Local government; rhododendrons; cats

Reading Borough Council have announced their new Con-LibDem coalition, a big change as the council has been under Labour control since the 1980s. The article is mainly distinguished by the absurd photograph of the parties’ lead councillors Andrew Cumpsty and Kirsten Bayes. The slew of impolite comments posted include 'I feel violated' and references to The Krankies.

Had brunch with Ray in Pangbourne on Saturday morning at The Ditty, a recently-refurbed café/bistro that used to be called The Ducks’ Ditty– my aunt waitressed there many years ago. Not sure whether the renaming is a sign of a cooling down of the Thames Valley’s interminable obsession with Kenneth Grahame, but let’s hope so. As a child I had a rather smart green hardback copy of The Wind in the Willows, probably given to me by a well-meaning relative or friend of my parents, it being a classic example of Books Adults Think Children Should Read (being reminiscent of those wonderful far-off days when people ate lunch out of wicker baskets in the open air, children played nicely together, etc). Like any even vaguely normal child I was more interested in reading Enid Blyton so I don’t think I got around to reading TWITW until well into my teens, by which time I thought I’d better read the book before giving it away. Anyway, returning to the café, here I am outside it, just for the record.

We then went on to visit the lovely Harcourt Arboretum, an adjunct to the University of Oxford Botanic Garden. Lots of rhododendrons in amazing colours and quite a few groups having picnics. The arboretum used to be part of the grounds of Nuneham Park, also owned by Oxford University (I think) but currently used as the Global Retreat Centre run by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (!). I got myself onto their mailing list some time ago while looking around for meditation classes in the area, so now keep receiving emails inviting me to lectures and seminars on conquering fear, embracing one’s inner monk etc.

Ruth and I took the bus out to Arborfield Cross¹ on Sunday to visit Gail and Rob, who are now ensconced in their new home. The house represents more of a renovation project than I’d want to take on, but as two Building Control surveyors they should be better placed to tackle it. We had a pleasant lunch in the garden and met their two new kittens, who reminded me of how ADORABLE kittens are. I offered two rabbits in exchange for them, but nothing doing.

Refurbishment of the Cotton Club, the food and drink outlet on the London Road campus, is now complete, which is a relief after the last few months of banging/swearing/loud singing (our office is directly next door). We were invited on Monday to a private pre-opening viewing, with complimentary tea and cake, of the revamped facility, now rebranded ‘Eat and Drink at London Road’. Certainly much swankier, though that was to be hoped given that it must have been at least 30 years since the previous refurb. The refurbishment has apparently aimed to ‘reveal the historic origins of the former dairy building’, and there is indeed a mural of some cows along one of the walls. According to Jude the coffee is now more expensive, but on the up side it does now appear to actually contain coffee.

The refurb is part of a general overhaul of the University’s catering outlets, the eventual aim of which is apparently ‘a flexible, high-end food offering’ across the University. Sounds a refreshing change from the inflexible, and remarkably low-end, food offering available in catered halls of residence when I was a student. Students today don’t know they’re born, etc.

Book Group met at Tamzin's house on Wednesday to discuss Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. I had only managed to get just over halfway through the book by the time of the meeting, partly through having started it too late and partly through not enjoying it much. It struck me as a mediocre fantasy-novel-by-numbers, but as everyone else appeared to have enjoyed it, I will endeavour to finish it just to see if my opinion changes. Tamzin’s large and ridiculously appealing cat Hendrix graced us with his presence for the second part of the evening, so it’s been a whole week of cute cats. If only I didn’t live on a rat run I’d be surrounded with them, though Ruth has cautioned me that two fortyish² women living with pet cats would fill just too many stereotypes.

¹ The Wikipedia stub cautions against confusing it with Arborfield, Saskatchewan. That was a near miss then. Good thing the bus driver was on the ball.
² The use of '-ish' implies there or thereabouts. One of us is, of course, not yet forty.

