August round-up

Met up with Helen the first Saturday in August for one of our as ever long overdue catch-ups. We had lunch in the branch of Byron at the Central Saint Giles Piazza, before making our way over to the British Museum - I had been devoid of cultural ideas so Helen had noted the free exhibition of Francis Towne watercolours. I had never heard of Towne but he seems to have painted a lot of pictures of Italy during a jaunt there in the 1780s. On arrival at the museum, we had to queue to go through what seemed to be a mammoth bag-checking operation in a specially erected tent in front of the museum. Can only assume heightened levels of security for some reason – whether connected to the previous week’s attack in nearby Russell Square I wasn’t sure.

Once inside, we opted for a general browse around some of the galleries before seeking out the Towne exhibition, though as it was a hot day we found ourselves spending a lot of time intently studying the exhibits that happened to be near the pedestal fans dotted about. The Towne watercolours were in room 90 in the Raymond and Beverley Sackler Wing, which, blessedly, was air-conditioned, meaning that we spent perhaps more time in it than we would otherwise have done. We had tea in the Great Court Restaurant before Helen had to run off to get her train back to Feltham as she and Greg were intending to travel to Tunbridge Wells later that evening. I inexplicably went to the Speedo shop in Covent Garden and bought a swimsuit, which I intend wearing as soon as I’ve lost a stone and a half.

View down to the Terrace Gardens

Ruth and I spent the second weekend in August on a two-night Secret Escapes break at the Richmond Hill Hotel. We arrived mid-afternoon on the Saturday, slogged up Richmond Hill in some heat and checked in, before going out again for a wander around the Terrace Gardens and looking down at the famous view which is apparently the only view in England to be protected by an Act of Parliament. This seems a bit disproportionate, surely – it’s a nice view but there are many such around the country. Just a reflection of the many rich/influential people who’ve lived in the area? On returning from the park I went for a relaxing swim and steam room session at the Cedars Health Club just behind the hotel.

On the Sunday morning we did a walk that I’d found in 'Walking Village London', starting by walking down Nightingale Lane past the splendid/monstrous (depending on your view of Victorian Gothic architecture) Petersham Hotel and walking to the ludicrously posh village of Petersham – never seen so many thumping great houses in a small area. Visited St Peter’s Church briefly (churchyard only as there was a service on) before walking to the neighbouring village of Ham. Crossed Ham Common, stopping for a while by the pond for Ruth to photograph some ducks, and made our way down Ham Street (where we were very excited to see a Huf Haus going up) past Ham House to the Thames Path. Walked back along the river to Richmond and had lunch at the Old Ship. Wandered round the shops for a while after lunch and Ruth bought two rings from Eastern Adornment. In the evening we had a nice dinner at Adesso, a Sicilian restaurant further down Richmond Hill. On the Monday morning we had a walk in Richmond Park before heading back to Reading.

Trees in Richmond Park

The hotel was OK – plus sides: friendly staff, nice though small room (a Hill Collection Double on the ground floor), Sky TV, nice steak dinner on the Saturday night. Downsides: ludicrous wine mark-up in the restaurant, atmosphere-free bar with big screen TV showing the Olympics, disappointing breakfast buffet, odd ensuite arrangement with a frosted glass wall on one side which coupled with the unfortunate positioning of a mirror enabled a bird’s eye view of your partner on the toilet.

The front at Paignton

Spent the following weekend down in Devon as part of a Book Group deputation to visit Claire for the August meeting, following her relocation to Newton Abbot back in February. I took the train down early on the Saturday morning, joining Helen, Alison and Ali who’d already arrived by car. Claire took us on a tour of nearby coastal towns thanks to a Torbay Dayrider bus ticket, starting off in Torquay, where we walked along the front a bit and ate ice creams, then on to Paignton, where we spent a couple of hours holed up in The Boathouse - Claire had planned this as a spot for us to wait out the storm that had confidently been forecast, but in the event it remained sunny. Helen ordered a cream tea and the rest of us picked at some snack food. After this we walked through Paignton to catch the bus again to Brixham, where we had a drink in The Blue Anchor and discussed the August book, Natsuo Kirino’s Out. After this we walked via the pretty harbour along to the Breakwater Bistro, where we had a lovely fish dinner seated at a table with a great view of the bay. Took the bus back to Newton Abbot and viewed Helen’s photos of her recent open water swimming holiday in Lithuania.

