Structural work; luxury hotels; mail order brides

Took the train down to see my parents on the 13^th (pictures here) – Dad cooked a delicious prawn curry on the Saturday evening and on the Sunday we went for a walk around the village of Middlewood, taking in the odd-looking Middlewood House, seen on this Geograph link. The house looks to be empty and in a poor state of repair – who knows whether it will find an owner willing to pour the necessary money into it. We called in to the newly-revamped Castlefield for a drink – the place was packed out with people eating Sunday roasts, so we had to perch at the bar but Mum and Dad managed to book a table for dinner the following week to try the place out.

Disastrous day a couple of weeks ago when not only the ridge of the roof in the back bedroom leaked in heavy rain and wind, but the flat roof on the bathroom also started letting in a considerable amount of water. We consulted with local roofing company Cliffords (Reading) Ltd who have already given us a quote to fit a gallows bracket. Luckily the problem in the back bedroom is a minor matter of the join between the two houses needing to be sealed better, but the flat roof is likely to need replacing. The extension is 30 years old so the roof may well have reasonably reached the end of its natural life, but it will still be a bill we hadn’t bargained on.

With a view to the gallows bracket: Cliffords came round last week and, very excitingly, fitted something called an acro prop to support the stack in the roof space so that Ruth could start removing the portion below – we are hoping to save £300 by removing the chimney breast ourselves. Last weekend was duly a frenzy of chimney work, with Ruth dismantling the structure and me ferrying buckets of rubble to a waiting Hoppa Bag (cunningly cheaper alternative to Hippobags, distributed by local man) and ferrying the good bricks out to the garage, where we may now have enough bricks stored to be able to build a small structure in the garden. Here’s some footage from the scene. I omitted to photograph the scene where Ruth dropped the chisel down the hole and had to go fishing for it with a pair of barbecue tongs.

Had an appointment in Henley first thing on Monday morning to seek some legal advice from fresh and funky solicitors The Head Partnership, who had been recommended to me as apparently marketing themselves as a new kind of solicitor. Had a brief but helpful meeting with the approachable Melissa, then called in to Maison Blanc for a nice enough but overpriced breakfast next to a table full of au pairs.

After the appointment, returned to Reading station to join my team to travel up to this year’s Lifelong Learning Network National Conference, held this year in Manchester. Spirits rose considerably on checking in to the extremely smart ABode on Piccadilly – high ceilings, enormous bed, flatscreen TV, ‘monsoon' shower, allegedly handmade biscuits and selection of herbal teas and real coffee. Fancied the idea of ordering room service and settling down to watch TV, but dutifully presented for the conference dinner instead and watched several colleagues getting tipsy on refills of pre-dinner complimentary Prosecco. The event the next day was held at The Studio, a self-consciously funky venue a few streets away – lots of coloured portholes and inspirational sayings daubed on the walls, though Godfrey, Jude and I were distracted by the persistent misuse of 'its/it's'. THESE THINGS MATTER, even if you are terribly creative.

This Wednesday was our first day at our new home at Earley Gate, in Spur K of Temporary Office Building (‘TOB’) 1. The building as a whole is a cold spartan place that was never intended to be a permanent structure, but our suite of four rooms has been given an express paint job and isn’t looking too bad. Am quite enjoying having a few more people around us, even though the journey to work now involves a bus ride.

Book Group met at Claire’s house on Wednesday to discuss Richard Wiseman’s 59 Seconds, supposedly an antidote to all those silly self-help books but actually quite similar to a self-help book. We ordered pizzas from Tops Pizza at Cemetery Junction.

Have just been immensely amused by the news that a former boyfriend is now dabbling in the catalogue bride business. Ray met the now ex-wife of my ex-boyfriend Andy in a chippy in Maidenhead – as is the way, she recognised him despite the time lapse and engaged him in conversation, apparently mentioning three times in five minutes the fact that she’s now ‘young, free and single’, though according to Ray her interest seemed to wane on discovering that he lives on a boat. Apparently she and Andy had a total of four (4) children together, all of whom now live with Andy, but best of all, after she and Andy finally broke up, Andy went to Thailand for a holiday and came back with a wife. Hope he warned her about all the kids.

