Autumn snippets

A rundown of activity since the last blog post:

September

Mind Body Spirit festival

 

Caffe Chai, Warwick

Few hours spent at the Mind Body Spirit Wellbeing Festival at the NEC on 12 September. I had acquired two reduced-price tickets via Amazon Local thinking it might be a bit of a laugh. Ray obligingly said he would come with me – perhaps feeling morally obligated after postponing a get-together the previous Saturday to take his dad to a football match – and offered to drive, so we set off early and took a detour into Warwick where we found a café for breakfast. Here I am outside it looking somewhat simple.

We arrived at the NEC – my first visit; main impression was of acres of car parks, that, cheekily, charge quite an expensive parking fee. The ‘festival’ itself was OK, though in a rather cramped arena. I tried to book in for a meditation session that was already booked up. We sat listening to some live singing for a while. Feeling I should try out one of the various sessions on offer, I decided to have a psychic reading – costing £30, as did all the ‘readings’ on offer; I’m quite surprised I paid for it – and foolishly took the first psychic that was free, an angel card reader named Rani. Can’t say I felt the 15 minutes was worth the money, but didn’t have the balls to ask for a refund, though the booker-in had told me that I could do so if I didn’t feel the reading had helped me. Rani dealt various cards and made a series of mainly inaccurate suggestions about me (Rani: “I feel you’re the sort of person others come to with their problems”; Me: “No, not really”), a series of banal observations based on things I had just told her, and displayed a startling lack of any psychic ability throughout. (When I mentioned having some discussions with my partner currently about what to do with our house, Rani responded with a suggestion about “him” – “Ah, she didn’t work that out then?” Ray scoffed over lunch). Left the reading when my time was up thinking I should have had my aura photographed instead.

What are angel cards anyway? According to Wikipedia they fall under the category of ‘OH cards’, though whether that stands for anything I’ve no idea. They seem to have their enthusiastic adherents, such as this woman quoted in an online forum re angel cards I found on a Google search:

“I truely [sic] believe in Angels too - especially when I have lost things I ask the Arc Angel Chamuelle for help in finding things … Also when I am feeling low I just talk to the Angels and within minutes see a single white feather so I know they are around us.”

The Hatton flight

This woman on Netmums (not my usual port of call for anything; it just came up in a Google search) says “I recently had my cards read, using Angel cards, and couldn't believe how accurate they were”. There you go then. There seem to be plenty available via Amazon, for example these, featuring a quite masculine-looking hunk of angel on the cover.

After having enough of the festival we retraced our steps towards Warwick and had lunch at the Hatton Arms, a large and quite smart pub near the Grand Union Canal. After lunch we walked down to the nearby Hatton Locks and had a look at the impressive flight. According to this history, the stretch of water that hosts the locks was the Warwick & Birmingham canal when it opened in 1799, part of a chain of eight canals connecting London and the Midlands. The Grand Union Canal Company took over the entire stretch in 1929 and did some modernizing in the form of widening the locks to allow boats to double up and traffic to thereby pass through more quickly.

Birth of Emily

Gail and Rob’s baby, Emily Charlotte Joyce, was born in early September. We visited Gail in the RBH the day after Emily was born and then again at home around a week later, when these pictures were taken. Emily has an insane shock of dark hair, which is very cute. 

Ruth actually had an hour alone with her a week or so ago while Gail went to a dental appointment, and apparently did manage to give her a bottle, but escaped having to change a nappy.

OpenHouse London

 

Alexandra Road estate

London OpenHouse weekend on 19-20 September and I had been determined to go this year, having missed out the last couple of years. Got over my moaning at the fact that you now have to pay for the hard copy catalogue of what’s on offer, and we bought one.

