Wet weekend; completed wardrobe; chamomile

Kicked off the extra-long Bank Holiday weekend with a drive to my parents' place early on Saturday morning. Despite having left at 6.30am to supposedly avoid the crowds, the M5 was still slow by the time I reached it, with many caravans heading south, presumably towards the West Country. Not much of a weekend for caravanning.

It proved too damp a weekend to do much in the way of going out, but this gave me a chance to bake Herman. Not the most amazing cake I've ever tasted, but he certainly smelled better cooked than he did raw. Dad made a beef curry in the evening and Mum and I ended up watching the latter part of The Return of the King, my least favourite of the LOTR trilogy, partly because of its battle-heaviness and partly because Frodo and Sam's trek to Mount Doom is made so long-drawn-out and histrionic that one hates the pair of them by the time they finally get there. And don't get me started on Arwen. 

Sunday proved even wetter so after attempting to help Dad with some indexing software in the morning, I joined Mum in vegging out for most of the rest of the day. We watched most of the Thames Pageant, though this was dominated by Mum's worrying about what had happened to Huw Edwards, who had apparently been listed as among the event's presenters - though it appears from this Mail Online tirade that he was drafted in for the later Thanksgiving service. We went for a brief and extremely wet walk to Mum's favourite oak tree (pictured) before returning to the house for a roast pork dinner.

Returned to Reading on Monday and Ruth and I managed to correctly hang the sliding doors on the wardrobe, with only a minimum of panting and swearing. It's now housing quite a bit of our clothing - two temporary rails and several bags have been emptied; there's more to come but I will have to conduct an overhaul and prune of my clothes, which I intend to do just as soon as I've lost some weight.

Went to Ray's on Tuesday morning for brunch, followed by a trip to the Pudding Lane nursery at Arborfield to purchase some more plants to go around the water feature. Among other things, Ruth bought six chamomile plants - am now being transported by romantic visions of myself floating outside to gather chamomile, which I will then make into tisanes.

Back at work today, where I was rudely awakened this afternoon from post-Bank Holiday apathy by the plastic casing on one of the fluorescent strip lights in my office crashing to the floor. Could have been nasty if it had been the one over my desk. Someone from Estates turned up reasonably promptly to pick up the smashed pieces, generally exclaim a bit, etc. It will presumably get new casing at some point.

Festering batter; ballet; wardrobe assembly

My 'permanent' office mate Victoria has recently returned from nine months off on maternity leave, with the consequence that Young Claire has been shifted across the corridor to occupy Emily's desk while Emily is on maternity leave, and to share an office with Galina, who is about to go on maternity leave. Phew.

Victoria presented me about a week ago with a share of a 'Herman the German Friendship Cake', part of a whole 'chain cake' concept with which I was hitherto unfamiliar. Uncertain which of my friends would actually welcome being presented with a plastic tub of raw cake batter, so I may end up cooking the whole thing and then palming off slices onto assorted loved ones, which may work better. Luckily I am about to visit my parents for the weekend so may be able to slip a wodge into their chest freezer under the frozen redcurrants. The idea of the cake is that you leave it to bubble/fester on your kitchen worktop for nine days, adding small amounts of flour and milk and stirring regularly, until finally adding various other ingredients and baking it on day 10. Am slightly sceptical but will give it a go. Victoria ended up ruining hers by mistakenly adding two cups of oil instead of the stated two-thirds of a cup and rendering Herman into something resembling an oil slick.

Ruth and I kicked off a long weekend last week by going to the Newbury Corn Exchange to see the 1966 film of Kenneth MacMillan's production of Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet', with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. It's a ropey old film quality-wise but certainly worth seeing, though almost certainly worked better as a stage show than a film, if only because Fonteyn's age is unfortunately apparent in film close-ups (she was 46 dancing the teenage Juliet - still a pretty graceful mover though). Was struck by the elevation of the chap playing Benvolio (better than Nureyev's) and only realised at the closing credits that it was Anthony Dowell. The film was shown as part of the Newbury Spring Festival and the venue was awash with identikit blonde posh women in late middle age.