Brixham

View from Scout Point

The others left around 11am on the Sunday and Claire drove herself and me to visit Coleton Fishacre. The 1920s house is attractive-looking from the outside but we decided against going in, opting instead for a walk around the grounds despite the on-off rain. Very pretty grounds with some lovely viewpoints, albeit it was unfortunately not a clear day. The grounds border the South West Coast Path and you can look down to Pudcombe Cove, though the former access to the cove is now blocked off.  Had a look at a couple of things through Claire’s binoculars and pondered whether I might buy my own at some point. After a cream tea and some fat-chewing, Claire drove me to Dartmouth via the cute little car ferry from Kingswear. We parked up in Dartmouth and walked around the pretty little town, taking in Bayard's Cove Fort and and finishing with a waterside pint.

Dart estuary from Dartmouth

Over the two days we saw several rhinos that are evidently part of Paignton Zoo's Great Big Rhino Project, including this one - 'Rupert' - at Coleton Fishacre. Also this one in Paignton.

Ali, me, Claire and Alison behind a rhino

On the Monday morning we had a walk around Newton Abbot and back to Claire’s house via a pretty walk along the little River Lemon. Browsed in various charity shops and a New Agey shop where Claire bought me a ‘goldstone’ bracelet. On investigation, goldstone is not a natural material but a type of glass, but is quite pretty. Apparently, Goldstone is believed to bring luck to people who have the star sign of Leo. Leo is indeed my star sign, though I don’t have much interest in astrology.  This crystals site claims the following for goldstone:

Goldstone is said to help attain one's goals. Goldstone is also said to help one stay calm and stabilize the emotions. It can be used as an energy generator and can deflect unwanted energies, making it used as a protection stone. It is also used for long distance healing and revitalizing one's energy field.

That’s a lot of potential benefits. Must wear it often.

Returning to the book: I quite enjoyed Out, a Japanese crime novel about four women who become embroiled in dismemberment and other shady dealings after one of them murders her husband. There's an interesting interview with Natsuo Kirino here, noting that she started out writing romance novels before a seemingly rather dramatic change of genre.

Spent this last weekend at Mum and Dad's, coincidentally in the company of Ray who'd also picked that weekend to arrange a visit to them. We all had a walk along the Usk on Saturday followed by a visit to Dad's allotment, where we contemplated quite a number of courgettes that have now grown into marrows. Mum and Dad seem to have decided that they don't have a use for them and they'll have to be composted. I think I remember cooking stuffed marrow once, but it was decidedly uninteresting, so I didn't volunteer to take any.

On Sunday morning I took Ray for a walk from the Llanfoist Crossing car park along the disused railway line and then back along the canal. We were joined for a cottage pie lunch by Hannah and Henry and by Dave and the girls, followed by Mum and Nia appearing with a surprise birthday cake for me and a symbolic single candle. After lunch Ray had a rousing game of football with Nia which she allegedly won by a quite incredible hundred-and-something goals to his one. I participated briefly and tried to invoke the offside rule at one point, but didn't push it in case Nia challenged me on it.

Returned to Milton Keynes yesterday. Disquieting realisation that it's September on Thursday. Where has the year gone, etc.

June musings

June mixed and rainy so far. Some impressive rainfall in Milton Keynes lately, accompanied variously by thunder and flash-flooding, with inevitable long traffic jams. An entire stretch of grid road was closed last week due to flooding – bizarre.

Well, today is EU referendum day. Headed to Milton Keynes Christian Foundation this morning to vote, half expecting a long queue, but there was only one person ahead of me. Perhaps they were all biding their time until later. As a memento of this historic day, here's Google's reminder:

Looking back to the previous entry: the damp treatment to the living room external wall did indeed delay the living room project a bit, though it has been delayed longer than necessary by a) the fact that it’s us; b) our plasterer Mark has been injured, plus is also in the process of moving to Norfolk. Tried to think quickly what else we might need plastered before he goes. The damp treatments were carried out by a very nice man (whose name I've forgotten) from Thames Valley Preservation Ltd. Luckily I don't think we're afflicted by wood boring insects, but we know who to go to if and when.