Inevitably with these things you end up not being able to pack in as many things as you think you’ll be able to. I had been keen for the last few years to see the Alexandra Road estate in Camden and go on the tour they offer of the interior of one of the flats, so we headed up there as our first port of call. When we arrived there was already quite a substantial queue for the flat tour, moving very slowly as they were only allowing four in at a time (due to the flat’s compactness) and evidently more people had turned up than the OH volunteers had expected, as they eventually started issuing people with timed tickets and asking us to come back later. We went off to have the tour of the estate garden that was on offer, and then returned to the flat an hour or so later, when, thankfully, we were admitted. Beautiful and well designed little space with a lovely balcony area that felt more like a little courtyard garden. The flat open to the public was evidently one that had had few changes made to it – the guide did say that a lot of the flats have had their interiors altered, but that there’s an attempt at clamping down on this with one chap in trouble currently for making some changes he wasn’t supposed to.

The estate was listed Grade II* in 1993, apparently the first post-war housing estate to be listed. Neave Brown, the architect, is distinguished by having had all his UK work listed, which seems incredible for a modernist architect. Go Neave. Though apparently he didn’t work in the UK again (he’s American) after Alexandra Road, thanks to the public enquiry into the project following its completion because it had cost so much.

Lunch outside at Poem

Bunhill Energy Centre

After spending more time than we’d planned to at AR because of the length of the wait, we sought out lunch nearby and settled on Poem, on the corner of Abbey Road and Boundary Road, where we had an OK light lunch. After this, we made our way over to the City area to visit Ruth’s choice, the Bunhill Heat and Power Energy Centre, a weeny little place doing all sorts of good things with energy in a way that I didn’t properly understand, probably through not being quite as interested as I should be. It opened in 2012 and supplies energy to three nearby estates.

At Salvador & Amanda

Returned to London on 26 September for celebrations of my university friend Helen’s 40th birthday. Ruth and I met Helen and seven or eight other people at Brown’s on St Martin’s Lane for afternoon tea – arranged to suit people who couldn’t stay out for an evening meal – then most of us went on for cocktails and dinner at the nearby Salvador & Amanda, a cellar restaurant on Great Newport Street. There was some disappointment with afternoon tea, mainly around the slowness of the service – though Ruth and I have enjoyed two pre-theatre dinners at that branch of Brown’s and not noticed any problems – but the dinner was nice and cellars are always atmospheric.

October

My digital life

Since early October am now studying my fourth OU module, this time the Level 1 module My digital life. Very interesting so far; it’s a broad-based module with a bit of programming, a bit of HTML and XML, a bit of (moderately) technical detail on networks and wireless communications, and no doubt other stuff to come. Am keeping a somewhat intermittent study blog on the OU's student blog area. Students are supposed to keep 'learning journals' but I find all that frankly a bit tedious. I consider myself to have done well if I spend time studying in the evenings after work, never mind then writing about it.

Discretionary increment

Pleased/smug in October to receive a merit award from the OU for the second year running. A certain number of these are made available to each unit every year as a way of rewarding specified individuals' performance. Judith handed me my letter with some kind words about the past year’s efforts. The additional increment on the pay scale doesn’t amount to a lot of extra money, but it’s better than a slap in the face.

Outing with Clarks

Went over to Maidenhead on 3 October and had lunch with Ray’s parents at Maidenhead Conservative Club. It was some years since I’d been there and I remembered the place as fairly dingy and thick with cigarette smoke, but it appeared much brighter and pleasanter on this occasion, no doubt substantially due to the smoking ban but I think also it might have had a coat of paint. Had a pleasant lunch with Ray senior and Carol and we then drove over to Hurley Riverside Park, where Ray’s sister Sharon now lives with her boyfriend Keith. Lovely setting; we admired Sharon’s garden and Carol, Sharon and I went for a walk down to the river, where I introduced them to the term ‘gongoozling’. Sharon and Keith have apparently been having issues with a mildly lunatic neighbour, which hopefully will be resolved soon.

