Wednesday 27 January 2010

King's Road; Building regulations; Ashmolean

On Saturday Ruth and I went up to the King’s Road for a browse around Heal’s and Habitat with the specific aim of identifying a set of crockery that pleased both of us. Disconcertingly, we managed to agree on a set (the Thomas Loft range) quite quickly, so were then left to aimlessly browse for a few more hours to justify the train ticket. I am still awaiting the moment when I can justify spending £1000 on a Forum armchair - hasn’t arrived yet so I just enjoy stroking them whenever I visit Habitat. Ruth fell in love with a sofa in After Noah, forcing me to issue a reminder about the as yet unused sofa that was an impulse buy in Winchester two years ago and is currently in storage at her parents’ house.

I did purchase a couple of obscenely expensive bagels from The Grocer on Kings – beautifully chewy, unlike supermarket ones, but unfortunately not really viable as a regular purchase.

There are a number of attractive streets leading off the King’s Road, of which one of the most interesting-looking is Glebe Place – we took a brief detour for a bit of a stroll down here. It contains a number of former artists' studios, and an amazingly ornate folly at one end - I didn't take a picture but there's one here. 55 Glebe Place was up for sale last year, for a cool £17 million.

Had a brief meeting on Monday afternoon at Reading Borough Council’s offices with a surveyor from the Building Control department, who gave us some advice on the building regulations implications of our proposed turning-bedroom-3-into-new-bathroom project. Potentially the most annoying aspect is that now, it constitutes a breach of building regulations to move a bathroom upstairs without retaining a toilet on the ground floor (something to do with disability access). Luckily, the latest iteration of our plans does involve turning the single-storey extension at the back of the house (currently the bathroom) into a utility area with a cute weeny cloakroom in the corner, so we are all set to comply. Hard not to see this sort of thing as slightly ridiculous, though, particularly when applied to Victorian terraces, countless numbers of which (including the houses either side of ours) have installed a bathroom in the original third bedroom some years ago without having to have one on the ground floor. Presumably, like smoking, it wasn’t as bad back then.

Had team photo taken yesterday for use in our upcoming Annual Report. As usual, everyone else managed to smile naturally at the camera, while I managed to look as though I was about to be shot. Created this alternative version (below), which I slightly prefer:


This morning, paid my termly visit to Wheatley for the meeting of Aimhigher MKOB's Implementation and Evaluation Group, then took advantage of the expenses-paid train ticket to visit the newly-refurbed Ashmolean. The £61 million redevelopment is now complete and open to the public. I shall isolate three things that were of interest:

• The fascinating collection of little Cycladic figures in the 'Aegean World' gallery - bought this slightly naughty postcard
• The collection of 'English guitars' in the 'Music and Tapestry' gallery - I'd never seen these before; here's an online image I found. Wikipedia notes that the English guitar (alt. spelling 'guittar') was a small cittern that was fashionable between 1750 and 1790, most notably in the British Isles (figures).
• The apparent existence of a wrathful Buddhist deity named Dam can dorje legs pa - what a name. This webpage on the deity gives his name an alternative and slightly more sensible spelling. Imagine having to introduce yourself thus:
  "Name's Barry. Pleased to meet you."
  "Dam can dorje legs pa. Good to meet you too."
  His name, it says here, means 'oath-bound benign thunderbolt'.

Managed to include tea and something chocolatey in the basement café. For future reference, I'd note that the basement ladies' toilets don't appear to have been included in the refurb.

Tapas; blockages; women's groups

Claire and I went for the ‘Tapas for a Tenner’ deal at La Tasca last Thursday evening but I wouldn’t recommend the Tempranillo Rosé Monterio – vilely acidic and with the ‘ripe summer berries’ not much in evidence. Having said that we still drank the bottle, plus an Amaretto each to round things off.

Saturday started badly when Ruth noticed water flooding from the outside drain while I was showering. Concluded blockage. In an impressive display of brute force, Ruth eventually got the manhole cover off to reveal flooding/blockage of an unpleasant nature. Gail and Rob kindly picked up some drainage rods for us from HSS Hire and we applied them to the drain. I say ‘we’, but actually I was dispatched into Caversham to do some shopping – evidently I look too feminine and/or squeamish (and/or plain useless) for such activities. Arrived home laden with groceries and meadow hay¹ to find Ruth triumphantly washing the rods, having managed to clear the blockage.

