Hobbit; unnecessary SFX; first Christmas lunch

Passed this decorated tree in Kents Hill Park last Friday. Cute.

Met Ray in town on Saturday to go and see The Hobbit. Evidently, Part 1 of 3. We had both been surprised and somewhat sceptical beforehand about its being a trilogy, but in the event, really enjoyed it. Rather than being a film of The Hobbit, it’s really Prequel to The Lord of the Rings, Part 1, featuring the events of The Hobbit. Having said that, it’s ace – though it almost certainly does help if you’re a die-hard fan of the franchise (having once watched all three extended edition DVDs back to back in a nine-hour gorge-athon, we can probably count ourselves as two such). The trilogy-ness is discussed in this Guardian article. It is, as one of the critics quoted therein notes, a purist’s delight.

The H was also the first movie I’d seen in 3D. Ray, being more of an old hand at 3D, thought it didn’t work too well. Certainly I didn’t think it added anything, and ideally I’d prefer not to have to sit through a film wearing a pair of special glasses. I was also disconcerted by something hard to place concerning the speed of panning across landscapes and action in some of the shots (created effect similar to being driven too fast over a humpback bridge), and the way the background was out of focus – spent the early part of the movie rubbing my eyes and attempting to clean my 3D glasses. Possibly this could have been due to the high frame rate referred to in the article above, not that I really know what that means.

Ruth and I went over to Ray’s boat in the evening for a casual lasagne dinner and chinwag. Returned the following morning to collect my car and to drive Ray to Marparts in Caversham to buy a new length of exhaust pipe, the exhaust having fallen off his van the previous Friday. I gather that it has since been expertly welded back on by his mate Darren and is now almost good as new.

Took a day’s leave on Monday to meet ex-Progress South Central people for Christmas lunch. This year, we had decided on having it at the eatery on the London Road campus, formerly The Cotton Club but now, following a refurb, called Eat & Drink London Road. Went not expecting much as the food used to be OK at best, but we were pleasantly surprised at the decent quality of the lunch – turkey was dry and uninteresting, as is often its wont, but the rest was pretty good, and there was much exclaiming over the positively al dente sprouts.

Returned to MK later on Monday afternoon, though not before getting my key to the internal garage door stuck fast in the lock – after trying for about 10 minutes to get it out with no luck, had to just leave it and go. Had to advise Ruth that she would have to access the garage, if she needed to, via the back gate and the main garage door – this forgetting that the key to the padlock on the back gate was locked inside the garage. In the event, she evidently had to climb over the back gate, something which I gather caused a certain amount of difficulty, though she appeared to have treated it with more humour than I think I would have done. Fortunately, there were apparently no onlookers.

Winchester; subway intrigue; women's football

Have been forgetting to take a photograph of our new floating shelves in bedroom 2. Although they do enhance the room and look quite good from this sort of angle, they are best not viewed sideways on. Additionally, we ran again into problems with drilling into powdery mortar and not being able to get a good purchase for the fixings, hence the minimal decoration. There’s got to be a way around this, other than resorting to Loctite.


Took a train trip to Winchester on Saturday to visit the Christmas market. Ruth went to college in Winchester (when the now-university was still King Alfred’s College) so has an affection for it; additionally we spent a lovely pre-Christmas day and night there five years ago. The train journey down was enlivened by some Reading fans getting in voice for an away game at Southampton, but luckily we were able to get off after 40 minutes and make our way into the city which was, I guess not surprisingly, heaving with bodies. We managed to snaffle an outside table at Maison Blanc where we had tea and a snack, and then meandered over to the cathedral close to join the queue to go into the Christmas market. Queue luckily moved fairly quickly, but we were obliged to shuffle round the stalls at a snail’s pace due to the mass of humanity. I restricted my purchases to two small tree decorations; I don’t think Ruth bought anything at the market but did buy a dress in Hobbs on the way there.

After having our fill of the market, we briefly considered looking round the cathedral until we discovered it’s now charging £6.50 entrance fee (subsequently mentioned this to Mum, who was suitably appalled), so went for a walk instead to use up the remaining daylight, after which we crammed into the William Walker for a couple of drinks before proceeding to the Old Vine, where Ruth had booked a table for an early dinner. We spent a night at the Old Vine on the 2007 trip mentioned above – lovely room and food and a great position overlooking the cathedral.

Quite excited to learn from the latest issue of Reading Station News (a publication introduced to keep passengers up-to-date vis-à-vis ‘the exciting changes ahead’ as Reading’s railway interchange and station undergoes a major refurb) that a formerly closed subway is to be temporarily re-opened while the footbridge linking the north entrance multi-storey car park with the station is removed early in the new year, pending the opening of a splendid new passenger bridge a bit further along. Most of the network of subway under the station, which pre-dates the 80s-built footbridge by many years, has been out of use for some time – the official reason is probably security concerns, but actually it’s hard to see a good reason. I remember in my young day being intrigued while walking through the subway under Station Road and coming up by Thames Tower (a route that’s been closed for some years) to see a passageway mysteriously stretching off to the right, that I never went down – I think it must have been the passage that linked the railway station with the long-disused bus station, as I believe there is one, though I don’t remember ever using it. I’m sure I remember reading a while ago in one of the pages on the Reading Forum that there are supposed to be a whole network of subways below the level of the station and Station Road. Don’t know whether that’s true or not, but an intriguing thought. Anyway, apparently the aforementioned stretch leading from the Caversham side is to be “completely refurbished and re-lit”. How cute. I must remember to take a trip down it.