As I arrived in Newbury a bit early I had a brief wander around the new Parkway shopping development. Seems a bit OTT for Newbury but perhaps it's come on. The Kennet Centre, now named Kennet Shopping, has duly become even more depressing than I remember it and seems to have lost the café that originally formed a central feature. No doubt the new development will be criticised for taking business away from it, but in fact I remember it always being fairly low-brow, much like Reading's Broad Street Mall - in fact the two have a very similar range of shops (I still don't get the TK Maxx thing).

We spent Thursday waiting in at the house for delivery of the IKEA PAX wardrobe that we recently ordered - no great hardship given the spectacularly sunny weather that encouraged much lolling on the patio. After dithering for some time over which size to get, we seem to have ended up getting an enormous 230cm high by 250cm wide monster which risks rendering bedroom 2 into little more than a dressing room, but it should at least enable us to clear clothes off temporary rails. Am impressed with our progress so far: by the end of Sunday the frame was up and Ruth had put together one of the two sliding doors, all without calling a bloke.

Met at Claire's house in the evening for Book Group and a discussion of Rosamund Lupton's Sister, which is a diverting enough read but suffers from a ludicrously far-fetched plotline involving rogue gene therapy. As ever though, we ate and drank quite a lot to compensate.

Ruth and Helen's hairdresser Karin appears to have soared to new heights this week, not only by cancelling their hair appointment on Sunday (not unusual) but then by apparently turning up to the rearranged appointment yesterday evening having forgotten her scissors. So that went well then.

On Tuesday lunchtime Liz and I went to hear 'Open Voices', an alternative vocal group at the OU, do their first concert. Alternative in the sense of being alternative to the main OU Choir, who have auditions and sing requiems and stuff. 'Open Voices' apparently have no auditions, don't require you to read music and encourage everyone to go along and discover their inner singer. I can read music but have never considered myself much of a singer, but am considering going along as I fancy doing something musical. Am mightily tickled to learn from Ray that a female acquaintance at the marina is trying to persuade him to take up the dulcimer - already have amusing pictures forming in my head.

Outdoor cinema; kamikaze bunny episode 2; artistry

The torrential rain over the last couple of weeks, ironically following swiftly on from the announcement of drought and hosepipe bans, has raised the little River Ouzel to quite impressive levels. My normal walk to work via Woughton and Ouzel Valley Park has proved too boggy this last week or so, so have been forced to find an alternative 'dry' route, through Walnut Tree and Kents Hill. Rather less scenic but also less risk of arriving at work covered in mud.

Went to an evening showing of The Exorcist in Caversham Court Gardens on Friday night, courtesy of new venture Summer Screens. Seems like a great idea in principle and a lovely setting by the river, but the evening suffered from a few technical hitches. Firstly, the people running the advertised BBQ had apparently pulled out at the last minute, with the result that a number of people who presumably, like us, had not eaten dinner beforehand had to rush out before the film to the nearest fish and chip shop. Ruth went down on our behalf while I bagged front row deckchairs, though as I’m not fond of chip shop-type chips I only had a few – had a large breakfast the following morning to compensate. The more major hitch was that shortly into the film strains of Fleetwood Mac started being clearly audible via our headsets over the film’s soundtrack. My initial thoughts were mild surprise that The Exorcist would have been remastered with a Fleetwood Mac soundtrack, before it became obvious that the music had nothing to do with the film but was evidently a radio station. Later in the film the music was replaced by bursts of the news, including the day’s update on the Leveson enquiry. All a bit of a shame, as it’s not a bad film and is wearing its (nearly) 40 years reasonably well. The poor owner has since sent round a long grovelling apology to everyone who attended. Ruth feels sorry for him, so we'll probably go to another one.

Saturday started well when we became vaguely aware, while still in bed, of Harley making noise at the entrance to bedroom 3, as he has been on an intense quest to gain access to the room ever since his way was barred, including, evidently, shredding the bottom of the curtain that's currently hanging in the doorway. Something prompted me to get up and see what he was doing, and after a moment or so I registered that he had a cord from the curtain tightly around his neck. After yelling to Ruth to fetch a pair of scissors, I released him. Her immediate response was "Oh Harley, are you all right?", whereas I think mine was along the lines of "YOU STUPID STUPID RABBIT". That's the second time he's cheated death. Given that rabbits are renowned for dying all over the place at the slightest provocation, he can't have many lives left.

