Singing crusties; art students; snooping

Finally got around to emailing Alce Harfield about a possible painty canvas commission. Got a reply thanking me and saying she’ll deal with my enquiry as soon as she gets back from Glastonbury. Ah, the artist’s lifestyle.

Went up to the marina on Saturday evening to join Ray at the Berth Holders’ Bash – marquee; live music etc. One of the bands was formed of actual berth holders; the others were from outside. Music was OK though mainly covers of mainstream stuff; I had been expecting something rather more folky. Our tickets entitled us to food from the buffet, although the stuff that various cunning and well-organised people were cooking on their barbecues looked a lot nicer. The evening was considerably cooler than I (and evidently others) had been expecting – after an hour was forced to borrow some warm clothes so spent the rest of the evening in a Wasps fleece. I didn’t stay late enough to hear Ray’s permanently-inebriated neighbour John perform, but gathered later that he had been too drunk to go on in the end anyway.
On Sunday I persuaded Ruth to do a bit of the Whiteknights Studio Trail, a yearly event where, among other things, artists living in the vicinity of the University open their homes to visitors to exhibit their work. As a number of the houses are on streets that I wouldn’t mind living on, I’ve been meaning to go for the last few years and did my best to disguise from the artists the fact that I was blatantly more interested in casing their house and garden than in their artwork. We started off at the university visiting the Department of Fine Art’s Final Year Degree Show, which had stayed open for the Studio Trail weekend. Although I do try not to walk around exhibitions of contemporary art thinking ‘I could have done that myself’, some of the stuff did seem a bit lame, especially if it represented the culmination of three years’ work – it would have helped had there been a small paragraph next to each piece to give it some context. Scoff-worthy highlights included a large birdcage containing a television balanced on one corner; a slide projector projecting blanks onto a wall, cunningly titled ‘Untitled’, and a roomful of cardboard boxes glued to the walls, but the ultimate highlight was a video installation of two girls dressed in bikini tops and shorts throwing mud at each other. Godfrey informed me at work on Monday though that the latter sounded like performance art of a type popular around the late 1960s/early 1970s, so maybe there was some deliberate historical comment in there somewhere.

We were quite charmed by a large elephant made out of shredded paper glued together, although I accidentally put my hand on its trunk at one point and almost snapped it off. Never good to have to leave part of an exhibit at the front desk on the way out.
The University’s Fine Art department is housed in Temporary Office Building (‘TOB’) 1, one of several run-down wartime buildings occupying the Earley Gate side of the campus. The current VC has apparently expressed his desire to demolish them, but I think they have a certain charm, although they could do with a lick and a polish. Our team is due to be moving to one of them this November for the final eight months of our funding period, so I shall doubtless get to know them better.

After leaving the degree show, we visited the small wildlife garden on Whiteknights Road run by the Ridgeline Trust. On Sunday it was hosting an exhibition of local primary school children’s artwork, which we had a quick look at as well as a wander around the garden. After that, we visited three different houses on New Road (super leafy street of some lovely houses, although probably hell to park on) where I had a cursory look at the stuff on offer as well as a bit of a snoop at the property – attempted to perfect technique of appearing to look intently at a handmade necklace while actually looking out of the window into the garden. Ruth was chatted up by a woman with hairy legs and an inadequately-secured bicycle.

Had a successful weekend’s Freecycling, managing to offload a pedestal fan that had been lingering in the garage for a while, an office swivel chair and a particularly uncomfortable tubular steel chair (pictured) that I bought on eBay on a whim several years ago and then swiftly consigned to storage. Am now fired up to do some more de-cluttering. Then can buy more stuff.
The area between our office building and the building next to it was cleared earlier in the year in a few days of concerted destruction as part of the impending campus redevelopment, but now has grown into a rather lovely meadow-type area with colourful flowers. We are puzzled by this and are unsure whether it's intentional, or whether the redevelopment has just gone off the boil for the moment allowing weeds to thrive. Quite pleasant to look at, though.