As of last week the rest of the plastering is now done. As, after much to-ing and fro-ing, Ruth decided against installing a woodburning stove (for which I am profoundly thankful – had had visions of being obliged to strip down to underwear in order to sit comfortably in the living room), we got the inside of the fireplace plastered as well, which looks dead smart. It was still a bit damp when Ruth took this picture to send me, but the idea's there.

Next job is painting: I agreed a while ago to have a colour other than white (my default) on the living room walls, as Ruth thought a darker colour would look cosier (can’t decide whether to file the notion of ‘cosy’, along with ‘character’, in my list of poisoned interior decorating concepts). However, inevitably, it’s been a job fixing on one: I agreed to a tasteful earth tone, following which Ruth changed her mind and tried to sell me on slate grey, which I was initially doubtful about but which have now come round to, with the inevitable result that she’s now changed her mind and is trying to argue for a darkish blue. I don’t care for blue as a decorating colour, but am inclined to agree to it just in the interests of getting the job done – and also because the trade off is (and I'm recording this in writing) that I get sole choice over the dining room décor.

Our planned whole week boat trip next week has been scaled down, largely because Ray is understandably behind with his refurb due to having to work lots of weekends recently. His employer Lawrence has decided to sell his house near Hurley and move to Poole, so there has been lots to do prepping the property for any interested viewers who can afford five million pounds. Ruth and I went over a few Saturdays ago to visit his place of work and admire the immaculate gardens. Here he is in a couple of poses on the property. The plan is for him to work on the boat Saturday through to Tuesday and for us to go out up the Thames (as opposed to along the Kennet & Avon) for a few days from Wednesday.

Ruth and I went up to London on Saturday morning to visit a few places as part of Open Garden Squares weekend (photos here). Arrived a bit later than we intended as we discovered on arrival at Reading station that all the fast trains to Paddington appeared to be cancelled, presumably connected to Thursday's derailment. We duly got on a slow train, which took about an hour, and were surprised to be passed en route by several fast trains. Pondered deceitful nature of Reading’s departure screens.

After breakfast at Carluccio’s we took the Jubilee Line south from Baker Street to Canary Wharf to visit the roof garden at Crossrail Place that was opened in 2015 (the planting's now a good deal lusher than in the photos in the link).

Roof garden at Crossrail Place

We retraced our steps one stop on the tube to Canada Water, where we emerged into a part of London new to both of us and attempted to find Lavender Pond Nature Park, another garden on the route, apparently built on the site of a pond that was used for floating timber when the docks were active in that area (I didn't know anything about the Surrey Commercial Docks, but there's some blurb here.) After what seemed like a lot of walking through housing developments, we did eventually locate it, though it was a bit underwhelming – but in fairness it looked like there was some work going on to the boardwalks.

View towards Canary Wharf

From there we walked to join the Thames Path and looked at the river for a bit, all looking splendidly choppy and tidal. Looked across the river to Limehouse and kind of hoped that Ray doesn’t ever attempt to take his narrowboat out on to the river there, though I know you can only do it at certain times of day and accompanied by a pilot etc etc.

We walked westwards along the river for a bit towards the Brunel Museum, which has a garden that was also part of the weekend. On the way, passed one of the quite attractive little round brick buildings (one of two, I believe) housing the now-closed spiral staircases leading down into the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Apparently pedestrians can still walk through the tunnel, though I can’t imagine it’s too pleasant - see these blog entries here and here.

The final garden we visited ended up being the Garden Barge Square at Downings Roads Moorings. An amazing place - they claim to be London's only floating gardens. Access was a bit blustery and wobbly - we were warned by the guides to hold onto the railings - and the walkways are so narrow that more time was spent trying to avoid other people than actually looking at the planting.

View across the Garden Barges

We took the train back to Reading after two slow bus journeys back from the Tower Bridge area to Paddington - we had the bad luck to get on two buses in succession that both announced changes of destination en route. Once back in Reading, we went for dinner at ASK Italian where they seem to now serve half bottles of wine in these adorable little round carafe things.