Also noticed on Saturday morning that the snow had brought down a section of guttering at the back of the house. Have been assured by our neighbour Nicki that her new lodgers will fix it when they move in.

Previous time said manhole cover had had to be removed was on Christmas Eve 2006 when a toilet freshener fell down the toilet and blocked it, leading to amusingly farcical series of unblocking efforts. See Dave's write-up here. One of my chief memories is of my poor father, who was probably lying on the floor at the time with his arm around the U-bend, being berated by my mother for ‘allowing’ Ray, who had just had an operation, to go outside to assist.

Ruth and I went for dinner and an overnight stay on Ray’s boat on Saturday evening. I was surprised to see that the marina – or at least, the narrowboat section – was still frozen. The ice looked fairly solid, although obviously I didn’t test it out. Apparently cats had been seen sauntering across it, and I saw a couple of swans having a set-to on it – perhaps irritated by the solidity of the water. A highlight of the evening was having first ‘go’ on the newly-installed toilet – seemed to go all right although Ray impressed on us that remembering to click the ‘open’ button is crucial.

As of this week, the rabbits have begun stripping the wallpaper off the dining room wall. As this room is probably last on the list to be re-decorated, this is slightly annoying. Have told Lola that if she starts, she has to finish – may purchase small pulley contraption to enable her to reach higher sections of wall.

Went for a nice walk around Sonning Common and Rotherfield on Sunday courtesy of a Berkshire women’s walking group which I have finally galvanised myself into joining. We returned to the less-than-inspiring Butcher’s Arms in Sonning Common for Sunday lunch (two packets of mini Cheddars, in my case).

May have done something sacrilegious this week in joining an additional Book Group (henceforth to be known as Secondary Book Group, or SBG). Saw an ad for a new group starting up and thought I would take the opportunity to be exposed to a potentially different range of texts - although whether I will actually manage to read two books a month remains to be seen. The chair has chosen a Stella Duffy crime novel for the first book, which hopefully shouldn't be too demanding.

This week’s ‘Gem of the Day’ from McGonagall Online was ‘Women’s Suffrage’, Though an inept poet, McGonagall was evidently a supporter of this, so fair play to him. Was particularly charmed by verses 8 and 9, which I reproduce here. The full text of the poem can be seen here.

Yes, the Home Secretary of the present day,
Against working women's deputations, has always said- nay;
Because they haven't got the parliamentary Franchise-,
That is the reason why he does them despise.

And that, in my opinion, is really very unjust;
But the time is not far distant, I most earnestly trust,
When women will have a parliamentary vote,
And many of them, I hope, will wear a better petticoat.


¹ For the rabbits.

Snow aplenty; home exercise equipment; Birkbeck

Snow theme continues as we had a humdinger (for these parts) of a snowfall on the evening/night of Tuesday 5th, resulting in mass snowings-in of cars the following day. I elected to work from home myself on the Thursday, due partly to almost putting back out twice skidding on packed snow the night before, and partly to an edict from the Vice-Chancellor saying that any staff who were able to work from home that day should do so. We went for a lunchtime stroll in Balmore Walk, a local park, and watched people tobogganing down the steep hill. Wouldn’t have fancied it myself – but then I always was excessively risk-averse about such things. Remember a sledging evening during a school ski trip in 1984, which most of the rest of the group seemed to enjoy mightily but I remember hating every minute of it. My sledge partner, a boy, was charmingly gallant from what I recall. Alex (or was it Alec?) Livermore, you’re a gent – even if you were sick in the coach on the way to the airport.

Having had a bit of backache lately I finally decided to try out the Casall Gym Ball I bought some months ago, but had not up until now got around to using. It comes with a handy little booklet with amusing diagrams of positions one should adopt vis-à-vis the ball. I think I only rolled off once. Supposedly they are good for toning core muscles, so I should probably persist with it. Should also probably know better than to acquire home exercise equipment, as from experience (both mine and others), there just isn’t the incentive to work out that there is in a class/gym. It started off with Kathy Smith’s ‘Body Basics’, a 1980s aerobics video that my sister and I acquired as teenagers – my main memory of it is of us sitting out the high impact section and watching it from the vantage point of the couch, eating toast. I actually still have the video, which I will probably keep out of nostalgia. Later, Ray had a rowing machine for a while, which soon got stashed behind the couch out of sight once we had stubbed toes on it once too often. My parents acquired an abdominiser some years ago, but apparently it has rarely been used. It used to be in their bedroom, but I think Mum found it was only being used as a clotheshorse. I gather recently it has been consigned outside to my father’s office.