Some old photos of the station here. In case I don’t get another photo of the current footbridge before it’s demolished, here’s a picture of Ruth in it.

We had a visit from Dave, Hazel and Nia on Sunday morning, en route to a lunch date in Newbury and also, extremely thriftily, to collect some eBay-purchased sanitaryware from an address in Tilehurst. Nia ate some of my shortbread and got a bit of a stroke of Harley's head. In the afternoon we walked up to St Andrew's Hall on Albert Road for Caversham Artists' Christmas Gala, though we didn't spend long there - after the market the previous day I'd really had my fill of decorative glassware, watercolours etc. Caversham does seem to have a thriving community of artists, seemingly largely ladies - or, as I prefer to put it, Ladies Who Don't Have to Work.

Once back from the gala, we decorated one of my small Christmas trees, over a glass of sherry - a surprising whim but one I felt I should indulge.

Recently read Marie-Claire Carlyle’s How to Become a Money Magnet, in one of my sporadic forays into self-help books. An OK read; the usual combination of the odd helpful thought/tip nestled among layers of anodyne padding. I was most amused by Marie-Claire’s credentials as given in the ‘About the Author’ section at the beginning of the book: not only is she a DipLCH and FSSA, but is also an accredited Space Clearer. And she has taught cosmic ordering.

We had a card through the door a week or so ago from Thames Water headed ‘You may have a leak – call this number’, or something similarly potentially alarming. Ruth duly stayed in on Monday morning for visit from TW contractor, who confirmed that the leak is not on our property - good news, though the bad news is that as five houses apparently share the same external stopcock, we could be liable for the not inconsiderable leak which is likely to be at number 45, a tenanted property occupied (we think) by Latvians in possession of an extremely smelly gas barbecue. Apparently number 43 is having damp issues, though according to the TW man, the owner of number 45 is reluctant to engage with the problem, so not sure what's going to happen there. We've decided to keep quiet unless/until we're actually presented with a bill.

Have been occupying myself during the week in Milton Keynes by watching a number of the fascinating OU TV programmes that are available on DVD from the OU library. Last week an interesting programme on Queen Victoria’s early life; this week was the turn of ‘Women’s football’, part of the ‘Nation on film’ series. Partly about women’s football, partly focusing on early cinematography, the film focused on Dick, Kerr’s Eleven, a women’s football team comprised initially of factory workers from Preston who formed a team to play matches to raise money for injured WWI soldiers. By all accounts they were amazingly successful and really drew crowds – the record seems to have been a crowd of 53,000 at Goodison Park for a match on Boxing Day 1920, apparently much larger than anything the women’s game draws today. In 1921, women’s football teams were banned by the FA from using FA grounds, a ban which was not lifted until the 1970s and seems to have done considerable damage to the women’s game. The argument put forward in the documentary seems to be that the women were victims of their own success: the women’s game was rapidly expanding at the time, Dick Kerr’s team had raised £50,000 for charity (about 1.5 million in today’s money) at the time of the ban and regularly drew large crowds, drawing potential cost and support away from the FA and the men’s game. Whatever the reason, it does seem a bit mean.

Amazingly beautiful frost this morning - made myself late stopping to take pictures.

Bracknell; Richmond; neighbours

Struggled my way to Bracknell last Thursday for Book Group at Sarah’s new house. In fairness, it was only the last bit that was a struggle, as I spent about 10 minutes being fired helplessly around ring roads never seeming to be in the right lane. Made it eventually and admired Sarah’s increased amount of space, though her husband Tim seems to have had a substantial hand in decorating their living room, given the c. 50-inch plasma in pole position in the centre of the wall. I’m reasonably fond of technology, but that sort of thing does turn the entire room into a home cinema. We stocked up on carbs and discussed Douglas Kennedy’s The Pursuit of Happiness, which all of us had enjoyed.

Surprised to note last weekend that Christchurch Meadows had actually flooded and then frozen, something I haven’t seen during the time I’ve lived in Caversham. Some keen type has already put a photo on Flickr. Here's a measly photo of mine too.

Ray and I went up to Richmond for the day on Saturday – we had originally intended to do a six-mile walk along the river to Ham House and Petersham, from one of my London Walks books, but the wet ground deterred us from that idea and instead we had a general wander around the posh suburb and its park, which I’d never been into before. Pictures here. Started with breakfast at the Carluccio’s on Kew Road, then walked down across Richmond Green and down to the (full and fast-flowing) Thames, where we walked along the river frontage for a bit before turning up Richmond Hill where we stopped for a quick gander at the view from the top of Terrace Gardens. Then headed into Richmond Park where we had a pleasant walkabout, though in deference to Ray’s recent knee injury and the danger from slippery ground we left the park at East Sheen Gate and walked back into Richmond via a bit of a snoop at the big houses on Fife Road. Had a lovely lunch at Don Fernandos before heading back to the train.