Blue tits; Somerset; Grand Designs

Emrys

Meant to update this last Wednesday from my parents’ place, but had no sooner settled down happily at their kitchen table with my laptop than I discovered that their broadband was out of action. After a brief rant in the direction of the cats, who looked unmoved, it dawned on me that having four days without access to the internet (as well as without mobile reception) would probably be good for me and create a calm meditative atmosphere conducive to periods of quiet reflection, etc. Spent a quiet day or so reading, looking through some old photographs and providing a lap for Emrys.

Collected Ruth from the train on Friday morning and we spent a further quiet day before my parents arrived home on Saturday. The visit was enlivened by what Ruth termed 'Tit TV': the nesting box with attached camera that Ray gave Dad as a present a few years ago is being used this year, by blue tits - we were able to view the 12 little eggs and the cute little bird sitting on them. Eggs and tit are just visible in these pictures. They had yet to hatch when we left, though Dad reckoned that hatching was imminent.

Eggs

Blue tit sitting on eggs

As I didn’t fancy driving far on the Thursday I tasked myself with finding dinner from the local shop at Longtown 3 or 4 miles away. Although doubtless a useful resource, it doesn’t stock a huge range of food so ended up with a Linda McCartney macaroni cheese and a packet of sausages. Macaroni cheese isn’t something I usually eat, but it wasn’t bad.

We drove to Cheddar on Sunday morning to visit Ruth’s grandmother, with whom we had a pleasant lunch at local restaurant the Edelweiss. Lots of attractively wooded hills around, which look worthy of further exploration at some point although Ruth thinks Somerset is a ‘vile’ county from which one is lucky to escape without dengue fever or similar from torpor-inducing west coast air. Have done only limited probing as to reasons for this view. Drive back was certainly vile after we had switched off the satnav in a degree of frustration; I had tasked Ruth with directing me around (NB as opposed to into) Bristol to pick up the M4 somewhere around Chippenham, but this didn’t quite work, resulting in half an hour or so of frosty silence after I had driven several times around the same roundabout in Bristol city centre. Once onto the M4 we became caught up in road works, Sunday evening traffic and pelting rain. Cheered ourselves up later by going for dinner at the recently-revamped Griffin.

To recap over the previous week: election news: both Reading’s seats are now blue. Reading East’s Conservative MP Rob Wilson got back in, with an increased majority. There was a vacancy in Reading West due to the recent retirement of Labour’s Martin Salter, and the Conservative's Alok Sharma is now the new man there. Reading Borough Council remains NOC, though a Tory/LibDem coalition looks likely. I haven’t formed much opinion either way about Rob Wilson, but I understand he holds regular surgeries across his constituency, so I guess I could pop in with an issue if I wished. His publicity material is chiefly characterised by him reminding voters that he’s married, with four children – aside from obviously being a thinly-veiled “Yes, I’m Heterosexual”, can’t understand why this is thought relevant to politics – and from observations it does tend to be a Tory tactic; the publicity material for the Labour and Lib Dem candidates, entirely correctly, didn’t mention anything about their private lives. Personally I wouldn't care if my MP lived in a commune with seven other men, as long as he did good things for the community ...

We went up to Ray’s boat on the evening of Friday 7^th for what I had hoped would be a pleasant al fresco waterside drink on a balmy spring evening, but ended up being a huddle around the woodburning stove on a decidedly chilly evening. Made admiring noises as to how his tongue-and-groove panelling is progressing.

Trekked out to the ExCeL on Saturday 8^th to Grand Designs Live – quite fun, though unfortunately (given the cost of the ticket) by the time the day came around neither Ruth nor I were really in the mood and it was also rather more similar to the Ideal Home Show than I had been expecting. Our tickets entitled us to a complimentary copy of the Grand Designs magazine and a bag of rather random freebies, including a small packet of muesli and several free samples of fabric conditioner. The already quite long journey out to the ExCeL was lengthened by us getting on the wrong branch of the DLR at Canning Town (I blame Ruth) and having to wait around at West Silvertown for a return train. A bleak landscape – there’s a bit about the area here - but I did take this picture of the big golden syrup tin on the side of Tate & Lyle.