NAGging; church jumble; plants

In one of my sporadic, and usually short-lived, attempts to become more involved with the local community, I attended a meeting of the Lower Caversham Neighbourhood Action Group (NAG) last Thursday evening. The meeting was a public meeting to set the NAG’s priorities for the next year, and all of us present were given little coloured post-it notes to stick on various flipcharts indicating those things we thought should be priorities. The categories were pre-chosen and included such obvious things as Burglary, Antisocial Behaviour etc. We also had a talk from Inspector Penny MacKenzie, head of the Neighbourhood Policing Team. As is the way of these things, some of the older NAG members present did seem to tread that fine line between ‘concerned citizen’ and ‘annoying busybody’. On my way in I was greeted by an enthusiastic elderly gentleman who shook my hand for longer than necessary while thanking me profusely for coming, and then proceeded to put his arm round me while saying to somebody else ‘look, a new member’. Was tempted to say that if he continued the body contact it would be the last meeting I attended, but as I have occasionally been reminded of the need to be more tolerant of eccentrics/weirdos, refrained.

On the subject of eccentrics, seem to keep running into our neighbour-from-a-few-doors-down Norman following my encounter with him back in March. As seems to be the way of gents of a certain age and ilk, he does seem to spend a lot of time hanging around outside his property indulging in low-level chitchat with passers-by. Am trying to perfect technique of greeting him cheerily while not slowing brisk pace, in manner of one clearly on the way somewhere important, though was forced to slow down long enough on one occasion for him to tell me I looked nice in my gym kit. He doesn’t seem to speak to Ruth so am feeling unduly hand-picked for his attentions at the mo. It has been pointed out to me that he is no doubt well-meaning but lonely, which is no doubt true, but still.
In an attempt to support local events Ruth and I wandered down the road to Caversham Methodist Church on Saturday to support something billed in the paper as a ‘summer market’ – an overblown term for what turned out to be a pretty lowbrow and poorly attended jumble sale. The main room featured a handful of depressed-looking people sitting behind tables offering used toys, bedlinen etc, none of which looked like something you’d be drawn to buy. We made a beeline for the food stall and I bought a jar of marmalade, while Ruth bought a bag of dry-looking rock cakes. We then tried to escape but unfortunately someone offered us a cup of tea as we were heading for the door, which we felt obliged to accept. There did turn out to be books for sale in the main church itself, which redeemed the event a bit. The man in charge of the book stalls informed us that all religious books were free, but I refrained from taking any and paid 30p for a copy of ‘What Not To Wear’, which has occasional useful tips scattered among Susannah Constantine’s repeated banging on about her flabby arms.
Along with WNTW we picked up a small pamphlet published by The People's Friend in 1978 entitled Your Money Saving Diary, which includes a sobering list of money-saving tips, including how to salvage a cracked egg by rubbing the crack with dripping before putting the egg into water, and using the inner bags of cereal packets to line cake tins. Thrifty stuff.
We went over to Arborfield again on Sunday to check on the progress of Gail and Rob’s kittens (still cute). Gail then kindly drove us around to look at plants and pots, including a trip to the lovely Pudding Lane Nursery - plants laid out in attractive garden that one can meander through, with pleasing absence of the extraneous tat that garden centres feel obliged to sell in addition to plants (ghastly figurines; fridge magnets with inspirational sayings; giant ceramic blue tits etc – NB anybody in search of the latter should try the Henry Street Garden Centre). We bought several more grasses and a couple of large terracotta pots, one of which is now homing the oleander Dad gave me a few years ago.

Sticking with plants, have noted new growth on my spider plant at work. Bought this about a year ago in Homebase, on the grounds that it was a manky-looking specimen that I feared no one else would buy - probably not a sound basis on which to choose a plant, but I felt sorry for it. Have been feeding it for the past few weeks using a plant feed Ruth mixed for me. Feel nurturing and almost maternal.