The only blight on the day was the interminable journey home, allegedly due to emergency engineering works caused by a broken rail at Ashford. Whatever the reason, it entailed us getting off the train at Staines and hanging around on a freezing platform for over an hour, in the company of other increasingly irate people, until a train to Reading finally turned up. I now, most unfairly, never want to visit Staines again.

Our Caversham neighbour Terry has been in an uncharacteristic frenzy of doing work on his house just lately, as he leaves for Australia within the next week to join his Australian wife Louise, who ended up being deported from the UK a year or so ago after living and working here for several years. Seems inexplicable to me, especially given that she was working as a social worker, hardly a career on most people’s wish list, but no doubt there must be specifics that we’re not aware of. On the other side: Nicki shows no signs of returning from South Africa, but we are considering emailing her about the parlous-looking state of her middle chimney stack, as we don’t relish the thought of it falling into our garden. Her current tenants look to be in the process of moving out, so we await to see whether new ones appear. The ideal would be someone who enjoys feeding other people’s pet rabbits and doesn’t own a car.

Surprised to wake on Wednesday morning to snow in MK - either it hadn't been forecast or I hadn't paid attention to the forecast. Not very deep, but still snow. No signs of any more of it at the moment though. Snapped a couple of obligatory photos, including one of this pretty cottage in Simpson, which has adorned itself with tasteful Christmas decs.

Belly dancing; Mum; floods

Took myself along on Tuesday 15th to support Children in Need (the less charitable part of me thinks: Christ, is that still going?) by watching the OU’s Belly Dance Club (yes, there is one such) give a lunchtime performance. They weren’t bad; not that I am much of an assessor of belly dancing. The most wacky number was a woman performing to a piece of music called Shaskin; her performance allegedly featured tribal fusions choreography as taught to her by one Darkstar. She was dressed not in more traditional belly dance gear but as though auditioning for a part in Mary Poppins. Puzzling.

Mum came to spend a long overdue weekend in Reading on the 16th; we had a sandwich lunch in Caversham’s Costa, during which we both seethed at the undisciplined children being allowed to run screaming about the café (it has become a distressingly popular haunt for middle-class mummies), then later in the afternoon wandered down to an art exhibition at something billed as ‘Studio 21’ on Patrick Road, though it turned out to be simply No. 21 Patrick Road, with lots of art in the front room. We perused briefly. On the Saturday, we went up to London where we took a bus to the Wellcome Collection to visit the ‘Death: A Self-Portrait’ exhibition. Quite interesting – certainly a range of stuff. I was reasonably charmed by Kawanabe Kyosai's ‘Frolicking Skeletons’, as pictured in this Guardian piece. We had a quick cup of tea before walking down through Bloomsbury to High Holborn and lunching at the Kimchee Restaurant, where we sampled radish kimchi and bulgogi in a noodle soup, along with a bottle of the rather underwhelming Hite each, as I felt we should sample some Korean beer.


After lunch, we walked to nearby Lincoln’s Inn Fields to visit Sir John Soane’s Museum, which I’d heard of but never visited. We had to queue for around 20 minutes to get in, as they only let a certain number of people in at a time – probably a good idea. For some reason, you are obliged to put your handbag into a see-through polythene bag, but are then allowed to carry it around with you. The museum is certainly a curiosity, though it’s so dimly lit that it’s hard to see some of the exhibits, and certainly Mum found it hard to read the guidebook that she’d paid £2 for on the way in. On the way out I bought a fridge magnet showing a head of the goddess Diana.

Digressing briefly: the story of Diana and Actaeon has to be one of the most unjust stories in Roman mythology. I mean: if you don’t want a man to come across you naked, then don’t take a bath in the middle of a wood.

Ruth cooked her poshed-up version of toad in the hole in the evening, featuring cherry tomatoes and rosemary. On the Sunday, Mum and I went for breakfast at the Alto Lounge followed by a walk around Caversham, before I saw her to her train.

Received an email a week or so ago from the OU's LGBT Network (rapidly becoming a source of comedy) from a PhD student doing a thesis on shifts in lesbian women's mating preferences across the menstrual cycle. Reminded me of a Japanese PhD student I once met while a postgrad at Essex, an acquaintance of my friend Shiho's, who was doing a PhD allegedly in something erudite-sounding which I've forgotten, but which basically amounted to pornography. I remember him being intrigued over dinner to know how I, being British, felt about British people's easy access to pornography, before I was forced to disappoint him by informing him that I didn't buy a great deal of it. It did sound as though he was getting to study a good many jazz mags while classing them as research material.

