Eighteen years on

Having had to dip out of Martyn’s birthday meal, we rebooked for today’s wedding anniversary at the same venue, which we know by reputation only.  Well, our first visit was a success.  Excellent food, friendly service and a pleasant environment with muzak that didn’t impinge on conversation.  Sankey’s Seafood Kitchen and Bar.  Two firsts for me: Korean crisp cauliflower starter, and John Dory main course.  Martyn had a classic prawn cocktail followed by halibut.  The John Dory was delicious, but a shade labour-intensive. I’ll have a better idea of how to tackle the bones next time.

Young Mr Sankey was visible in the restaurant, which is always a good sign.  I was tempted to collar him, since he’s a one of our three councillors, and I have a bone to pick with said body.  But since I hadn’t taxed Alex, the other local councillor who served me when I collected my happy pills from the pharmacy earlier, I thought it would be unfair to tackle him - in any case, today’s agenda is a happy one, so no need to sour the atmosphere.  

Eighteen years since the very wet day when we registered our civil partnership.  Since we’d been an item for over five years by then, we tend to remember 28 April 2001, the day we met.  But a good excuse for a celebratory meal nevertheless.

Busy coupla weeks

Flu and Covid jabs, meals with friends and family: that sort of stuff.  Of the jabs, Martyn was quite poorly for a week or so after the Covid one.  I felt a touch out of sorts, and the arm was sore for a few days, but nothing worse.  Surprising how many people we know have had bad reactions to the vaccine.  Better than the disease, though.

We had a most enjoyable reunion of our old art group last week at the home of one of its members.  Miss had instructed each of us to bring a plate of goodies (savoury in our case), so we did our usual smoked salmon palmiers and sausage rolls - we’re getting a bit typecast, but who cares?  We ring the changes with the palmiers, and find that red pesto and sun-dried tomatoes do well, specially with a sprinkle of grated Parmesan.  

Donations continue to trickle in following our Macmillan coffee morning.  The total now stands at £1382, which sets us a bit of a challenge for next time!

Our u3a Four Seasons Birding group met last Thursday at the RSPB reserve at Dungeness.  Most enjoyable visit, thanks to the organisers and the excellent guide.  I am at best a casual birdwatcher, so the commentary from the guide was particularly useful.  Lots of birds I’d never seen before: marsh harriers, bearded tits and golden plovers to name but a few.  Hosts of lapwings, myriad ducks of numerous persuasions, goldfinches, snipes and so many more.  One or two of the group spotted a kingfisher, and our expert birders were excited by the sighting of a black-necked grebe.  I admit that I found the walk a bit tiring: it takes time to rebuild the strength, I suppose.  

Shame that Martyn was still off form on his big birthday: we decided to cancel the planned lunch out.  Adding insult to injury, a misunderstanding about venue meant that our planned meal with friends on Sunday didn’t happen.  Oh well, all the more reason to re-plan the celebrations when the stars align better.

Too old for all this

Last time I charged the Renault, it was enough just to plug it in and click on the boost button on the app.  Yesterday that worked for a minute, then dropped out.  Charger rebooted, it kicked in again, and soon dropped out.  Time after time.  We plugged in the Fiat for an overnight programmed charge, and that seems to have worked.  I’m trying that tonight on the Renault, so we’ll see tomorrow if it works.  One tries hard to be umweltfreundlich, but the reliance on software - or rather, on my ability to use it - makes the whole thing rather difficult.  

Can anyone tell me why we can’t just plug the damn’ thing and throw a switch?

Not a bad result

We last did a Macmillan coffee morning five years ago, when I’d no inkling that I’d become a consumer rather than just a supporter of their services.  That time we raised about £450 if memory serves me well, so now that I’ve encountered their services in person, it seemed right to double the target.  So we catered pretty lavishly and cast the net wide, and had something like 30 guests here on Saturday.  They seemed to have enjoyed the party, although as before the savoury stuff went better than the sweet.  We have distributed some of the leftovers to neighbours who couldn’t come, but there are still a few scones and buns, which is not good news when one is some way from one’s goal weight.

As usual, the smoked salmon palmiers were well received, and the sausage rolls disappeared like snow off a dyke.  We had some quiche and tarte aux poireaux left over, so that sorted lunch next day.  But I seem to have lost my touch with short crust pastry: I had to resort to buying a couple of rolls from Fortnums.  There are so many recipes for such dishes, each contradicting the last, so I took an executive decision: six eggs, a pot of double cream, a good splash of milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg.  We were pleased with the leek tart, which was broadly based on a Rick Stein recipe, so shall have another go at that.  I’ll leave the pastry to Martyn…

One of the guests was Martyn’s second cousin Susan, who lives in Washington State, and is currently visiting the land of her grandparents, staying for a few days with Martyn’s sister, Sandra.  Here are the four of us, enjoying each other’s company after the hordes had obediently left by the stated 13:00 deadline.  We took Susan for a little stroll along the Pantiles and Chapel Place before returning to Forges-l’Evêque for fish and chips - Sandra’s treat.  It was good to meet Susan: she is a friendly no-nonsense person with whom we share many values.

Well, the bottom line is that, at the time of writing we have raised four-thirds of our target.  Most was donated on line, but we have today banked a stunning amount raised on the day: the collecting box alone yielded more than we raised in total last time, and it is now winging its electronic way to Macmillan Cancer Support.  (The fact that we returned from our trip to the town with a new iPhone is pure coincidence: honest, Officer.)

