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!

More winter, eh?

For several days lately, the sun has been strong enough to warm the sitooterie enough for us to have lunch out there, and then sit oot and snooze/enjoy the daylight until late afternoon.  Not so today: although, as I write, the snow is only lying on the frozen pond, we've had quite a few flurries of increasingly powdery snow, and wouldn't be surprised to wake up to white surroundings tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I've been able to garden a bit more, and by the time the composting bin went last Thursday, it contained not only the Bramley apple tree prunings but also the top hamper of the cornus at the front, the lethal berberis (beautiful plant, but I made the mistake of planting it too close to the general public), and a mile or two of brambles.  The cornus we see from the back of the house still has its crimson stems on view, but they'll have to come down next time the weather allows old bones to be outside for half an hour. 

Meanwhile, back in the sitooterie, I have stoked up the hotbot propagator and sown sundry rudbeckias, sweet williams and hollyhocks.  And the charlottes are chitting away nicely on top of the tumble dryer in the garage.  We have spent an outrageously extravagant fiver on a couple of trays of primulas from Fortnums, and will get them out into the containers once the Beast from the East has passed over - assuming they survive its ravages.  They are outside at the moment in a sheltered corner.  The time will come when we need help in the garden, but meanwhile we shall enjoy doing it ourselves.

There are moments when one seems to be surrounded by bureaucracy, idiocy and incompetence.  I've been trying to do some efficient things with investments that require registrars to send me forms for completion.  Registrar 1 had to be asked twice to send the forms relating to two instruments, and sent one lot in duplicate.  Registrar 2 said, 12 days ago, that they'd send me the requisite bumf, but confirmed today, on being prodded, that they had not, but would now.  Watch this space - oh, don't bother, for goodness' sake.  And just don't ask about the hobby.

Martyn, meanwhile, is working on the nth incarnation of the railway network of the 27th Canton of Switzerland up in the attic.  The sunny days have made it quite bearable up there, he reports, so he is getting on with replacement canopies for the station platforms, complete with lighting.  I worked a bit on a little acrylic last Thursday at art class: the view from the spare bedroom window in Another Place the day before I sold it last autumn.  It may come to something, but is more likely just to languish in the portfolio of the unfinished.

Days lengthening at last

We don't handle January and February with much enthusiasm, so it has been good to get out and garden a little on the better days.  Today I have pruned a couple of roses, and at last tackled the apple tree - probably rather late for winter pruning, but it'll either survive or it won't.  We're wondering what do do about the little patch at the front of the house and down the side.  It gets little sun, so the grass is full of moss, and the few roses get rather leggy.  When we moved here (gosh: nearly eleven years ago!) there was a profusion of ugly conifers across the front and between our parking apron and the neighbours'.  One of my early tasks was to get most of the offenders sawn down, getting a rather unpleasant rash on my arms in the process.  (I suspect the juniper, which was perhaps sanctioning my predilection for one of the applications of its fruit.)  I planted it with various bits of the familiar shrubs and things: potentilla, penstemon, cornus, iris sibirica, fuchsias, box and the like.  There are moments in the season when it can be quite pretty, but the maintenance and grass cutting are becoming burdensome.  We toy with getting the landscapers in to advise.  We want to keep the box hedge and bushes, but the rest can either serve as cutting stocks or beziehungsweise come up and be divided and redistributed.  The anti-social pyracantha came out last year, and when I can summon up the energy, the wrongly placed berberis will join it in the municipal compost bin, cuttings having been taken for more appropriate locations.

The Bramley apple tree was Martyn's Christmas present in 2008, and has given us some good crops.  When it came to pruning it this morning, I became aware  of how much it has grown.  It came home from the local nursery - alas now closed for retail sales - in the back of the car.  Well, it is now a bit more restrained than it was, but would still need a Tranny flatbed to transport it.  I've treated it to a grease band in an attempt to discourage the codling moth larvae that try so hard to add protein to our apple crumbles.  The exercise reminds me of the advancing years.  Joints are hurting like blazes this afternoon, making me resort to ibuprofen, among other remedies...

Of recent events in the Untied States of America, I must refrain from comment, but lament the latest slaughter of innocents.  I've probably blogged before that starry nights make me wonder why, despite the privilege of living on a habitable planet, we devote such energy to internecine warfare and wrecking the world for our descendants.  One of the few consolations of not having direct descendants, I suppose, but we fear for our nephews and nieces and theirs.

Art class met again yesterday after a couple of weeks without heating in our normal venue.  The sore joints inhibited me a bit, so there was precious little to show for the couple of hours.  But one of our number is in charge of the exhibitions at a little charity café in nearby Edenbridge, where we exhibit each year as a group.  Last year we each donated a little 10x8 canvas for sale in aid of the charity at a modest price.  One of mine sold.  In an attempt to fill their exhibition calendar, she has asked me to put up a show of my own, probably in September, and I have rashly agreed.  Panic now....

January almost over

I suppose it's a combination of post-flu lethargy and dreary days that has led to my achieving precious little lately.  But on reflection it isn't as little as that.  We have been to our first U3A session on iPads and iPhones, since neither of us feels like we're making as much use thereof as we could.  Very welcoming group, with a likeable and obviously capable leader.  We'll need to assert our preferred learning style, however.  This week I went to a German conversation group, which was just as welcoming.  I think it's about right for my level, though I need to blow away the cobwebs if I'm to participate properly.  Art class on Thursday was cold.  For some reason the space heating was u/s, and we were relying on two domestic fan heaters to heat a space the size of a bus garage (mild hyperbole...).

Matters were scarcely better yesterday at the hobby.  The work room was hot and stuffy, with heating pipes grilling our shins under the desk.  The tea room was cold, and heated after a fashion by a 1950s vintage Ekco convector heater, except when the fire alarm (test) came on, whereupon the ceiling vents started pumping out warm air.  When the alarm stopped, so did the warm air supply.  Both issues raised months ago.  Obvious signs of action?  Square root of bugger-all, though I'd be happy to give modest credit should efforts to date have exceeded obvious results...

My Weltanschauung has not been helped today by the fact that my laptop refuses to speak to the printer.  I don't do a lot of paper apart from the Christmas cards, but have to apply on paper for my sandwich money and mileage (or choose to, since the on-line process is inadequate, and the automated version has failed to materialise).  I achieved the modest task of printing my claim only after installing the printer drivers on my new-to-me desk computer.  It took well over half an hour.  But then, what else would I have done with the time?  Maybe de-cluttered and dusted my study, which stands in muckle want of both, and of decisions on reconfiguration.

My gardening efforts have been pretty pathetic (see opening sentence above).  But I have at least planted out the hyacinths we were given a while back by John and Marion.  Crocuses are coming into flower (though only the boring yellow ones so far), and the snowdrops won't be far behind.  Daffodils are up and budding, so I look forward to moaning about the mess left by their foliage!