Fermented cabbage; garden squares; local produce

A new Oriental supermarket has opened up on Friar Street that sells kimchi, so I have managed to obtain some following my unsuccessful attempt back in April. I forget the new shop’s name but there’s probably little point in remembering it as doubtless it won’t be long before it’s closed down and the owners do a runner overnight. Have also purchased a large packet for my parents, at Mum’s request, so it is currently festering in my fridge in readiness for when I see them next. Disconcertingly, though, the last time I returned to the shop, their kimchi supplies were apparently sold out and the man at the checkout claimed that there had been a big run on it, exclaiming “So popular!” and raising his arms in a 'what can you do' gesture. I hadn’t imagined that Reading would have a large army of kimchi fans, but was briefly cheered at the thought that the townspeople might be unexpectedly sophisticated. In reality, of course, the keen kimchi-munchers are likely to be overseas university students, rather than fat tattooed people from Whitley.

Spent a pleasant Friday in London with Ray on the 16th, in the main to have a look at two garden squares owned by the Cadogan Estates where Home Counties Turf Care have recently been employed to do some hard landscaping. We started the day with hot chocolate at the Marketplace Restaurant in Chelsea Farmers Market, the latter a faintly ludicrous name for the nice but hardly rustic collection of expensive shops and restaurants. I duly admired the new paths and edging in Cadogan Gardens and Hans Place and we popped in for a nose around St Columba’s Presbyterian Church of Scotland on Pont Street. We had intended to visit the Saatchi Gallery but discovered on arrival that it was closed for a private function, so we had a leisurely lunch instead at the Gallery Mess, the restaurant next door to the gallery that’s housed in the old Duke of York’s officers’ mess. The restaurant’s otherwise attractive interior is decorated with a number of neon installations, including a dodgy one of a woman on all fours with the word ‘Forgiveness’ (see this Independent review).

Had a lovely if expensive dinner with Ruth at Myalacarte on the 23^rd - I was aware that the restaurant makes a point of serving local produce where this is obtainable, but this did lead to some amusing descriptions on the menu, including one dish that came with ‘Basingstoke watercress’. I’m not sure that just calling it ‘watercress’ mightn’t have made it sound more appetising. We chuckled also at the 'mixed Goring Heath leaves'. Ordered the ‘pink carved Yattendon woodpigeon breast’ for my starter followed by fillet steak and treacle start and cream (which we accompanied with a dessert wine) before heading home for the blood pressure cuff. All delicious and beautifully presented so with hindsight my assessment of the restaurant last year might have been a tad harsh.

In an attempt to keep up with the young people, I have made the effort to master using predictive text, which is largely useful once you get the hang of it, but the phone does seem occasionally to possess an atypical vocabulary. I sent a recent text message to Ray part of which was supposed to read ‘… otherwise I will forward to your mum’s’. Using predictive text meant that what the phone wrote was ‘… otherwise I will forward to your nun’s’. Surely ‘mum’ has to be a more commonly used word than ‘nun’? Bizarre.

Brief pseudo gas leak excitement last Monday, when our team returned to the office after a work 'picnic' (held in meeting room due to rainy weather) and were alerted by a hissing noise coming from a pipe just above the entrance door and a gassy smell. Cue evacuation of building and standing around in the car park for an hour, while the university’s security services investigated. The upshot, ludicrously, was that the smell had not been gas but just stale air being forced through a pipe, and was part of a testing exercise being carried out on some of the pipework as part of the current building works. The testers hadn’t been sure where the end of the pipe was and had been going to judge that according to which group of staff panicked and fled their building. Doesn’t seem quite the best way of doing things.

On the way back from a meeting in London last Tuesday I visited The Building Centre on Store Street - never been there before but some quite interesting displays including the ‘Transforming the Boroughs’ project. Outside in the street, there appeared to be a 'We Love Store Street' celebration going on, apparently part of the London Festival of Architecture. Sweet.

Our chilli plant is producing quite a few quite large chillis. Difficult to know how much larger they’ll get but I’m assuming they are supposed to turn red at some point. The plant is just labelled Chilli Pepper (Hot), which doesn’t give much away. Harley did take a little bite out of one fruit before I could stop him, but didn’t appear to suffer any ill effects.

