Phew - solvent again. I read recently that the collapse of the BT Pension Fund would leave pensioners with a minimum of 57% of current income. Well, as long as it hangs on until I'm of an age to be saving from my state pension, let's make hay while the sun shines. The new car should arrive in September, the new boiler should be in and working by the time we return to the UK, and I'd little compunction this morning in spending a few days' pension on some decent red wine.
Château Aiguilloux is always a rewarding visit (though usually for them more than for us in crude monetary terms). Madame Lemarié speaks with passion and humour about their wines, and they reliably make silk purses out of sows' ears through judicious combinations of ancient carignan with syrah, grenache and mourvèdre: syrah and carignan only for their best stuff. I've been buying from them at intervals for some years, and tend to leave a few of their bottles to mature here for a year or two. We opened one on Wednesday, and it was pretty damn' good. Meanwhile, we have stocked up with everyday stuff from Camplong. The rosé seems fine - better than last year's; the white is 'correcte', and we'll see how the red is when we finish the box of château newsagent.
Friday 30 July 2010
Wednesday 28 July 2010
Back in contact with the world
After numerous calls to Frogtel, we are back in internet contact. On arrival, we couldn't even use dial-up, and it took two days of calls, most of which resulted in 'go away, we're busy' to get them to make an appointment for a techy to call us on day 3. Service is a bit intermittent, but when it's working, it is hugely better than our BT service to the edge of a provincial town in the south-east of England. Here we are in a remote village of 600 souls in the Corbières. Go figure.
John's birthday
Happy 63rd, Mr Engineer Smith!
It was only when we got here on Sunday that we realised why we’d originally planned to arrive on Monday. The pop festival was in full swing for its last night. Each year, there are three nights of over-amplified ‘music’ in the market square, running from about 9:00 pm until 3:00 am. For the first year or two it was held on the football pitch, but when the association that runs it ran out of money and couldn’t afford to rent a marquee, the municipality stepped in and offered them the use of the Halle in the centre of the village. Well, as it turned out, we were so tired when we got here that I crashed out on the sofa, not waking until 01:30, and Martyn fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. We left the bedroom shutters and windows closed, and had the fan running. So the noise of the festival didn’t keep us awake for long.
The journey here was long but without problems. We were at the end of the tunnel an hour before we needed to be, so asked to be allocated a place on an only-just-earlier shuttle. As it turned out, they had miscalculated its capacity, so we finished up on the one we’d originally booked, only seven minutes later. And as we’d been bumped from the earlier one, we were boarded as a priority, and were the third car off the upper deck at Coquelles.
We took a little detour en route to collect some wine for Pam and Geoff in a village near Eper-nay. Since we were heading for Berne, we aimed for the border crossing above Porrentruy, looking to take the A16 from there to Biel/Bienne. Mistake: it hasn’t been finished yet, and it took close on three hours to get from there to Berne, the journey including some interesting manoeuvres round Biel on account of roadworks and very poor signposting. Still, the good news was that Swiss customs weren’t interested in us: I’d stopped and got out to buy a vignette, which seems to have been enough of a diversion from the fact that we were carrying something like nine times the duty-free import allowance of wine! Reminds me of the time Pam, Geoff and I were cut up by a dame in a Fiat Uno just before the border at Chiasso. The border police pulled her over and waved us through. We clanked by with 96 bottles of wine on board. Switzerland is highly protective of its domestic wine industry. It produces some decent stuff, and notably the Oeil de Perdrix pinot noir rosé that P&G have given me as a birthday present. Like most countries, though, it also produces some pretty ordinary wines, the difference being that it is priced at the level of rather more competent bottles from across the borders. Hence the two-bottle duty-free limit, I suppose.
With immeasurable patience, Pam and Geoff greeted us warmly and with a fine moussaka: an astute choice of dish for guests with an unpredictable arrival time. And since Geoff’s 2CV is in for repairs (its starter motor having failed to disengage a few days earlier), there was shelter for the car as well.