Our living room is now graced, since Sunday, by a genuine Liam Smalley. Last weekend was Caversham Arts Trail and we took the opportunity to combine a walk with a bit of culture. We started with visiting the home of sculptor Roger Smalley, who certainly seems prolific - the living room, garden and garage of his unassuming semi in Caversham Park Village were crammed with pieces, and he told us that he sculpts during the day and works in a local off-licence by night. I liked a number of his pieces, but he struck us as being somewhat lacking in business acumen - not that I'm an expert, but he apparently doesn't have a website as he doesn't really do computers, and when Ruth asked if he often showed his work he replied "No, not really". Unsure how he's going to sell many pieces at that rate. The wall of his living room also featured some paintings by his son Liam, colourful Lowry-esque street scenes of Reading and Henley, one of which Ruth fell for - a scene of Queen Victoria Street in Reading, where our favourite Bella Italia is located. Still not 100% sure how I feel about the painting, but as it's now ensconced on our living room wall, I daresay it'll grow on me.

From the Smalleys, we proceeded to Mays Barn on Peppard Road, where a number of artists were showing, including a ghastly découpage business called Kitsch-en-Sync. From there we trekked across Caversham to the civilised pastures of Caversham Heights, to a house on St Peter's Avenue, also showing work by several artists. The lovely owner, painter Mary Phelan, offered us tea when we told her how far we'd walked, which was kind as otherwise there seemed to be only squash on offer. Nothing there that desperately struck us, but we had a bit of a snoop around her beautiful garden.

Ended the day by driving Ruth back to the Smalleys to pay for and collect the painting. Liam himself was there this time - I stayed in the car but apparently the youth looked overwhelmed at having a crisp £200 put into his hand. I wait to see whether he will one day become famous.

Food; art; South Downs

Had my first evening out with the Information Office a couple of Thursdays ago – to my knowledge there hasn’t been an evening get-together since I joined the team, so credit to Rebecca for organising it. Around 8 of us began with pre-dinner drinks at the large Wetherspoons on Midsummer Boulevard, before joining Sara and Hoa at Thai Modern. Very enjoyable meal and smart restaurant though I was slightly surprised to discover that my pork ‘Moo Gata’ tasted very like Mum’s old sweet and sour pork recipe. Not that there was a thing wrong with the latter, in its appropriate context, but from the description on the menu I had expected a rather more intriguing mix of herby flavours. Still, most of the other stuff looked nice and Hoa ordered an impressively-presented whole sea bass though Liz, who evidently doesn’t care for fish, claimed to be disquieted by its eye peering at her. Bart has been tasked with organising the next event and there was some talk of trying the London restaurant 'Archipelago', which serves various exotic dishes including a ‘Love bug salad’, consisting of pan fried locusts and crickets in chilli and garlic. I feel there may have been a certain amount of machismo talking.

The weekend of 28th and 29th was Reading Contemporary Art Fair and Ruth and I again went to the ‘private’ screening on the Friday evening, this time courtesy of Ruth’s having previously bought a picture at the show. Evidently a lot of other people had also previously bought pictures at the show and were lured in by the prospect of a free glass of warm white wine, as it was absolutely packed and I found myself wishing we’d just paid the entrance fee to go on the Saturday. We had a mooch around and jointly bought a small picture for around £50, though Ruth was tempted by the art of some Italian painter whose name I forget, but whose prices appeared to start at around £2500. I urged us to leave while we still had some prospect of being able to afford further house renovations. We ran into Ali, who had just bought a nude lady, sadly already wrapped in bubble wrap by the time we saw her so am told I'll have to wait to see her in Ali's living room. Reminded me of my ambition to acquire a Venus of Willendorf statuette for our living room, to appropriately symbolise Power Of Woman, fecundity etc, though not sure whether this would conflict with the Buddhist-type serenity exuded by Herbert.

We followed the show with dinner at the Spice Oven, now billing itself as a 'Brand New World Cuisine Buffet Concept'. They were certainly doing a roaring trade, but the whole thing’s a bit weird if you ask me.

Went over to Maidenhead with Ray on the Sunday afternoon for a quick stroll in patchy weather, followed by tea at Barbara’s. I took her a bottle of wine and she had baked fairy cakes in our honour, of which I put away about four. Barbara has been a bit laid up recently with a bad foot, so unable to be as active as she would no doubt like.