Sturdy TVs; meditation; afternoon tea

The news of the ‘end of the line’ for analogue TVs reminded me that I’ve been trying for a while to convince my 10-year-old 28” Beko TV that it’s coming to the end of its useful life, but it continues in robust health. Given that it wasn’t particularly expensive when I bought it, and it was a make I’d never heard of at the time, I’m quite impressed. I would quite like an excuse to buy a new flatscreen jobbie though so have been trying to drop hints to it, but thus far it has refused either to explode or to throw itself from its perch.

Have just had a pleasant few days off work, much of it spent aimlessly bumbling. On Thursday, took myself to Oxford for the day, using the bus for a change – takes longer than the train but cheaper and goes from Caversham. Went to visit Inner Space Oxford, an offshoot of the Global Retreat Centre mentioned in a previous post. Attended a lunchtime guided meditation session, involving sitting in rows in a white room staring at a large orange oval shape on one wall. Quite good although I had my usual problem of drifting off during guided meditations (see previous post), in this case recovering my concentration to discover that I was supposed to have left the physical realm and become pure light. Perhaps a tad advanced for beginners. On the way out I impulsively bought a DVD containing a selection of visual meditations, which I have been trying out this week. Lots of pleasant scenes of nature, inspiring messages etc. Bit naff but it does beat just sitting for 10 minutes attempting to focus on the breath but actually looking around the living room and checking watch.

Then went for a meander around the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, now that I can get in free – was inspired by recent visit to the Harcourt Arboretum to become a Friend of the Garden, as this apparently allows free entry not only to the Garden and Arboretum but also to Kew – as the entrance fee to Kew is about £13 this seemed quite a good deal.

Went up to the marina in the evening to see Ray and had a pleasant pasta dinner. Two boats in the narrowboat marina have acquired kittens, apparently from the same litter, which were scampering in and out of Ray’s boat in a fashion I thought quite cute, until one of them was sick on the floor.

On Friday, drove down to Herefordshire to spend a couple of days with Mum. Have discovered, among other things, that I am oblivious to the plight of suffering farm animals. Mum popped out to the local shop early on Saturday morning and I went to sit out on the patio with a magazine, but was disturbed by a sheep persistently bleating very close to the hedge, so after throwing a few words of abuse its way I eventually went inside. A couple of hours later, it dawned on us that it was staying in the same spot an awfully long time and, on investigating, Mum discovered that it had got its head stuck in the fence. She duly phoned the farmhouse and, a speedy 45 minutes or so later, the farmer arrived to release it.

Later in the day we went out for a short walk along the disused railway line from Llanfoist Crossing to the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal, a dinky little canal that is apparently completely landlocked and not connected to the rest of the canal system. It looked a lovely spot for a pleasant meander in a boat, although how you get a boat onto it from anywhere else is a bit of a mystery. After the walk we went for tea at the Llanwenarth Hotel near Abergavenny. We were restrained enough to order only one full tea (sandwiches; scones and cream; assortment of cakes) between us, with a couple of extra scones for good measure.

Later in the evening we cooked an interesting fusion supper of keema matar and Korean fried squash (ho-pahk juhn) made with a couple of courgettes from Dad’s garden. One of the courgettes had grown quite large and bulbous so was quite proud of myself for handling it. Now I just need Ruth to get rid of the really big potato that’s lurking at the back of the vegetable rack.

We also made a summer pudding (although all I did was boil the fruit) which turned out quite well. Took this picture immediately Mum had freed it from its bowl, in case it collapsed, but it held firm. Quite impressed.

On Sunday went for a last Sunday lunch at the farmhouse at Ashbury where Ruth's aunt has lived for the last 50 years, prior to her imminent move to a smaller house. Much of her packing had been done but Ruth managed to purloin quite a large number of posh-looking wine glasses, which I will no doubt break.

