Religious bits and bobs

The summer solstice

Have never yet got around to marking the summer solstice in any way, despite being in a prime position for doing so given that Milton Keynes was allegedly set out along a ley line (I am of course sceptical about the actual existence of these, but do find the concept rather fun). Midsummer Boulevard was allegedly constructed to align with the sun on the summer solstice, as mentioned in this Guardian piece published in June: Beyond Stonehenge: the cities built to celebrate the sun.

The historian Tom Holland, whom Ruth came across accidentally on Twitter while trying to locate the actor Tom Hollander, but now follows after discovering she liked his tweets, posted this pic of the sun rising over Midsummer Boulevard on 21 June this year. Far out.

Tweet from @holland_tom

Midsummer Boulevard is the middle of MK’s three central boulevards. Apparently there was a bit of a kick up a few years ago when the ‘Midsummer Place’ shopping centre (it’s now been rebranded ‘intu Milton Keynes’) was plonked in the middle of it, cutting it in two – it’s no longer a through road. There is actually a gap between the newer shopping centre and the older, listed, one.

Whitsun/Whitsuntide

Following earlier comments on this, I asked my parents about it. Both recalled the custom of the Whitsun Treat on Whit Monday, though evidently this wasn't something participated in by Catholics. Mum (raised C of E) remembered going on picnic outings with other children from her Sunday School. Dad (raised Catholic) observed glumly that being a Catholic he never got to go on any Whitsun picnics.

According to the internet, Whitsun is the Anglican term for Pentecost, which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s apostles. It falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter (in 2018, Sunday 9 June). ‘Whitsun’ is short for Whitsunday, which in turn is a corruption of White Sunday. The Monday following – Whit Monday – was a public holiday up until 1967; it was replaced by the Spring Bank Holiday on the last Monday in May.

Eucharistic adoration

Not a feast day, but a Roman Catholic practice I only came across relatively recently. It seems to involve prolonged meditative staring at the consecrated host, which has been placed in something called a ‘monstrance’. I assume you’re supposed to spend the time praying, contemplating God’s glory or similar. Some orders of nuns – e.g. those at Tyburn Convent – practise ‘perpetual adoration’, which seems to be a round-the-clock rotation of adorers. Apparently the exposed host can’t be left on its own.

You can, if you are so minded, take part in live online Perpetual Adoration, as with Team Catholify's 'Adorecast', below.

Samhain 2018

As last year, Ray and I celebrated Samhain by lighting candles in memory of deceased family and friends.

Seasonal display

As an extra special touch, I was able to harvest two tiny home-grown pumpkins. I had left 2017’s mini-pumpkin in the garden at the house, thinking it would just naturally break down and return to the earth in time; instead it sprouted quite a sizeable plant that produced two new pumpkins. I thought this was marvellous, though Ruth didn’t quite see it the same way.

Pumpkin actually growing in the garden

I used one of the mini-pumpkins in my table centrepiece and gave the other one to Mum, who displayed it next to a larger pumpkin that Hannah had carved for her for Hallowe’en.

The Christian nativity

Very impressed at my niece Nia playing the role of Mary in her school nativity this year, as I think I was only ever third angel from the left or similar. Hazel published some phone footage of the play to the family WhatsApp group, including some shared by Joseph’s parents, who had got well stuck in up close to the stage, thereby capturing close-up footage of their son adjusting his costume for much of the performance. Nia appeared a model of professionalism, though did seem to turn to the audience and smirk slightly when Joseph fell down in a dead faint on hearing she was with child. As the whole thing was in Welsh I’ve no idea what was said but assume it followed the usual pattern.

Speaking to colleagues this year, I’ve been a bit puzzled by the range of characters who seem to have crept into school nativity plays. I remember these having a pretty stable line-up of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wise men, the Angel Gabriel and perhaps an innkeeper. However, Judith told me that her great-nephew had been cast as a pickpocket in his nativity play (I did ask whether the teacher doing it had perhaps confused the nativity story with Oliver!) and I’m sure someone else mentioned that her son had been cast as a robot. Are schools just using up whatever costumes come handy?

The winter solstice

Vivianne Crowley, in Principles of Paganism, says:

The Solstice is the nadir of the year, its lowest point in terms of daylight and energy, after which the year begins to turn.

The winter solstice occurs around 21st December and is the shortest day and longest night of the year. As with the summer solstice, I’ve never done a great deal to actually mark it, though have often fleetingly thought that I’d like to.

Crowley quotes a ninth century Irish poem:

In the deadness of winter, the spark of new life.
I have news for you:
the stag bells,
Winter snows,
Summer has gone,
wind high and cold.
Sun low, short its course,
sea running high.
Rust brown bracken, its shape lost,
the wild goose raises her accustomed cry.
Cold seizes the bird's wing;
season of ice:
this is my news.

Rundown of October

After passing M140 (Introducing statistics) with a distinction (hurrah), started M248 (Analysing data) in October. It’s a level 2 stats module so a step up from M140. So far it’s interesting, but indeed quite challenging. Will need to adopt a more constructive attitude than I did with MST124, e.g. as in this interaction with a practice quiz question earlier this year:

Have been having fun with the Duolingo language learning app to revise/learn some Dutch. Bart seemed unimpressed with my admission that Ik spreek geen Nederlands was about all I could say in the language. Charmed to see from this that it’s an enlightened sort of app:

Went on a ‘Heidi Plus Advanced’ training day on the 12th at Imparando (UK) Ltd, located way out on Commercial Road. Quite a trek. Learned that the excellent Dan Kidd is leaving HESA shortly, which is a shame.

