Local government; rhododendrons; cats

Reading Borough Council have announced their new Con-LibDem coalition, a big change as the council has been under Labour control since the 1980s. The article is mainly distinguished by the absurd photograph of the parties’ lead councillors Andrew Cumpsty and Kirsten Bayes. The slew of impolite comments posted include 'I feel violated' and references to The Krankies.

Had brunch with Ray in Pangbourne on Saturday morning at The Ditty, a recently-refurbed café/bistro that used to be called The Ducks’ Ditty– my aunt waitressed there many years ago. Not sure whether the renaming is a sign of a cooling down of the Thames Valley’s interminable obsession with Kenneth Grahame, but let’s hope so. As a child I had a rather smart green hardback copy of The Wind in the Willows, probably given to me by a well-meaning relative or friend of my parents, it being a classic example of Books Adults Think Children Should Read (being reminiscent of those wonderful far-off days when people ate lunch out of wicker baskets in the open air, children played nicely together, etc). Like any even vaguely normal child I was more interested in reading Enid Blyton so I don’t think I got around to reading TWITW until well into my teens, by which time I thought I’d better read the book before giving it away. Anyway, returning to the café, here I am outside it, just for the record.

We then went on to visit the lovely Harcourt Arboretum, an adjunct to the University of Oxford Botanic Garden. Lots of rhododendrons in amazing colours and quite a few groups having picnics. The arboretum used to be part of the grounds of Nuneham Park, also owned by Oxford University (I think) but currently used as the Global Retreat Centre run by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (!). I got myself onto their mailing list some time ago while looking around for meditation classes in the area, so now keep receiving emails inviting me to lectures and seminars on conquering fear, embracing one’s inner monk etc.

Ruth and I took the bus out to Arborfield Cross¹ on Sunday to visit Gail and Rob, who are now ensconced in their new home. The house represents more of a renovation project than I’d want to take on, but as two Building Control surveyors they should be better placed to tackle it. We had a pleasant lunch in the garden and met their two new kittens, who reminded me of how ADORABLE kittens are. I offered two rabbits in exchange for them, but nothing doing.

Refurbishment of the Cotton Club, the food and drink outlet on the London Road campus, is now complete, which is a relief after the last few months of banging/swearing/loud singing (our office is directly next door). We were invited on Monday to a private pre-opening viewing, with complimentary tea and cake, of the revamped facility, now rebranded ‘Eat and Drink at London Road’. Certainly much swankier, though that was to be hoped given that it must have been at least 30 years since the previous refurb. The refurbishment has apparently aimed to ‘reveal the historic origins of the former dairy building’, and there is indeed a mural of some cows along one of the walls. According to Jude the coffee is now more expensive, but on the up side it does now appear to actually contain coffee.

The refurb is part of a general overhaul of the University’s catering outlets, the eventual aim of which is apparently ‘a flexible, high-end food offering’ across the University. Sounds a refreshing change from the inflexible, and remarkably low-end, food offering available in catered halls of residence when I was a student. Students today don’t know they’re born, etc.

Book Group met at Tamzin's house on Wednesday to discuss Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. I had only managed to get just over halfway through the book by the time of the meeting, partly through having started it too late and partly through not enjoying it much. It struck me as a mediocre fantasy-novel-by-numbers, but as everyone else appeared to have enjoyed it, I will endeavour to finish it just to see if my opinion changes. Tamzin’s large and ridiculously appealing cat Hendrix graced us with his presence for the second part of the evening, so it’s been a whole week of cute cats. If only I didn’t live on a rat run I’d be surrounded with them, though Ruth has cautioned me that two fortyish² women living with pet cats would fill just too many stereotypes.

¹ The Wikipedia stub cautions against confusing it with Arborfield, Saskatchewan. That was a near miss then. Good thing the bus driver was on the ball.
² The use of '-ish' implies there or thereabouts. One of us is, of course, not yet forty.