Had another day off on Monday which I mainly spent doing useful jobs (going to gym; sweeping debris off kitchen floor, etc). Was interrupted late afternoon by a lady conducting an Ipsos Mori survey (must get new front door with spyhole), which I reluctantly agreed to participate in - it ended up taking about 40 minutes due to a combination of the repetitive nature of the questions and her seeming lack of expertise with the technology she was using. Just when she had finally finished, Harley bounded in, ran over to her, stuck his head in her bag and then knocked the cable out of the back of her laptop. Cue several minutes of ‘oh dear, I think I’ve lost everything’, while I remonstrated with Harley somewhat unconvincingly and tried to simultaneously convey sympathy and impatience for her to leave. Eventually she left, saying that I was the first person this had happened with.

She also mentioned that she’d had quite a good result in our area with getting people to complete the survey. Made mental note to move to area where more of the residents have day jobs.

Jasmine; dentists; education events

Charmed that the jasmine growing around the front door has produced lots of attractively scented flowers recently. After the winter it was looking brown and crisp and Ruth was speculating, rather more hopefully than I thought kind, that it might be dead. But no. Look how pretty.

Graduation ceremonies took place last week so the campus was awash with young (surely, younger than they used to be?) students with, in some cases, elaborately overdressed family members. I think I managed to appear in a number of family photos while making my way along the cloisters on the way back from lunch.

Intrigued by the report of the appearance of Jesus on a drainpipe in Coventry, though I have to say it looks a slight stretch of the imagination to me. If this degree of imagination is required, I reckon a pair of discarded pants on the bedroom floor this morning was a dead ringer for the Virgin Mary.

Went for the usual thrice-yearly scrape and polish with hygienist last Thursday. I took the perhaps unprincipled decision to abandon NHS dentists about three years ago after being registered as an NHS patient in three different dental surgeries in Reading within the space of a few years: one decided to stop accepting NHS patients; the next was a shabby little hole containing an abrasive Greek bint whom I never remember cracking a smile, followed by a surgery in Caversham with a semi- abandoned air and a Vicky Pollard-like receptionist, where the dentist probably had an adequate grasp of English but preferred not to use any of it during the consultation, except for an "Ah! You need filling!" towards the end. At that point I decided I needed communication skills in addition to a second opinion (my previous, only, filling had been around 20 years earlier and I was a bit sceptical) so registered at a private dental practice. I'm sure their technical competence is no greater than NHS dentists (my new dentist confirmed that I did, indeed, need the filling) but their customer service and communication is infinitely better. Even the hygienist is a softened version of the ferocious Nazi witch prototype that I remember NHS hygienists fitting when I was younger. After the hygienist’s appointment, my dentist, a pleasant jolly woman who was undoubtedly head girl of her private school in a former life, told me, as usual, that my teeth were wholly uninteresting and threw in a jovial parting comment about flossing, before charging me £35 for the 5-minute consultation. This is the life. Next stop BUPA.

Spent last Friday at the National Strategic Skills Audit South East Regional Roadshow, which involved taking the train to Gatwick Airport and then getting a taxi to the Copthorne Hotel Effingham Gatwick which, despite the name, is only a short car drive involving a motorway journey from Gatwick Airport. No wonder the fare was £16. The hotel is a bizarre faux-Mediterranean affair with its own golf course, which was awash with elderly golfers – in fact my cab driver nearly took out one particularly doddery looking specimen on the way up the drive. The event itself was well organised though did involve the compere pleading with people during the welcome address not to bugger off after lunch what with the lure of it being Friday/sunny/Andy Murray playing at Wimbledon. Didn’t entirely work, given that each table sat 10 people and mine was down to 4 after the lunch break.

Ruth and I wandered briefly into Reading’s new branch of The Range on Saturday. According to their hyperbolic website, The Range’s wares range “from everything you’ve ever dreamt of to anything you could ever imagine”. In practice, it’s a bit like Hobbycraft combined with Matalan combined with Homebase. It does sell rabbit food, which could be useful. I spent 59p on a ‘Harvest Munch’ snack for the bunnies, which they have so far spurned. Here it is placed temptingly on the floor, plus Lola’s bottom as she hops past it.

