A bit close to home

Back in 1974 I drove past all three pillar boxes in central London shortly before the IRA blew them up.  I saw the smoke rising from the Old Bailey car bomb.  Parson’s Green underground station was the home end of my daily commute around that time.  I took a holiday one year in a certain hotel complex in Sousse.  Somewhat later, I was a regular user of Maelbeek metro station and Brussels airport.  We quite often catch a bus from the stop on London Bridge next to Southwark Cathedral.  And we quite often filled the car up at the Super U in Trèbes.  Fortunately for me, there were suitable intervals, though some longer than others, between my being on the spot and the terrorist acts, but I sometimes wonder when my luck will run out, as it has for the poor innocent victims.

As I’ve said before, these acts of tribal barbarism are as old as mankind, and are an egregious abuse of the privilege of living on a habitable planet.  Almost all are inspired by differences between the various factions of god-botherers, each of them presuming that they alone have got it right (when, some might say, none of them has).  This morning brings the news that the heroic Lt Col of gendarmes, who offered himself as a hostage in exchange for the woman the killer was holding, has died of his wounds.

My view of the world is a little jaundiced at the moment because the back is playing up, probably a consequence of all the coughing and sneezing that followed a nasty dose of the lurgy in December. 

The week has not been without its modest satisfactions, though.  On Wednesday evening our team won the annual quiz in aid of Disgustedville Citizens’ Advice, so we each took home a bottle of decent cava.  We came fourth last year and fifth the year before, each time after ties for second place.  We were lucky this time with the marathon questions, since one of them was all about railway and underground stations, hence right up Martyn’s street.  Another was anagrams of dog breed names (only the Rhodesian Ridgeback defeated us) and the third was a list of dingbat clues leading to clichés or other common expressions, eg M CE, M CE, M CE: three blind mice.  Our hobby colleague Mary was so good at them that we suspect she has a murky past in GCHQ, even though she masquerades pretty convincingly as a retired dental surgeon...

Arran seen from Kincraig, Bute

On Thursday, I managed to knock out another little watercolour vignette at the art class.  At Christmas, Miss gave us each a little packet of small sheets of good watercolour paper, so I’ve stretched four of them on to a board, using the technique that she taught us over a decade ago.  Another bit of her teaching that seems to have stuck is how to lay a flat wash wet on dry.  Maybe I should persevere with watercolours.

Change of plan

Well, so much for the Baltic cruise this summer.  We may be over-cautious, but can see that the current UK-Russia spat could lead to  all sorts of aggro, such as unpleasantness towards Brits (notably male Brits who happen to love each other), cruise ship visa waiver withdrawal etc.  Not that I could express a view, I've heard it suggested that the Leader of HM Opposition seems to have forgotten that said republic is no longer a socialist paradise, but rather a haven for organised crime and profiteering.  Discuss.

Cutting a brief story briefer, we have moved our booking from the Bessie to the Vicky, and shall be doing the Medi instead.  Among the attractions of the Baltic cruise were the chance to see Tallinn, and to sail through the archipelago into Stockholm.  We can do that easily enough with Easyjet, the ferry companies and rented flats.  And the Medi will be warmer.  And we sail from So'ton on the 68th anniversary of a certain date.

Queen Elizabeth from kitchen window

I started late for art class this morning, following entirely uncontentious debate on the above.  I then realised, part-way there, that I had neither my phone (reminded by the screen on the dashboard) nor my wallet.  Armed with the above, I started again, just as some slightly older neighbours were setting out to walk to the bus stop in the rain, hence a very slight detour to where they were heading.  I arrived about three quarters of an hour later than usual, which was a Good Thing, since the longer I spend on a piece, the worse it gets.  Par conséquent, I knocked out in about an hour a little watercolour vignette with which I'm not too displeased.  I think I may stretch  a few pieces of watercolour paper and try to get back into the medium.  It can be vastly frustrating, but so rewarding when one gets it right-ish.

The landscapers came along this afternoon to have a look at the moss out the front, and to measure up.  We were rather shocked to learn that Mark, our usual contact, is off work for some time following a heart attack.  Aged 50, and apparently fit as a butcher's dog.  Carpe diem.

Beast no more

The snow went about as quickly as it had come, fortunately, so life is pretty much back to normal, including the fact that the car is utterly filthy.  Well, it may stay so for a week or so, since rain is forecast most days. 

A visit from the window cleaner is always guaranteed to bring the rain, and today's was no exception.  Bad news: he managed to bring down the solar-powered irrigation pump (which I ought to have taken down in  the autumn, of course), breaking the fixing loop in the process, so we'll have to do some work on that.  Good news: full of shame, he volunteered to clear a blocked downpipe for us, and hoiked up a rather relaxed gutter end.  We don't do long ladders, even if we owned one, so he earned a little extra.