Next morning we headed for the new MediaMarkt shop at Muri to get a new laptop PC. The Acer machine I bought in Fribourg 5 years ago has been getting a bit tired of late, and has now stopped loading Windows. I’ve probably dripped on ad nauseam about my preference for the Swiss keyboard layout, but for the few readers who have been spared the ordeal, here I go again. I first met it when I went to work in Switzerland in 1997. I then asked the IT manager to get me a QWERTY keyboard, and he refused point-blank, saying that the only choice I had was between a desktop and a laptop (though I did later manage to blag a docking station laptop out of him!). Unlike the abominable AZERTY keyboard I was forced to use briefly in France and Belgium, I soon got used to the Swiss layout, appreciating the ease of access it provides to French, German and Portuguese accented characters. So, gentle reader, I am tapping away at a nice little HP laptop. I’d gone in looking for a Tosh or a Sony, but the HP offered the best mix of specification and price.
On Saturday night we spent a delightful evening as the guests of Heidi and Chandroo in Wabern, a short walk from Pam and Geoff’s. I’ve known Chandroo since 1974, when his then wife was a colleague at the Lausanne Congress. Geoff was a translator at the same event, unlike me as a member of the permanent UPU staff. It’s good how that crowd has kept in touch over the years, augmented by those who were at the net Congress five years later in Rio de Janeiro – where I met Pam and Barbara.
On Sunday it was Part 2 of our self-herding to summer pastures. The motorway from Berne to Geneva is a mess of roadworks at the moment, hence very slow going, but at least the roads were quiet. After Geneva (where French customs didn’t stop us to ask for VAT on the new computer), the new stretch of tunnel speeds the journey greatly. We proceeded to slow it down by taking a wrong turning in Chambéry, but it was at least a scenic short-cut across the Chartreuse. We changed over when we stopped to fill the tank at Valence, so I got the grotty stretch of A7 down the Rhône valley. It is always busy, and varied constantly from stop/crawl to the restricted 110 km/h. For much of the way, I just stayed in the first lane, where there tends to be more room between cars, and where you cover the ground pretty well as fast as those who keep switching lanes.
A glance at the clock tells me that it’s almost time to get on the horn to the telephone company about our internet service here. Having had endless trouble trying to get sense out of them at Easter and subsequently, finally writing to cancel our ADSL subscription, we arrived to find three bills totalling some €72. The ADSL light is showing on the router, but there is no internet service – hardly surprising since some part of Frogtel no doubt counts me as a defaulter. If you read this before mid-August, it’ll mean that the issue has been resolved...
It was only when we got here on Sunday that we realised why we’d originally planned to arrive on Monday. The pop festival was in full swing for its last night. Each year, there are three nights of over-amplified ‘music’ in the market square, running from about 9:00 pm until 3:00 am. For the first year or two it was held on the football pitch, but when the association that runs it ran out of money and couldn’t afford to rent a marquee, the municipality stepped in and offered them the use of the Halle in the centre of the village. Well, as it turned out, we were so tired when we got here that I crashed out on the sofa, not waking until 01:30, and Martyn fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. We left the bedroom shutters and windows closed, and had the fan running. So the noise of the festival didn’t keep us awake for long.
The journey here was long but without problems. We were at the end of the tunnel an hour before we needed to be, so asked to be allocated a place on an only-just-earlier shuttle. As it turned out, they had miscalculated its capacity, so we finished up on the one we’d originally booked, only seven minutes later. And as we’d been bumped from the earlier one, we were boarded as a priority, and were the third car off the upper deck at Coquelles.