Went to another event on Sunday, as I had volunteered a while ago to attend a day of the first-ever Sunday Times Festival of Education at Wellington College in Crowthorne. By the time the event came around, both the universities minister David Willetts and film mogul/founder of Skillset David Puttnam had pulled out, making it distinctly less relevant to Lifelong Learning Networks than it could have been. Bits of the day were interesting, though, and Kenneth Baker was good value. Spent a predictable portion of the day envying people who go to school in such surroundings. Here's one of the school buildings and a rather nice woody glade where I ate my lunch.
Managed to follow the wrong crowd of people on the way in to the College grounds and initially found myself in a gymnasium about to register for a chess tournament. Realised just in time. Phew.

Singing crusties; art students; snooping

Finally got around to emailing Alce Harfield about a possible painty canvas commission. Got a reply thanking me and saying she’ll deal with my enquiry as soon as she gets back from Glastonbury. Ah, the artist’s lifestyle.

Went up to the marina on Saturday evening to join Ray at the Berth Holders’ Bash – marquee; live music etc. One of the bands was formed of actual berth holders; the others were from outside. Music was OK though mainly covers of mainstream stuff; I had been expecting something rather more folky. Our tickets entitled us to food from the buffet, although the stuff that various cunning and well-organised people were cooking on their barbecues looked a lot nicer. The evening was considerably cooler than I (and evidently others) had been expecting – after an hour was forced to borrow some warm clothes so spent the rest of the evening in a Wasps fleece. I didn’t stay late enough to hear Ray’s permanently-inebriated neighbour John perform, but gathered later that he had been too drunk to go on in the end anyway.
On Sunday I persuaded Ruth to do a bit of the Whiteknights Studio Trail, a yearly event where, among other things, artists living in the vicinity of the University open their homes to visitors to exhibit their work. As a number of the houses are on streets that I wouldn’t mind living on, I’ve been meaning to go for the last few years and did my best to disguise from the artists the fact that I was blatantly more interested in casing their house and garden than in their artwork. We started off at the university visiting the Department of Fine Art’s Final Year Degree Show, which had stayed open for the Studio Trail weekend. Although I do try not to walk around exhibitions of contemporary art thinking ‘I could have done that myself’, some of the stuff did seem a bit lame, especially if it represented the culmination of three years’ work – it would have helped had there been a small paragraph next to each piece to give it some context. Scoff-worthy highlights included a large birdcage containing a television balanced on one corner; a slide projector projecting blanks onto a wall, cunningly titled ‘Untitled’, and a roomful of cardboard boxes glued to the walls, but the ultimate highlight was a video installation of two girls dressed in bikini tops and shorts throwing mud at each other. Godfrey informed me at work on Monday though that the latter sounded like performance art of a type popular around the late 1960s/early 1970s, so maybe there was some deliberate historical comment in there somewhere.

We were quite charmed by a large elephant made out of shredded paper glued together, although I accidentally put my hand on its trunk at one point and almost snapped it off. Never good to have to leave part of an exhibit at the front desk on the way out.
The University’s Fine Art department is housed in Temporary Office Building (‘TOB’) 1, one of several run-down wartime buildings occupying the Earley Gate side of the campus. The current VC has apparently expressed his desire to demolish them, but I think they have a certain charm, although they could do with a lick and a polish. Our team is due to be moving to one of them this November for the final eight months of our funding period, so I shall doubtless get to know them better.

After leaving the degree show, we visited the small wildlife garden on Whiteknights Road run by the Ridgeline Trust. On Sunday it was hosting an exhibition of local primary school children’s artwork, which we had a quick look at as well as a wander around the garden. After that, we visited three different houses on New Road (super leafy street of some lovely houses, although probably hell to park on) where I had a cursory look at the stuff on offer as well as a bit of a snoop at the property – attempted to perfect technique of appearing to look intently at a handmade necklace while actually looking out of the window into the garden. Ruth was chatted up by a woman with hairy legs and an inadequately-secured bicycle.

Had a successful weekend’s Freecycling, managing to offload a pedestal fan that had been lingering in the garage for a while, an office swivel chair and a particularly uncomfortable tubular steel chair (pictured) that I bought on eBay on a whim several years ago and then swiftly consigned to storage. Am now fired up to do some more de-cluttering. Then can buy more stuff.
The area between our office building and the building next to it was cleared earlier in the year in a few days of concerted destruction as part of the impending campus redevelopment, but now has grown into a rather lovely meadow-type area with colourful flowers. We are puzzled by this and are unsure whether it's intentional, or whether the redevelopment has just gone off the boil for the moment allowing weeds to thrive. Quite pleasant to look at, though.

