Food and frolics

Golden Arrow, 2014:  NB headboard and flags!

Years ago, when visiting the relatives in Orpington, I often used to go up to the station to watch the Golden Arrow go through on its way to Folkestone.  Evoking the Golden Arrow, the increasingly enterprising Bluebell Railway has done up a few Pullman coaches, and offers lunches and dinners in them, accompanied by a puff up to East Grinstead and back, then back up to Horsted Keynes and down again as one sups one's coffee.  With our friends Celia and Andy, we've done a couple of Cathedrals Express trips behind a steam locomotive, which were fun, but uncomfortable, and with uninspiring catering.  (We've also got together for tepid fish and chips on the Spa Valley Railway, and the less said of that, the better.)

Well, Sunday's jaunt was good.  South East and Chatham shunters hardly compare with the highly polished Bulleid pacifics of the Golden Arrow's heyday, nor even the shovel-fronted electric locomotives of the last years.  But they got us there and back with suitable sound effects.  The meal was good.  One of the starters was easily identifiable in the catalogue of one of the better-known caterers, but none the worse for that.  Martyn and I each enjoyed a delicious slice of braised lamb: the others had pink roast beef, and pronounced it to be excellent.  The Pullman coaches are comfortable and stylish in their period way, but the outsides look a bit tired.  Analogies discouraged.

Continuing the gourmet week, we had lunch in Brighton on Wednesday as Barbara's guests.  She lives not far from a decent pub with a pretty reasonable menu.  I suppose I ought also to admit to going for fish and chips on Monday, and to dishing up a home-made pizza on Tuesday.  Is there any wonder our shadows aren't diminishing?  Oh, and Martyn has found a recipe for braised lamb steaks...

Yesterday, Miss was concentrating on the water colour painters, having worked last week on the red acrylic background landscapes with our end of the room.  On arrival, I found that I hadn't closed down my laptop after the previous night's meeting at the CAB, hence the flattery was bat.  In my box of tricks, however, I had a print of a subject I'd been planning to handle as a triptych, so improvised a little piece on the basis thereof.  Not sure it'll come to anything, but I'll take it along next week and fiddle a bit more.  The subject matter is the view from La Jasse des Cortalets, where we drew breath after a terrifying drive up the mule track known as the Escala de l'Ours.  I'll post the daub later if it comes to anything.  It's refreshing that I've kicked myself into painting again: after the summer break, I've found it really difficult to find inspiration.  What I need now is some basic technical skill, and the confidence to interpret the subject a bit more loosely.  I find, though, that painting straight on to acrylic paper is horrible.  Like canvas, it really needs to be primed. 

Dull November day here today, so a lot of sitting around, tapping at keyboards.  Developments related to the hobby raised my blood pressure somewhat this morning, so I've attempted to distract myself with some housework.  Probably unwise to reveal that one way to get the housework done is to piss me off.

Snarl

I hate being listed for half-days at the hobby, since it buggers up a day, and usually, if it's Friday pm, means a short sitting.  This week's rota had me down for two different places at the same time, which I took as a flattering but ill-judged vote of confidence.  Pointed out the error as soon as I spotted it.  Arrived to find I wasn't needed in either place, so turned round and headed for home, mentally drafting a moderate enquiry by email. 

Our neighbours' front garden, recently adorned by an inverted Ford, is now open-plan: they've had the remains of the hedge cut down and grubbed up.  We're wondering whether they plan to put in a new hedge, or a stretch of Armco: all will doubtless be revealed. 

Now, there was I thinking that Jokers Я Us Home Improvements had finally got their act together.  Their call centre is now staffed with sentient beings with social skills, and the chaps turned up to measure the blown double glazing units and to fit the replacements, due notice having been given in advance.  Chap 1 measured carefully; chap 2 arrived with replacement units of completely different dimensions.  Chap 2, to his credit, took out the units that are to be replaced, measured them carefully, and put them back before apologetically leaving.  [Just occurs to me that we didn't even offer him a coffee.  Must Try Harder.  But perhaps they've heard of our past-sell-by Nescafé...]   

Footnote on the Portugal trip: when you travel by train hereabouts, the local flora tends to be opportunistic beeches and willows, and as the wayside becomes more built up, rosebay willowherb (epilobium angustifolium to the pedants, fireweed to the Colonials) and buddleia.  In Portugal, the railway cuttings were carpeted with Morning Glory in the sky blue that doesn't seem to reproduce from seed in these parts, and the open land with pampas grasses.  Interesting.  (Discuss...)

Art group was fun yesterday: Miss had told us to arrive with a base painted red, upon which to paint a landscape.  To the astonishment of the others, I actually did as I was told, and, between toast and shower, slapped some cadmium red on a little canvas, and later dashed off a little landscape of the poppies I'd photographed near Thézan back in the spring.  I used too little scumble glaze in the grass tones of the field, so had to slap on more cadmium red.  All good fun, and not intended as more than a quick daub.  Oh, and for the first time in recent years I used some green pigment, rather than mix it myself from the primaries.  Cobalt green and green gold might feature more often in the palette: thanks to Mary Fernandez Morris (who had given her acrylics to Les Dutton, who in turn passed them on to me, his medium being oils).  I've been feeling rather stuck and uninspired lately, so this was a refreshing exercise.

It has rained and rained and better than rained these last few days, so the pond is at the level of the surrounding grass, the grass is totally waterlogged, and excursions to the compost heap call for wellies.  Such is November, alas.