While at the show, queued to look around Eco Modular Living’s Ecohome. The company apparently markets recycled buildings ‘using a hybridisation of modular and container fabrication techniques’. Reminded me of my proposal, which I first expounded to Ray some years ago, for solving Britain’s housing problem by accommodating people in Functional Living Units (henceforth FLUs), medium-but-not-oversized living pods equipped with the essentials. Disappointingly, Ray always doggedly maintained that the idea wasn't viable, possibly because the plan included demolishing large swathes of the country's existing housing. I stick by it though.

A sold sign has gone up opposite UHO (see 14 April post), barely a few weeks after the house went on the market. This is good news. Remains to be seen whether the new owner will remove the nasty grey paint and metal windows.

Have recently written a letter of complaint to the (expensive) health club of which I am a member about the unpleasantly acrid smell in the steam room on several occasions recently. Am giving them a week or so to sort it out, but was briefly encouraged when I went to the gym on Monday to note that poolside was closed for maintenance, so hopefully this includes scrubbing the steam room or at least masking smell of wee with eucalyptus or similar. I live in hope.

Modern art; plumber round 2; Morris dancing

Batch of home-grown salad leaves, just for the record:

Popped along to Rivermead on the evening of the 23rd to the first Reading Contemporary Art Fair. We missed the official opening by John Madejski, though Ruth claimed to have spotted him on the way in. The Friday evening was a private viewing, for which we got free tickets (and a free glass of plonk) thanks to Ray’s sister Sharon, who works for Reading 107, one of the sponsors. Lots of stuff on show and I may actually have located a suitable piece of art for the living room chimney breast – fell rather in love with some of Alce Harfield’s brightly coloured canvases so intend to commission something as soon as I’ve measured the available space. Ruth bought a picture of a horse, which I duly admired at the same time as issuing a warning about any future acquisition of hunting scenes, horse brasses etc.

A piece of news of almost no interest to anyone else is that as of last Tuesday we now have a new gas meter. Looky here. How smart.

We had to get the plumber out again last Tuesday evening thanks to Ruth’s well-meaning attempt to replace the cistern valve in the toilet. We’ll be funding his summer holiday at this rate.

Hosted Book Group last Wednesday and a discussion of Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger. The book was my choice; having read several of Lively’s children’s books I thought perhaps I should read one of her adult novels, and the Booker Prize winner seemed the obvious choice. Good, but it would probably benefit from a re-reading at some point to fully appreciate the subtle passage-of-time aspects that seem to be Lively’s trademark. One of the Claires had accidentally read Tiger Moon (a 2008 children’s fantasy novel) instead, which rendered her contribution to the discussion a bit limited. Had to rebuke Harley afterwards for behaving like a little tease - running up to people in a "look what a cute little bunny I am" fashion and then skipping off as they tried to stroke him.

Got up wackily early last Saturday morning to go down to Forbury Gardens to see the Kennet Morris Men dance in May Day at 5.30am. Some rather blurred pictures here, along with some video footage of the occasion. The troupe (I believe ‘side’ is the correct term) are a jolly bunch of mainly older gents, but there was one young chap among the group, who did a solo jig for one of the numbers. Ray, who is always a sucker for getting up at an unearthly hour to do eccentric things, came with me and between us we almost doubled the size of the audience; the others were a young couple who were on their way to the beer festival, and the wife of one of the dancers. They danced half a dozen or so dances and then sang Sumer Is Icumen In, reasonably tunefully. Given that they're apparently always on the lookout for new dancers, I had a go at persuading Ray to take it up, but he wasn't quite as taken with the idea.

Ruth and I went to a party on Sunday hosted by Ruth's colleague Jan and her partner, who had just bought themselves a Nintendo Wii that morning with the result that a good portion of the evening was spent playing on it. Had a go at tennis and didn't do too badly. Quite fun but I'm not sure it would induce me to buy one; have yet to become remotely hooked on anything resembling a computer game. In any case our living room is a bit too small to allow for even virtual-exercising.

