson, on which we spent about two hours on the actual climbing floor, as opposed to about an hour the previous week. My forearms and shoulders are still aching, the palms of my hands are sore and I can feel that the tendons of my groin are stretched. It feels great.

There's a great physical contrast between cycling and climbing as sports. Climbing seems to take place in exhausting five-minute bursts whereas cycling can be hours of steady effort. On a push-bike the range of movements is constrained; even on a singlespeed where I stand on the pedals and heave on the bars a lot, there's still not a great range of movement. Climbing has lots of stretching, a great range of movement and is absolute hell on the fingers and forearms. Road cycling in particular allows my arms to atrophy to nothingness which is why I enjoy being in the woods on the singlespeed, heaving away and making my shoulders work as well as my legs.

So it looks as if I need to do both to regain the svelte figure of my youth and stay relatively fit for an oldie. Besides which, I will have the chance to acquire yet another collection of boys' toys sports equipment. Hooray.

:o)

Heroes

2009-11-20T09:30:00.003Z

I've never really had any heroes, people to whom I look up, people that I'd like to be.
I never wanted to be the astronaut or the rock star and was content to run in my own shallow groove in my own direction. I've met plenty of people who are richer and more successful than myself and not felt envious as they all seem to have empty areas in their lives, and in most respects I consider myself as well off as they are in the areas that matter.

For some reason, I've recently been feeling dissatisfied with my life and a little aspirational. Perhaps it's the recurring job insecurity that I suffer from, the feeling that time to DO stuff is running out. It is, of course, but not as fast as I worry about at night.

So I was surprised at my reaction at the Alabama 3 gig a couple of weeks ago. I was watching the lead singer, Rob / Larry on stage: slender, greying, smart suit, shades, just looking cool in front of a crowd of hundreds. And I just thought, I would like to be that man. It helps that he has a rich deep growl of a voice, too.

Then at my first climbing lesson I watched as another grey-haired man, a few years younger than me but skinny and wiry, swung himself up some improbable section of "rock" face, his legs splayed widely apart in a way that mine could never manage and his fingers gripping a hold that my stubby digits would have peeled off immediately. I thought, I want to be able to do that.
I know that it's unlikely I will ever be that good, but I could at least learn something, and it would help if I lost the 8kg I've put on since my illness of 2003 , but that is something that I can aim for and aspire to. There's not much chance of my being a rock star, though.

:0/

Climbing

2009-11-18T11:38:00.002Z

When I was a boy I climbed trees, walked along fences and generally had a three-dimensional view of the world. I still enjoy scrambling, getting a few feet up walls and walking on heights, but I have never really tried climbing. Many of my most vivid childhood memories involve height, whether scrambling up ropes in the school gym, tree-houses or sitting on the edge of cliffs.

Several years ago, when the kids were small, they and Moonface bought me a taster course at the local climbing centre but the gift certificate languished lost and unloved in the back of a drawer for many years. Then a few months ago we found it and after a fair bit of prevarification the climbing centre agreed to honour the voucher. [It wasn't an easy process. They needed to see the piece of paper before they would agree that it was real]

And so last Wednesday evening I went for the first evening of the course. There were many preliminaries: instructions about safety, how to tie knots, how to ensure that ones harness was properly fastened. I really enjoyed the lesson. I'm no good at it, as I'm neither as limber nor as strong as I used to be and I weigh so much more than I once did - but it was fun. And it was exhausting. In spite of only having a few short scrambles up the beginners' walls in the converted church I really felt the effects. It was also scary, as although I was roped from above I was not truly confident in my partner's ability to brake my fall. The hand-and-footholds were not really big enough for mental security, but at least I reached the top on each climb.

I'm going again this evening, and I'm excited!

:o)

Awake

2009-10-12T04:47:00.002+01:00

It's somewhere before five in the morning, and I've been awake for hours. Last night, after a long cycle ride and an evening of food and banter with the Tuesboyz I slept like a log for ten hours; this evening I woke at two with a mind racing around like a ferret, thinking of everything yet nothing, and couldn't sleep.