Spent Tuesday morning this week at a meeting at Birkbeck College (now seemingly just calling itself Birkbeck, perhaps in manner of Emmerdale Farm/Emmerdale). Enjoyed being able to walk around freely, due to complete absence of snow in central London. Arriving a little early, I had a delicious cup of coffee and chocolate wafers in the ground floor café area, which is furnished with (presumably reproduction) Swan chairs which I’d never sat in before but which seemingly provide wonderful back support – could have sat there all day. Birkbeck’s ground floor has had a swish 21st-century refurb; as one goes higher up the Malet Street building (my meeting was on the third floor), parts look as though they haven’t had much done to them since the 1950s.

The initial charm of the snow is now starting to wear off due to the inconvenience of walking on packed snow and ice. Here are fellow walkers trudging across Christchurch Meadows at 7.30am this morning. A thaw and heavy rain is forecast for the weekend, so presumably the Snow Crisis might be swiftly followed by the Flood Crisis.

Ice; Christmas; Lush

Following swiftly on from the previous post: by Christmas Eve, the light shower of rain the night before had rendered the still-iced pavements lethal and almost impossible to walk on – the walk to the car hire company a few streets away took around 20 minutes of shuffling along clinging to hedges and railings. Surprisingly, I only fell over once, although I did eventually resort to walking in the road, figuring I’d take my chances with the traffic.

Late afternoon on Christmas Eve we went to visit Ruth’s late Uncle Mac’s grave, high up on the Berkshire Downs. On a clear day, there are apparently amazing views but even on a dull wintry afternoon it was an atmospheric spot.

Spent a pleasant Christmas Eve/Day with Ruth’s family at Ashbury, starting off with an early evening drink at the Rose & Crown. In somewhat slack fashion, Ruth and I spurned Midnight Mass in favour of returning to the house for a smoked trout supper and an early night. The house is a lovely old house but inadequately heated (at least for us namby-pamby centrally-heated townies), so I spent a fair amount of Christmas morning huddled near the drawing room fire in an effort to keep warm. To amuse myself, spent a while tinkering with the baby grand, although as it’s more than 20 years since I played the piano regularly, was only able to manage some rather inexpert scales. I took Grades 2 to 5 of the ABRSM exams while in school, but by the time I reached Grade 5 was becoming, in teenage fashion, half-hearted about the whole thing and dropped piano after my O-level Music exam (having Grade 5 in an instrument used to exempt one from one of the exam papers; don’t know whether this is still the case with GCSE – is there even a GCSE Music?). With hindsight, of course, wish I had kept it up, but such is the wisdom of age (or something similarly philosophical). Am contemplating whether I could potentially fit a piano into the house - jury’s currently out on that one.

To return to Christmas Day: for lunch, we feasted on a capon, which is some sort of big debauched chicken, and then retired to the drawing room for liqueurs and present-opening. Have very little experience of liqueurs, but elected to sample some Bénédictine as the name sounds so romantic. For the first few sips, thought something along the lines of “Dear God”. After that, found the drink strangely pleasant and warming.

On Boxing Day morning, drove to my brother’s house in Newport for the traditional family Boxing Day walk, and more food. The walk was a low-level stroll around the Newport Wetlands RSPB nature reserve, chosen in part to give my father a chance to spot any interesting specimens of birdlife. There were certainly plenty of birds hopping about tantalisingly in the distance, but am not sure whether any of them were uncommon species. Have a lazy attitude to birdwatching and tend to lose interest if a rare specimen does not obligingly flutter down and settle on a fencepost right next to me. After the walk, we returned to the house for Trivial Pursuit and turkey risotto.

On arriving at Reading Rabbit Rescue to collect the rabbits after their Christmas break, we found Sandra, one half of the devoted team, restraining Lola in a headlock while plucking clumps of fur out of her backside. She advised us that we really should groom Lola more at home and tried to demonstrate the correct method, while Ruth and I looked sceptical and I noted that Lola was by no means easy to handle. Sandra seemed faintly disbelieving and proceeded to murmur to Lola what a good-natured bunny she was. We thought we detected a flash of evil in what we could see of Lola’s eyes, plus a “don’t think you’re ever trying this at home” look.