‘Brit Cops’ moment last Tuesday when there was a knock on my door around 7pm and I opened it to be greeted by a uniformed police officer, saying that there’d been a report of a crowd of people outside with knives, and had I heard anything. Apparently my neighbour Fraser had phoned them with this report, but appeared to have since gone to ground as there was no reply from his house despite their repeated banging on his door. Was obliged to say that I hadn’t heard anything, and she proceeded to ask if I’d heard anything going on next door (nothing different from usual) and how much I knew about my neighbour (not much; doesn’t appear to work; often seen with can in hand; did tell me once that he had mental health problems). She came in for a peek over my back wall, but no baying mobs in sight, so left, thanking me for my time.

Another nice Information Office outing last Wednesday, this time to the Bekash in Stony Stratford, a Victorian suburb on the north-west edge of Milton Keynes. Stony appeared to have a number of curry houses, judging by my walk from the bus stop, but the Bekash is allegedly the oldest. The food was pretty nice and compensated for the recent Bina experience. Carol, our newish Forecasting manager, kindly gave me a lift home - Carol owns a house in Bakewell but has been renting in MK during the week (good to know I'm not the only one), though she has recently abandoned Bletchley (don't blame her, from what I've seen of it) for Monkston, a pleasanter-looking district near to Walton Hall.

In a moment of extravagance last Saturday, Ruth and I purchased a new and streamlined DAB radio/CD player to replace my cheap old one (left) which we sense is about to give out. We sat for a while on Saturday afternoon marvelling at the sound quality. It does have a blinkin' iPhonePod dock, but luckily it's not too prominent. Admittedly they are pretty and have lots of cool accessories, but I'm still resolutely not venturing into the world of Apple.

Discovered on Monday that the redway through Simpson/Walton that I often take as part of my morning route to work had become a raging torrent. Well, not quite a raging torrent, but certainly an area of quite fast-flowing water that I wouldn't have ventured through. Turns out Caldecotte Lake - one of MK's several balancing lakes - had overflowed its barrier at one end (which it is, apparently, meant to do in times of flood). MKNews have put out a piece reassuring locals that the lakes should return to normal soon.

Film musings; conference; online chatting

Lit a few candles and bought a small pumpkin in honour of Halloween/Samhain. As last year, Ray came up to exclaim over the candle flames and my low-key display of pumpkin atop bits of straw. We didn’t bother this year with readings but instead watched a DVD of The Dish, a wonderful little Australian film that he had picked up a while ago and thought, correctly, that I would like. Lovely, quirky and full of sympathetic characters.

Sticking with films, finally decided Ruth and I must get around to watching Helen’s DVD of The Princess Bride, which she lent us at a dinner party around two years ago now and which has been sitting on top of the TV at the house ever since. As I'd started to feel vaguely guilty about still having it given that apparently it’s Helen’s and her family’s favourite film, I insisted that we should hunker down and watch it. Ruth shuffled into the living room sulkily to join me about 20 minutes in, but, surprisingly given her general low tolerance of light-hearted fluff, ended up having more truck with it than I did. The two leads (Cary Elwes and Robin Wright) are dull - her especially - and the film in general is OK but unmemorable, making it somewhat puzzling that – according to Wikipedia – it’s apparently become a cult hit in the US. The only characters with any life/charisma are Mandy Patinkin’s Inigo Montoya and Christopher Guest’s six-fingered Count Rugen, though the latter’s a pretty small part.

Can’t help wondering if Mandy Patinkin’s movie career was at all stymied by his first name. Plausible. One suspects that if Brad Pitt had been called Julia Pitt it might have proved a barrier to his achieving full bland A-list hunk status.

Got despatched on the 6th to attend the NSS Conference 2012, as the team’s current NSS contact was unable to go and a brief reference I made to the NSS in a recent meeting appears to have been interpreted by my boss as volunteering to take over some of the admin work. Got up to town early and breakfasted at the 49 café on Marchmont Street (excellent coffee) before killing some time wandering through Russell Square and a couple of other squares enjoying sun and people-watching, including noting the statue of Rabindranath Tagore in Gordon Square. Arrived at Woburn House conference centre and met up with Em, the former head of the Information Office’s forecasting team who left the OU for Heriot-Watt last year and is now evidently involved with the NSS there. Dutifully took notes and scarpered when the conference finished at 3.15, after a start time of 10am. Love the public sector.

Am once again in the business of renegotiating with mobile phone companies, as my Galaxy S contract ended at the end of October and as I’m not using anything like as much of my call or data allowance as I expected to, nor am I desperate for an upgrade, have decided to go back to Pay As You Go for a while. Keen to avoid pushy sales patter, I decided to do the necessary negotiating via Vodafone’s online chat service. This resulted in two quite helpful ‘conversations’ amusingly peppered with an incongruous collection of phrases. Conversation 1, with Riyaz, started with the helpful 

 

followed shortly afterwards by the more puzzling

 

followed by the surprisingly colloquial

and closed with the charming

Conversation 2, with Mitesh, ran partly as follows (for 'You', read me ...):

In fairness the service is quite good and certainly enables cutting to the chase in a way that you'd be lucky to get away with via telephone.