Public school; chitterlings; curry

Mum arrived on Thursday evening to stay for a few days and after breakfast on Friday at the Alto Lounge we took the train over to Windsor and spent most of the day mooching around Eton, including going on a guided tour of Eton College (pictures here). Our guide was a pleasant fairly elderly woman whose four sons had apparently all been through Eton – after learning that the full fees are £30,000 per year, Mum and I were dying to ask her what her husband did for a living, but refrained. The tour includes only limited bits of the College: we had a quick whiz around School Yard and the cloisters, the oldest classroom in the College and the Chapel, before finishing in the Museum of Eton Life. So no getting to poke through boys’ bedrooms, but you can watch a video about life at Eton, showing boys eating their lunch and having intelligent group discussions in masters’ studies. (An amusing thought would be an alternative video of Eton life, showing boys getting bladdered and mooning the locals. I’m sure that doesn’t happen though.) The museum takes pains to point out that both beating and fagging have long since been abolished.

It did strike me, while wandering around Eton, as inappropriate to have a primary school called The Porny School. I know it’s because it was named after a Mr Porny (a former French master at Eton College called Antoine Pyron du Martre; how that got anglicised to Porny I'm not sure). It just seems wrong.

On Saturday morning we wandered to Reading Farmers’ Market, a twice-monthly affair held in the old cattle market on Great Knollys Street. One of the meat stalls always has an interesting selection of innards, including chitterlings (NB spelt chitlings by the stall owner). A quick Google search reveals a number of web resources for chitterlings, including The Chitterling Site. Here’s how to clean them. Just not sure I fancy eating something where the preparations include picking it clean of any faeces. One might perhaps legitimately ask whether something that requires this much cleaning beforehand is actually suitable for human consumption. Needless to say we didn’t buy any chitterlings, but did acquire some tomato plants and a lardy cake.

Spent much of the rest of Saturday sitting in the garden enjoying the sun and watching Harley skit about the garden eating the heads off flowers. Dad joined us for dinner in the evening at The Spice Oven, a cavernous Indian restaurant housed in a former nightclub¹. It has relatively restrained beige décor but recovers its kitsch credentials by having a small lake in the centre complete with fish, plants and a bridge. Saturday night turned out to be Buffet Night, which I hadn’t known about in advance, but my parents and I took advantage of the opportunity to try a few different dishes, while Ruth ordered something mild and creamy for herself.

On Sunday morning we all trooped up to the marina, where Dad had left his car, to squeeze onto Ray’s boat for breakfast. In the evening Ruth and I lit the chimenea for the first time this year and had a ceremonial burning of the goddess figure I made at Samhain. She went up a treat.

Unsatisfactory start to Monday morning when entered bathroom and realised after a few moments (it being pre-coffee) that I was paddling through water. After brief negotiations Ruth agreed to stay home and call a plumber, who duly came out and tightened various areas of slackness around the bath and basin taps. One of the few advantages of having a ground floor bathroom was that no other rooms were flooded. Apparently there had been a slow leak going on for some time, which might explain the occasional sprouting of fungus on the floor. Really must get new bathroom sorted.

¹ The Nue Valbonne, where I once snogged a bloke then stood him up the next day. In my defence it was 20 years ago and I was young and silly.

Ethnic/folky stuff; property watch; bagels

Reading Borough Council has evidently been very busy planting daffodil bulbs in attractive swirly lines, as the park at the end of our road now has this cheery spring display.

Spent a pleasant evening at the Global Café on Friday. Am pleased that the excellent Tutu’s Ethiopian Table appears to be a continuing success. Enjoyed the Yefeske Beyayenetu (or, if you prefer, Special Meat Platter) for dinner, involving a nice lamb dish accompanied by lentil stew and fried spinach. As there is nothing on Tutu’s menu that is not at least mildly spicy, I was a little concerned for Ruth’s wellbeing, as she has little head for spice, but she claimed to have enjoyed the simmered lamb dish that she ordered, although she did look a little pink by the time she’d finished. The purpose of the evening was to hear local band Dolly and the Clothespegs, although thanks to a few technical hitches and a dreadful supporting act, they didn’t begin their set until nearly 10, by which time Helen and I were beginning to take on an ‘I’ll be off now for a cup of tea and my slippers’ appearance. We shuffled off by 11pm, with Claire, who is rather more of a night owl, muttering darkly about lightweights. Que sera.

