Rundown of September

Started September by booking two cottages at the Low Briery park near Keswick for a family holiday next April. Hurrah. Lake District here we come. Don't think I've been since we had a family week there in 2005, which seems a long time really. On that holiday it rained quite a lot and Hannah and I spent quite a bit of time watching episodes of Dallas on DVD.

Booked the day off on Friday 1st for a day out with Mum and Hannah in London to see the Giacometti exhibition at Tate Modern. Mum and Dad had stayed overnight in London the night before and seemed to have enjoyed themselves, things only being marred by Dad wearing some ill-advised sharp shoes that had given him blisters. He was off to the Geological Society on the Friday; Mum, Hannah and I met near the Millennium Bridge where Mum lightened her own bag by offloading a jar of crab apple jelly onto each of us. Mum had also evidently been accosted by some people filming an ad for Galaxy chocolate, and been given several free bars.

The exhibition was crowded but interesting. After taking this selfie in the turbine hall we went for lunch at a nearby Carluccio’s, after which Hannah left us to go and see a friend elsewhere in London and Mum and I walked around for a bit, having a look at the new extension from the outside.

Went over to Gail and Rob's house on Saturday 3rd for little Emily's second birthday tea party. Small gathering of only us plus Rob's nice father Brian. Emily is an outrageously cute child with a mop of blonde hair. Amused to see that she is now speaking a few words, including "More icing, Dad".

As part of ongoing quest to find a suitable hearth, or a piece of stone that could be fashioned into a hearth, I drove Ruth out to a stone merchants’ near Basingstoke on the afternoon of the 8th. We stopped off at The Vyne on the way to have lunch and make some use of our National Trust cards. Had a walk around the walled garden which had a gorgeous bed of pompom dahlias. The house is under scaffolding at the moment as there seems to be a major roof project underway.



Then found our way to stoneCIRCLE where Ruth spent some time in the yard browsing offcuts, seemingly mainly from kitchen worktops. Some discussion with the saleswoman followed but we didn’t end up actually ordering anything.

Managed to mess up our visit to the London 'Open House' weekend this year, entirely through not being sufficiently organised. Firstly, we were too lazy to stir ourselves on the Saturday morning and postponed our visit to the Sunday, thereby missing the chance to view Goldfinger's Haggerston School in Hackney, which I had been interested in seeing. When we arrived at Reading station on the Sunday morning, it turned out there were no trains running between Reading and Paddington because of line works, so we had to travel in to Waterloo instead, which, if you're unlucky (we were) takes almost three times as long.

On arrival, we headed over to Regent's Park to visit the Royal College of Physicians, though on arrival we discovered that the building is actually open to the public most days throughout the year. We signed up for a tour of the building and gardens, which was quite interesting though the tour guide was a bit over-theatrical for my taste.



We then took the bus to Hackney intending to see a few things there, but lost some enthusiasm after an interminable circa 24-stop bus journey. Queued for a while to see a wooden eco-house whose name I've forgotten, behind a bickering family of four whose bickering then descended into a brawl between the father and his teenage son. We went off the whole idea after that and took the bus back to Islington, where we had beer and crisps in The York. We should have focused on one borough and a handful of properties within easy reach of each other, but we never quite seem to manage to do that.

On the following Monday, my colleague Galina saw fit to share that she'd managed to visit four Open House properties with her daughter, in between taking her son to the junior parkrun and seeing a show. Some people are just made of sterner stuff.

On the 22nd we hosted Book Group at the house, to discuss Ruth's book choice 'Exposure' by Helen Dunmore. Quite an easy read; background of Cold War, spies etc. Of the four regular attendees who might have come, two were away but Ali and Lesley managed to make it. Ruth had tackled a new recipe involving halloumi-stuffed meatballs in a chermoula sauce - the preparation involved some ridiculously middle-class bleating over the phone about how the Caversham Waitrose were out of chermoula. Luckily I did an emergency chermoula run to the bigger MK Waitrose and managed to get some. We served polenta as an accompaniment, which I'd only attempted to prepare once before and been slightly bemused by. It was OK. By the following day it had become a shiny bouncy lump as per the photo. We marvelled at it for a while, prodding it at intervals. I eventually cut off a couple of slices and fried them as a dinner accompaniment - OK but I can't say I'd go a long way to seek it out.

