Basic alcohol; trash; couscous

Was disturbed when shopping at MK’s nice new mega-Sainsburys the other week to note that the ‘Sainsbury's Basics’ range now includes wine. Although I never buy food or drink from this range, I had been dimly aware that the range did include some alcohol, but had assumed this was confined to plastic bottles of cider, meths etc. However, no – Sainsbury's Basics ‘White Table Wine’ is on offer, and damn good value, no doubt. Presumably the next step (Sainsbury's Even More Basic?) will be bottles simply labelled ‘Wine’, containing liquid of indeterminate colour.

Impressed at myself for having been for three early-morning bike rides this past week, inspired by Ray’s recently having taken up cycling in some sort of exercise pact made with his friend Dave. I gather the goal is to take part in a 100-mile cycle ride some time next year. Being a bloke, he has acquired various pieces of kit and gadgetry already, including, apparently, a pair of padded cycling shorts, which I hope never to see. I have also only recently learned the acronym MAMIL (Middle Aged Man In Lycra).

Spent the first weekend in August at my parents’ house, where we gamely attempted to have a barbecue on the Saturday evening, and Hannah even determinedly lay on some damp grass in an attempt to bring on summer. The rain did at least hold off, though set in again in force the following day leading to an irritable (on my part) drive back to Reading.

Spent Saturday evening at Ali's 60th birthday party, though a number of us had failed to realise in advance that it was actually her 60th. Ali had requested that I take along a bowl of the giant couscous and harissa dish I made the last time I hosted Book Group, which I obligingly did, though not 100% sure how it went down with the bulk of the guests. Met some nice new people.

Currently slumming it, in terms of reading matter, with another Sandra Brown novel, Exclusive. Have read four or so of Brown’s previous novels, also during phases of slumming it, though I forget now how I came across them originally. This one proves to be written to a similar formula to the others, containing plenty of melodrama, sex and lots of interactions between chiselled loner hero and the heroine, who in Brown’s novels is generally an outwardly spunky career woman but inwardly vulnerable and a bit messed up, and let’s face it, really in need of a bloke. It’s proving pretty enjoyable so far, though I wait to discover whether the President of the US really did murder the bastard newborn son of his unfaithful manic depressive wife, which would lend support to Senator Cletus Armbruster’s theory that the President also, eighteen years previously, disposed of the newborn babe of a piece of trailer trash who went berserk when he refused to marry her.

Vaguely amused at a tendency of Brown’s to stress that her leading characters are only attracted to members of the opposite sex. Of Barrie Travis, the heroine of Exclusive, Brown writes “Nor had she taken the other path. Her sexual appetite was whetted only by men.” It’s inoffensive enough on the surface, but I have the distinct feeling this is not the first of her books I’ve read something similar in. Oddly enough, I’m pretty sure that Stieg Larsson, the author of the Millennium Trilogy, whom one would imagine would be an open-minded, liberal kinda guy, also takes pains to assure his readers that Mikael Blomkvist is 100% hetero, though I don’t have a copy of the trilogy to hand in order to try and find the quote. I'm sure it's there somewhere though.

Catchy uppy

Edited highlights of the past month or so:

Went to a HESA seminar in London on 12th June, which was as informative and well-organised as their events generally are (no sarcasm – they genuinely are). As usual, had a couple of delegates from other institutions look at my delegate badge and say “Gosh, your HESA return must be huge”. Yes, indeed it is. I was amused – although I probably shouldn’t have been – to note one delegate’s affiliations given as ‘Shurgard HE’ and another, more cryptically, given as ‘Unit 4’.

Headed west after the seminar to spend a few days with the family on the Pembrokeshire coast to celebrate Dad’s 70th birthday. We stopped off overnight at my parents’ house on the way to pick up Hannah, who was exhausted after an unaccustomed cycle ride to the shop in Longtown to purchase cigarettes, and hear news of her recent US trip. Arrived at the very nice Treseissyllt Hafod in St Nicholas around midday the next day and had a lunch and present-opening session with assorted family members. Later that afternoon, a group of us including Mum’s cousin Jonathan, who was staying at a rather shambolic-sounding B&B housed in the farmhouse next door, walked down to Aberbach Bay where we were soaked in a particularly heavy downpour. The following day we walked to the neighbouring village of Mathry where we had lunch in The Farmers Arms, before Dad, Dave, Ruth and I had a windy but enjoyable walk back to the house along the coastal path. On the Friday we visited St David’s where we had a brief walk around and another pub lunch (in another Farmers Arms), before returning via Whitesands Bay, which was almost deserted due to the inclement weather but still had the cheek to be charging £4 to park in its car park.

Relieved that the hastily planned and even more hastily executed photobook I had arranged for Dad's birthday present arrived in time; can thoroughly recommend Yophoto for both quality and a quick turnaround. Was a bit gutted that I wasn't able to source a photo of Dad's business partner Steve in enough time, so here's a picture of them, just to publish one somewhere.