The attic continues to make progress, with a now-complete wall of shelving. Even better, I have managed to offload the IKEA shelving unit that it replaced to a good home, via the 'Freegle' network (successor of Freecycle in the Reading area). A lovely chap called Mark turned up last Saturday afternoon and collected it all, saying that it was just what he wanted for his attic.

On the Monday we set off for a four-day break on the South Downs, again courtesy of English Country Cottages, whom we are embracing as master/mistress of the undemanding UK-based short break. The South Downs was Ruth’s choice and not somewhere I’d ever spent much time, but the area seems to have potential. After short-listing a number of cottages a few weeks ago, we had eventually got frustrated and just picked one at random, Old Post Office Cottage at Jevington, a village west of Eastbourne on the South Downs Way and about 15 minutes drive from the coast. After a quite tedious and surprisingly hot two-hour drive, we parked up at Eastbourne and walked along the front past the pier and stopped for lunch at The Cavendish Hotel, where Ruth stayed for an event about six years ago. After lunch we had a quick wander along the pier, which is as depressingly anachronistic as such places generally are, before leaving Eastbourne in pursuit of cottage.

On the Tuesday we parked up at the Seven Sisters Country Park and walked down through Cuckmere Haven to the shore at the foot of the first Sister. Ruth spent a while looking for stuff in rock pools, but nothing doing. We had a pleasant lunch in the courtyard garden of the Exceat Farmhouse Restaurant before driving up to Beachy Head for a visit and a look over the cliffs. I had managed to remain remarkably oblivious to Beachy Head’s notoriety as a suicide spot, but according to its Wikipedia entry it’s the third most popular suicide spot IN THE WORLD, after the Golden Gate Bridge and some forest in Japan (intrigued by this: what do all these suicidal people do once they get in there? Dash their brains out against a tree?). Indeed, I discovered from colleagues that a member of OU staff ‘used’ Beachy Head for this purpose a few years ago. Blimey. As it was remarkably nice weather at the time of our visit, we took quite a few sparkly sea pics.

On the Wednesday we went for a bit of a walk up the South Downs Way, a national trail extending west-east from Winchester to Eastbourne. I had hoped to take in the Long Man of Wilmington en route, but misread the contour lines and discovered the SDW passes above the Long Man, rather than below. In the end we went to see him the following day instead. We had a brief picnic before returning to the cottage via the Lullington Heath nature reserve.

On the Thursday, after paying a quick visit to the Long Man, we drove to Lewes and had a mooch around its cobbled olde-worldeness. We spent some time in an antique shop, where Ruth bought a necklace, and walked up the steep Chapel Hill with its attractive houses and onto an even steeper footpath which led out onto the course of Lewes Golf Club. We had a look at the obelisk commemorating some Protestant martyrs before eventually retracing our steps. After a quick ham and cheese toastie at the Riverside Cafe Bar we drove back eastwards to Pevensey Bay, somewhere Ruth remembered visiting as a teenager with her godmother. However, on this occasion it appeared somewhat bleak and tired-looking (not helped by the weather) so we changed our minds about staying and drove back to Pevensey village instead, where we visited the castle followed by the tiny Courthouse Museum, where we were seized on by the elderly curator who regaled us with a lengthy local history lecture; Ruth managed to listen politely while my attention wandered to the postcard display and thoughts of a cream tea. We rounded off the trip with dinner at the Eight Bells, Jevington's quite cosy little pub.

Met Claire on the Friday evening at the pub formerly known as the Hobgoblin, now known as the Alehouse (all a bit puzzling) followed by dinner at Prezzo, followed by a walk up to The Turks to hear a band featuring the violinist from Claire's Vocal Harmony Group. On Saturday Ruth cut and fitted a new clothes rail in the cupboard in bedroom 1 - v. impressed, though she ran into the same problems as with the floating shelves with dodgy wall at one end. So far it seems to be holding though. Ray came round for a meal in the evening in payment for helping us with the water feature a few weeks back, and is sporting a startling short layered haircut with which I sense he is not entirely happy. We had been hoping to acquire rabbit from the butchers, as Ruth has unearthed a couple of recipes that sound quite nice, but it was not to be so we had roast pork, accompanied by the usual arguments about education and politics until I started dozing off.