Boat trip

Ruth and I were both pleased to have our first trip out on Ray’s boat for some time on 10 October. We went eastwards down the river as far as Sonning and moored up on the side of the river away from the path, where we had a lovely and leisurely breakfast. We passed the red spoon sculpture that Uri Geller had had erected by the Thames Path prior to his recent departure for Israel (audacious behaviour) - I attempted to take a picture of it, but there was plant life in the way, plus a number of other people on the path also taking pictures of it. Shortly after the spoon's installation, questions arose as to whether it had planning permission and a rude message was found taped to it. It then disappeared altogether, to be replaced with an actual bent spoon. It later turned out Uri himself had requested its removal, suspecting, quite probably correctly, that it wouldn't get planning permission. Geller's parting shot to the local council appears to have been "You can take my spoon, but you'll never be able to bend my creative freedom." Stirring stuff.

View of spoon through the trees

After breakfast we continued down river as far as Shiplake Lock, before turning round and returning to the marina. Ray has decided for the moment to pass up the prospect of moving to Enslow and is staying at Thames & Kennet for the time being. He has some grand refurb plans for the winter, including replacing his current cassette toilet with a pump out toilet, partly as this should prove easier for the klutzier visitor (e.g., me) to operate.  

November (first bit of)

Parents in MK

Tree Cathedral

Mum and Dad came for a visit the first weekend in November, Dad’s first to my Wolverton flat. I had carefully reserved them a space with my car in the Electrolux parking area – parking issues at Wolverton Park being the subject of a good deal of ranting on the Facebook group lately – and done a token tidy up. The Saturday was ushered in with possibly the worst weather I’ve seen since living here – lashing rain and really quite strong wind – and I was wondering slightly nervously what I would do with them for the afternoon if we couldn’t go outside, hoping not to be reduced to visiting the National Badminton Museum. We stalled for time once they arrived by having some lunch, but Dad, in a somewhat unusual display of optimism, thought we should go out anyway and perhaps it would clear up. Drove them (through increasingly heavy rain; asked at one point whether there was anything they wanted in John Lewis) to the Peace Pagoda car park and parked up, and we walked to the Pagoda and admired it briefly, by which point the rain was, thankfully, easing off.

I was mindful of not planning too long a walk, in deference to Dad’s recent bout of pneumonia, but he seemed up for a bit of a stroll so we walked past the Japanese temple and had a bit of a stroll around the garden, before carrying on to the bird hide on the south bit of North Willen Lake near the V10, where Mum and Dad had a sit down and a peruse of far-off birds, before concluding that it was a bit pointless as they’d forgotten their binoculars. We continued and had a brief visit to the Tree Cathedral – sun had come out by this point – before returning to the car and my flat. In the evening, we caught a bus into Stony Stratford and went for a couple of drinks at The Vaults before going for a nice dinner at the Calcutta. The next morning we went for a post-breakfast walk along the canal as far as the aqueduct, before retracing steps to my flat. After a brief sandwich lunch at Buskers they set off back to Wales.

Near the Peace Pagoda we noted the memorial of the Rev. Seiji Handa, with a small photo and a number of flowers. We couldn't really tell who he was - other than presumably a monk at the temple - but he would appear to have been this chap. What an unfortunate way to die.

On a more tranquil note - and hopefully no lawnmowers in sight - there's a brief commentary-free video about the Peace Pagoda and Buddhist temple here.  

Book Group

Got to go to my first Book Group meeting in a while on 13 November, as Claire M had kindly prevailed on the rest of the group to host the meeting on a Friday so that I could come. 6 out of the 8 of us (missing Lesley, and Sarah who hasn’t yet rejoined the group following the birth of her baby) met in Claire’s cosy back room to discuss Barbara Taylor’s ‘The Last Asylum’. Only Helen, Ali and myself had actually made any headway with reading the book, so it was a bit of a limited discussion, but we agreed that psychoanalysis is a bit of a mystery, and certainly can only have been the province of a rich (and leisured) few.

The book's cover photo is of the scarily long corridor at Friern Hospital in Barnet, the asylum referred to in the book's title where Taylor spent time as an in-patient in the 1980s. The building's now been converted into a luxury flat development called Princess Park Manor, which manages to avoid mentioning on its 'History' page that it was once a mental hospital. No clue whether they left the corridor intact.