Received a flyer a month or so ago from the OU’s LGBT Network mailing list advertising a workshop entitled ‘Feeling at Home? Queering Home Research’, apparently part of a ‘Queer Home Economics’ event at the Hayward Gallery (currently, of course, housing the 'Invisible' exhibition - what that about?). Anyway, not meaning to be a traitor to my people, but PhD thesis titles such as ‘Queering Heteronormativity at Home’ risk making me spit wine out through my nose, as do communally crocheting rugs out of old clothes and workshops entitled ‘The Knitted Habitat’ and ‘A Conversation about Gay Squats’ (bring your lunch, apparently), not to mention Homo Entertaining. Link to the strangely-formatted agenda, for general amusement.

Hit the Whiteknights Studio Trail with Claire on 17 June and had a pleasant wander around a number of houses in the loosely-defined University area, on the pretext (at least from my point of view) of admiring people’s paintings, glassware etc but actually just having a snoop at their houses. One (from the front) unassuming-looking terraced house in Carnarvon Road had the most amazing glass-roofed extension/garden room area out the back, crammed with books, sofas, arty memorabilia etc. Snooped for as long as I decently could, wishing I could take a photograph, then left after buying a postcard version of a Dan Dunne painting for Ruth.

Had a day in London with Ray on 23rd June, starting (after a fortifying breakfast) with high-tailing it up to Highgate to visit Pond Square, which I have been vaguely intrigued to visit since learning from Secret London that it is rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of a frozen chicken. Apparently stems from a 17th-century attempt at freezing chicken using snow, but I preferred to think of the ghost as a modern cellophane-wrapped affair bouncing in sinister fashion around the square. We briefly considered buying a frozen chicken and mocking up some photographs involving terrified expressions, chicken placed in menacing attitudes etc but decided this would be going a bit far; added to which, there were other people around and it might have looked a bit silly. Anyway; the square is very nice and all, but no chicken sightings.

We then walked all the way back down through Camden and onto the Regent’s Canal towpath, where we walked as far as all the new development work going on at the back of King’s Cross and St Pancras. Wandered into Central Saint Martins’ new home in the Granary Building and posed by the fountains out front, before going to visit the nearby London Canal Museum. The downbeat man on the desk warned us on the way in that “it’s mostly canal stuff ... we’re a canal museum”. In fact it does also have a bit about the ice trade, as the museum is housed in a former ice warehouse – there’s an open ice well on display. Tried and failed to persuade Ray to buy some of the various roses-and-castles-emblazoned bits and pieces from the shop, before having a look around the small but quite interesting museum. Some old film of a journey along the Regent’s Canal, from wherever it starts from down to Limehouse (or possibly vice versa), plus lots of old pics and information about canals and canal boat life. Families of six crammed into a tiny boatman’s cabin, going to the toilet in a bucket, etc.

The first weekend in July had been scheduled for a two- or three-day boat trip along the Kennet & Avon Canal but, disappointingly, water levels were too high. Wandered down to the Caversham Festival to hear Claire's vocal harmony group The Secret Chords doing some singy stuff on the floating stage, and had a beer afterwards with Claire and her new beau Chris. Returned to MK on the Monday and went for a pleasant hour's bike ride, the effects of which on my right calf muscle have only just worn off. Should probably do it more often. When I related the injury to Victoria on my return to work she tactfully pointed out that neither of us is as young as we were. Indeed not.

Mum came to visit me in Milton Keynes over the weekend 21st-22nd July (pictures here). I had planned a pleasant evening walk to The Swan at Woughton for dinner on the 20th, but pouring rain put us off that idea so we stayed in with a Domino’s Pizza instead. On the Saturday we went on a quest to locate the Concrete Cows: parked near the site of Bancroft Roman Villa, which we had a quick look around before walking down through Bancroft Park towards Monks Way and (eventually) locating the cows, where photos were duly taken. The cows in the field near Bancroft are actually replicas, the originals having been moved to the shopping centre in Central Milton Keynes, presumably in a move to preserve them. Close-up, I was a bit disturbed by their staring eyes, as seen in particular on this calf. We then extended the walk briefly to take in the remains of Bradwell Abbey, but there wasn’t much to be seen there as the chapel is currently under scaffolding and the site was taken over by preparations for a music festival. Drove into CMK where we had lunch at the Slug & Lettuce, before returning to the flat for tea and cupcakes.

Went for a late afternoon walk around Ouzel Valley Park before spending the evening watching a selection of trash TV, starting with ‘Location, Location, Location (twice, I think) followed by ‘Supersize vs. Superskinny’ followed by ‘Embarrassing Bodies’. Class. On Sunday morning we visited Linford Manor Park and had a pleasant walk through the village and park down to the canal, before lunching at The Nags Head in Great Linford. Dropped Mum at the station before going home to complete my latest assignment for M255, I fear not as well as the previous one; confidence in newfound programming skills temporarily dented.

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.