We took a little detour en route to collect some wine for Pam and Geoff in a village near Eper-nay. Since we were heading for Berne, we aimed for the border crossing above Porrentruy, looking to take the A16 from there to Biel/Bienne. Mistake: it hasn’t been finished yet, and it took close on three hours to get from there to Berne, the journey including some interesting manoeuvres round Biel on account of roadworks and very poor signposting. Still, the good news was that Swiss customs weren’t interested in us: I’d stopped and got out to buy a vignette, which seems to have been enough of a diversion from the fact that we were carrying something like nine times the duty-free import allowance of wine! Reminds me of the time Pam, Geoff and I were cut up by a dame in a Fiat Uno just before the border at Chiasso. The border police pulled her over and waved us through. We clanked by with 96 bottles of wine on board. Switzerland is highly protective of its domestic wine industry. It produces some decent stuff, and notably the Oeil de Perdrix pinot noir rosé that P&G have given me as a birthday present. Like most countries, though, it also produces some pretty ordinary wines, the difference being that it is priced at the level of rather more competent bottles from across the borders. Hence the two-bottle duty-free limit, I suppose.
With immeasurable patience, Pam and Geoff greeted us warmly and with a fine moussaka: an astute choice of dish for guests with an unpredictable arrival time. And since Geoff’s 2CV is in for repairs (its starter motor having failed to disengage a few days earlier), there was shelter for the car as well.
Next morning we headed for the new MediaMarkt shop at Muri to get a new laptop PC. The Acer machine I bought in Fribourg 5 years ago has been getting a bit tired of late, and has now stopped loading Windows. I’ve probably dripped on ad nauseam about my preference for the Swiss keyboard layout, but for the few readers who have been spared the ordeal, here I go again. I first met it when I went to work in Switzerland in 1997. I then asked the IT manager to get me a QWERTY keyboard, and he refused point-blank, saying that the only choice I had was between a desktop and a laptop (though I did later manage to blag a docking station laptop out of him!). Unlike the abominable AZERTY keyboard I was forced to use briefly in France and Belgium, I soon got used to the Swiss layout, appreciating the ease of access it provides to French, German and Portuguese accented characters. So, gentle reader, I am tapping away at a nice little HP laptop. I’d gone in looking for a Tosh or a Sony, but the HP offered the best mix of specification and price.
On Saturday night we spent a delightful evening as the guests of Heidi and Chandroo in Wabern, a short walk from Pam and Geoff’s. I’ve known Chandroo since 1974, when his then wife was a colleague at the Lausanne Congress. Geoff was a translator at the same event, unlike me as a member of the permanent UPU staff. It’s good how that crowd has kept in touch over the years, augmented by those who were at the net Congress five years later in Rio de Janeiro – where I met Pam and Barbara.
On Sunday it was Part 2 of our self-herding to summer pastures. The motorway from Berne to Geneva is a mess of roadworks at the moment, hence very slow going, but at least the roads were quiet. After Geneva (where French customs didn’t stop us to ask for VAT on the new computer), the new stretch of tunnel speeds the journey greatly. We proceeded to slow it down by taking a wrong turning in Chambéry, but it was at least a scenic short-cut across the Chartreuse. We changed over when we stopped to fill the tank at Valence, so I got the grotty stretch of A7 down the Rhône valley. It is always busy, and varied constantly from stop/crawl to the restricted 110 km/h. For much of the way, I just stayed in the first lane, where there tends to be more room between cars, and where you cover the ground pretty well as fast as those who keep switching lanes.
A glance at the clock tells me that it’s almost time to get on the horn to the telephone company about our internet service here. Having had endless trouble trying to get sense out of them at Easter and subsequently, finally writing to cancel our ADSL subscription, we arrived to find three bills totalling some €72. The ADSL light is showing on the router, but there is no internet service – hardly surprising since some part of Frogtel no doubt counts me as a defaulter. If you read this before mid-August, it’ll mean that the issue has been resolved...
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Threescore years and counting...
I received today the ditty below from dear friends wot I've known for well over Hälfte des Lebens:
Have you heard the news then,
About oor Dave and six times ten?
This adept of the cyber pen
Who describes the conjugal “but and ben”,
Flowers, and visits from Jenny Wren?
This loyal friend chock full of gen [at least she didn't say 'gin': Ed]
Who presides over courts crime-ridden
And never fails to help when bidden?
What can one wish this pearl among men
On the occasion of his six times ten?
Much love, health, wealth – and what else, hen?
Keep a calm sooch and “reste toujours zen”!