Keeping a keen eye out, as I do, for houses up for sale on our street, I was cheered to note over the weekend that Ugly House Opposite (not its real name) has just gone on the market. It's being advertised as an 'investment opportunity', which appears to be estate agent-speak for 'hard-to-sell hovel suitable only for selling to a builder or letting to the desperate'.

Spent the day in London on Tuesday at the termly LLN Research Forum meeting at Birkbeck in the morning, and at the Institute of Education library in the afternoon. Started off by visiting Bagel Nash on Shaftesbury Avenue for breakfast, as part of a minor quest to find nicely chewy bagels (supermarket varieties being a bit bready). The bagel I had was excellent and Bagel Nash do do mail order, though unfortunately only in quantities of 72. Am undecided at the moment, given that this might necessitate buying a new freezer. On a different food quest, I had hoped to pop in to the Hanna Korean supermarket on Store Street on the way home to buy some kimchi, but was disappointed to find that it was closed and, according to the notice on the door, under the care and protection of the bailiffs.

Enjoyed the civilised open-door ambience of the University of London buildings, cf others I have visited recently (see post of 24 February).

Wholefood collectives; West Country city breaks; Lindt fervour

Went for a c. 6km walk around Emmer Green the Saturday before last in a continuing attempt to get to grips with the distance counter on my new pedometer. Sure it can’t really be that complicated, but am struggling at the moment. En route, took in the new True Food Co-op Community Shop on Grove Road. The True Food Co-op hold weekly markets in different venues across Reading, which, typically, I have occasionally thought about going to, but never actually been to. They have recently – as of three weeks ago – opened a ‘community shop’ in Emmer Green, which is tucked away in an obscure little parade of shops near St Barnabas Church and I would have remained unaware of it had my boss Paul, one suspects a bit of a wholefoody type, not alerted me to its presence. A worthy endeavour though not sure how it will do. I had a bit of a wander around, giving some strangely-shaped carrots a wide berth. Decided I was OK for spelt and flax products, but to show support bought a packet of coffee, some organic corn cakes and some nettle tea, which apparently has a cleansing and purifying effect. Bring it on.

Small and exclusive Book Group gathering at Claire’s house last Wednesday to eat a very nice pasta salad (and a few other bits) and discuss Keith Ridgway’s novella Horses. For a short book it had sparked a variety of interpretations, one involving the ‘village idiot’-type character Mathew really being Jesus, which I can’t say had occurred to me as a possibility, unless Jesus was really stupid and wore ill-fitting trousers.

Ruth and I spent a pleasant couple of days on a mini ‘city break’ in Bristol for the first part of the Easter weekend. I had booked us in to the Premier Inn on King Street which turned out to be rather fabulously positioned right on the harbourside. We started off with a stroll across Castle Park and a couple of hours shopping in the new Cabot Circus shopping centre, triggered by Ruth’s quest for a pair of well-fitting jeans. We drew a blank on those, but did buy a few tops between us. Next up was a visit to the Blue Reef Aquarium - by the time we arrived we had missed the last showing in the IMAX 3D cinema, but the upside was that we got a relatively uncrowded walk around to look at the fishies and some other intriguingly weird creatures. It was pouring with rain when we emerged so we nipped into the Watershed for a drink and ended up staying to see a movie, Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes. We ended the day with dinner at the rather super half-afloat Spyglass.