Lowbrow walk; autumn leaves; mortgage frustrations

Went with Claire, Helen and Ruth for a voucher-assisted dinner at Strada on the 28^th (the modern way of eating out in these straitened times) and then on to see Shazia Mirza at South Street Arts, who delivered a funny show but misjudged some of the audience involvement (in brief, chose unwittingly to pick on some people who had come to the show straight from giving a free dinner for the town’s refugee population – cue supportive “ain’t that marvellous” applause from audience where Mirza had evidently intended to make game of them). Going through a member of the audience’s handbag is also possibly a bit of a cheap gag; one that Julian Clary also used when Ray and I saw him at the Wycombe Swan some years ago. Having said that, I do like Mirza’s comedy very much and most of the show was good value.

Took a day off rather randomly on Friday 29^th (just to have a day off really) and decided on a whim to go over to Newbury for a pootle about to see what had changed. As I can count on the fingers of both hands the number of times I’ve visited my hometown in the last 20 years, the answer was: quite a lot. Ended up having a longer-than-intended walk around the south side of town, taking in the pretty lowbrow Newbury Retail Park, which is sited where I remember Newbury Rugby Club being – this, confusingly, has now moved about half a mile down the road. The retail park was doing a roaring trade – must be those branches of Peacocks, Matalan and Poundstretcher Extra all next to each other. Lunched on a cup of tea and a ham and cheese toastie in the branch of Costa inside the enormous Tesco on Pinchington Lane – the café is on a sort of mezzanine at the back of the shop so that one can enjoy looking out on to the shop floor and taking in multipacks of crisps, children being clouted, and other low-budget supermarket joys.

Ray and I went for another walk on Saturday, starting from the same spot in Sulham Woods but heading the other way, up towards the Thames, along the Thames Path a bit and then back across country via Purley. Stopped for tea at the basic but useful tea place at Mapledurham Lock, where Ray had a chinwag with the lockkeeper and I dwelt on the strong smell of rotting cabbage - the small garden and greenhouse in between the cafe and the lock cottage look in need of a bit of tidying up. Proceeded back across country with a short detour into Tilehurst to have a quick snoop at the strikingly unusual houses in Ridgemount Close.

Didn’t make my usual Hallowe’en display with dried leaves this year, given that it has been eaten by rabbits for the last two years running. I still maintain that Jake’s excessive consumption of Hallowe’en-display leaves in 2008 had nothing to do with his subsequent death not long afterwards. Have been burning black candles instead as a mark of the season.

Helen appeared to have spent most of the week before our Book Group meeting last Wednesday bubbling enormous vats of soup, as three types of Hallowe’en/autumnal soup were on offer: two with pumpkin and one with butternut squash. Managed to put away two bowls of pumpkin and apple, along with a small tonnage of assorted bread and pastries. The book under discussion was Diana Athill’s excellent ruminations on advanced old age, Somewhere Towards the End. Most of us had enjoyed it and agreed that Athill sounds a super old bird.

Ruth and I went to the cinema last Thursday to take in lesbian family-drama The Kids Are All Right, focusing on dominating wine-loving doctor Nic and her flaky wannabe-garden designer partner Jules, and their two children fathered by an anonymous sperm donor, perfect little blonde A-grade waif daughter Joni and mulish-but-really-terribly-sweet son Laser. Good viewing although one feels a bit sorry for Mark Ruffalo’s character being so abruptly dispatched at the end. Was v. impressed with Annette Bening; I’d never formed much opinion on her before – a strong, unglamorous part – fair play to her. Lisa Cholodenko also directed the 1998 movie High Art, which Ruth has a VHS copy of but which I haven’t tackled yet, although I believe Ally Sheedy is in it.

Our attempt to remortgage to a new fixed-rate deal that will shave £200 off our monthly payments has been essentially progressing OK over the last couple of weeks but it’s a bit of a case of two steps forward and one back. The solicitors acting for our prospective new mortgage lender have elected to become obsessed with the Deed of Trust that Ruth and I had set up when we took out our first mortgage together in 2008 – albeit that we are not actually legally required to have one of these and merely chose to do so as a mark of good financial sense. As of today they are quibbling various clauses in it, leading to us going back to the solicitor who originally drew it up, who has responded with “nonsense, they’re just trying to add costs” and has offered to draft a one-page supplementary letter that should do the trick. Jury is still out as to whether it will or not. Have so far successfully repressed urge to ring lenders’ legal firm and challenge that they wouldn’t be asking a married couple for all this cr*p.