Quite moving, and as someone once said of the public reading of a McGonogall poem, there wasn't a dry lip in the house. One more glass and I could get quite sentimental over the snowstorm of kind wishes I've had over the last few days.
First call today was the local railway station, to buy my old geezers' train fare discount card. I was cross, to say the least, that my bus pass had not arrived in time for me to go there free. Ah, well. We came home with a heap of shopping, so the last half-mile would have been a pain. It certainly was after a copious lunch a bit later at the local boozer: we have had a good snooze apiece this afternoon.
We had a wee pairty here on Sunday, with a very small group of friends. Wish we could have cast the net wider, but small parties are already bad enough for socialising - certainly from the host's point of view. We'll invite the alternate 'A' list for my 70th! The weather smiled on us, so everyone was out in the garden, where we'd set out little nests of folding chairs, benches etc.
My birthday present from Annie was a trip to the Henry Moore exhibition (emphasis for the benefit of N Americans who wrongly omit the last three letters) at the Tate. Fanbleedin'tastic. Annie, Vic and I went together to an exhibition of H Moore bronzes in the early 90s at the Bagatelle gardens next to the Bois de Boulogne, so it was something of a sentimental journey for us both. I hadn't registered the fact that he was a distinguished war artist, and produced some superb drawings of coal mining and of Londoners sheltering from the Blitz in the Underground. Neither had I realised how many different media he sculpted in: many kinds of stone, plaster, several woods, lead, bronze, plaster, string!! It was illuminating to see his earlier sculptures, which mixed flat, rectilinear facial features with flowing organic shapes. Over time, the earlier tight little mouths gradually disappeared from his work, and the sculpture moved from the representational through the cubist to the flowing style and the abstract forms that everyone knows from his later work. In the last piece in the exhibition, the face was simply sawn off flat. Need to read up, I think.
Second cultural visit to the smoke in a few days. When we met Annie at KX we went straight to Tower Hill for a quick bite followed by Kate's current play, Judenfrei. Excellent piece - her best to date, we think. Now in performance at the Henley Fringe Festival. See it if you can.
What else? It has been a lovely few days of being thoroughly spoiled by dear ones. Including the garden, which has given us a good crop of charlottes. The runner beans are setting, the echinaceas are finally coming into flower, and this year's seedlings are either coming into flower, given away or on the point of being planted - and several combinations of the above. Guests on Sunday brought plants with 'David' in their botanical names, so we have been studying the weedpatch to identify good spots to plant them in. We just about have the garden the way we want it, and these extra perennials are just what we needed. Wot wiv that and all the good wishes expressed in person, in cards and in e-mail and Facebook messages, it's a joy to know what good friends we have. So it's time for that maudlin other glass.
Have you heard the news then,
About oor Dave and six times ten?
This adept of the cyber pen
Who describes the conjugal “but and ben”,
Flowers, and visits from Jenny Wren?
This loyal friend chock full of gen [at least she didn't say 'gin': Ed]
Who presides over courts crime-ridden
And never fails to help when bidden?
What can one wish this pearl among men
On the occasion of his six times ten?
Much love, health, wealth – and what else, hen?
Keep a calm sooch and “reste toujours zen”!
Quite moving, and as someone once said of the public reading of a McGonogall poem, there wasn't a dry lip in the house. One more glass and I could get quite sentimental over the snowstorm of kind wishes I've had over the last few days.
First call today was the local railway station, to buy my old geezers' train fare discount card. I was cross, to say the least, that my bus pass had not arrived in time for me to go there free. Ah, well. We came home with a heap of shopping, so the last half-mile would have been a pain. It certainly was after a copious lunch a bit later at the local boozer: we have had a good snooze apiece this afternoon.
We had a wee pairty here on Sunday, with a very small group of friends. Wish we could have cast the net wider, but small parties are already bad enough for socialising - certainly from the host's point of view. We'll invite the alternate 'A' list for my 70th! The weather smiled on us, so everyone was out in the garden, where we'd set out little nests of folding chairs, benches etc.