Oh, and if you’d like to add to our takings, you can do so at https://www.justgiving.com/CM24036877 .

Busy, busy

The house was a hive of activity yesterday as the decorators started work on the kitchen and cloakroom.  They seem to be doing a very thorough job, and ought to finish today.  The last time the kitchen was painted we did it ourselves, but in recent years we’ve done less decorating.  We did partly re-paper the hall after the garage conversion, but have been contracting out the more complex stuff.

I’ve told the decorators they’ll have to be out tonight, since the kitchen is going to be busy: we are hosting a Macmillan coffee morning on Saturday, so have a lot of baking in prospect.  The sausage rolls and palmiers are in the freezer, ready to be thawed, sliced and baked, and we’re planning to make some quiches and sweet stuff.  Should be fun: so far over 20 say they’re coming, and I expect there’ll be a few more.  Donations so far are startlingly generous: they’re already a whisker over what we raised five years ago when we last hosted one.  Just as well: we’ve set an ambitious target.

Sad news from Canada yesterday: my second cousin Peter decided to have an end put to his suffering last weekend - not a decision available to us this country, and I’ll keep my own counsel on the issue.  A stroke had left him badly paralysed, half blind and wheelchair bound, so one can understand his decision.  I hadn’t met him, but have met his sister, his widow and two of his brothers either in Canada or when they have been in London, and always enjoyed their company.

Tempus fugit, except….

…when your clocks are misbehaving.  Aunty Jessie’s clock somehow lost the pin anchoring the hands to the hub some time ago, so I took it along to the local repair café, where clock-fettler Peter managed to sort it by scrounging a pin from the sewing table next door, his usual paper clip job being too coarse.  All was well for a while, but a month or so ago it wouldn’t stay running for more than a few minutes.  Back to Peter a week past Saturday when the repair café was in town again.  He administered a squirt with some solvent which has got it going.  I mentioned that Martyn’s grandmother’s clock had taken to striking 4 at 13:00 and 01:00.  ‘Ah, I know what that’ll be, said Peter: bring it in!’.  In we brought it, and Peter did the necessary, so it dutifully bonged once at 1 o’clock.  Unfortunately, it then stopped…. Well, Martyn administered some WD40, and it’s now going and bonging comme il faut.  Said WD40 being on the gummy side, I dare say we’ll be back ere long for a squirt of Peter’s magic solvent.

The repair café is a likeable institution: volunteers come along and do their stuff for a donation to their charity, and they’ll sell you tea and cakes while you wait.  Our neighbour Rosemary was officer i/c kettle, so we got to have a nice chat with her while we waited.  A former bench colleague’s husband does the electrical safety testing of stuff brought in for repair, so we were among friends.  A good experience, helping to restore one’s faith in one’s neighbours.

In our rented flat in Bern, there were clocks in the kitchen and living room, and neither was working.  The kitchen one just needed a new battery, but the problem with the living room was that the hands were clashing (and probably that it too wanted a new battery).  New batteries administered, hands unclashed, we left them in working order.  What with that and my dead-heading of the pink rose outside the living room window, I think we’ve compensated the landlords for having broken one of their wine glasses.

Trains great and small

To Fribourg on Wednesday to visit the Chemins de Fer de Kaeserberg, a rather impressive HO-gauge layout.  I’d booked to visit at 14:00, and carefully researched the bus route and timing to get there from the station.  Not carefully enough: I led us to the right bus - in the wrong direction.  When we arrived at the end of the line, the nice lady bus driver said ‘no, you’re in the right place, I just have to do the circuit’.  We got to the model railway place a few minutes after our due time, but we only missed the introductory video.  Miniaturwunderland it isn’t, but it’s a far more serious representation of railways and traffic in Switzerland.  It has the odd spark of humour, like a chap trying to clamber back on to his windsurfer.  Also on the water there’s a fine HO-scale model of the paddle steamer Gallia, on which we’d sailed a day or so earlier.

Back in town, we were treated to a guided tour of parts of the old town by Josy Pitteloud, a former senior PTT strategy manager with whom I was last in touch over 25 years ago, though more recently we have maintained contact on social media.  I bought one of his pen and wash paintings back in the 90s: he has a loose, economical style that hints at rather than depicts his subject, and gave us each a couple of vignettes to take home: we shall frame them.  He later sent us some images of an exhibition he is putting on in a few months’ time: here’s one:

We’d been lucky with the weather: the forecast was for rain all day, but it didn’t kick in till much later, so we had our city tour in bright or sunny weather.  Josy gave us an outline of the history of the city before our tour, then took us for aperitifs at a bar with a terrace overlooking the old town.   

Perhaps when I’m a bit stronger we’ll come back and do the full tour Josy had planned!  As it was, we got a good idea of the layout and history of the city, which is older than its neighbour, Bern.  Nevertheless, step count: 7064.

Of the larger trains, we’ve done a few journeys on the deservedly much-maligned Twindexx trains.  They’re about OK if you’re sitting in the middle of the lower deck but if, like us, you could only find seats at the end of the top deck, you’d find the ride very rough and the noise unacceptable.  For our last train ride today (not counting the Zürich airport shuttle) we were on a rather older double-deck loco-hauled coach, and it was far preferable.  Another problem with the Twindexx sets - which are typically used on services joining Geneva and Zürich airports - is inadequate luggage space.  Some great decisions by the SBB powers that be.

Today’s travel was rather trying, even though everything connected as it should.  We were on the road for over eight hours in eight different forms of transport, schlepping our bags throughout.  Step count: 6318.  I think we’re due a few days off!