Rambling for Pleasure

On the Sunday of that weekend I attempted to drag Ruth for a walk out of ‘Rambling for Pleasure around Reading’. I’d picked a walk around Arborfield with the sweetener of visiting Gail and Rob afterwards and then possibly going for a cheese toastie at Dobbies (that being about as grand as my gestures get). Entirely through my inept navigation, we started badly by walking quite a way down the wrong road, unsurprisingly being unable to find the entrance to Pudding Lane and having to retrace our steps to the Bull roundabout, where we picked up the correct road. As we’d used up a bit of time doing this, I cut the route short and we took a route back past Arborfield church, which appeared veritably packed with worshippers (Gail later told us that Arborfield's congregation is of a somewhat happy-clappy persuasion, including apparently sticking name badges on people when they arrive for a service) and thence slightly hazardously along the B3030 Sindlesham Road for a stretch before arriving back at the village.

St Bartholomew's, Arborfield

We paid a brief visit to Rob and Gail and said good morning to Emily, who was dozing peacefully in her baby carrier when we arrived, but was duly lifted up and passed around. In a laudable attempt to share Emily out, Gail whipped her off Ruth’s lap, where she’d just settled down relatively peacefully, and put her onto mine, where she perhaps understandably set up a lusty bawl and was duly removed, to be walked soothingly up and down the hallway.

We had a brief lunch in a crowded Dobbies, and may have bought some stuff but I forget now.

Henley

Went over to Henley for a few hours the following Saturday – I’ve hardly been at all the past few years but it is indeed a pleasant place for a wander around. Not sure whether my recent low iron levels were making me feel the cold more than usual, but it appeared bl**dy cold – we did go for a short stroll along the river but even I couldn’t face spending too much time on it. We spent most of the time having a wander around the shops and the Christmas market, and had a pleasant lunch at The Argyll. We went into Tudor House Antiques – don’t think I’d ever been inside while living in Henley, probably because neither Ray nor I care for antiques, but as Ruth likes them we went in and passed a mildly excruciating (at least from my point of view) 15 minutes or so staring at old stuff and banging my head on beams. Lingered for a while in Central Home, a new arrival in Henley, where I coveted a few things but didn’t buy them. Ruth bought a ring.

Must rest awhile before bringing this account up to date, as I am weary and must stitch a while on my sampler.

Waste disposal; birthday; middle-aged activities

We now have a new green cone in the garden, as a smaller and more discreet replacement for the composter. How it works is a bit of a mystery to me, but I may (possibly) make the effort to find out. Apparently it chomps all sorts of food waste, not just green stuff – don’t really get that.

Baked a couple of damned impressive cakes to take in to work to mark my birthday (one chocolate marble cake, one banana) and spent the day basking in a pleasantly smug glow of home baking. Received some nice gifts including a pedicure voucher and some lovely white roses from Ruth, a JL voucher and a bizarre but interesting facial product from the parents, a glass butterfly from Claire, a book from my aunt and a piece of gadgetry for my bicycle from Ray, which will apparently tell me how many miles I’ve cycled and at what speed.

Finally managed to get out on Ray’s boat for the weekend boat trip that we had had to postpone from early July due to the high water levels. Managed to actually get out of the marina and chug the 20 miles or so up the Kennet and Avon Canal to Newbury, finally arriving in Newbury on Monday morning after mooring up near Sulhamstead on Saturday night and just past Thatcham on Sunday. Pictures here.

Despite the comparatively short distance, there are an incredible 22 locks on the route (from Blake’s Lock, no. 1, to Newbury Lock at no.22, and not counting the de-gated Ufton. This Wikipedia page lists the whole lot and also the summit point of the canal near Wootton Rivers in Wiltshire, after which you start going downstream towards Bristol.). Who knew the terrain was so hilly? That and the half-dozen or so swing bridges, plus the lift bridge at Aldermaston, ensure that you’re not going anywhere quickly – but then that is I guess the point of narrowboating. Quite a feeling of responsibility operating swing bridges, and particularly Aldermaston Lift Bridge which carries the A340. About half of those on our route were manual ones only carrying footpaths, but the others carry roads and are operated by inserting a BWB key into the lock and following the onscreen instructions to close the road and either swing or lift the bridge. Proudly operated Woolhampton Swing Bridge all by myself, albeit watched by the entire garden of The Rowbarge.