My birthday present from Annie was a trip to the Henry Moore exhibition (emphasis for the benefit of N Americans who wrongly omit the last three letters) at the Tate. Fanbleedin'tastic. Annie, Vic and I went together to an exhibition of H Moore bronzes in the early 90s at the Bagatelle gardens next to the Bois de Boulogne, so it was something of a sentimental journey for us both. I hadn't registered the fact that he was a distinguished war artist, and produced some superb drawings of coal mining and of Londoners sheltering from the Blitz in the Underground. Neither had I realised how many different media he sculpted in: many kinds of stone, plaster, several woods, lead, bronze, plaster, string!! It was illuminating to see his earlier sculptures, which mixed flat, rectilinear facial features with flowing organic shapes. Over time, the earlier tight little mouths gradually disappeared from his work, and the sculpture moved from the representational through the cubist to the flowing style and the abstract forms that everyone knows from his later work. In the last piece in the exhibition, the face was simply sawn off flat. Need to read up, I think.
Second cultural visit to the smoke in a few days. When we met Annie at KX we went straight to Tower Hill for a quick bite followed by Kate's current play, Judenfrei. Excellent piece - her best to date, we think. Now in performance at the Henley Fringe Festival. See it if you can.
What else? It has been a lovely few days of being thoroughly spoiled by dear ones. Including the garden, which has given us a good crop of charlottes. The runner beans are setting, the echinaceas are finally coming into flower, and this year's seedlings are either coming into flower, given away or on the point of being planted - and several combinations of the above. Guests on Sunday brought plants with 'David' in their botanical names, so we have been studying the weedpatch to identify good spots to plant them in. We just about have the garden the way we want it, and these extra perennials are just what we needed. Wot wiv that and all the good wishes expressed in person, in cards and in e-mail and Facebook messages, it's a joy to know what good friends we have. So it's time for that maudlin other glass.
Thursday 15 July 2010
Of ships and stipes and spices
Responding to the prospect of our entertaining a crowd here on Sunday, the weather has taken a turn for the worse, with strong winds and heavy showers. Still, the forecast is good. Preparation for the gathering continue apace: the place smells like a Bombay bazaar after yesterday’s efforts – huge amounts of onion and garlic have been fried and spiced and gingered up. Today I’ll have a crack at making some naans, plus the pastry for the more European stuff.
On Tuesday, we took ourselves off to France for the day, using Norfolk Lines for the first time, from Dover to Dunkirk. It’s a longish crossing, so OK for a relaxing day trip, less so if you’re looking to cover a lot of distance in the least time: the tunnel is pretty well the only solution if that’s the priority. We ambled along the coast to De Panne, where neither of us had been before – it looks really pleasant, with tree-lined roads into the town, and some rather fancy flats at the seafront. The bad news, however, is that diesel is no longer cheap in Belgium: more expensive than in France now, and barely cheaper than the UK. So, with a view to cash flow rather than modest savings, we deferred filling up!
We stocked up on other essential fuels in the vast Auchan near the ferry port, finding everything we wanted without difficulty, then clanked merrily home. The ships were probably the best we’ve travelled on, with the possible exception in my case of the Princess Marguerite, a lovely old Clyde-built steam turbine vessel that used to ply in comfortable silence between Seattle and Victoria. It’s a great shame from the point of view of passenger comfort that steam turbines are such a rarity these days: the constant hammering of a vast diesel lump is quite unpleasant. But the architecture of the ship’s passenger lounges was excellent: floor to ceiling windows, two storeys tall (and I’m sure there is a whole set of different vocabulary for those of the naval architect persuasion), provide a really good environment. And built by Samsung in Korea. You can imagine my rant on the subject of British shipbuilding yourselves, so I'll spare you the job of reading it.
On Tuesday, we took ourselves off to France for the day, using Norfolk Lines for the first time, from Dover to Dunkirk. It’s a longish crossing, so OK for a relaxing day trip, less so if you’re looking to cover a lot of distance in the least time: the tunnel is pretty well the only solution if that’s the priority. We ambled along the coast to De Panne, where neither of us had been before – it looks really pleasant, with tree-lined roads into the town, and some rather fancy flats at the seafront. The bad news, however, is that diesel is no longer cheap in Belgium: more expensive than in France now, and barely cheaper than the UK. So, with a view to cash flow rather than modest savings, we deferred filling up!