Returned to Milton Keynes on Monday to clean the flat, throw away old food etc. Baked some more apple muffins from my ongoing supply of elderly apples, which went down well with the office. Also found a recipe for stewed plums, which I have eaten for breakfast the last couple of days. Not bad actually.

Farm machinery; amateur dramatics; tights

Excitement last weekend of Ruth coming up to spend a Whole Weekend in MK with me. We began the weekend with a drink in The Living Room, a quite smart bar on Midsummer Boulevard though, like so many places in MK, it gives the impression of being miles from anywhere. We followed this with dinner at Strada and the bus back to my flat. I had decided that I wanted to visit the Milton Keynes Museum on Saturday morning, so we duly got on the Wolverton bus and got off in an estate called Stacey Bushes, which seemed to be the nearest stop, and walked to the museum on the site of the former Stacey Hill Farm. For some reason, I had managed to get the impression that it housed some sort of archive of memories and footage of the New Town’s construction – which I would have been genuinely interested in – but instead it appears to chiefly house agricultural artefacts and other Old Stuff presumably salvaged from the old farm. It does have an exhibition of telephones through the ages, which was more interesting than it sounded. And we had a jolly nice toastie in the Granary Tea Room.

After the museum, we were obliged to walk into Wolverton as I didn’t have enough cash for the bus fare back into Central MK, and, inevitably, it would have taken us about an hour to walk. We spent most of the short time we were in Wolverton, between getting cash out and leaving again on the next bus, exclaiming at what appears to be the depressed state of the place and particularly of the Agora shopping centre, which occupies a prominent spot in what’s presumably Wolverton’s heart. We walked through this, as we couldn’t see a way around it – presumably when it was first built it was a vibrant sort of place, but in its current semi-derelict state it’s a bit of a blot on the landscape and its days are surely numbered. Here’s a picture of it – I didn’t take any for fear of seeming ghoulish. And a local news article from January of this year.

As an antidote to Wolverton, we had a quick mooch around the shops in central MK, including the inevitable trip to Hawes & Curtis for Ruth to purchase more posh shirts. Later we had an early supper of an experimental halloumi and lentil dish, which Ruth gamely ate, before heading to the Chrysalis Theatre to see an amateur production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Improbable Fiction. I have seen several productions of Ayckbourn plays, both amateur and professional, but can never remember which ones I’ve seen; they all seem to blur into one in my mind. Fairly sure I hadn’t seen this one before though - indeed it's one of his more recent efforts. It’s a moderately entertaining play, though should probably have been funnier than it was – the inevitable slow pacing and occasional inaudible speech that seems to accompany amateur theatre affected that a bit, though on the whole they weren’t bad. Indeed, one of the reasons I went was to check out the group, with the vague idea that I might take up amateur dramatics again. Still not decided on that one. The Chrysalis seems quite a nice facility though. Ran into Guy, who was there with his parents - back at work last week he told me that he had taken them to the Northampton Shoe Museum on the Sunday. Who knew there was a museum of shoes? Obviously there are many hidden delights in this area.

We went for a walk locally on the Sunday, up the canal a bit and into Ye Olde Swan at Woughton (pronounced 'Wufton') for lunch, followed by a hunt for the remains of Woughton medieval village, which I’ve seen signs to on my walk to work. You’d never notice them if it weren’t for the sign and noticeboard marking the spot. A shallow ditch marks the line of the village high street. The village was apparently deserted when the villagers moved west to the site of the current village of Woughton-on-the-Green. No one seems to know why.

We got into one of those ridiculous “is that tune x” “no it isn’t” arguments on Sunday evening after watching a particular TV ad – I forget what it was advertising – with the sinister result that we ended up watching a YouTube video of Terry Wogan’s 1978 ‘Top of the Pops’ performance of The Floral Dance. Something that should probably never be spoken of again. We still hadn’t resolved the argument after watching it, but were cheered up by the infectious beat.