Ray came up to MK to visit me on the 27th and we went for dinner again at the Antep Kitchen over the road from Tesco. Busy and humming, as per the last time.

Went down to Abergavenny the last weekend in September, stopping on the way at Westbury Court Garden, to make yet more use of our NT cards. I'd located it on the map as being reasonably conveniently located en route - the blurb claims it's the finest example of a
Dutch-style water garden in the country. It turned out to be a small place (euphemism for the fact that it didn't have a tea room, which we were a bit disappointed about, though I think the lady at the admissions hut might have been selling KitKats) but it's a dear little formal garden with some eye-catching planting.

Cone-shaped trees	One of the canals
Prettiness	Reputedly the oldest evergreen oak in England

Cultural stuff done so far in 2017

This House [play]

Garrick Theatre, 7 January 2017

AMAZING play. Pretty much the best play I've seen. Given that I'm not at all a politics junkie this is quite a statement.

Think this was an outing for Ruth's birthday. We had lunch beforehand in the Cork & Bottle, a lovely cellar wine bar on Cranbourn Street.

Interesting set in that they had members of the audience sitting on stage in what was meant to be seating in the House of Commons. I wasn't sure whether they'd been selected/applied for this beforehand, or whether they were just nabbed on the night.

Ruth in the Cork & Bottle

Interval. Members of the audience wandering around the stage

'Scots Jews' [exhibition]

Jewish Museum London, 21 January 2017

Exhibition of photographs by Judah Passow. This was a New Year outing with Helen. Think I just came across it in a search of 'stuff on in London'. Very interesting pics, and I never even knew the Jewish Museum existed - it's dead swish.

Here's Helen by a giant screen of some sort.

Helen by a screen

The Boys in the Band [play]

Vaudeville Theatre, 10 February 2017

We got tickets for this as it was apparently a revival of a significant 1968 play, was on a very short West End run and Mark Gatiss was in it, though it was a bit extravagant to go given that it wasn’t long after This House. It was OK though both Ruth and I were a bit underwhelmed by it. Here's a Guardian review. It's probably one of those plays that hasn't aged too well.

Susan Calman: The Calman Before the Storm [comedy]

Newbury Corn Exchange, 4 March 2017

Having chuckled at Glaswegian lawyer-turned-comic Calman's performances on Radio 4's The News Quiz, I started following her on Twitter a while back and we managed to get tickets for the Newbury performance of her 2017 tour. It was amusing enough, perhaps sensibly tailored more for a middle-class/aged Radio 4-listening audience rather than a gay audience.

America after the fall: Painting in the 1930s [exhibition]

Royal Academy of Arts, 18 March 2017

Went to this with Ray. Apparently it was the first time out of the States for Grant Wood's American Gothic. The blurb said "Experience the life of 1930s America through the many masterpieces in this landmark show."

Whitney: Can I Be Me [film]

Watershed, Bristol, 11 June 2017

I was never a huge fan of Whitters – I mean a great voice, obviously, but not really the sort of singing that appeals to me. However, Ruth fancied seeing this and it was actually very interesting, particularly in the way it covered her ambiguous relationship with her friend and assistant Robyn Crawford, and the clash between Robyn and Bobby Brown that seems to have led to Robyn’s disappearance from Houston’s life.

Queer British Art: 1861 - 1967 [exhibition]

Tate Britain, 1 July 2017

Very interesting exhibition. And I bought the book, which I don't usually, but it was reasonably priced. Shortly after the exhibition we caught a TV documentary about Hannah 'Gluck' Gluckstein, whose 1942 self-portrait features on the cover of the exhibition guide, pictured below.

Giacometti [exhibition]

Tate Modern, 1 September 2017

As per mention here.

Think that's all. Must schedule in some more stuff. Perhaps a ukulele orchestra next.

Walk from Theale via North Street and Englefield, 4.2 miles

24 September

Shortish walk out of ‘Rambling for Pleasure around Reading’.

Parked at the car park at the eastern end of Theale High Street. At this end of the village, the old route of the A4 can be clearly seen leading towards the M4 before ending in a dead end as it reaches the embankment carrying the motorway. There’s a pedestrian footbridge, presumably built at the time the road was cut off when the village was bypassed in the early 1970s, that leads over the M4 to Pincents Lane.