NAGging; church jumble; plants

In one of my sporadic, and usually short-lived, attempts to become more involved with the local community, I attended a meeting of the Lower Caversham Neighbourhood Action Group (NAG) last Thursday evening. The meeting was a public meeting to set the NAG’s priorities for the next year, and all of us present were given little coloured post-it notes to stick on various flipcharts indicating those things we thought should be priorities. The categories were pre-chosen and included such obvious things as Burglary, Antisocial Behaviour etc. We also had a talk from Inspector Penny MacKenzie, head of the Neighbourhood Policing Team. As is the way of these things, some of the older NAG members present did seem to tread that fine line between ‘concerned citizen’ and ‘annoying busybody’. On my way in I was greeted by an enthusiastic elderly gentleman who shook my hand for longer than necessary while thanking me profusely for coming, and then proceeded to put his arm round me while saying to somebody else ‘look, a new member’. Was tempted to say that if he continued the body contact it would be the last meeting I attended, but as I have occasionally been reminded of the need to be more tolerant of eccentrics/weirdos, refrained.

On the subject of eccentrics, seem to keep running into our neighbour-from-a-few-doors-down Norman following my encounter with him back in March. As seems to be the way of gents of a certain age and ilk, he does seem to spend a lot of time hanging around outside his property indulging in low-level chitchat with passers-by. Am trying to perfect technique of greeting him cheerily while not slowing brisk pace, in manner of one clearly on the way somewhere important, though was forced to slow down long enough on one occasion for him to tell me I looked nice in my gym kit. He doesn’t seem to speak to Ruth so am feeling unduly hand-picked for his attentions at the mo. It has been pointed out to me that he is no doubt well-meaning but lonely, which is no doubt true, but still.
In an attempt to support local events Ruth and I wandered down the road to Caversham Methodist Church on Saturday to support something billed in the paper as a ‘summer market’ – an overblown term for what turned out to be a pretty lowbrow and poorly attended jumble sale. The main room featured a handful of depressed-looking people sitting behind tables offering used toys, bedlinen etc, none of which looked like something you’d be drawn to buy. We made a beeline for the food stall and I bought a jar of marmalade, while Ruth bought a bag of dry-looking rock cakes. We then tried to escape but unfortunately someone offered us a cup of tea as we were heading for the door, which we felt obliged to accept. There did turn out to be books for sale in the main church itself, which redeemed the event a bit. The man in charge of the book stalls informed us that all religious books were free, but I refrained from taking any and paid 30p for a copy of ‘What Not To Wear’, which has occasional useful tips scattered among Susannah Constantine’s repeated banging on about her flabby arms.
Along with WNTW we picked up a small pamphlet published by The People's Friend in 1978 entitled Your Money Saving Diary, which includes a sobering list of money-saving tips, including how to salvage a cracked egg by rubbing the crack with dripping before putting the egg into water, and using the inner bags of cereal packets to line cake tins. Thrifty stuff.
We went over to Arborfield again on Sunday to check on the progress of Gail and Rob’s kittens (still cute). Gail then kindly drove us around to look at plants and pots, including a trip to the lovely Pudding Lane Nursery - plants laid out in attractive garden that one can meander through, with pleasing absence of the extraneous tat that garden centres feel obliged to sell in addition to plants (ghastly figurines; fridge magnets with inspirational sayings; giant ceramic blue tits etc – NB anybody in search of the latter should try the Henry Street Garden Centre). We bought several more grasses and a couple of large terracotta pots, one of which is now homing the oleander Dad gave me a few years ago.

Sticking with plants, have noted new growth on my spider plant at work. Bought this about a year ago in Homebase, on the grounds that it was a manky-looking specimen that I feared no one else would buy - probably not a sound basis on which to choose a plant, but I felt sorry for it. Have been feeding it for the past few weeks using a plant feed Ruth mixed for me. Feel nurturing and almost maternal.