Sticking with service providers: have been deterred from taking my car to KwikFit after rushing down to the Richfield Avenue branch on a Sunday afternoon a few weeks back suspecting I had a slow puncture, as a tyre appeared to be deflating. They inspected the tyre, assured me I didn’t and that it was only that the valve was loose, but then, perhaps in vengeance for not having actually been able to charge me for any work, claimed that the treads on my two rear tyres were almost down to the legal minimum. Prudently deciding to get a second opinion before splashing out, I booked it into Anglos a week or so later; they called me mid-morning to say that I still had 4mm of tread left and KF had been having me on. Tsk.

Anglos have evidently been nominated for Small Garage of the Year 2013 in Car and Accessory Trader. Looking at their somewhat gaudy headed paper, they were Regional Winners of ‘Golden Garages’ in 2010 and 2011, and the winners of Best Garage Service in the Citizen Motoring Awards 2009. Seemingly a lot of small-scale motoring awards out there.

Glasses; skeleton cows; toasted sandwiches

After a certain amount of (but not an excessive amount of) revision for my Java programming module, finally took the exam on the afternoon of 11th October. All went essentially smoothly, the main hitch being that finding the venue (the DoubleTree by Hilton at Stadium MK) proved more difficult than I’d thought, as the stadium site appears to be still essentially a building site. After asking directions from at least three workmen, managed to arrive at the hotel and spent a reasonably pleasant three hours more or less answering all the questions, before heading into CMK to meet Ruth at Chiquito’s for a pre-arranged post-exam dinner. It’s some years since I’d been to a branch of Chiquito’s and although I had remembered them reasonably favourably, what I ordered was nicely presented but distinctly uninteresting, so may give them a miss in future. Additionally, we were more or less the only diners, so got the full brunt of some overly energetic service from a young waiter, whose routine appeared to involve running up to our table and skidding to a halt with a few dance moves, before launching into some enthusiastic patter. Plus, am probably being a grumpy old woman but object to being addressed as ‘guys’ by a 20-something.

Early the following day we made the circa 3-hour drive from Milton Keynes via the M40, M42, M5 and M50 to my parents’ house, where we enjoyed a relaxing couple of days. Went out on the Saturday for what was intended to be a walk from Ewyas Harold, a large village a few miles from my parents’ house, across Ewyas Harold Common to Abbey Dore with the intention of looking around the craft fair being held in Dore Abbey. In the event the common was extremely muddy and somewhat difficult to navigate, so that even my hardened father suggested giving up and just walking to Abbey Dore along the road. We had a quick breeze around the craft fair which was rather more upper crust than Mum had anticipated, made use of the portaloos before setting off back to Ewyas Harold where we had lunch in The Dog, a locals’ pub that, despite advertising itself as serving food, appeared surprised at us actually ordering some. Quite a few of the menus offerings appeared to be off so I think most of us ended up with ham sandwiches.

A high point of the weekend was Hannah producing the ancient pack of snap cards that we used to play with as children, which I had assumed were long lost. We had a few games of Snap, before being reminded that for adults the game has its limitations.

Drove back to Reading on the Sunday and collected the rabbits from Reading Rabbit Rescue, where the lovely Sandra told us that she thinks Lola’s a wee bit underweight. Hope our affectionate nickname for her of “Mrs Chunkybun” hasn’t set her on the path to anorexia.

A matter for rejoicing, killing of fatted calves, sacrificing of firstborn child etc is the fact that bedroom 3 has finally been ‘made good’ by Paul the Handyman, who has installed roof insulation and replaced the ceiling, filled in the holes in the floor where the two chimneys were so that the open shaft is now sealed off from curious rabbity view and generally made good the holes, empty bits with breezeblocks. Mark the plasterer has subsequently been to look at it, but we gather that plastering it could be an expensive job as really the old plaster should apparently come off, plus there’s a damp patch under the window that needs investigating first, plus Paul’s going to have to come back in and even off one of the walls (we did suspect that he’d skimped on this). Plastering is evidently an élite occupation which doesn’t include evening out the surface to be plastered. Sigh. I await the quote with some trepidation.

Perversely, since the room has been sealed, Harley has shown very little inclination to go into it. Evidently if there’s no danger of death, things hold little appeal.

Ruth and I made a planned visit to Kew Gardens on the 20th, though set out later than we intended and then realised too late that we’d chosen the most awkward day imaginable to go to Kew, as relevant portions of the Circle and District lines were both closed. I think the journey time in total, from home, took about 3 hours. The most direct way from Reading is to take the Waterloo line to Richmond and then walk to the gardens, but Ruth’s season ticket isn’t valid on the Waterloo route and, perhaps understandably, she’s keen to get the most out of the thousands of pounds of outlay. Saw a number of the charred wood sculptures that are part of the David Nash exhibition that runs until next April. Apparently Nash's main tools are fire and a chainsaw. Must have been a nightmare of a teenager if that was what he used for his A-level Art.

Also went for a second time up the Treetop Walkway, which I hadn’t planned on doing but Ruth was keen to go up. Really don’t see why it’s necessary for these things to wobble.