Moored up in a lovely spot on Saturday night where we managed to have a barbecue, watched by cows, and Ruth hung our towels from a tree to dry, resulting in mutterings from Ray about looking like a pikey encampment. It didn’t help to dry them as they just ended up covered in morning dew. Moored on Sunday in a slightly less satisfactory spot just upstream from Thatcham, where we had some difficulty getting close enough to the bank. Ray gave Ruth a fishing lesson, which she took to with a surprising amount of enthusiasm.

Had an unexpected day off on the Tuesday (boss had originally vetoed my taking the Tuesday as leave due to a Wednesday deadline, hence Ray had arranged alternative crew for the Monday night in the shape of his brother Lee; boss then texted me on Monday to indicate that we’d done enough work for the deadline so I could take Tuesday if I wanted to – nice, though would have been more use if it had been in time for us to arrange an extra night on the boat). Instead, Ruth and I did a few useful jobs including going to the tip and to Halfords to buy a replacement headlamp bulb for my car, which, usefully, they also fitted for a reasonably paltry additional cost, certainly cheaper than booking it in to the garage and a lot less painful than trying to do it myself. Then drove over to the Englefield Estate to have a look around the gardens, which we followed with lunch at the Englefield Tea Rooms – nice staff and toasted sandwich; took a while but in fairness they were packed out. In response to the comment accompanying this Geograph photo, evidently the tea room has indeed survived the post office closure, and was doing a roaring trade when we were there - one of the staff was heard to tell someone that they’d already started taking bookings for Christmas lunch.

Englefield is, apparently, part of the Historic Houses Association. It’s only the gardens that are open to the public, though it sounds as though you might be able to view the house by appointment. We had originally considered going over to Highclere Castle, but luckily I checked the website first and was informed that maximum visitor bookings had already been taken for August. Doubtless the Downton Abbey effect.


Did finish Exclusive; apparently the President did do it though there’s a cunning Epilogue that (possibly) throws a note of ambiguity over the whole thing. Bit confused now. Upcoming book will have to be Mira Grant’s Feed, as it’s our next Book Group book. Also pondering whether I should read Fifty Shades of Grey, just to find out what all the fuss is about.

Went over to Lambourn on Sunday to have lunch with Ruth's aunt. In return for inviting ourselves and obliging Mrs Spence to shop for a large joint, we went over a bit early and Ruth prepared the vegetables, while I sat in the garden reading the paper. As per last time, we had the most amazing joint of beef that was cooked to perfection - had to fight the urge to secretly hack off a wodge and take it home in my handbag. Just hope that a lump of it didn't end up going to the dog.

Boat trip; assorted London trips; Hoppa Bag Crisis

Set off on Saturday 13^th for our eagerly anticipated boat trip down the Thames (photos here). Ruth and I arrived at the marina laden with food and wine which we piled onto a trolley and then wheeled noisily down the pontoon. Ray extricated us from his berth surprisingly smoothly and then we were off for a lovely meander down the river and, from Shiplake onwards, a nice rubberneck at posh riverside properties, which is always fun. We lunched on the move on pasties and gazpacho – I thought this an acceptable if probably little-known combination, though Ruth spurned the gazpacho, being of the “Eeuww it’s cold” mentality when it comes to soup. We found the river surprisingly quiet on the Saturday, at least as far as Marsh Lock, just upstream of Henley and a popular spot for a stroll, when I looked up with a mouthful of pasty to discover we had an audience of people apparently entranced by the sight of boats going through locks. A big cruiser was beckoned into the lock by the lockkeeper after us and I was interested to see how keen they are to give narrowboats a wide berth (that whole fibreglass vs. several tons of steel thing). The weather stayed OK and we eventually moored up just short of Bourne End, sometime after 5pm. Had a brief token stroll to stretch legs and spent a pleasant evening eating and drinking.