Remembrance

We're just back from a very well attended remembrance service at the local war memorial.  The Sally Anne band played well, and the military buglers were exceptionally good, we thought.  Except that one of them was not unadjacent to my left ear...  The service is always moving, the more so for Martyn, two of whose great-uncles were thrown away in that utterly futile war.  In addition to an impressive public audience, there was not a bad turn-out of my local co-hobbyists: we processed in the B list behind the mayoral party.  There was a march-past by the local TA, cadet forces and other para-militaries like the cubs and brownies, all marching to the beat of the ATC band's drums.  Pleasant reception afterwards in the Council chamber afterwards, hosted by our worshipful next-door neighbour.  At the beginning and end of the two minutes' silence, there was a fly-past of four private light aeroplanes.  Not mentioned in  the order of service.  Curious.

I'll no doubt have to do a reprise of the two minutes' silence on Tuesday at the hobby.  Always tough, since we shall never forget the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, that being when, 31 years ago, we gathered for my father's funeral.

London trip yesterday for the hobby club AGM.  Interesting venue: the old West Ham Town Hall in Stratford, a suitably pompous Victorian structure in a neighbourhood that is trying to gain some standing post-Olympics.  Quite a useful meeting, though I learned the hard way that my voice will not fill the great hall without benefit of electronics.  The approach from the station is via a hideous shopping mall, so on leaving I opted instead to take the bus from the front of the Town Hall to a station further down the line.  All the transport elements connected well, but I'm not wild about sharing carriages with picnicking families with sprogs that crawl squealing under the seats, nor about neighbours with doubtful oral hygeine.  Oh well, they'd probably rather not share space with me either.

Fine day today, so after plenty of fresh air at the remembrance service, I added a little more by cropping the last of the borlottis and yellow runners, taking down the bean frame and adding the beanstalks to the compost bin.  Our new raised bed has done pretty well this year: the sage has practically taken over!  I shall hack it back presently, and in the spring we'll top dress with some home-made compost and turn it over gently.  Elsewhere in the garden, the roses are just about ready for their autumn trim, aimed at reducing the risk of wind-rock.  I'm always reluctant to do it, since a number of them flower until Christmas and beyond.  but the price of my reluctance this year is some very leggy roses.  Earlier in the week, we Got Someone In to give the leylandii hedges their annual seeing-to, and to take out two of the three trees that were over-populating the top right-hand corner of the garden.We may thus lose a bit of shade from the top terrace, but we needn't worry about that for seven or eight months, eh?

The plot thickens

Last week, 80 tea bags: £3.50.  This week 3x80 teabags: £6.00.  Pays to read the labels.

Tin hat, anyone?

When we lack something useful to do, we tend to drop into Flightradar24 on't internet to see what's on its way over us wherever we happen to be.  When the wind's in the south west (ie most of the time) we're under the final into Gatwick.  In Lagrasse, we are close to the corridor used by most stuff from the UK to the Balearics and southern Spain, destinations much loved by the package tour operators.  One such is Jet2.com, and Flightradar24 is ever ready with data on the aircraft being used on each service.  The average age of their fleet is somewhat north of 20 years, so whichever of us spots one first, the comment tends to be 'got your tin hat handy?'.   Not that we have the slightest evidence that the airline or its fleet is less than 100% safe and reliable, of course, and we make no observation in that regard, express or implied.  Hereabouts, the veterans tend to be the few remaining British Airways 737s, some of which are creeping up to 22 years old.  The record lately was held by a McDo-Douglas MD-something or other - a late version of the old DC-9 before it became the Boeing 717.  This one was from somewhere in the Balkans, and was well into its thirties.  I used to fly on the type frequently when I was the firm's man in the Nordic region: SAS and Finnair were loyal Douglas customers back then.  Excellent aircraft: quiet and comfortable, and strongly built.  My most remarkable experience of the type was one day when I'd narrowly missed a flight out of Zürich - I forget where to.  The Swissair office in Zürich Hauptbahnhof blithely said, 'oh, we can get you there via Basel'.  Arrived at Kloten (Dutch speakers: kindly stop sniggering.) and installed in the MD-whatever, I was told that they had to change a wheel, which they proceeded to do.  I collared a stewardess to say that I had a very tight connexion at Basel, and, to cut a long story short, was to be seen sprinting across the concrete at Basel pursued by a taxi-ing 737.  The flight from ZH to BS took all of ten minutes.  The onward flight in a noisy Saab took an hour and a half.

Kent got a bit of a shaking the other day when an elderly Latvian Antonov entered UK air space without clearance.  The RAF scrambled a couple of Typhoons, which, to catch up with such a racehorse of an aircraft, had to go supersonic, laying a sonic boom path over much of the county.  I've heard the occasional rumbling turboprop sounds, and they have proved to be from aircraft of this type.  But neither Wednesday's Antonov nor its Eurofighter obligato registered with me on the day, though had they decided to shoot it down, matters might have been different.

A possibly elderly Thomas Cook 757 shed a dollop of overwing escape chute close to the Kent-Sussex border on Friday.  The crew didn't identify the problem until the plane was over Belgium, whereupon they turned back to jolly old Gatwick.  It has subsequently been found lying - no doubt peacefully at rest - in the churchyard of our parish church.  Glad to report that neither detachable Boeing bits nor shot-down Antonov fragments  landed on our sitootery.

Meanwhile, the grass is cut after a fashion, and we have planted out some winter colour.  With the help of a birthday present of a garden voucher, we've acquired some instant colour (pansies that look like Groucho Marx) for the box by the front door and some daffodil bulbs, which Martyn has planted out in borders and containers.