Had dinner at Bella Italia on our return to Reading, where we were served by the lovely Maria.

Amusing saga in the last few issues of the Milton Keynes Citizen following the replica concrete cows at Bancroft being re-surfaced with a skeleton paint job. The guy who did it, the son of the chap who made the replicas in the first place (though he has asked to be known only as ‘piewaste’) claims he did it in honour of his father and to save public art in MK. The MK Parks Trust initially condemned the new paint job as vandalism, before changing their tune when Liz Leyh, the artist responsible for the originals, piped up to say she quite likes the new look. It now looks as though they might stay as they are for a while. Another cute strand in the story is a miniature ‘skeleton cow’ that has been made as part of Mark Cain’s range of miniature concrete cows at www.mkcows.com.

Have finally joined the ranks of glasses-wearers, at least for reading. Have been in denial over the last year or so at increasingly having to hold small print away from me in order to read it, but have finally succumbed and collected my two pairs of specs from Boots Opticians yesterday. My brother and sister have both worn glasses from childhood so I suppose I should consider myself lucky to have escaped thus far. I struggled to find two of the Boots own range that I particularly liked, but that may just have been the unfamiliarity of seeing myself in glasses. My main pair are a dark-rimmed pair a bit a la Nana Mouskouri, though I’m not sure my image in the mirror quite resembles the “thinking (wo)man’s crumpet” look I was aiming for.

After doing a few bits in town on Saturday morning Ruth and I had an urge for a plain and simple toasted sandwich-style lunch and ended up in Platters on Cross Street, one of the few old-fashioned caffs left in Reading town centre. Not that either Ruth or I go to much effort to seek such places out, but we were in the mood for processed ham and cheese on white sliced, and in the modern world of mozzarella, sun-dried tomato bread etc such things can be hard to come by. To give Platters its due it was doing a roaring trade, but the three or four young staff weren’t coping well and the girl who took Ruth’s order evidently had a poor grasp of English, as she took the order for English Breakfast tea to mean an actual English Breakfast, with the result that on finishing our ham and cheese toasties we were presented with a full fry-up. I managed to explain and we got some money off what had previously seemed quite a steep £12 bill. They also committed the cardinal sin of serving people out of order, with the result that loud huffing noises and eventually a “There’s People Starving Here” emanated from the two elderly ladies behind us, who looked like traditional Platters customers. As we left, waiting staff were wandering up and down with unclaimed sandwiches, looking confused. We may give it a miss in future, but it evidently still draws in a faithful clientele – the kitchen just needs a Mutha Bacon-style overseer. Above is a picture of Platters from 192.com - I'm sure they won't mind.

Following our Platters experience, we were seized with a desire for traditional toasties made from a toasted sandwich maker and decided to impulse-buy our own. I've never owned one though Mum and Dad did have one at their house at one point, though it might have belonged to my sister. Although I enjoy the product I've always resisted buying one of my own, partly because they're hard to clean and partly because I tend to think I should restrict my intake of gooey melted cheese and plastic white bread. However, in spite of that, we've bought one. From Argos, so we didn't expend a lot of money. And I'm sure we won't use it that often.

Horses; substandard meals; exam

In the context of the BP Portrait Award: forgot to mention that I noted that one Jo Fraser had received a £5000 grant to go to Peru to paint impoverished Quechua weavers. Amazing the things people get to do. Presumably the fact that the label next to the paintings specifically used the word ‘impoverished’ is significant – just makes painting them even more artistic? "Put that easel away, love, and give us a hand with this weaving" leaps to mind as the sort of thing such a weaver might say.

Another visit to London on the 29th, this time to visit the British Museum’s temporary exhibition ‘The Horse: from Arabia to Royal Ascot’. Ruth’s thing rather than mine, but I thought it might be fun to tag along. The exhibition was busy, probably because it was the last weekend it was on, and, never having been a horsey type, much of it only moderately interested me, though it was interesting to learn how supposedly all thoroughbred horses are descended from only three Arabian stallions - don't know how they work out/keep track of that kind of thing. This article on a horsey website tells you more. After a while I left Ruth to it and decamped to the various gift shops, where I bought Mum a postcard of a Lady Anne Blunt, who was married to a poet called Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (not sure I've heard of him) with whom she apparently travelled around the Middle East buying Arabian horses. After leaving the museum we went to Ruskin’s Café on Museum Street for tea and cake, via the Seoul Mate for me to stock up on more kimchi.

Prior to our London trip, I went along for a pedicure I’d booked myself in for at Serenity Hair & Beauty, a local Caversham salon which Ruth has been to for a couple of bits and pieces. OK, though manicures and pedicures are done in the ‘public area’ along with the hairdressing. One hopes they have a private room for the alarmingly comprehensive range of waxing they claim to do, including a chin wax, which I hope never to need. Emerged with smart red toenails, and am now contemplating a manicure to match – never had one before as I’ve always bitten my nails on and off, but over the last year or so have generally managed to keep them in a reasonable state.