We started Saturday by hopping onto a sightseeing bus intending to have a bit of a walk to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, but the inclement weather put us off that idea (the tour bus was largely empty except for us and a group of over-enthusiastic German tourists). We got off the bus in Clifton and had a hearty breakfast at the Clifton Bistro and a bit of a poke around the Clifton Arcade. The rain eased off sufficiently for us to have a bit of a walk around Clifton and a visit to Clifton Cathedral before tea and cake at the lovely Primrose Café and then heading back into the city. I paid a brief visit to the Imogen Stidworthy exhibition, part of the Arnolfini’s 'Lingua Franca' series: interesting in parts, though I’d dispute that the phrase ‘Get here!’ (as uttered by ill-bred harpies to their children) is unique to Liverpool. We dined at Loch Fyne before going to see another movie, Tom Ford's A Single Man (Ruth's payback for having to sit through Lourdes). Actually it was good and Colin Firth does at least seem to have stopped playing Mr Darcy. That lad from About A Boy has certainly grown into a bit of a hottie, if you like that kind of thing.

NB Premier Inns aren’t bad value for money and I do like their extra-large beds and flat screen TVs, but I’ve yet to find one that costs £29 a night, despite the advertising campaign. Maybe in Hull or similar.

Easter Sunday began with the discovery that my Easter display of colourful chicks had produced a large Lindt golden egg between them. This was followed by an exciting hunt for Lindt gold bunnies that Ruth had cunningly hidden around the house for me (see this one on top of the marmalade). Then went over to Ashbury for Sunday lunch at Ruth's aunt's house, via The Bear at Hungerford for tea while waiting for our lift. Quite nice; never been there before. After a sustaining lunch of roast lamb and sherry trifle we took the customary walk to see the ponies - I tend to steer clear of horses/ponies and their ilk so left Ruth to pet them while I tried, again unsuccessfully, to befriend Mona the farm cat.

Had a slightly bizarre but enjoyable picnic breakfast with Ray by the Thames in Pangbourne early on Easter Monday, before he went off to a job and I went for a walk. Tried to make good use of the Closure Day on Tuesday by going to the gym for the first time this year. Even went for a swim as well afterwards. That's me done for the next couple of months.

ASBO bunny; floating worktops; Blomkvist

Hired a car for the day on Saturday to do a carefully-planned list of jobs and retail park shopping. First on the list was to take the bunnies to the vets for some jabs. Lola proved easier to get into her cage, largely we think by dint of being dimmer and not seeing the impending captivity coming. Harley took some extraction from under the bed with a feather duster and then some cunning trickery to get him into his cage. He then worked himself into a tizz when the vet tried to examine him, scratched Ruth (again) and had to be taken off to a side room where the vet could try again with the help of his nurse – he was successfully given his myxi jab but the vet gave up the attempt to examine his teeth due to H’s excessive thrashing about (rabbits can, in theory at least, struggle so violently that they break their own backs). Lola luckily proved much better behaved. We carried Harley from the room in shame with the vet having put a note on his record to warn future examiners. He continued wound up while I was sitting with him while Ruth paid the bill, thumping violently on the floor of his cage and startling a large boxer dog on the other side of the waiting room. Eventually I took him out to the car, worried that the dog was starting to look agitated.

Next on the list was a round of retail parks in order to visit Pets at Home (Ruth disapproves of PaH because they sell actual pets as well as pet equipment, but they also sell a variety of litter that stops the entire house stinking of rabbit wee), Maplin electronics and B&Q, followed by a visit to the former Grovelands Garden Centre at Shinfield, now a ‘Dobbies’. Ruth bought several plants and a pot for her new olive tree, and I bought a stainless steel orb, thinking it might look artistic under the bamboo.

Went to the marina on Sunday to admire Ray's new oak worktops. The boat is really taking on quite a luxurious look. We had a pleasant lunch sitting in the prow and watched a grebe couple nest-building.

Made one of my reasonably infrequent visits to the cinema last night to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or, to use the original Swedish, Män som hatar kvinnor, which sounds altogether more threatening (as it well might, given that the Swedish name translates as ‘Men who hate women’). Excellently well done and atmospheric adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel – a few inevitable bits of licence taken with the book but not so much as to be annoying. The film does play down Blomkvist’s playboy side and the actor playing him, while not unattractive, was less dishy than I had imagined him while reading – but there you go; it’s not Mills & Boon, after all. The film manages to make the scenes of Swedish scenery, objectively attractive, appear bleak and foreboding.