The OU noticeboard continues periodically to amuse, in a cheap and childish sort of way:

Longer than planned walk around Caversham

26 March 2016; 6.23 miles

This started out as a Saturday stroll from the house with Ruth but ended up surprisingly long. Walked through central Caversham and into Caversham Court Gardens. Went up through St Peter's churchyard and along The Warren for a bit, before turning into Boundary Lane, an unmade road with some quite nice properties on including 'Catalpa'.

Boundary Lane

Emerged onto Upper Warren Avenue and walked to the end, bearing right onto Blagrave Lane. Turned briefly onto Jacksons Lane and then took a footpath leading off to the left (about point (2) on the map above), at Ruth's suggestion though I warned her it would make the walk longer.

The path brought us out onto the larger path that leads from the end of The Warren to Mapledurham. We turned right and walked as far as the crossroads, where we turned right and then bore right again up the hill and past Delta Force. Took the footpath back across the golf course and onto Blagrave Farm Lane to come out onto the Woodcote Road. Made our way back into Caversham, a bit knackered by this point.

Looking uphill from path heading NW towards Mapledurham. Chazey Wood at top.

January round-up

Ruth's birthday on 3 January ended up being a bit understated as we were still stripping wallpaper. We had booked to go to dinner at Myalacarte, but cancelled in the end so that we could continue stripping longer and not have to finish early to wash, don frocks etc. I think we had a Domino’s pizza. The glamour.

Also on 3 Jan we dropped off Harley for a week’s stay at Reading Rabbit Rescue in order that he’d be out of the plasterer’s way (being a bit too prone to showing interest and hopping about dangerously under people’s feet). Sandra again raised the question of whether we were intending to get another companion for him, and we raised concerns that she’d have to be a female who wouldn’t bully him and banish him from the ground floor as per Willow. Sandra then, quite kindly, voiced her opinion that Harley is “a little bit of a sex pest”, and that some of his rougher treatment by females might essentially have been asked for. We felt similarly to how parents must feel who have been claiming to the headteacher that their child is being put upon by other children, only to be told their child is in fact a bit of a sod. Sandra mooted the idea of possibly pairing Harley with a younger female who had been neutered early, the theory being that such a female would not achieve full typical female dominance, unlike a female such as Willow who had come to full maturity prior to being spayed. Sandra did show us a few young females she had in, who were indeed cute, but Ruth was undecided so we didn’t push it. As at the time of writing she appears still undecided.

I returned to work on 4 January leaving Ruth in the company of Mark the plasterer. Returned home on 8 January to attend a hospital gynaecology clinic appointment, at Townlands Hospital in Henley. I was mildly surprised to discover Townlands was even still open, but indeed it is and appears to be undergoing a major refurb. The clinic – along with a few other clinics – was operating out of a portacabin, but the receptionist and other staff appeared to be coping admirably. Spent a mere 15 minutes or so with the consultant, Miss Vijayanand, who has referred me for another hysteroscopy under general anaesthetic, currently scheduled for 22 February. Apparently I also had the previous one in 2009 under her team, though I think I must have seen her underlings on that occasion.

Lodge of Friar Park with blue sky behind

The day of my appointment at Townlands was a gorgeous wintry morning such as we have had precious few of this winter. Stayed in Henley for a while after the appointment, going for an initial short walk, then for a second breakfast at Patisserie Valerie, then for a second slightly longer walk, by which time the day was dulling a bit. Enjoyed walking around Henley again though. Strange to imagine that I lived there now – seems such a long time ago. Tempus fugit, etc.

River near Marsh Lock

Mark has, as ever, done a beautiful job of plastering, though with the teensy hitch that the living room external wall appears to have a damp problem, which he reckoned we should get sorted before he plastered it. He gave Ruth contact details for two damp specialists, one of whom we now have a quote from. Slightly tedious as the necessary treatment of removing the existing plaster and applying whatever medication is required will delay the living room project for a while.