We stocked up on other essential fuels in the vast Auchan near the ferry port, finding everything we wanted without difficulty, then clanked merrily home. The ships were probably the best we’ve travelled on, with the possible exception in my case of the Princess Marguerite, a lovely old Clyde-built steam turbine vessel that used to ply in comfortable silence between Seattle and Victoria. It’s a great shame from the point of view of passenger comfort that steam turbines are such a rarity these days: the constant hammering of a vast diesel lump is quite unpleasant. But the architecture of the ship’s passenger lounges was excellent: floor to ceiling windows, two storeys tall (and I’m sure there is a whole set of different vocabulary for those of the naval architect persuasion), provide a really good environment. And built by Samsung in Korea. You can imagine my rant on the subject of British shipbuilding yourselves, so I'll spare you the job of reading it.
Monday 5 July 2010
How better to spend a Sunday afternoon...
...than having lunch with a group of good friends, fabulously catered by one of them, and putting the world to rights afterwards over cups of tea in the garden. (And I have my eye on her yellow penstemon and a fine variegated hosta.) There was enough in flower in our garden for us to take a little posy of flowers with us. We're still waiting for the summer stuff, though one of this year's achilleas is starting into creamy yellow flower, and a rudbeckia is showing colour - amazing, since it has survived our unusually severe winter in a container.
Martyn spent some time rejigging the waterfall to the pond, which had been losing water. Unfortunately, nothing much seems to have changed, but the hot weather must had led to a bit of evaporation. The new batch of fish seem to have settled in: I was out semi-sleepwalking yesterday around 4:30, and most of them were up, hoovering the surface of the water. Some of our tadpoles have made it as far as turning into tiny frogs - and the blackbirds seem to find them just as tempting.
Meanwhile, back in the study, my laptop has developed a serious dose of the vapours: it will no longer start Windows. It seems to have taken exception at the news of its imminent retirement, and gorn orf in a huff. Excuse the anthropomorphism: computers do seem sometimes to have an almost human cussedness, don't they? Tiresome, since I have a meeting to minute on Wednesday, and I am unfortunately past the stage when my old hands can comfortably minute a couple of hours' worth in longhand. Or not with any real likelihood of my being able to read them afterwards! Fortunately, I can borrow one of the laptops I got for the Magistrates' Association, since its present custodian will also be at the meeting.
Both the pond and the garden need a couple of days of steady rain. Preferably spread pro rata over a corresponding number of nights, between midnight and 6:00 am, please.
Martyn spent some time rejigging the waterfall to the pond, which had been losing water. Unfortunately, nothing much seems to have changed, but the hot weather must had led to a bit of evaporation. The new batch of fish seem to have settled in: I was out semi-sleepwalking yesterday around 4:30, and most of them were up, hoovering the surface of the water. Some of our tadpoles have made it as far as turning into tiny frogs - and the blackbirds seem to find them just as tempting.
Meanwhile, back in the study, my laptop has developed a serious dose of the vapours: it will no longer start Windows. It seems to have taken exception at the news of its imminent retirement, and gorn orf in a huff. Excuse the anthropomorphism: computers do seem sometimes to have an almost human cussedness, don't they? Tiresome, since I have a meeting to minute on Wednesday, and I am unfortunately past the stage when my old hands can comfortably minute a couple of hours' worth in longhand. Or not with any real likelihood of my being able to read them afterwards! Fortunately, I can borrow one of the laptops I got for the Magistrates' Association, since its present custodian will also be at the meeting.
Both the pond and the garden need a couple of days of steady rain. Preferably spread pro rata over a corresponding number of nights, between midnight and 6:00 am, please.
Friday 2 July 2010
Surfers in Sussex?