I was convinced that if I got up, my life would change. One's mind plays games at this unworldly hour. So I did, craving (for some strange reason) a cup of nettle tea. I pulled on my djebellah in Rio's empty room, gazing out at the crystal black sky with Orion clear and bright. The lights of a single plane winked by in front of the stars, its contrail leaving them milkily obscured. I guess that it must have been a military jet heading for Lynham, as it was too high to be heading for Bristol and was off the flight-tracks for the London airports. Back from Afghanistan, I suppose.

While the kettle boiled for my tea, I went into the garden to piss and stare into the sky: Orion again, the Plough, Leo, Casseopeia. A shooting star: the first I have seen for years.

I returned inside, unsure of where the my future lies. My current job lies in the balance, Moonface told me that I should try to write. Perhaps it was that which led to my being awake: uncertainty about my future coupled with a suggestion of what I could do - and I remembered the germ of an idea for a story which I could tell. So I noted it down and came upstairs to write this while my drink gets cold.

Bed again, now.

:o/

Fawn from Faun's

2009-10-05T04:30:00.003+01:00

On Saturday, needing to travel down beyond Taunton to talk vans with a man, Moonface & I went for a walk along the Quantocks. After so many weeks of fine weather, autumn seemed to have arrived with a keen wind and a numbing cold, so we cut the walk short and tried to keep off the ridges and into the wind-shadow to protect ourselves from the worst of it. We're just not used to being cold now.

En route, we stopped in Nether Stowey to grab something for lunch. The butcher there, Faun's, is fabulous. We buy their pies when we can, but there were none available this weekend. However, they did have some rolled shoulder of venison, and at a ridiculously cheap price. Fresh from the hills, I suppose. We bought the smaller piece (3lb 13oz, £8) as well as some duck, local cheese and locally smoked mackerel.

Yesterday I cooked the meat: slow pot-roasted and surrounded by Moonface's home-grown onions, with odd herbs, crushed (frozen) redcurrants and juniper berries. I was worried about half-way through the cooking, that there was too much liquid thrown out from the meat and vegetables, but after another hour or two this had reduced to an acceptably thick gravy.

And the venison was delicious: tender and deeply flavoured, warming for the first cold weekend of the season. With baked potatoes (again, home-grown) to soak up the juices, I was very pleased with myself. Since there were only three of us, we didn't eat more than a third of the meat so it looks as if we will have curry later this week. After an apple crumble for pudding, I was full and happy. Yum.

:o)

Keith Floyd

2009-09-16T22:09:00.000+01:00

Keith Floyd died yesterday and I am more saddened by the news than I had expected. I would never have wanted his personal life nor his need for fags and tobacco, but he was a great chef.

My first ever "proper" restaurant meal was in his bistro in Victoria Street when I was a 19-year-old student , the memory of which remains with me to this day. I cannot remember what I ate, but I do remember a manual worker in overalls coming into the restaurant by himself and ordering the jugged hare. I thought to myself that this was how life should be - excellent food, well cooked, available to absolutely everyone. So thank you Dr Josie Titcombe, Mandy Williams and the other medical students who invited me out that evening.

I also remember eating in Floyd's other restaurant around the corner in The Mall a few years later, taking Moonface for our first anniversary meal in 1974. That was the night the IRA bomb went off in Park Street. If I hadn't been eating out that evening, I would have died. Again, I cannot remember what I ate (Beef Wellington, perhaps?) but I do remember being awake at 3am with my back burning, the brown fat around my kidneys burning off the excess calories form the meal.

I'm sure that Keith will be in hell already, taking charge of the barbecues and drinking red wine from litre flagons.

:o)

Fusion cuisine

2009-08-17T22:06:00.001+01:00

Passing through Craven Arms, we stopped to buy lunch from a baker and experienced a great new gastronomic delight.

The Chicken Balti Pasty.
Yum.