Unusually, have managed to have two restaurant meals in the space of a week that have left me feeling slightly queasy. Ruth and I didn’t fancy cooking after our London trip so we decided to go to the Bina Tandoori, until recently the ‘other’ Indian restaurant in central Caversham after the Spice Oven. Sadly the latter has since demised into Buffet World horror so the Bina is the only curry house in easy walking distance (slightly lazy, admittedly) from the house. The Bina is, on the surface, posher than the Spice Oven was pre-demise, but the food doesn’t match up. We both ordered chicken tikka masala, being in a mood for faux-Indian rather than actual, but what we were served up was bright red and tasted suspiciously of Heinz tomato soup. Amazingly, the Bina's website claims they've been voted among the top 30 restaurants in the UK.

The second incident was a work dinner on the 4^th at the Zen Garden in Milton Keynes. As we were pushed for suggestions, Sara, our Office Manager, suggested it as somewhere she takes her teenage sons. Admittedly I perhaps didn’t pick the right options, but after my first plateful of starter-type snacks it dawned on me that everything appeared to be laced with sugar. Had a deep-fried sweet chilli chicken or pork (no telling which) that simply tasted like hard toffee, and chose quite an appetising looking smoked chicken dish – I had assumed the crystals scattered over it were salt, but it turned out to actually have sugar sprinkled over it. After a few more bits of food in this vein I started to worry about the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes before the end of dinner, so laid off the food and had a second beer instead. Lovely company though. Matthew has suggested an all-cheese restaurant for our next outing, so I await with interest.

What with the ex-Spice Oven and now this, though, my antipathy to all-you-can-eat fusion buffets is growing by the hour. Seem to be catering to people for whom quantity is all, are intimidated by going out to dinner so want to go somewhere they can dress down and ladle themselves huge plates of food from school dinner-esque tureens, and not be bothered by waiting staff.

Went for a walk on Saturday from the house up into Bugs Bottom and thence a bit further, up the (muddy) footpath opposite Shipnell’s Cottages and up onto Dysons Wood Lane, coming out into Tokers Green where we meandered back down into Caversham Heights and for a lunchtime pint and burger at The Grosvenor.

Much of the last couple of weeks has been occupied with attempting to revise for the upcoming M255 exam on 11 October. Having struggled to understand some of the concepts in the later units, and in fact having skipped the last unit altogether (I’ve never yet seen it come up in an exam question so am taking my chances), I’m not sure how well I’m going to do. At this stage it’s in the lap of the gods. Slightly peculiar having to do a three-hour exam in Java programming using a pen and paper, when all the work of the module is done at the PC in the development environment. Have been practising writing parentheses and semi-colons. Well, one doesn’t hand-write much these days.

Mullets; Gay's The Word; paintings

Amused by this Q&A published on BBC News Online on Sunday with Duran Duran bassist John Taylor. I do indeed remember JT seeming to be the fave Durannie among my contemporaries at school, though perversely I decided I fancied keyboard player Nick Rhodes. Not really sure why; perhaps it was the thicker layer of makeup. Anyway, looking at the recent shot of Taylor and Le Bon in concert, T hasn’t worn too badly, and probably all the better for losing the mullet (though as this article notes, Duran's mullets weren't among the more extreme around in the 1980s).

Previous post forgot to mention our evening visiting Ray in a new mooring spot – he has been moored up at Hurley for a couple of weeks acting as a bit of additional security for his employer Laurence while he is on holiday. Doesn’t seem to involve actually patrolling the grounds, more acting as a phone point of contact. His chosen mooring was, slightly bizarrely, opposite the Harleyford estate and the Showboat, a floating restaurant where I dimly remember it was once mooted that Ray might bunk down below decks while waiting for his official accommodation (such as it ever was) to be prepared. If I remember rightly he objected to this idea and ended up getting to stay in an empty house that was being renovated for his employer, before moving into the somewhat dilapidated mobile home where he (and latterly I) subsequently spent 3-4 years. Ruth and I took food with us and cooked dinner, though Ruth’s contribution turned out to be sitting on the rear deck with Ray and calling out for more wine.

Only noticed this piece of sculpture at Walton Hall for the first time this week, though presumably it was there before. Couldn’t see a label but ‘Multi-Breasted Green Pinhead’ would seem an appropriate name.

Had one of my occasional solo trips to London on Saturday, to do things that I think might bore other people. After warming up over breakfast I meandered down Marchmont Street and clocked that that’s where ‘Gay’s The Word’ is. I did pop in later in the day on my way back to Euston, and purchased a copy of Lillian Faderman’s Surpassing the Love of Men, plus an attractive rainbow bookmark. The shop is a bewitching mix of theoretical texts, interesting historical and sociological stuff, novels and additionally, for the chaps, pure porn.

I noticed later that the shop appears discreetly as G.T.W. on bank statements. Ruth has until recently had bank transfers to my account labelled as ‘R MILLARD THAI LADYBOYS’, which I’ve finally managed to persuade her might not look great next time I have to show bank statements to the mortgage broker. She has now changed it to the positively low-key R MILLARD HOT PANTS. We’ll get there eventually.