Sunday was a bit busier and more eventful. Enjoyed the meander back towards Marlow, snapping several of the grand houses sited high above the river on the south side, including one whose riverside lawn Ray apparently maintains – as the main part of the garden looked an almost sheer drop from the house I’ve no idea how they get the necessary machinery down there. Things became more eventful at Marlow lock, the deepest lock on our trip at a drop of 7’ 1”; the others ranged from Sonning at 5’ 4” to Hurley at a piddling 3’ 5”. Hardly worth it really. Once we were secured in at Marlow, a barge alongside us and at least one cruiser behind, Ruth was warned to hold tight to the rope as the sluice gates were opened as apparently “things can get a bit rough”. Things did indeed, with a rush of quite impressive white water; as we were preparing to leave the lockkeeper saw fit to tell us that Marlow’s the roughest sluice on the Thames. How exciting.

Not long out of Marlow lock and heading downstream towards the suspension bridge, we noted a couple of rowers ahead of us, one of whom inexplicably decided to row towards us as we drew closer. The inevitable happened and yes, it upset her more than us. She was duly retrieved by the guy in charge of the rowing who dragged her off to the side of the river for, hopefully, a bit of a stern chat.

While waiting at Hurley we were hailed by Ray’s current employer Laurence, who owns a Venetian water taxi moored at Freebody’s cute boatyard. They followed us upstream as far as Henley, where we moored up and Ray went to have a cup of tea with them, while Ruth and I nipped into the River & Rowing Museum to see whether the café was still as nice as it was during those mornings eight years ago when I was supposed to be writing my thesis. We had a pleasant lunch and then set off again, finally arriving back at the marina around 6pm. Very civilised.

Discovered from Judith this week that she and her daughter had apparently taken part in an open water swimming contest at Marlow the weekend following our trip. We did see a few women in wetsuits in the river near Bourne End on the Saturday – my initial conclusion was that they were just mad, but with hindsight perhaps they were practising.

Spent 15-17 August on a SAS course at StayAhead Training, around the corner from Barbican tube. Ruth and I travelled in together on the Monday and had breakfast in the Central Café, just opposite the Shelter Building where her offices are. Returned to the café on Day 3 of the course to meet Hannah for more coffee and pains au chocolat – had ordered two of the latter intending one to be for her, but as she is of the (odd, obviously) breed of people who claim not to be able to consume food before about 11am, I ended up eating most of both, so should probably curb the pastry for a bit. The course itself was a bit too intensive for my liking, though I guess I should take comfort from the fact that it was intended for people with at least six months’ SAS programming experience. People in the office had commiserated with me for not managing to book onto a course at the SAS headquarters near Marlow, as apparently you get a good spread at lunch there. We didn’t get lunch at the London site but we did get issued daily with a quite generous £10 of Luncheon Vouchers (hadn’t known these still existed) – bought Ruth lunch with them on two of the days and used the rest up on grocery shopping in Waitrose.

Ruth and I went for a birthday meal on Tuesday evening at Café Rouge, where we had a surprisingly poor steak. Salad and fries were nice though. Had booked the Thursday and Friday as leave - on the Thursday, met Ray early for a divine-as-ever coffee and bacon sandwich at Julia’s Meadow then went for a quick browse around the shops which, inexplicably, resulted in my arriving back at the house laden with bags. On the Friday, Ruth and I took the train up to London and visited the BP Portrait Award 2011 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. After a brief lunch we wandered over to Covent Garden, where we spent a short while aimlessly mooching before both acknowledging that neither of us likes it much (too crowded and touristy). We wandered on and, completely unplanned, came across the Aram Store on Drury Lane, exclusive sellers of various iconic pieces of furniture including Jacobsen's Swan and Egg chairs. We drooled for a while and Ruth used their toilets. We then walked a way down Holborn to visit the little church of St Etheldreda in Ely Place, the oldest Roman Catholic church in London (it was taken over by the Church of England after the Reformation, but returned to the Old Faith in the nineteenth century). Afterwards, we had an early dinner at Garfunkel's¹ and an expensive drink in the Old Shades on Whitehall before going to see Max Stafford-Clark's production of Caryl Churchill's 'Top Girls' at Trafalgar Studios.