Have briefly considered New Year resolutions this past week, but have concluded that it’s probably best not to set myself any unrealistic goals. Briefly discussed with Kate at lunch last Wednesday whether we might perhaps go to the gym more often in January, before concluding that we probably won’t and will probably meet up for a glass of wine instead.

Went for a pleasant albeit muddy walk with Ray on New Year’s Eve around Clayfield Copse and Dunsden (pictures here). We parked at the recreation ground on Caversham Park Road and strode enthusiastically into a sea of mud, but our spirits weren’t dampened too much. Clayfield Copse is a small nature reserve that used to be part of the Caversham Park estate. Part of the copse is apparently designated ancient woodland. It has a sculpture trail that includes this cute wooden owl. The Friends of Clayfield Copse apparently meet there once a month to do worthy conservation-type activities. We walked through the copse and skirted Blackhouse Wood to join Foxhill Lane and then cut across country to Dunsden, where we had a quick walk around the churchyard of All Saints church before heading back to Caversham.

The porch of All Saints featured a copy of the ‘Table of Kindred and Affinity’ (apparently the 1949 version of the one in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer) setting out which relatives you may not marry under the laws of the Church of England. Makes one wonder whether there had been a particular prevalence locally of folks keeping it in the family.

Later that evening, I decided to ease myself into the New Year with a relaxing bath and decided to use the Lush bath bomb that somebody had given me for Christmas. Have always avoided Lush primarily due to the overpoweringly fruity stench that emanates from its shops, but in the interests of gratitude (and of using it up) decided to make use of the gift. The resulting bathwater was bright green (see pic) and smelt overwhelmingly of Refreshers¹. Probably not an experience I’ll repeat.

We celebrated Ruth’s birthday on Sunday with a late breakfast with Gail and Rob followed by a leisurely meander into Oxford where we visited Blackwell’s Art Bookshop to buy a 2010 calendar and, quite inadvertently, two books on interior design, before going to Brown’s for a late lunch.

Although today was the grand ‘going back to work’ day for many of the country’s office workers, I had booked the day off in an attempt to ease myself back in. On a whim I went for a walk around the nearby riverside villages of Pangbourne and Whitchurch-on-Thames, an area I know reasonably as my aunt, uncle and cousins used to live there some years ago. Whitchurch is a lovely-looking village where I wouldn’t at all mind living, if only I had a lot more money than I actually have. It was a freezing cold day but the trees were frosted in picturesque fashion. After the walk, stopped for coffee and cake at Lou La Belle, a pleasant light and airy café.

¹ Not sure whether these sherbety fizzy sweets are still made – haven’t attempted to buy them in years.

Snow; Poet's Cafe; more snow

Awoke on Friday morning to a veritable blanket of snow. As always, given that snow is unusual in these parts, I snapped a number of photos before work, to preserve the memory. This ivy plant actually looked better with snow on it – I’ve a nasty feeling it might be dead.

Met up with Claire, Helen, Ali and Sarah on Friday evening for Ethiopian food at the Global Café followed by Poet's Cafe at South Street Arts, compered as usual by A F Harrold. The first half was devoted to the open mic slot, where about a dozen punters read their home-grown offerings, including Claire who read out a seasonal haiku she'd dashed off that day in a quiet moment at work. The second half featured performance poet John Hegley as guest poet, who delivered an entertaining set although with rather more audience participation than I go for.

Several of the 'open mic' participants were PC regulars and several appear to have produced mini-books of their work, with dubious justification in some cases. I always do enjoy Martin Haslam's offerings - his poems have a disciplined, spare quality that I like. Some contributors, I have to say particularly women of roughly menopausal age, don't seem to have grasped any sort of 'less is more' principle with poetry - yes, your ex-husband might well have been a complete git but no one else needs to hear three poorly-structured sides of A4 on the topic.

