Thursday ramblings

A particularly unpleasant meeting at Hobby Club HQ last week has left me somewhat lethargic and disinclined to scribble.  Suffice it to say that I have left said club, membership of which is not necessary for one to participate in the hobby.  The saving in subscriptions will buy ten bottles of Fortnums' excellent Navarra rosé per annum, which seems to me to be somewhat better value for money. 

I've spent half an hour in the garden today cutting back roses, fuchsias, escallonias and the cherry tree, and hauling out a few miles of brambles and couch grass.  Nice to get out in the fresh air and sunshine, though the forecast is not encouraging.  Snowdrops are starting to show a bit of white, and quite a few polyanthus are in flower, together with some primroses, though not yet those that I promoted to the front row for spring colour visible from behind the protection of double glazing.  Oh and on that subject, Jokers 'Я' Us Home Improvements did at least call early on Monday (by which time, of course, we'd cleared the diary for the day) to say that the replacement units had failed inspection, and to enquire whether we could be in on Friday.  Watch this space.

Before that, our next visitor is the plumber.  His eye-watering estimate to replace the dining room radiator was as good as it gets, so if we've to have the system drained down, it occurred to us yesterday, we should have something similar done in the kitchen, to gain a bit of wall space.  Meanwhile, we wonder where things stand with tradesmen's work in Another Place: might it be a builder-free zone by the time we get there in the spring?

One wonders what 7 May will bring.  The concept of a Lab-Green-SNP coalition is not without its attractions, though the white-socked Essex barrow boys, aka the City of London Institutions, may perhaps not agree.  I'm glad I'm old.

But I don't plan to peg out before I get my pension this summer, and for a few more summers to come.  Funded by Vic's, of course.  His coffin, when he left us at 63, carried a poster saying 'Some other bugger's got my pension!'.

Oh, and the vaults of the sitooterie resounded to the voices bzw. trumpet of Ella and Louis again on Monday: our local fettler has returned the hi-fi to working order for £60.  Not bad, eh, considering we were on the point of sending the whole bloody issue over the wall.  And à propos music, it occurred to me in the insomniac small hours, to download that superb organ piece, Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on an original theme, Op 73, from iTunes.  Strange, how the wakeful hours move one.  Anyway, I did so, and - damn me! - only got the fugue.  Referee!  But it only cost £0.79, so I may refrain from rattling cages, for once.  And I wonder how many iTune downloaders have selected that piece for their first essay in the medium?

Modern times

Having seen the quality and prices of new dining room furniture, we've almost arrived at the conclusion that there's nothing much the matter with second-hand shabby chic, though it could do with a bit of elbow grease.  The table, which cost me £45 second-hand in 1980, could do with a polish, and the upholstery could benefit from a visit from my whizzo new steam thingy.  Part of the motivation is to get rid of a couple of very tired corner cupboards that the parents got from 'Auntie' Phyllis back in the early 1960s.  We have a few bits and pieces that it would be nice to keep on display, but the last few years in the conservatory have taken their toll on the already rather sad cupboards.  We'd toyed with replacing the glazed bit with a dresser in the dining room, but since the room is around 3m x 4m, we're starting to conclude that it would be a bit overpowering.  Martyn for his part has a murderous eye on an old hi-fi housing, the contents of which are no longer working, probably also because of the extreme temperature range in the sitooterie.  The speakers will shortly migrate to Lagrasse once again, the cabinet and electronics to le dump.

Nice evening yesterday at the Assembly Hall for the Mayor's annual quiz.  A few of us beaks and other halves for the time being go along for a rather boozy evening of quizzing each year.  We finished last night slightly higher up the league table than in the past, though a long way behind our target, which is to beat our MP and his team of Commons researchers.  Their advantage is age, I think: we've improved our performance by drafting in the parents of a few recent graduates, but are still nowhere near.  Interesting that the quizmaster now announces at the beginning that any team seen using a mobile phone will have its score for the round in question disallowed: o tempora, o mores.  We had an inkling a few years ago that this was the secret of the win by a certain team whose leader I congratulated on our next meeting through gritted teeth.  But WTF, as one seems to be allowed to write in public these days [v. supra]: it's only a game!

Another wasted morning

If you're thinking of getting double glazing from JokersЯus Home Improvements (name on application, but think of the car Ford replaced with the Escort), be prepared to haggle robustly.  Their costs of failure, if our experience is representative, must be astronomical. Their man (at least he was on his own this time) has just been to measure, for the FOURTH time, the units that need to be replaced.  After the first visit, which was over three months ago, they made units of the wrong size.  They had to come back and measure again, then proceeded to lose the measurements.  Next time two chaps came and measured a third time, and we have stayed in today for the replacements to be fitted.  Well, fancy that: they've made the wrong size again.  Fitter highly embarrassed: I asked him if he'd like a door key and a note of the alarm code.

While I'm grizzling, I should perhaps admit that I have finally given up the struggle with my Samsung smart [sic] phone, which seems to have been silently guzzling my credit, despite being practically unuseable.  I have moved the SIM into my old faithful Nokia, which does date from the 21st century, but only just.  It does what I need, and holds a charge for weeks, unlike the later model.

Fine sunshine today, and there are lots of signs of life from the garden - and I don't just mean the greenfly!  Lots of bulbs are shooting up through the soggy soil, and a few primroses are in flower.  Thr ground is very wet, though the flood water down in the river valley has receded a bit.  Last week the fields at Penshurst were under water, and some of the puddles on my usual route to the hobby were the width of the roadway and axle-deep.  The car hasn't been washed for months, and there's little point doing it at the moment.  I think I'll specify road-dirt grey next time I change cars. 

Here comes another one

Festivities over, Twelfth Night almost upon us and we're starting to loook at the projects list again.  I think the kitchen may be next.  Wooden work surfaces are a terrible idea, particularly if, like us, you lack the will power to give them the maintenance they demand.  The cupboards have already had one refreshment, and the carcases are plainly getting tired.  Much space is wasted, and the cupboard doors seem to have been purpose-built to trap dirt.  I don't look forward to getting the work done.  Nothing is quite so disruptive as a kitchen refit as I remember from the last experience, so we'll probably decamp for the duration.

The festive hostilities went much as usual: enjoyable moments with family and friends, including the annual skirmish with the M25.  I think we'll officially postpone Boxing Day next year and arrange a family gathering some time in January.  It was lovely to see the Smith great nephews again: Tom is now a lively, articulate two-year-old, while Toby, at seven months, is placid, smiling and rotund.  Both boys are blond, with startling blue eyes, so will break a few hearts when they're older.  Martyn's great niece and nephew are smart  kids, beautifully behaved and self-sufficient.  The pleasure of getting together is slightly dented by the fact that so much of the conversation at the table seems to be about disease, surgery and death.  An age thing, I suppose.

The garden is largely dormant save for the weeds, but we still have colour on a few roses and penstemons, the primroses and polyanthus are starting to flower and a lot of bulbs are sending shoots through the surface.  It's difficult to get out and enjoy them, though: the grass is the normal winter quagmire, and we have to wait for hard frosts before we can take the compost up to the bin.  That will be plentiful in the next couple of months, I've no doubt.