Still, here's the living room chimney breast, pre-plastering on the left and post-plastering on the right. The debate over whether or not to install a wood-burning stove (or, in our case, smokeless fuel-burning stove) is still ongoing, with me maintaining that the room is far too small, I hate the faux country cottage look and the house isn't cold enough, plus it would mean displacing Herbert, our dead classy Buddha head, while Ruth maintains that real fires are cosy and apparently I Just Don't Do Cosy. This usually leads to me countering that she doesn't understand tidy and clutter-free, and things descend from there. I have, in fact, given in on this one, in the interests of stopping having conversations about it, and said that she can have a woodburner installed provided she pays for it. To date, the process of choosing one is still ongoing though.


Prior to plastering, Ruth and I briefly considered trying to remove the hallway and living room radiators ourselves and duly watched a couple of YouTube ‘how to’ videos. Realised we needed shut-off caps for the TRVs, and tried to find the ones we’d presumably been given at the time the radiators were fitted. Couldn’t find them – Ruth has a nasty feeling she may have chucked them. Went to Screwfix to try to buy some more, but bought the wrong size. Eventually Ruth cracked and rang Aqua-King, the company who fitted both our boiler and the radiators, to come and take them off at the same time as doing a boiler service. They did, didn’t have the right cap and managed to flood the living room carpet. FFS. We might as well have tried it ourselves.

As a belated 50th birthday present for Ray, Ruth and I bought him a little fan that sits on top of his stove and blows warm air from the stove around the boat. I’d never heard of these and was a bit sceptical, but he seemed pleased with it claiming that he has heard good things about them from other boaters. He called later the day we delivered it to say that his bedroom appeared warmer than usual, so there we are. Here he is sticking his fingers in it, in possibly ill-advised fashion.

As of January, Ruth and I have taken out a joint membership of the National Trust, at my suggestion – she is considerably less enthusiastic about it and considers it a mark of staid middle-age. I pointed out that Hannah and Henry are NT members, but not sure this was regarded as a particularly convincing argument. Our membership came with a free gift of an absurdly tiny pair of binoculars, seen here next to a biro. We haven’t yet attempted to use them to spot any birds through - indeed I am not a natural bird-spotter, being far too impatient - but perhaps that may come. Eager to make a start at using our membership, I drove us to our nearest NT property, Greys Court, an attractive Tudor house between Reading and Henley, on Saturday 16th. We didn't go into the house, preferring a walk around the grounds as it was a beautiful day. The house doesn't have extensive parkland but has some attractive walled gardens, though they were naturally looking a bit understated in mid-January. Ruth is keen to return later in the spring to see the walled gardens again, which I am regarding as a first minor NT success. Now, of course, we just have to make good use of our membership by going to loads more properties.

Greys Court

Day in London with Ruth on Saturday 23rd. Caught the 205 over to the Old Street area and called first on Ruth’s intermittent boss Patrick and his girlfriend Barbara, who live in a flat on one of the side streets off Old Street. Patrick was Ruth’s line manager during her stint at HCT Group and, coincidentally, is again managing her during her current contract with Voiceability. Patrick – an American, though evidently something of an Anglophile – seems a very nice chap; indeed I have since taken to checking that Ruth is being nice to him, to a point where she may be regretting having introduced us.

Tea at Barbican Kitchen

After leaving their flat we made our way over towards the Barbican, via lunch at The Iskele on Whitecross Street. Lunch was underwhelming and somewhat indigestible – though perhaps I just chose the wrong thing – but we did like the décor with the lovely coloured lanterns.

We had gone to Barbican to see the exhibition ‘The World of Charles and Ray Eames’, though in the event we bodged it a bit – after paying the £14.50 to get in, we managed to fail to notice that the exhibition had a whole upper floor, so only got about half of our money’s worth. What we saw was interesting, though not all very accessible to people not already pretty expert on the Eameses and their activities. Ruth's and my knowledge of them pretty much extended to the famous lounger, so I was interested to see the photos of the houses they'd been involved in building, including their own. By the time we’d made it through the ground floor rooms we were, admittedly, flagging a bit – possibly due to lunch – and went for a cup of tea at Barbican Kitchen, before returning to Paddington via a brief visit to Heal's and Habitat on Tottenham Court Road.