Much as I am a notional supporter of the idea of supporting post offices, I consider it completely wonderful that one can now license one’s vehicle online. Just tap in the reminder reference number and pay for a new disc. Obviously one also has to have a current MOT and insurance, but you don’t any longer have to scrabble around actually having to find your insurance certificate and take it to a post office. The more general problem with exhortations to support post offices, butchers, local riflemakers etc is that they ignore the fact that a big chunk of the population works full-time, meaning that you can only support these institutions on Saturday mornings, and (if you’re like me) one doesn’t necessarily want to spend a large chunk of Saturday morning in the post office. Do get the feeling that society hasn’t caught up with the fact that many women aren’t free to do their shopping/dry cleaning/Post Officey admin at 11am on a weekday.

Went up to London on Saturday to meet Helen, after a year’s gap in get-togethers. Helen is currently suffering from an Achilles tendon injury, sustained while running (one of the reasons I carefully avoid running – clearly a dangerous activity) and wasn’t up to our usual level of walking around, so we met for lunch at the All Bar One just round the corner from Charing Cross station and spent a pleasant three hours or so. Helen relayed a tale of woe involving an unreliable builder, which reminded me that we’ve been really quite lucky with the chaps we’ve used so far – not that we’ve had any major building work done as yet, but I’m sure plastering could potentially go horribly wrong.

Walked back from Charing Cross to Paddington across the parks (Green and Hyde); much nicer weather than forecast apart from a brief shower, during which I effortlessly slipped on new Muji raincoat (‘effortlessly’ here = 10 minute session of fighting with raincoat while leaning awkwardly against tree). Stopped to marvel briefly at some pretty trees and take this photo, though almost got mown down by cyclists on rented Boris bikes.

Ray came round on Sunday morning for a late breakfast and to assist us (well, Ruth) with installing a new water feature centred around the granite orb purchased at Dobbies back in March. It’s now working a treat. We went to Homebase straight afterwards to acquire a couple of bags of stones to put around it.

Purchased a pack of tights from Waitrose a week or so ago, and was surprised to note that they now come with operating instructions, including a stern directive at the outset “To obtain the maximum benefit from your John Lewis Tights always ensure they are put on correctly”. This seemed ridiculous to me, but a quick Google search revealed a number of web resources devoted to how to do it properly, for example this and this; also a number of YouTube videos, which I’ve refrained from watching. My own advice on how NOT to put tights on might read as follows:

• Linger until late for work. Then grab tights from drawer, catching them on that fingernail you meant to file. 
• Try to unroll and separate tights. Catch tights again on fingernail, in several new places. 
• Force tights over feet and pull up. Discover that they are not straight over one foot. Take tights off and try again. 
• Pull tights on again and pull up. Encounter resistance. Swear. Tug sharply while cursing freely. Insist that tights are being made smaller than they used to be. 
• Eventually get tights in roughly correct position but discover crotch is at mid-thigh height. Resist taking tights off again; instead grab material and pull upwards. Delude oneself they now feel fine and go to work. 
• Spend morning tugging at crotch discreetly. Finally retreat to Ladies and adjust tights. Tights ladder from crotch to toe. Weep.

Continued home improvements; dentistry; Easter

During a fit of low blood sugar (my story), I was forced to break into one of the Lindt gold bunnies I’d bought for my parents for Easter. Ruth feigned outrage and insisted on taking this photograph of what remained. Waitrose has evidently got some deal on with Lindt, as our Caversham branch has been overloaded with gold bunnies, including ranks of them lined up in rows at the checkouts, looking vaguely sinister in a certain light. You can read the Lindt Gold Bunny Story here - apparently they’ve been around since 1952.

Attended my first M255 tutorial on 31^st March, in a dimly-lit room in the old part of Reading College. Seven of us present, six blokes and me. Picked up a few useful pointers, though not sure I’ll attend the next one at the end of May as that appears to be four hours long as opposed to two. Almost wrote a letter of complaint about the officious old git stationed near reception to direct OU students to their rooms, but in a later fit of compassion decided not to.

Ruth has now painted the rendered patio wall, taking advantage of the recent dry spell. Looks positively dazzling in the sun.

Floating shelves and new carpet

Spent 1 April painting the interior of the cupboard in bedroom 1, following plaster skimming the week before. Horrible job but managed to satisfactorily slap a couple of coats onto the walls and ceiling, as well as touching up the skirting. Ruth had a creditable go at putting up two floating shelves in the alcove to the left of the fireplace, and very nice they look too, though she ran into a problem on one side with soft brick and/or drilling into mortar, with the result that we won’t be loading them with anything like the alleged 25kg weight limit. They do look nice though. Ray advises us that it’s possible to buy a product from Screwfix called Stick-O-Plug or similar that helps out in such scenarios. For the moment, we’re adopting a deliberately minimal look.