As part of current attempt to get rid of backache by toning up core muscles etc, returned to Pilates on Tuesday evening, over a year after having done the original beginners course. Can feel stomach muscles today so assume it must have been doing something. Still sticking with gym routine, but have convinced Frazer that no, I don’t need to ‘up’ the routine quite yet, as am still struggling to do five minutes on the crosstrainer. Have a nasty feeling he is contemplating adding dumbbells to my squats.

Iron-pumping; tofu; waterborne hazards

Have resigned my membership of revive in the hope of getting a better value gym experience at Caversham Health and Fitness. CHF doesn't have a pool, unfortunately – but then in fairness I’d hardly used the pool in the last six months. On the up side, it’s half the cost and offers a number of different classes, including things with intimidatingly energetic names such as 'Pump' and 'Body Combat'. Had an induction last week from Frazer, an enthusiastic young lad who uses the term "awesome" a lot. We have established that I need core muscle strengthening and have thus been sentenced to a round of squats, lunges and planks 2-3 times a week as well as cardio.

Have resolved not to invest in any serious gym kit until I’ve been at it for a month, so for the time being am wearing a baggy black T-shirt and a pair of stripey leggings (see right), which according to Ruth make me look like a jester.

Earlier this week stir-fried, as I often do, some Cauldron marinated tofu pieces, and was amused to read on the back of the packet an invitation to visit Cauldron’s website and ‘share your tofu experiences’. Naively, I would have thought there were limits to the range of experiences one can have with tofu, but perhaps it has applications I’ve not thought of. Here’s what Cauldron, producers of ‘mouth-watering vegetable based foods’, to quote their website, have to say about tofu. You can even read the story of tofu, if you’re keen enough.

A minor barney with one of the construction workers under the railway bridge last Thursday led to a pithily-phrased complaint to both the construction company and to Reading Borough Council. Was somewhat surprised to receive an apologetic phone call from the council later that afternoon, who gave me a slightly over-detailed explanation of the various issues with the works. By the evening, there was improved signage and a contraflow under the bridge. Felt briefly all-powerful, before discovering that evidently others had been complaining too.

We went for a lovely dinner on Ray’s boat on Saturday night – pleasing that it was actually warm enough to sit outside, although the downside is that we were mobbed by mosquitoes. Am lucky in not reacting too badly to mosquito bites; one of Ruth’s legs swelled up on Monday to - so it was claimed – almost twice its normal thickness. She diagnosed Skeeter syndrome and hurried off to Boots, who sent her to the Reading Walk-in Health Centre in the Broad Street Mall, who advised that it would be an hour’s wait before triage, so she decided to skip that and self-medicate with a glass of Pinot Grigio. The swelling seems to have subsided now.

While at the marina we were able to observe the savagery of waterfowl hierarchy, as a goose couple and their cute fleet of seven or so goslings were mobbed by one of the two resident black swans, who apparently are undeniably top dog. One of the adult geese nobly sacrificed itself and led the swan away allowing the young ones to feed. Almost brought a tear to the eye.

As often happens at the start of months where I've vowed to go on an economy drive, seem to have already found myself going out for a couple of substantial feeds. On the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend, went for Sunday lunch with Ruth and her aunt at The Bear at Hungerford - never eaten there before but was dead impressed, though it isn't cheap. Although I seldom order roasts, ordered roast beef on a whim, which was excellent, with a pleasing absence of overcooked everything and dark brown Bisto-style gravy. On Tuesday we had a team lunch at LSQ2 to celebrate Ann's sixtieth birthday, and had squid stuffed with chorizo - not a combo I've tried before but most pleasing. Rumour has it that the restaurant isn't doing too well, which is a shame although not entirely surprising - it's probably a bit upmarket for its setting. Intend now to eat baked beans for a few days.

Have decided to further embrace whiteness in the garden in a probably misguided attempt to achieve a Mediterranean look - thanks to Ruth's efforts at the weekend, the supporting wall around our tiny patio is now also white. Harley assisted by climbing into the chimenea and then trampling ash over the ground floor.