January ended on a sad note with Uncle Dan’s death on 19th, followed by attendance at the funeral on Friday 29th at Westerleigh Crematorium. As I had already arranged to visit Mum and Dad for the Saturday and Sunday, took the Friday off work and incorporated this into the weekend. Set off, as often happens, rather later than I intended so having to abandon my tentative plan of visiting a National Trust property en route to start getting my money’s worth. The crematorium thankfully proved easy to locate, being not far from junction 18 of the M4. Met up with the parents, Dave, Hazel, Hannah and Henry, and we lurked in an ante room until Uncle Dan’s wife Jean and my cousins Owen and Robyn, plus their partners, joined us.

The short service featured two hymns, Lord of all Hopefulness and Cwm Rhondda – as Dan’s family had kept the numbers to immediate family only (in fact Dad had been obliged to check with Robyn that his offspring were actually invited) we only filled the first two rows, so the pallbearers filed into the row behind to flesh out the singing. This was a good thing though a little startling, and I had to struggle not to meet Hannah’s eyes at points or there would have been a risk of inappropriate sniggering. After the service, Jean and the others vanished to a nearby pub, and as only Mum and Dad had been officially invited to join them, the rest of us hung around briefly not too sure whether we should go along – eventually we decided against it and Dave, Hazel and I drove to a pub we’d passed on the way in and had a drink there.

After we parted I headed for the Premier Inn at Cribbs Causeway, where I had booked Ruth and myself in for the night, and successfully arrived with only minimal veering wildly across lanes waving at other drivers. I had arranged to pick Ruth up from Bristol Parkway and chose that evening to experiment with the satnav facility of Google Maps. As satnavs tend to do, it chose a route that was probably the most direct but not necessarily the easiest to someone not familiar with the city – the journey of what can only have been a few miles took me what seemed like a good 20 minutes of missing a crucial slip road and carrying on towards the centre of Bristol, finding somewhere to turn round and then doing the whole thing again, not helped by darkness and heavy rain. On about the third attempt I managed to be in the correct lane to take the slip road and sometime later actually managed to pull into the station forecourt, where I erroneously turned into the taxi rank, to immediate protest from taxi drivers, left and pulled into the bus station, yelling at Ruth – whom luckily I had spotted – to hurry up and get in. Left the station possibly on two wheels and managed to retrace the route back to the hotel, where I calmed down after a large glass of wine. We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant due to the rain and lack of familiarity with our surroundings.

The following morning we drove to the nearby Portway Park and Ride and took the bus into the city centre, where I went to meet Hannah for coffee and Ruth stayed on the bus as far as Cabot Circus for a spot of shopping. Spent a pleasant couple of hours with Hannah at the Boston Tea Party on Whiteladies Road, before walking back down into the city and locating Ruth in Waterstones. Headed to Abergavenny around midday and spent the afternoon at Mum and Dad’s – the plan had been for the four of us to have dinner at Abergavenny’s new branch of Prezzo on the Saturday evening, but Ruth managed to contract some sort of 24-hour stomach bug and ended up staying in the house, so Mum, Dad and I went on our own. Restaurant was certainly busy that evening so I hope it does well.

We got this flyer through the door recently from the estate agents Philip Baker. Personally I would be hoping to get a bit more than that for the house. Think this may need some re-wording.

Christmas, New Year etc

Still catching up from Christmas. Have to go with when the muse strikes.

Amused, while browsing Waitrose’s array of Christmas produce, to see this product labelled ‘Christmas mashed potato’. It appeared to be in fact mashed potato, sans any additional cranberries, holly or similar. Didn’t look to see whether they also had Christmas washing powder, tampons etc.

Spent Christmas this year at Mum and Dad’s with the family, which was lovely though a veritable slew of present-opening and three-year-old excitement. Here’s Dave lighting the pudding, failing to impress Alys who’d obviously seen something much more interesting in the garden. Nia got a pair of Anna and Elsa dolls, amid a good deal of other Frozen merchandise, and carried them and her new Olaf doll around with her for much of the time she was there.

On Boxing Day we went out for a bit of a walk down to the river meadows (the river Usk impressively full) and back via the Linda Vista Gardens and the Hen & Chickens for a Boxing Day drink. Nia made her feelings known at one point by lying down in the middle of the meadows and refusing to go on, but was eventually persuaded by Nanna. Alys was adorably smiley for the whole walk despite it apparently running way into her nap time. 