Display of my work on Steppy will have to be saved for a future post, as His Gittishness (aka Harley) scratched the wet paint.

We were at home the following day to Rainbow Carpets (of Caversham – yes, we support local traders), who ripped up the old carpet in bedrooms 1 and 2 and laid some of the posh new cream-coloured quite-high-wool-content number that Ruth had picked out a few weeks earlier. Looks dead nice, though we are both paranoid now about removing shoes of any kind before entering the rooms. The photo shows the new carpet with Ruth’s inherited chest of drawers back in place. And the lovely if delicately-balanced floating shelves.

I had booked an additional day off on the Tuesday to 1) see my dentist Jill, who was as jovial as usual while flagrantly finding lots of work to do to compensate for the fact I hadn’t been to see her for a year. Am booked in to have two fillings done early in May – very small holes, apparently, but You Never Know. She also claimed one of my half-erupted wisdom teeth looked suspicious, and took an X-ray, to add to the various other X-rays that have been taken of them previously. Also 2) went up to Whiteknights at lunchtime for another lunch at Blandford’s with ex-Progress South Central staff – smaller numbers than the Christmas meal, but a very pleasant gathering. Ann, Godfrey and Paul are all enjoying various degrees of retirement; Little Emma is working in the Examinations Office in Whiteknights House and, one suspects, doing very well.

Visited the online OUSA Web Shop last week to purchase some past exam papers for my Java course (having just received an email with the exam date) and was amused to discover ‘Graduation Tapestries’ among the merchandise on offer. You can have either the OU Shield or the OU Coat of Arms. Don’t remember those being on offer at Reading. I may knock up a crude sampler at home perhaps.

Ruth and I spent the Easter weekend in a frenetic round of relative-visiting, starting with a lengthy drive to Cheddar on Good Friday to have lunch with Ruth’s grandmother. I had had a few qualms beforehand about driving to Cheddar on a Bank Holiday, which I had quashed in the interests of goodwill, but in spite of leaving Reading at 8.30am we didn’t arrive at Cheddar until 12.30. Admittedly we did have a c.30-minute stop off for a cup of tea, which with hindsight was perhaps foolish given that there were two sets of roadworks on the M4 and the M5 was almost at a standstill, leading to us leaving the motorway in frustration a junction early and having to trundle across country to Cheddar via, if I recall, such places as Yatton and Congresbury, as part of a procession of other cars who’d also thought it a good idea to take the cross-country route. Cheddar itself was packed with a queue of people awaiting the Gorge Tour Bus, but luckily Mrs Millard had booked a table for lunch at the corner café, so we were sorted.

After leaving Cheddar we headed up to my parents’ place where we enjoyed a fish pie for dinner, as Dad was observing a meat-free Good Friday, and learned that Emrys’ burial plot is already being prepared, although the poor cat isn’t dead yet. On Saturday morning Mum, Ruth and I had a pleasant jaunt around Hay before returning to the house to lunch on the hot cross bun pudding Mum had made the day before, but which none of us had been able to manage after dinner. I enjoyed a delightful late-afternoon bath (pictured), as I am still bath-deprived. Very impressed also to witness Dad baking what may have been his first cake (also pictured).

First thing on Sunday we set off for Newport to visit Dave, Hazel and new baby Nia, born early last Wednesday morning weighing in at a healthy c. 9 lbs. Nia is adorable though I fear I didn’t make a good first impression, as she was distinctly unsettled for most of the time I was holding her. Despite Hazel’s tactful remarks about probable hunger, I fear the generous squirt of ‘Coco’ I’d slathered on that morning may have been a contributing factor. At least Nia is too young to remember me as ‘the smelly lady’. At our next meeting will try to ensure I am smelling of talcum powder, rusks or similar.

Had to leave Newport after an hour to reach Ruth’s aunt’s house in Lambourn in time for Easter Sunday lunch, in the company of Gail and Rob. Mrs Spence had acquired a splendid-looking joint and managed to cook it to perfection. We followed it up with pudding and assorted Easter sweetmeats.