As part of current attempt to get rid of backache by toning up core muscles etc, returned to Pilates on Tuesday evening, over a year after having done the original beginners course. Can feel stomach muscles today so assume it must have been doing something. Still sticking with gym routine, but have convinced Frazer that no, I don’t need to ‘up’ the routine quite yet, as am still struggling to do five minutes on the crosstrainer. Have a nasty feeling he is contemplating adding dumbbells to my squats.

Iron-pumping; tofu; waterborne hazards

Have resigned my membership of revive in the hope of getting a better value gym experience at Caversham Health and Fitness. CHF doesn't have a pool, unfortunately – but then in fairness I’d hardly used the pool in the last six months. On the up side, it’s half the cost and offers a number of different classes, including things with intimidatingly energetic names such as 'Pump' and 'Body Combat'. Had an induction last week from Frazer, an enthusiastic young lad who uses the term "awesome" a lot. We have established that I need core muscle strengthening and have thus been sentenced to a round of squats, lunges and planks 2-3 times a week as well as cardio.

Have resolved not to invest in any serious gym kit until I’ve been at it for a month, so for the time being am wearing a baggy black T-shirt and a pair of stripey leggings (see right), which according to Ruth make me look like a jester.

Earlier this week stir-fried, as I often do, some Cauldron marinated tofu pieces, and was amused to read on the back of the packet an invitation to visit Cauldron’s website and ‘share your tofu experiences’. Naively, I would have thought there were limits to the range of experiences one can have with tofu, but perhaps it has applications I’ve not thought of. Here’s what Cauldron, producers of ‘mouth-watering vegetable based foods’, to quote their website, have to say about tofu. You can even read the story of tofu, if you’re keen enough.

A minor barney with one of the construction workers under the railway bridge last Thursday led to a pithily-phrased complaint to both the construction company and to Reading Borough Council. Was somewhat surprised to receive an apologetic phone call from the council later that afternoon, who gave me a slightly over-detailed explanation of the various issues with the works. By the evening, there was improved signage and a contraflow under the bridge. Felt briefly all-powerful, before discovering that evidently others had been complaining too.

We went for a lovely dinner on Ray’s boat on Saturday night – pleasing that it was actually warm enough to sit outside, although the downside is that we were mobbed by mosquitoes. Am lucky in not reacting too badly to mosquito bites; one of Ruth’s legs swelled up on Monday to - so it was claimed – almost twice its normal thickness. She diagnosed Skeeter syndrome and hurried off to Boots, who sent her to the Reading Walk-in Health Centre in the Broad Street Mall, who advised that it would be an hour’s wait before triage, so she decided to skip that and self-medicate with a glass of Pinot Grigio. The swelling seems to have subsided now.

While at the marina we were able to observe the savagery of waterfowl hierarchy, as a goose couple and their cute fleet of seven or so goslings were mobbed by one of the two resident black swans, who apparently are undeniably top dog. One of the adult geese nobly sacrificed itself and led the swan away allowing the young ones to feed. Almost brought a tear to the eye.

As often happens at the start of months where I've vowed to go on an economy drive, seem to have already found myself going out for a couple of substantial feeds. On the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend, went for Sunday lunch with Ruth and her aunt at The Bear at Hungerford - never eaten there before but was dead impressed, though it isn't cheap. Although I seldom order roasts, ordered roast beef on a whim, which was excellent, with a pleasing absence of overcooked everything and dark brown Bisto-style gravy. On Tuesday we had a team lunch at LSQ2 to celebrate Ann's sixtieth birthday, and had squid stuffed with chorizo - not a combo I've tried before but most pleasing. Rumour has it that the restaurant isn't doing too well, which is a shame although not entirely surprising - it's probably a bit upmarket for its setting. Intend now to eat baked beans for a few days.

Have decided to further embrace whiteness in the garden in a probably misguided attempt to achieve a Mediterranean look - thanks to Ruth's efforts at the weekend, the supporting wall around our tiny patio is now also white. Harley assisted by climbing into the chimenea and then trampling ash over the ground floor.

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.