Ordered myself a new table and chairs (‘Jerry’ chairs and ‘Lance’ table) from Habitat and, more surprisingly, managed to assemble it by myself over the course of a weekend in MK. Love it so far. Pretty easy to assemble though the table top was quite heavy.

Boxes

Finished product

Advertised the old set on the Wolverton Park Facebook group and, very conveniently, a young couple from a few doors down wanted it and duly came along to relieve me of it. How’s that for karma?

Managed to make Book Group again in October, this time at Lesley's house to discuss Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Most of us had liked it, apart from Helen, who thought that the boy Oskar wasn't plausibly autistic (not that autism is ever actually mentioned in the book) before going on to say that people on the autistic spectrum annoy her anyway, a view apparently influenced by watching The Bridge.

Booked the afternoon off on Tuesday 31st to meet up with Ray for some Samhain celebration. We started by going over to Furzton Lake and having a walk around. It was a grey day, as the photo suggests, but we collected some berries and autumn leaves for my seasonal display.

Furzton Lake

Took a detour at Ray’s request to walk around some of the perimeter of the National Bowl. Not really sure what the story of this venue is – it has apparently hosted some big names in the past, but these days has a distinctly abandoned air. As if to underline this, a rat ran across in front of the entrance gates shortly after I’d taken the photo below.

The National Bowl entrance

Rusty-looking perimeter fence

We later had dinner at my flat and lit candles for friends and relatives who have died - we did this last year and have adopted it as being quite a nice little ritual.

OU noticeboard again. This gets straight to the point:

Also OU noticeboard. So, are naughty steps like a thing that you can buy?

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.

Cookery; Thai food; Samhain

Met at Lesley’s flat on Thursday to discuss Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, and eat spaghetti (actually penne) Bolognese with lashings of garlic bread. There seems to be a slightly worrying new trend emerging whereby whoever is hosting Book Group actually cooks food, as opposed to opening packets of crisps and dip or handing round the takeaway menu. Not sure how I’m going to handle this when it’s my turn, but given whole ongoing Milton Keynes extravaganza will probably be able to plead lack of time.

Seasonal display

Ruth and I went for an unnecessary dinner at the Suwanna on Friday evening, almost directly following on from one of our periodic vows to spend less money on eating out. Lovely food as always, especially the Weeping Tiger – the comment about the restaurant’s being overlit is about the only part of the eatmytown review above that’s accurate. The Old Siam in The Walk is more atmospherically lit, but I had indigestion for the rest of the evening the last time I ate there. I like the Thai Corner on West Street, but Ruth doesn’t. What can you do?

Marked Samhain this year by setting up a small display of black candle, mini pumpkin and autumn leaves on the coffee table at the flat – don’t have a fireplace here, but then the bunnies have ruled out fireplace displays anyway. Ray, who has become surprisingly enthusiastic about marking pagan festivals, came up for the evening to admire the display and mark the occasion. We didn’t indulge in any spells or incantations – largely because I don’t know any – but I read aloud the entry on Samhain from ‘Principles of Paganism’. This remarkable photograph (left) clearly shows a mystical beam of light emanating from my eyes, so something otherworldly may indeed have happened.

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.

Demise of goddess; Colleys Supper Rooms; Herbert

The goddess figure I made at Samhain has been partly violated thanks to Ruth accidentally sucking her head¹ up in the vacuum cleaner. In fairness her ‘head’ had been represented by a length of braid wound around the top of the twig and it had evidently slipped off. Have been pondering what to do with her and may end up having a ritual burning sometime around Christmas/New Year. May include some old bank statements and perhaps a rabbit.

On Tuesday, had our team Christmas lunch at Colleys Supper Rooms, a place that I'm sure I should find thoroughly charming but somehow it fails to float my boat. Their gimmicks are a supposedly traditional Victorian look and the fact that they bring round examples of the main course and dessert and thrust them under your nose so that you can make your choice that way. In fairness the food was nice, and better than I remembered it from the one occasion that I've been there previously, around 15 years ago. This picture (left) of my colleague Godfrey pouring wine shows off their décor reasonably - note the wallpaper, and the swathes of curtain fabric seen in the mirror behind him. I seem to be trying to convey intense excitement in the picture of me, while my colleague Paul, behind me, seems to be entranced by his napkin.

My previous visit to Colleys was in the company of a work colleague of Ray's and his wife, a Yorkshire couple we tried hard with but I think eventually realised we had nothing in common. I never cared for either of them particularly but did go out a few times with the female half, in deference to the fact that Ray and her husband worked together. I remember one evening, when Wife and I rejoined our men after going out nightclubbing together, Husband commenting that his wife was being (I quote) "led astray by a liberated woman". I remember looking around the room briefly before realising that he meant me. Quite what I had done to deserve this epithet I'll never know, but I can't say our friendship lasted all that long.

Unsure whether Lola has become interested in Buddhism, but recently found her sitting in frankly reverential fashion (right) before the stone Buddha head that Ruth and I acquired earlier this year from Sebastiano Barbagallo in Notting Hill, a fascinating emporium so stuffed full of Eastern plunder one doubts that all or even most of it is strictly legit. I had wanted to enquire as to the origins of our chosen head, but somehow didn’t like to in case this was interpreted as suspicion as to how the owner had come by it. The head has ended up being referred to as ‘Herbert’, which is obviously not intended to imply any lack of respect whatsoever for its Eastern origins.

¹ i.e. the goddess' head