This morning Martyn came up with the nice idea of a ride down to the sea at Birling Gap, taking a picnic. Really glad we did - it was a fine day, and a spot of coolth off the Channel was really welcome. The Gap fascinates me, with the strata of black flint in the white chalk cliffs, and views either way to the Seven Sisters. The cliffs at Birling are gradually being eroded, and a couple of the Coastguard cottages have already gone over the edge. We took a short stroll after lunch up on to one of the higher cliffs, staying a respectful distance from the edge. They go down kinda perpendicular-like. But while we were having lunch on the beach we were entertained by three young men on their surf boards, something I haven't seen in England before. Bondi it ain't however: they caught a smallish wave every few minutes.
Thursday 1 July 2010
My grand day out
Booked to meet a colleague in London for a chat over lunch, so made use of the trip. Our leafy little line appears to take a mid-morning rest, so I'd to go an hour earlier than would have been ideal. Making a virtue out of adversity, I took a stroll up to Chinatown to see if I could get replacements for our dwindling supply of porcelain rice bowls, which are ideal for the breakfast sawdust, making a pleasant visual and tactile experience of the ritual ingestion of Stuff That Is Good For You. Disappointment: I found the shop I'd bought from before, but all they had to offer was thick earthenware. And the only other place I could think of looking for them is Paddy's Market, Sydney NSW.
With time to kill, I headed along to Westminster Cathedral. Someone was practising on the apse organ when I was there: first time I'd heard it, having previously been only to organ grinds on the overpowered Willis organ at the west end of the nave. This time I took a bit more detail of the Eric Gill stations of the cross than I did first time round. Notably the pair of dice in Station X: wish I'd thought to check who'd put up the money for that one. Extraordinary work. Pity Gill was such a shit.
Having chatted with a Scots lady at leafy local station while waiting for the train, I followed her recommendation and went along to the Saatchi gallery after lunch. Some amazing stuff in there by young British artists. One had re-interpreted Flemish Masters in fluorescent egg tempura; another had produced enormous fantastic landscapes à la Poussin, capturing the light and colours perfectly, but asserting authorship with some odd contemporary details. Loved it. Also enjoyed a nice glass of pink outside afterwards, doing a spot of people watching. One joker in beige knee britches, black stockings and sandals had 'don't you know who I am?' written all over him. I didn't, and didn't feel the need to enquire.
I went down to Chelsea by bus, which was a nice experience. But it was amazing how many people just amble across the road, expecting everyone to slow down for them! Well, that's Pimlico for you, I suppose. The return was somewhat more direct: tube to Victoria, then two trains the rest of the way. After changing trains at East Croydon, I suddenly feel less enthusiastic about the forthcoming bus and train concessions for the aged.
With time to kill, I headed along to Westminster Cathedral. Someone was practising on the apse organ when I was there: first time I'd heard it, having previously been only to organ grinds on the overpowered Willis organ at the west end of the nave. This time I took a bit more detail of the Eric Gill stations of the cross than I did first time round. Notably the pair of dice in Station X: wish I'd thought to check who'd put up the money for that one. Extraordinary work. Pity Gill was such a shit.
Having chatted with a Scots lady at leafy local station while waiting for the train, I followed her recommendation and went along to the Saatchi gallery after lunch. Some amazing stuff in there by young British artists. One had re-interpreted Flemish Masters in fluorescent egg tempura; another had produced enormous fantastic landscapes à la Poussin, capturing the light and colours perfectly, but asserting authorship with some odd contemporary details. Loved it. Also enjoyed a nice glass of pink outside afterwards, doing a spot of people watching. One joker in beige knee britches, black stockings and sandals had 'don't you know who I am?' written all over him. I didn't, and didn't feel the need to enquire.
I went down to Chelsea by bus, which was a nice experience. But it was amazing how many people just amble across the road, expecting everyone to slow down for them! Well, that's Pimlico for you, I suppose. The return was somewhat more direct: tube to Victoria, then two trains the rest of the way. After changing trains at East Croydon, I suddenly feel less enthusiastic about the forthcoming bus and train concessions for the aged.
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