Blue tits; Somerset; Grand Designs

Emrys

Meant to update this last Wednesday from my parents’ place, but had no sooner settled down happily at their kitchen table with my laptop than I discovered that their broadband was out of action. After a brief rant in the direction of the cats, who looked unmoved, it dawned on me that having four days without access to the internet (as well as without mobile reception) would probably be good for me and create a calm meditative atmosphere conducive to periods of quiet reflection, etc. Spent a quiet day or so reading, looking through some old photographs and providing a lap for Emrys.

Collected Ruth from the train on Friday morning and we spent a further quiet day before my parents arrived home on Saturday. The visit was enlivened by what Ruth termed 'Tit TV': the nesting box with attached camera that Ray gave Dad as a present a few years ago is being used this year, by blue tits - we were able to view the 12 little eggs and the cute little bird sitting on them. Eggs and tit are just visible in these pictures. They had yet to hatch when we left, though Dad reckoned that hatching was imminent.

Eggs

Blue tit sitting on eggs

As I didn’t fancy driving far on the Thursday I tasked myself with finding dinner from the local shop at Longtown 3 or 4 miles away. Although doubtless a useful resource, it doesn’t stock a huge range of food so ended up with a Linda McCartney macaroni cheese and a packet of sausages. Macaroni cheese isn’t something I usually eat, but it wasn’t bad.

We drove to Cheddar on Sunday morning to visit Ruth’s grandmother, with whom we had a pleasant lunch at local restaurant the Edelweiss. Lots of attractively wooded hills around, which look worthy of further exploration at some point although Ruth thinks Somerset is a ‘vile’ county from which one is lucky to escape without dengue fever or similar from torpor-inducing west coast air. Have done only limited probing as to reasons for this view. Drive back was certainly vile after we had switched off the satnav in a degree of frustration; I had tasked Ruth with directing me around (NB as opposed to into) Bristol to pick up the M4 somewhere around Chippenham, but this didn’t quite work, resulting in half an hour or so of frosty silence after I had driven several times around the same roundabout in Bristol city centre. Once onto the M4 we became caught up in road works, Sunday evening traffic and pelting rain. Cheered ourselves up later by going for dinner at the recently-revamped Griffin.

To recap over the previous week: election news: both Reading’s seats are now blue. Reading East’s Conservative MP Rob Wilson got back in, with an increased majority. There was a vacancy in Reading West due to the recent retirement of Labour’s Martin Salter, and the Conservative's Alok Sharma is now the new man there. Reading Borough Council remains NOC, though a Tory/LibDem coalition looks likely. I haven’t formed much opinion either way about Rob Wilson, but I understand he holds regular surgeries across his constituency, so I guess I could pop in with an issue if I wished. His publicity material is chiefly characterised by him reminding voters that he’s married, with four children – aside from obviously being a thinly-veiled “Yes, I’m Heterosexual”, can’t understand why this is thought relevant to politics – and from observations it does tend to be a Tory tactic; the publicity material for the Labour and Lib Dem candidates, entirely correctly, didn’t mention anything about their private lives. Personally I wouldn't care if my MP lived in a commune with seven other men, as long as he did good things for the community ...

We went up to Ray’s boat on the evening of Friday 7^th for what I had hoped would be a pleasant al fresco waterside drink on a balmy spring evening, but ended up being a huddle around the woodburning stove on a decidedly chilly evening. Made admiring noises as to how his tongue-and-groove panelling is progressing.

Trekked out to the ExCeL on Saturday 8^th to Grand Designs Live – quite fun, though unfortunately (given the cost of the ticket) by the time the day came around neither Ruth nor I were really in the mood and it was also rather more similar to the Ideal Home Show than I had been expecting. Our tickets entitled us to a complimentary copy of the Grand Designs magazine and a bag of rather random freebies, including a small packet of muesli and several free samples of fabric conditioner. The already quite long journey out to the ExCeL was lengthened by us getting on the wrong branch of the DLR at Canning Town (I blame Ruth) and having to wait around at West Silvertown for a return train. A bleak landscape – there’s a bit about the area here - but I did take this picture of the big golden syrup tin on the side of Tate & Lyle.