As of today, the Hoppa Bag crisis is continuing. Ruth filled three of these several weekends ago with soil and rubble resulting from digging out a large trench in the garden prior to getting some hard landscaping done. Although they are blocking the entrance to the garage, she imagined that they would be speedily collected before I next wanted to park the car in it, as previously Mr Hoppa has always been round promptly to collect the bags. On this occasion, however, despite assuring Ruth that he would be quite able to collect them from the lane at the back of the property, he has still not been to collect them despite repeated chasing. I fear they are going to have to be collected via other means – though I don’t know at the moment quite what those are going to be.

¹ Hadn't been to one of these in about 20 years. The formerly quite special salad bar didn't look to be what it used to be, so I played it safe with spicy chicken wings and garlic bread.

New car; various outings; start of Adventures in Milton Keynes

Bit of a blog-free few weeks; I blame the new job.

Ruth and I took the train to Abergavenny on Sunday 22^nd to meet the 2007 Ford Fiesta that Dad had sourced for me from his local man Mervyn. Although I haven’t owned a car for a number of years, it dawned on me after a couple of visits to Milton Keynes that it might be an excellent idea to acquire one, despite the expense – the town appears unashamedly designed for the car driver and the train journey back to Reading is somewhat convoluted, that is once you get to the railway station which is on the opposite side of town from my new flat and well out of walking distance.

Drove the little car back to Reading on the Monday, where I have subsequently been putting it to good use. In preparation, Ruth and I had spent a couple of days at weekends recently in the garage, clearing out the junk that seems to creep into garages if cars are not kept in them. I have been getting ample practice at the awkward reverse turn into it but appear to have almost cracked it, though it’s made extremely challenging if as often happens there’s a car parked outside the garage opposite. At the moment the car is awkwardly pressed up against sacks of rabbit dung, and I think the garage door needs replacing sooner rather than later, but at least it has a home of sorts.

Met at Sarah’s flat in Winnersh for Book Group on 24^th, where we discussed Dawn French’s 'Dear Fatty' – or at least the others did, I had barely got 20 pages into it but I blame impending move, new job etc. Sarah was partway into a six-week temp job selling event space, which sounded frightful to me but seemed to be helping her fill in the time before her impending wedding. Lesley related an amusing story from a job interview she had had the previous week, where she had intended to say “fruits of my labours” but had accidentally substituted the word “loins”, which we agreed was not the best interview word.

Went to the Newbury Corn Exchange on the Thursday to see ‘The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church’, a 90-minute monologue performed without a break by Daniel Kitson, an odd nervy chap with a stammer and possibly borderline ASD. Enjoyed it on the whole as there were witty parts, though it did go on a bit. Kitson seemed severely distracted by any audience movement, laying into one audience member for checking texts on their mobile (admittedly hard to see why some people are incapable of turning them off even for an hour or so) and another for rustling a sweet packet. Ruth and I did at least manage to keep quiet, though I think I fidgeted for a lot of the time, partly due to the extreme lack of leg room and partly due to indigestion following the speed at which we had been forced to bolt down dinner thanks to Ruth’s having to work late.

Drove over to The Malt Shovel at Upper Lambourn on Saturday 28^th for a lunch for Mrs Millard’s 70^th birthday. Food was good; service was abysmal though that probably wasn’t the fault of the struggling teenage girl who seemed to be the only person in charge of us. Gail had ordered a cake and champagne to follow the meal, which did eventually manage to turn up following some behind-the-scenes prompting from her, and not at the same time.

