Seventeen years

Yesterday we celebrated the seventeenth anniversary of our first meeting.  We celebrated moderately with a glass of cava (our prize for winning the CAB quiz).  The weather having taken a distinct turn for the worse, we skulked indoors.  We had thought of a trip to the flicks, but will postpone until sundry aches and pains have subsided a bit.

In the space of less than a week, the temperature has dropped by 20°C, and I see that tomorrow's daytime temperature may drop as low as 3°, with the chance of sleet.  This comes, of course, just as we have planted out the busy lizzies and French beans, and just as the spuds are sticking their noses up through the compost.  I blame the government, of course.

Still, full of optimism, we have joined a nearby allotment holders' association, and loaded up the car this morning at the store with compost, muck - and bird seed.  I have also sown some more beans just in case my worst fears come to pass. 

Stubborn? Moi?

Last September I discovered that some of the bright trim round the car windows had gone spotty: polish didn't touch it, since the spots were under the top clear coat, film or whatever.  Expecting the parts to be replaced under warranty, I trotted along to the garage the get the car serviced, and to get them to look at the fault.  I was not impressed with their response that the damage was owing to an 'external influence', that it wasn't worth even asking SEAT to authorise a warranty fix, but that they'd ask SEAT to consider it as a customer care matter.  That didn't seem to me to hold water, since any 'external influence' would have affected the whole car.

Months went by, with promises to chase SEAT, and ultimately a bounced email to the by now departed service desk chap.  After I'd written to the Head of SEAT's UK branch, we were back at square one, so the car went back in on Monday to be inspected once again.  This led to a 'goodwill' offer to meet 70% of parts and labour costs, leaving me to meet the balance of some £150.  'Not good enough', said I, whereupon there was more dialogue between the dealership and SEAT.  The latter stuck to the 70% line, and told me that I could go to the Motor Ombudsman if I didn't like it.  On Wednesday I dashed off a draft letter to the Ombudsman, saved it and slept on it.  I fired it off late yesterday to the Chief Exec of the dealership and the head of SEAT's UK operation, giving them 21 days to sort it out, or else I'd raise it to the ombudsman.  By breakfast time today I had polite acknowledgements from the dealership at national and local levels, and moments later an agreement to pay the full cost of repairs.  This has taken seven months.  So, gentle reader, it sometimes pays to dig the heels in and keep them dug in.  Some time ago, my friends, when asked during a session of the Therapy board game to rate my stubbornness on a scale of one to ten, scored me fifteen.

Though today sees a return to cool temperatures and rain, we have lately had some very fine and warm days, allowing us to eat outside a few times - not bad for April, eh?.  We've also done a bit of gardening, since the weeds too have been appreciating the fine weather.  The spuds are planted out in their growing bags, the raised bed is stocked with new herb plants, and we have some colour in the flower beds.  A couple of garden gift vouchers from Margaret and John covered much of the outlay.  We sowed a packet of rudbeckia seeds some weeks ago, and the plantlets are now pricked out and growing on, with the best results from those that I could fit in the heated propagator.  More in hope than in anger, I sowed some dwarf french beans that have been knocking about for years in the seed box, and eleven out of twelve have germinated, and within a few days of sowing, what's more.  They are now planted out, and we'll hope for the best.  Finally, there are a few tiny plants from seed I harvested last year from indoor cyclamens.  Unlike the beans, however, they are no sprinters, and it's a moot point whether they'll flower in my lifetime.

Sentimental journeys

We had a fine day for our trip to Brighton on Friday, as we so often do when we go there.  The countryside is slowly beginning to wake up after what was starting to feel like an interminable winter.  A sharp breeze in Brighton reminded us that there's some way to go yet.  The reason for our trip was to collect a rather nice watercolour that Barbara had left to me, much to my surprise.  I had often admired it, and hadn't expected to see it again.  It depicts the Massif du Canigou, viewed across a Languedoc-Roussillon vineyard, and was painted by a Rottingdean artist, Barry Hinchliffe.  We visited his studio with Barbara aeons ago during the Brighton Festival.  So we have a fitting souvenir both of Barbara and of the region we used to visit, not infrequently with her.