Went for an extended mooch around the National Portrait Gallery, which I always enjoy (despite the inevitable plethora of Olympic-themed portraits that have appeared) and managed to catch the last weekend of the 2012 BP Portrait Award exhibits. Liked Aleah Chapin's winning portrait and also the second prize winner, Ignacio Estudillo's huge dimly-lit painting of his grandfather. Went on from there to visit the bookshop of the Royal Opera House, on a bit of a whim: Darcey Bussell's new glossy book was liberally spattered around but they also have an interesting collection of ballet and opera DVDs, a rather less extensive collection of books and a substantial collection of key fobs, tea towels, pashminas etc etc. From there I wandered back up through Bloomsbury via G.T.W. and the appealingly chaotic Judd Books, before catching the train back to MK, where I cleaned the kitchen.

Spent Sunday morning attempting to do some exam revision, though not sure how much good this is going to do me.

National Trust fervour; HESA; Spam fritters

Slightly disturbed by Ruth’s and my now having been to National Trust properties two weekends in a row. As I don’t actually visit them that often am worried this is a sign of encroaching dotage, not to mention the joke in an episode of Miranda about the National Trust offering life memberships. Our friend Helen is a member (and not an L), but has the excuse of needing to take her quite elderly parents on days out.

The Saturday before last we went over to Cliveden for the afternoon, as Ruth hadn’t been before and fancied going, and for some reason it had come up in conversation a week or so earlier, I think in connection with the Profumo affair. Mum and I visited in 1990 after what must, judging by the half-dozen or so photos I have of the visit, have been a particularly dry summer as the grass looks completely parched. I have a feeling I’ve been once since then, but evidently didn’t take photos. On this occasion, it was vibrantly green and in flower after all the rain earlier in the summer, and the stunning parterre was looking its best. Photos here.

We had lunch in the Orangery, where we snaffled the last two lunch offerings in the form of a couple of fairly indifferent sandwiches; nice surroundings though. Then walked across the parterre sans shoes – a testament to the state of the lawns, as I am squeamish about such things – and then down to the river bank and a bit of a turn about the gardens. The signposting isn’t the best – we managed to completely miss the sequoia section, which you might think would be hard to miss, and also failed to find the tortoise fountain. We did stumble upon the lovely Long Garden shortly before leaving, which was a plus. Amazing that the distinctly contemporary-looking pair of granite baboons there are actually 2500 years old. The baboons were only returned to Cliveden in 2010, having been moved somewhere else in the 1960s by the Astors (doesn’t say where).

The present house is the third house on the site, the previous two having both been destroyed by fire. Once could be an accident; twice starts to seem careless.

This Saturday we drove up to Basildon Park, an attractive 18th-century Palladian mansion just north-west of Pangbourne. We didn’t bother going into the house other than into the ground floor tearoom for a cream tea in lieu of lunch, but instead took one of the signposted walks around the parkland. The return route did involve a direct path through a herd of cows, all of which started making their way directly towards us down the footpath - I took a detour to avoid them but Ruth insisted on going right up to them, insisting that they were “only curious”. That’s as maybe.

Basildon was built in the late 18th century and then sold on a few times before lying empty, apart from wartime requisitioning, between 1910 and 1952, during which time it was evidently stripped of most of its interior. It was purchased and restored in the 1950s by Lord and Lady Iliffe. The gardens are apparently currently being re-awakened, "with new shrubberies". Cute.

Still on the topic of gardens, my parents have recently returned from a weekend in the Cotswolds that included a visit to Abbey House Gardens in Malmesbury, apparently home of The Naked Gardeners. Intriguing. Mum's postcard noted that the owners weren't disporting themselves at the time of their visit. Wonder what the take-up on their 'Clothes Optional' days is?

Now fully into HESA period at work, with the result that a couple of my evenings this week have involved logging in to HESA's data collection system and clicking 'Refresh' repeatedly, while also trying to get down to some revision for the imminent exam for my OU module. Managed to submit something, albeit incomplete, for TMA04 - had  considered skipping it and relying on substitution, before giving an "I Am Not a Quitter" speech to self. Looking at past papers, half of the exam is in fact multiple choice, though unfortunately not the Noddy kind of multiple choice where half the answers are completely laughable - it may actually require some thought.

Amused by the latest barrel-scraping offering in terms of takeaway outlets to appear through our door in Caversham. The catchily-named 'Wok and Chips' offers an amazing fusion of (presumably) traditional English fare alongside standard Chinese takeaway options. It's possible, should you wish it, to give your Won Ton Soup an added sophistication by teaming it with a Spam Fritter and, intriguingly, a Baked Bean, the latter at a seemingly quite steep 80p.

Incredibly, I do remember actually quite liking the Spam fritters that were occasionally on offer at my primary school dinner time. Probably just a reflection on the rest of the food, which I still remember as quite unreasonably disgusting. All very well people bleating on about how children need a hot meal in the middle of the day, but I remember the relief when I was finally allowed to take a packed lunch, thus escaping mincemeat cobbler in favour of ham sandwiches and a Club biscuit. Never looked back.