:o/

Fettling

2009-07-26T21:52:00.002+01:00

I feel a deep calm this evening: I've been fettling the bike.
To be precise, I've changed the forks on the Niota, a process which wasn't quite as straightforward as it could have been, because it required me to change the headset as well, which involved some thumping with hammers as well as delicate spanner-work, but it all worked well in the end.

The concentration needed to do mechanics is bliss for me, I feel relaxed afterwards and peaceful. I've realised in recent months that i haven't being doing enough of it, in spite of having a battery of parts with which I could construct a couple of new bikes, if I put my mind to it.

On, and this morning I took the singlespeed out for a pootle, but I met Simon & mates just when I was about to return home, so my ride was extended by another hour. So I'm physically tired and mentally relaxed - is there a better state to be in, on a Sunday evening?

:0)

Latitude II : older women

2009-07-22T22:17:00.001+01:00

Latitude is primarily a music festival, so Moonface & I spent most of our time listening to music of various sorts. I tried to listen to bands that I either hadn't heard play, or of whom I had good reports. I was idling around on Saturday afternoon, unsure of where to go, then decided to go see the Pretenders for old time's sake: after all, who'd expect anything decent from a middle-aged band that was punk in the 1970's?

But they were great. Chrissie Hynde, at 58, is now my heroine. She was outstanding on her guitar and out-played men thirty years younger than her; she sang and posed with the best of them, and I think that their gig was one of the weekend's high spots for me. Who'd have guessed? Her attitude was still aggressive and attacking, the lyrics stood clear, and the audience rocked along. She swore, she joked, she sang and played guitar. I couldn't have asked for more.

Then, top of the bill on Saturday night on the main stage, we had Grace Jones. She provided a spectacle rather than a concert but captivated her audience and sang & danced semi-nude for most of the gig. At 61? She's not my type, but she was certainly magnificent. There's hope for us all.

:o)

Latitude I

2009-07-21T09:33:00.006+01:00

I spent the last weekend at the Latitude Festival near Southwold, and am still a little shaken by it. To be honest, I didn't have a great time. It's difficult to explain why, because I did like the music, and the poetry and the theatre and all the activities; yet I felt slightly on edge nearly all the time. Even when listening and watching a great band, there was a part of me that just didn't want to be there.

I suppose it was the ambience that hit me, I just found that the crowds were too much for me, for all that time. Perhaps only one day at the festival would have been fine. I liked bumping into people whom I knew, though. Perhaps I'm just a particular type of middle-aged middle-class person with a narrow social orbit. Although Latitude was in the far east of England, 350 km from home and seemed to be full of Londoners we met half a dozen friends from just around the corner from us in Bishopston, one of the men I cycle with in Bristol plus his girlfriend, and also a couple of my south Bristol friends / acquaintances. Then I met with two of my cousins, two of their children (whom I'd never met before), and my brother's ex-girlfriend. I think that I was only relaxed when I was talking with or in a group of people I knew. So socially the weekend was great, but I was still uncomfortable.

It's strange that I feel like this, now. When I was younger I was much more sociable and was completely unfazed by such crowds, but gradually it's become less and less of a pleasure. I must be turning into a grumpy old man.

I only went to Latitude because Moonface enjoys them so much. After my last experience at Glastonbury she has gone to many festivals either on her own or with friends, but we enjoy each other's company so I decided to try again. The other factor, I suppose, was the chance to meet up with my cousins from that side of the country; 250 miles is a long way away and I hadn't seen Kate for many years, and had never met Lydia & Darcy, her daughters.

So it looks as if Moonface will be going to the next few festivals without me, except for the odd day trip. She's got at least two more lined up for the rest of the summer - good for her.

*******************

On the plus side, I have decided what would make a good weekend for me: exploring a city, seeing some art & architecture, eating & drinking, then going to see a band in a pub or club afterwards. City breaks are generally fun, but I've never tied any music into the weekends: that might make them even more memorable and exhausting.

:-/