Shareholding registrars, chapter 97.  The papers for the third and last bunch arrived the other day, and the completed transfer form was in the post back to them within the hour.  Oddly enough, they didn't require signatures in blood, proof of colour of grandmother's eyes etc that the other lot need.  Maybe because of the minuscule values involved.

Domain registrars promised me faithfully that they would set up the automatic redirection of hits on the Historia web site, and that they would refund the web hosting fees, since we no longer need it.  I was alerted yesterday to the fact that they had failed to do the former, so rather than spend ages on the phone, I took a deep breath and went and found out how to set up the redirection myself.  It worked, so you can now reach the new Historia web site using the old url of www.historiatheatre.com as before.  Phew.  Why do I find such jobs so stressful?  Must be my age.  No sign of the promised refund, I need scarcely add.  A job for a day when I have nothing better to do.

That largely brings to an end my work for Historia, my having handed over the trusteeship to someone far better placed to contribute, the regulatory side to a former Charity Commissioner and the web site management to someone who knows what the hell she's doing.  I set up the old web site using Microsoft Frontpage, which current versions of Windows do not support.  That left me having to maintain it with a freebie .html editor that just about worked, and a separate .ftp uploader.  Much more straightforward packages are available these days: shame I didn't latch on sooner. 

Next project is to sort out the rather decrepit front garden.  It doesn't get a lot of light, so the grass is full of moss, and the plants along the front are full of grass.  There are a few subjects we'd like to keep, such as the red-barked cornus and the box hedge and bush.  I have some box cuttings rooting nicely, so we might edge it all with them (though whether I survive to see an identifiable hedge is a moot point).  A job for the big strong boys, whatever, so our tame landscaper is coming along next week to kick some ideas around.  I feel some tons of gravel coming on....

Spring

Beast from the East, Day 1

Today, the third day of spring, dawns with the ground still covered in snow.  Our steel heron seems to look puzzled, as if to say 'wasn't there a pond around here somewhere?'.  Of the animate birds, we have had several visits lately from a fieldfare, the first time we have seen one.  It is rather keen on the pieris and pyracantha berries, hitherto the exclusive preserve of the local blackbirds, so there are frequent spats between them.  Still, there are plenty of berries to go round, so they needn't be so neurotic.

We'd been wondering why we so often get cards left in the mail box announcing delivery failures when we haven't been out all day.  When we bought the house, we inherited a wireless battery doorbell with an immoderate appetite for batteries, at least at the chime box.  The push button then started to go on the fritz.  Replacing the battery made little difference: whether it would ring or not became thoughly hit and miss.  When, on Wednesday, the damn thing started ringing continuously, the patience was exhausted, and both parts (minus batteries, of course) found their way quickly to the bin.  Well, we now have a cheapo replacement with a chime that plugs into the mains, offering a range of melodies ranging from bing-bong to Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  As now configured, it renders a raucous, tinny rendering of the can-can...  In choosing that, we must have had the last similar purchase at the back of our minds.  For the house at the rue des Cancans we bought a plug-in bing-bong job.  It plainly didn'd like the damp, and the chime soon degenerated to a sickly, wavering booying-boioioioing, so that one too soon found its way to the bin.  Third time lucky, we hope.

Day 3: Orthopaedic icicle?

We've seen thick snow here before, but rarely the bitterly cold temperatures, exaggerated by a nasty sharp wind from the east.  It's hard to say for sure how deep it is, because the snow is powdery and drifts readily.  When I shovelled a path to the sidewalk and to where the postie takes a short cut from next door, I was shifting a good 10cm.  And of course, for my pains, we had a two-day gap in postal deliveries.  As for Thursday's garbage collection, rather than haul the bin out through the snow, I decided to wait and see - or rather, hear, since the noisy dustcart alerts us on its up run, collecting from us ten minutes or so later.  Having heard nothing by midday, I checked the council web site to find that they have abandoned this week's collections.  That has spared us a task for another week, by which time the snow ought to have gone.  As I write, the icicles are dripping away like mad, and there's the occasion crump! as a dollop of snow falls off the sitooterie roof.

So, this has been the week of the year when it has been helpful to have a car that drives all its wheels.  We've been out for groceries, the doorbell of course and a trip to the theatre, and although our street and those nearby are very tricky, the main roads are easy enough. 

Our theatre trip last night was excellent.  About six months ago, Martyn spotted that there was to be a touring performance of The Sound of Music at the Assembly Hall, so booked us in.  I'm not a great fan of schmaltz - and I loathe tonic sol-fa! - so I was somewhat trepidacious about going.  But the voices and performances were generally very strong, and the scenes quite ingenious, so I found I thoroughly enjoyed it.  For all my musical snobbishness, I actually quite like Rogers and Hammerstein, and the spectacle of a live musical is always a treat.  We've seen Chicago and Cabaret at the same venue, and don't feel the least ashamed of conforming to stereotype!