Old route of the A4, looking west towards Theale

Theale has the look of somewhere that was once quite a bit more significant than it is now – which it presumably was given that it must have once been on the main route from Bristol to London. The high street has quite a number of inns and some sizeable buildings, and the village has an unfeasibly enormous village church. Theale’s website claims that ‘Theale was a service station long before the advent of the motorways.’

From the car park we turned left onto a footpath and headed north, crossing a golf course, to the hamlet of North Street. Walked through the village and bore left towards the A340, crossing the road and heading straight on into Englefield. Passed the tea rooms, which we had been hoping would be open on a Sunday, but they’re evidently not. The gardens of Englefield House do open to the public, as Ruth and I visited a few years ago, but not at weekends (which I had forgotten). In fact the link states that they’re only open on a Monday, so it sounds as though they’ve reduced the opening hours further. Ruth went for a browse around the garden centre while I mooched about the driveway taking a photo of the 'Gardens Closed' sign.

The main driveway has evidently been designated as a Permitted Path (or so the walk book told us), so we walked down it and out through the main gates. Crossed over and walked down Englefield Road back into Theale.

Map of the route below:

(Almost) circular walk around Milton Keynes, 13.9 miles

27 August

Walked with Hai, Matthew and Sara roughly around the route of Heritage Cycle Trail A. The full thing is a 15-mile circular route, though in fact I bowed out slightly before the end, being knackered and it being a hotter day than I find ideally comfortable for walking.

Hai, Matt and I were scheduled to meet at Matt’s house in Willen Park, though I got off the number 7 bus a stop too early (not the first time) so took longer than planned to get to them, so actually met them setting out towards the canal. Both sensibly wearing hats – it was a warm day but I’d managed to leave my sunhat back in Reading. We set out northwards up the canal towpath, meeting up with Sara near Giffard Park. Walked through Linford Manor Park and along the canal to the old railway bridge. Diverged from the Heritage Trail route to follow an alternative route Matt knew, coming out by the Grafton Street Aqueduct. Took a path on the opposite side of the canal from the towpath – I hadn’t even known you could walk up this side – coming out in the Secret Garden at Wolverton. We paused for some photos by this sculpture of an old couple, apparently installed in the garden in 2007.

We walked up into Wolverton and followed McConnell Drive for a fairly dull stretch as far as the H2. Crossed the H2 and walked into Bancroft Park, pausing by the Roman Villa before walking along to the concrete cows, which Hai had particularly wanted to see. We lingered a bit while she attempted to mount one of the larger cows, before giving it up and mounting a calf instead.

Bancroft Roman Villa	Me at the Roman remains

After leaving the cows we passed under the H3 into Bradwell Abbey and followed a path down to Lodge Lake. We stopped in Loughton for a short snack – I think Matt would have happily powered on the whole distance without stopping, but Sara kindly suggested we stop, probably hearing my laboured breathing behind her. From Loughton we walked south-eastwards to Furzton Lake, passing through Shenley Lodge with its collection of interesting houses. Didn’t know anything about the Energy World project before, but perhaps must go for more of a meander around the area. One of the more striking houses we saw is mentioned in this interesting 2014 piece on the architecture of Milton Keynes (which also mentions Wolverton Park).

Hai with a cow	Some cow love
Calf mount	The cows

Hai, me and Sara with a cow

We were only at Furzton Lake quite briefly, but it seems quite pretty. Busy on the day we were there. Stopped for a welcome ice cream/lolly. Made our way back up northwards towards MK Central station, passing the National Bowl - I was dimly aware of this but didn't know much about it, but it seems as though some quite eminent people have played there. By the time we reached the station I'd had enough, so took leave of the others and caught the bus back to Wolverton, leaving them to tramp on through Central MK and Campbell Park back to Willen.

Map of the route:

Here’s the pace vs. elevation graph. There generally isn’t much elevation on a walk around MK, but looks as though we reached a reasonable pace at times. As expected, Matt and Sara were the pace-setters, with Hai and I some way behind for most of the walk, though the front-runners paused periodically to let us catch up. Some people just have to rush everywhere.