While at the show, queued to look around Eco Modular Living’s Ecohome. The company apparently markets recycled buildings ‘using a hybridisation of modular and container fabrication techniques’. Reminded me of my proposal, which I first expounded to Ray some years ago, for solving Britain’s housing problem by accommodating people in Functional Living Units (henceforth FLUs), medium-but-not-oversized living pods equipped with the essentials. Disappointingly, Ray always doggedly maintained that the idea wasn't viable, possibly because the plan included demolishing large swathes of the country's existing housing. I stick by it though.

A sold sign has gone up opposite UHO (see 14 April post), barely a few weeks after the house went on the market. This is good news. Remains to be seen whether the new owner will remove the nasty grey paint and metal windows.

Have recently written a letter of complaint to the (expensive) health club of which I am a member about the unpleasantly acrid smell in the steam room on several occasions recently. Am giving them a week or so to sort it out, but was briefly encouraged when I went to the gym on Monday to note that poolside was closed for maintenance, so hopefully this includes scrubbing the steam room or at least masking smell of wee with eucalyptus or similar. I live in hope.

Modern art; plumber round 2; Morris dancing

Batch of home-grown salad leaves, just for the record:

Popped along to Rivermead on the evening of the 23rd to the first Reading Contemporary Art Fair. We missed the official opening by John Madejski, though Ruth claimed to have spotted him on the way in. The Friday evening was a private viewing, for which we got free tickets (and a free glass of plonk) thanks to Ray’s sister Sharon, who works for Reading 107, one of the sponsors. Lots of stuff on show and I may actually have located a suitable piece of art for the living room chimney breast – fell rather in love with some of Alce Harfield’s brightly coloured canvases so intend to commission something as soon as I’ve measured the available space. Ruth bought a picture of a horse, which I duly admired at the same time as issuing a warning about any future acquisition of hunting scenes, horse brasses etc.

A piece of news of almost no interest to anyone else is that as of last Tuesday we now have a new gas meter. Looky here. How smart.

We had to get the plumber out again last Tuesday evening thanks to Ruth’s well-meaning attempt to replace the cistern valve in the toilet. We’ll be funding his summer holiday at this rate.

Hosted Book Group last Wednesday and a discussion of Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger. The book was my choice; having read several of Lively’s children’s books I thought perhaps I should read one of her adult novels, and the Booker Prize winner seemed the obvious choice. Good, but it would probably benefit from a re-reading at some point to fully appreciate the subtle passage-of-time aspects that seem to be Lively’s trademark. One of the Claires had accidentally read Tiger Moon (a 2008 children’s fantasy novel) instead, which rendered her contribution to the discussion a bit limited. Had to rebuke Harley afterwards for behaving like a little tease - running up to people in a "look what a cute little bunny I am" fashion and then skipping off as they tried to stroke him.

Got up wackily early last Saturday morning to go down to Forbury Gardens to see the Kennet Morris Men dance in May Day at 5.30am. Some rather blurred pictures here, along with some video footage of the occasion. The troupe (I believe ‘side’ is the correct term) are a jolly bunch of mainly older gents, but there was one young chap among the group, who did a solo jig for one of the numbers. Ray, who is always a sucker for getting up at an unearthly hour to do eccentric things, came with me and between us we almost doubled the size of the audience; the others were a young couple who were on their way to the beer festival, and the wife of one of the dancers. They danced half a dozen or so dances and then sang Sumer Is Icumen In, reasonably tunefully. Given that they're apparently always on the lookout for new dancers, I had a go at persuading Ray to take it up, but he wasn't quite as taken with the idea.

Ruth and I went to a party on Sunday hosted by Ruth's colleague Jan and her partner, who had just bought themselves a Nintendo Wii that morning with the result that a good portion of the evening was spent playing on it. Had a go at tennis and didn't do too badly. Quite fun but I'm not sure it would induce me to buy one; have yet to become remotely hooked on anything resembling a computer game. In any case our living room is a bit too small to allow for even virtual-exercising.