Exciting news for Reading last week, as the on-again off-again proposed IKEA development near junction 12 of the M4 appears to have finally been given the go-ahead. The development has seemingly been held up by spurious objections around traffic congestion and impact on the environment – the latter particularly puzzling given that the store is being built not on virgin forest but on the site of an existing derelict retail park, with the nearest residential development some way away. Bring it on, I say.

Sticking with Reading news: also delighted to read about the imminent loss of dignity to be suffered by the empty Simonds Bank building if it is forced to house Georgie Porgie's Buffet World. Tut.

Singing; marionettes; canal

Domesticity continues with attempts to choose a wardrobe for bedroom 2 - an exciting prospect, as I've inexplicably been managing with temporary clothes rails for the six years I've been living in the house. Ruth and I are agreed on IKEA's PAX range, but are struggling to fine-tune the exact types of sliding doors and inserts that we want. Given the proximity of my MK pad to a branch of IKEA, I was despatched on a Thursday evening a week or so ago to inspect various doors 'in the flesh', which I duly did and even managed to find a free member of staff to question about door widths. Weekday evenings are definitely the time to go. Paid the inevitable visit to the Swedish Food Market on the way out, where I purchased two boxes of intriguing-looking frozen potato products, including some potato pancakes which I'll definitely be buying again.

Wall of shelving in attic is now partly complete, thanks to a new and more efficient drill bit purchased from Drews the Ironmongers. My wall of artwork has also made some progress.

Last Thursday I accompanied Liz from the forecasting team to a lunchtime concert given by the OU Choir, largely devoted to the alleged 'world premieres' of two pieces by one William Bowie, an Edinburgh music teacher during the 1950s and 1960s. Both pieces were apparently degree exercises submitted for the composer's MMus degree in 1961. Evidently the OU Choir's conductor of 35 years (gosh), Bill Strang, was a pupil of Bowie's. (Strang's other interests, besides Bowie, include gay sexuality in music. Intriguing.) Most of the concert was fairly listenable - the first piece, an unmemorable arrangement by the conductor of a medieval hymn, was enlivened by what appeared to be the entire French horn section coming in late ('coming in' in the sense of literally coming into the room).

Spent Saturday morning working on my OU coursework for M255, as the first TMA deadline is coming up. Saturday's work included assembling this somewhat sinister-looking marionette named Mary. Completed Unit 4 on Saturday and am now working through Unit 5, which opens with a fun session on dialogue boxes.

Later on Saturday I went to check out Bletchley Leisure Centre, as Judith has spoken well of it and I've been meaning to check out the nearest place to swim locally. Bletchley centre is just as dispiriting on a second viewing as on the first, but the leisure centre is brand new and pretty nice. Wasn't expecting to get much of a swim given that it was a weekend, but managed quite a good session (given my current limited fitness levels).

On Sunday, Ray and I had a day of exploration of the Grand Union Canal’s passage through Milton Keynes. We started by taking the bus up to Wolverton, on the north-western edge of the town, and walking the canal’s meandering route back to my place in Simpson. Mostly pleasant, with a rural stretch just past New Bradwell where the canal makes a dog leg north towards Haversham and the ruins of the Church of St Peter. Back into the town then past the attractive-looking Linford Manor Park and a couple of nice-looking pubs including The Black Horse at Great Linford. Unfortunately, the first pub we passed at anything remotely nearing a legitimate lunchtime was The Gifford Park, a member of the ‘Sizzling’ chain, which we bypassed as too depressing and pressed on. Canal-themed points of interest included the Grafton Street Aqueduct, built in 1991, and the plaque marking the site where the long-defunct Newport Pagnell arm left the canal. We ended up lunching at The Barge at Woolstone, and after lunch took a brief detour back on ourselves to visit the Cathedral of Trees, planted in 1986 in an outline based on Norwich Cathedral. Quite nice – must go again later in the year when all the leaves are out.

Intrigued by a posting on the OU Noticeboard today headed 'Geiger counter needed'. The posts are usually from people wanting to flog outgrown baby stuff, the contents of their garage etc or wanting recommendations for garages, dentists and such. Also, tomorrow is the AGM of the OU’s Belly Dance Club. Lots going on.