Ruth and I drove up to Milton Keynes on both the Sunday and the Monday of the Spring Bank Holiday weekend to shift stuff. It is on record that on the Sunday I was brave enough to drive to IKEA where I bought a dining set and a cheap mini chest of drawers, which Ruth assembled for me despite commenting for some time afterwards about IKEA’s appallingness. Shamefully we lunched on McDonald’s two days running, which should serve as my quota for the next year or so.

Lunch at Blandford's

Had a team lunch at Blandford’s in Park House on the Wednesday for my impending departure, though our team numbers are pretty low these days. Blandford’s is the university’s attempt at a dead posh eaterie and I have to say the food was very nice, though perhaps rather over artfully presented. Ann made a nice speech about my professionalism and integrity, which sounded good.

As Friday 3^rd also, ironically, ended up being Ruth’s last day at CfBT, I went to join her and a few others for drinks at the Allied Arms after work, although her main ‘do’ had been on the Thursday lunchtime. Pleasant sunny evening in the pub garden but unfortunately it proved to be a stonker of a day for hay fever – Ruth’s friend Maia and I spent most of the evening sneezing and blowing our noses. The Allied, a small traditional pub in St Mary’s Butts, has a special association for Ruth and me as we had our first drink together there after the Fast Track Away Day in 2006. And gave Peter Crick the slip, or so we were told later.

Much of my last week at Progress South Central was also spent frantically clearing and cleaning my flat at Maiden Place, as Parkers had succeeded in finding another tenant for it but, most inconsiderately, they wanted to move in this week. Ruth and I spent Saturday clearing the final bits of stuff out of the place and moving back in the bits and pieces that I’d consigned to our attic for the duration of my tenancy. We were delayed by being unable to find the kettle that I know was there at the start of the tenancy but that appears to have vanished off the face of the earth – eventually, annoyingly, had to send Parkers a note to the effect that they’d have to dock me the cost of a kettle.

We chilled out in the evening by joining Ray on his boat for a pootle up the Thames towards Sonning where, most excitingly, we moored up to spend the night. We were intending to barbecue dinner but after Ray had had several unsuccessful attempts at lighting one, including building a small windbreak, we gave up and grilled stuff. It also turned a bit chilly during the course of the evening, meaning that Ruth and I had to beg a selection of fleeces and woolly socks. Ray always seems able to flit about in T-shirts and shorts in quite chilly weather, perhaps due to having worked outdoors since he was 16.

On the Sunday morning we chugged back up to the marina where we met the cygnets that were eggs in the last post. Then it was back to the house and cramming the rest of my essentials into the already long-suffering Fiesta for the drive up to Milton Keynes, which we did, unpacked after a fashion and then took a walk, in the rain, to The Plough, where we had burgers and a fair amount of wine. I dropped Ruth at the station on the Monday morning and returned to my new home where I sorted stuff out as far as possible.

One point to note about MK so far: although it seems designed to strike terror into walkers by the sheer distances, and number of concrete underpasses, involved, it seems an absolute dream to drive around. Was able to take one look at the map after I'd dropped Ruth at the station and drive back to my flat, which I don't think would have happened in any other town that I wasn't familiar with. The grid system certainly seems to simplify things once one works out how it works.

Am now officially on the payroll of The Open University (again) and have done two days. I have to say everyone seems very friendly and helpful; nice to be part of a bigger team again. Tonight I have been out with about 7 other members of the team to see Milton Keynes Amateur Operatic Society perform 'Footloose' at Stantonbury Campus, an enormous secondary school on the north side of the town - indeed it is apparently the largest school in the UK. I went more to appear friendly and up for things than because I was particularly enthused at the prospect of an amateur musical, but actually it was quite slick for an amateur production and better than I expected. Hadn't had much exposure to amateur operatics since a couple of productions Ray and I saw at the Kenton while we were living in Henley, both dire, in particular a production of 'Carousel' - HAODS seemed to suffer from the probably quite common problem of having insufficient numbers of younger men, with the result that the 'young' bucks high-kicking at the clambake were all of pensionable age. I remember, among attempts to stifle laughter, worrying about them putting their hips out.