Ray and I had a day out in London on Saturday (pictures here) – started off by stoking up against the freezing weather with a slap-up breakfast at La Taaza on Praed Street (potted review of this café, which I’ve now breakfasted at 4 or 5 times: unsmiling staff; great coffee; very acceptable Breakfast No. 6, though it comes with rather more fried bread than is good for anyone). We had booked on an 11am Architecture Tour of the Barbican Estate, and as we had some time to spare elected to walk from Paddington into the City, which certainly bumped up my exercise quotient for the week. The tour group, probably partly due to the very cold weather and partly to the proximity to Christmas, was small – a quick subjective assessment revealed it to include me and Ray, two gay male couples and an elderly lady. The tour was fantastic and involved a comprehensive (and bracing) hour and a half long walk around the complex. The young tour guide was obviously a Barbican enthusiast and really knew his stuff.

We finished off the day with a quick unplanned detour to visit the appealingly-named church of St James Garlickhythe, before settling in at an en route Slug & Lettuce for a nice bottle of Chilean Merlot and some batter-covered snacks.

Abandoned vehicles in Reading

Last Friday's snowfall turned out to be merely a teaser, as a fairly unprecedented (for these parts) degree of snow fell on Monday afternoon resulting in traffic chaos and abandoned cars everywhere (see pic), and a whole slew of “how long it took me to get home” stories. Not owning a car, I have continued to trudge (wo)manfully into work. Today the roads look clearer, but the pavements are still like sheets of ice – but then no one much cares about pedestrians. AND we have to carry on going to work while car drivers claim time off for bad weather! If I were a bitter sort of person, I’d be seriously aggrieved. As it is, obviously I’m imbued with serenity and Christmas spirit. Much as I enjoy looking at snow, am now hoping for a thaw by tomorrow given need for Christmas travel.

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

Sunday 13 December 2009

Paid a visit to my parents a couple of weekends ago; the weather was dire for most of the visit but the rain held off long enough for us to go for a pleasant walk on the Saturday morning around Urishay Castle (pictures here). The site contains a ruined house from about the 17th century and the ruins of a 12th century chapel, now maintained by the appealingly-named Friends of Friendless Churches, of which my mother is a member. Mum tramped up to the chapel to have a peep at it; Dad and I, being more cautious if there isn’t a big sign up saying “YES, YOU MAY WALK HERE”, elected to stay behind and look at a field of sheep.

Made the annoying discovery a couple of weeks ago that the Oriental supermarket at the University appears to have closed down, thereby removing one of the few sources of Shin Ramyun in Reading. Resorted to ordering a box online from the Wing Yip Store. When it arrived, was slightly stunned at the size of the outer box given that I had only ordered 20 packs – obviously pleasing that they were securely packaged, but slightly embarrassing given that the package was left, in not strictly legit fashion, at a house across the road. When I called to collect it, the box appeared to be blocking a large part of the poor resident’s small living room. I thanked him breezily and shuffled off quickly.

My whole family developed a taste for ramyun while living in Korea in the mid-1970s and seem each to be devoting a certain amount of our time to tracking down stockists; see this entry from my brother Dave’s blog from last year. My mother claims to have recently located a stockist in Hereford, which seems unlikely but just goes to show.

Met Claire for a drink and a bite to eat at the Ivory Lounge on Friday, compromising after an initial disagreement over venue. We managed to get a table although then spent a certain portion of the evening being elbowed in the head by standing drinkers, and halfway through our evening were joined by about 25 members of CfBT’s IT department at the table next to us. As a complete contrast, we joined the crusty real ale types at the CAMRA-favoured Hobgoblin to finish off the evening.

This weekend, I decided that there was a sound religious basis for putting up Christmas decorations, today being the third Sunday in Advent, and yesterday having been the Catholic Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Got the decorations out of the attic and spent a certain amount of time bickering with Ruth about which of our respective decorations should be chosen to adorn the house – obviously, just slapping the whole lot about randomly would have been simply tasteless and unrestrained. In deference to the limited floor space I chose to put up just one of the three artificial mini-trees I seem to have acquired over the years. As usual, I adorned the tree with the little red cherry lights I bought in Debenhams some years ago now, as well as various baubles. My baubles are of the gold multi-pack variety; Ruth has a smaller and more eclectic collection of baubles that are no doubt classier although less obviously Christmassy.

An hour or so after we had finished decorating the tree and switched on its little lights (see pic), Harley bit through part of one of the wires thereby rendering the lights potentially dangerous and no longer usable. Intend to stop addressing him as Git at some stage next week.