While we were out and about, we went to a certain well-known household goods warehouse in Shoreham to look at their beds, few of which were on display, so we're no further forward with replacing the back bedroom bed (which is small and getting tired).  We did find some new bedding for the front bedroom, however, so that leg of the journey was also productive, though not in the way that we had hoped. 

A rather sadder journey on Saturday.  Martyn had spotted that his late mother's dressing table was badly infested with woodworm, so it was quickly dismantled, loaded into the car and taken to the tip.  Martyn's parents bought the suite at the Ideal Homes Exhibition in 1939.  The bed had already gone before my time, but we still have the two wardrobes.  We've kept the big round mirror from the dressing table, minus its wood backing.  We'll look into the possibility of getting it re-silvered and mounted on a new piece of plywood with a view to hanging it on the wall.  But as for beds, It looks as if it's back to good old IKEA.

March over

Alarming noises from the central heating last Saturday, after a few days during which we’d noticed that the radiators needed bleeding too often. It sounded as if scrap metal was being tipped down the stairs, Management denying any such activity.  Well, plumber Jez was free on Monday, and spent ten hours here, stripping out a length of clogged pipe and installing a filter to trap future metallic detritus. Expensive job, this home ownership game, but less so than we’d feared - and we treated him to fish and chips at lunchtime.

Largely a pleasant week, though I’m conscious of how rusty my German has become. It didn’t help, of course, that I loathed my first two years’ German teacher at school. Still, Tuesday’s chat class was pleasant and useful, thanks to the presence of two native speakers, sisters from Bremen, one of whom complemented me on my pronunciation. That was never a problem once I'd got the hang of the glottal stop before words beginning with vowels: we Scots start with an advantage, in that we do plenty of glottal stops, fricatives and simple (diphthong-free) vowels more easily than our southern neighbours.

We’ve decided that we could do with a new bed in the back bedroom/guest room/snoring refuge. I’m too big and fat for a 6’3x4’6, specially when sharing it, and the one we have in there is getting on a bit. So we’ve been shopping around. We thought we’d seen an IKEA job that suited us, but on hacking over to the shop to have a look, thought it rather clunky and wasteful of the limited space. I might add that the M25 and Dartford Tunnel experience was pretty nasty. I can almost begin to contemplate stopping driving.

Well, from IKEA we crossed back rather more easily - and gratefully - from bandit country, and looked in at Furniture Village, John Lewis, Dreams and Marks & Sparks, finding nothing we liked. I now wish I hadn’t given away my old Moriarty’s bed frames.

Lovely lunch yesterday at Kate and John’s.  Both were on great form, and while Martyn and Kate worked a little afterwards on the Historia Facebook page, John and I relaxed in the drawing room with respectively the Sunday papers and the iPad, not to mention the occasional contrapuntal snore.  There's a lot to be said for companionable silence, particularly in congenial company.

We travelled up from our little country station, since the main line was being dug up. Good prompt service and working connexions. We like public transport, and would love it were it not for the public. Diagonally opposite me on the way up was a young man with cannabis leaves tattooed on the backs of his hands. Indica on the left, sativa on the right. He showed all the signs of having lately benefited from either or both, and hence was a walking invitation to any policeman - and he was heading for a football match - to enquire what he might have in his pockets.

On the way back, we had a couple of kids in the seats across the aisle. The boy kept shrieking until I politely asked if he’d like to go and sit somewhere else. ‘Not really.’ ‘OK: either that or be quiet - one or the other.’ To my amazement, I didn’t get a stream of obscenities, but compliance. The magisterial restraint and glare must be improving - a bit late! His companion stayed on after he left the train, curling up on the seat and wiping her muddy trainers on the cushions. At this point, wiser counsels restrained me from intervening further, detecting the imminence of ‘Clean that up, you dirty little guttersnipe!’  One despairs sometimes.