Boxing Day drink at the Hen & Chickens

Set off on 27 December to Milton Keynes to check on my flat, rather prompted by the holiday burglary post-Christmas in 2013, though as my current rented place is on the second floor I’m hoping it’s rather more secure. Everything was indeed fine. Was joined later in the day by Ruth who, after months of frankly somewhat trying indecision over what she was going to do for Christmas, had made a late decision to go to her parents’ home in Norfolk. In the event it had evidently all worked out OK, helped by her mother having had friends visiting for a majority of the time.

We returned to Reading the following day and began a marathon of clearing the living room and hallway and then stripping wallpaper in readiness for Mark the plasterer, whom Ruth had booked in for 4 January. It turned out to be indeed a marathon task – the hallway paper came off easily but the living room proved a lot more troublesome, and we had to face the challenge of how exactly to strip the paper from the stairwell. Ruth managed part of it via ladder – being slightly squeamish about heights I refused to do it, so fair play to her – and we accomplished the rest by rigging up a sort of platform of a board across ladder and stairs, such as should never be seen by either of our mothers.

Discussed who should play us in any future documentary warning of the dangers of DIY. My suggestion that I should be played by Claire Danes was rudely received; Ruth’s counter-suggestion of Dawn French was equally rudely received by me. Ruth briefly toyed with having Janet McTeer play her, but then we decided that JMcT is tall enough probably not to need the ladder in the first place.

Met Jude for coffee in Starbucks on 30 December – hadn’t seen her since the last Progress South Central get-together I attended, which must be two or three years ago now. Jude is still working at Reading, as a Health & Safety Administrator, and currently has one of the university-owned flats, which sounds a reasonable deal. We had a very enjoyable catch-up over two absurdly large mugs of hot chocolate. In the evening, Ruth and I went for a drink with our neighbours at number 47, Kris and Laura. Kris, who seems a very friendly chap, has mooted the idea of a drink before and it’s never come off, so kudos to him for persevering. We braved the Fox & Hounds at the bottom of Westfield Road, a pub I’d never been into in the now ten years I’ve lived in the house in Caversham. It was a bit rough round the edges but perfectly pleasant and we had an enjoyable few drinks – Kris seemed up for making a bit more of a night of it but I wasn’t really up to that.

The Fox & Hounds’ main claim to fame is that John Lennon and Paul McCartney once performed there in 1960 as The Nerk Twins, before they were famous (apparently the pub used to be owned by McCartney’s cousin). Not sure whether that Beatles-inspired ale has yet been created.

Met Claire at The ex-Hobgoblin now-Alehouse on New Year’s Eve for an afternoon drink. Being much more of a party gal than I am, Claire was heading out that evening to the Rising Sun with Alison to see Dolly and the Clothespegs. I headed home to, as I generally do, stay in for the evening - I think we cooked and then probably watched something, but I forget what. Like the idea of going away for New Year, preferably somewhere remote by a lake, mountains etc, but never get around to actually thinking about it in time. Perhaps next year. Maybe.

Written pre-Christmas but published a bit late

Some seasonal decorations now up at the house, including this one of my two small artificial Christmas trees. Ruth subsequently set up the second of the trees in the living room, claiming that I had used all my favourite decorations on the first one and not used any of hers. Quite right. Also these lights at the flat.

At this stage am feeling reasonably prepped for Christmas, though still have some last minute cooking to do at Mum’s. Among the slew of pre-Christmas magazines and gift catalogues, came across Museum Selection, full of an assortment of variously nostalgic and patriotic gifts, including ‘The Little Book of Whittling’, apparently an introduction to creating ‘useful and whimsical objects using a pocketknife, twigs and time’. Have a feeling it might take me quite a lot of time to create anything useful, or indeed whimsical. The catalogue also features a charming-sounding – presumably ironic?? – book titled All The Countries We’ve Ever Invaded (featuring interviews with grateful natives?), plus other books with titles along the lines of Reminders of Yesteryear, ‘Twas All Much Better Back Then, etc etc.

Whizzing back over the last month: spent the last weekend in November in Abergavenny to celebrate Mum’s birthday. We had two (2) cakes, one a coffee and walnut that Henry had baked (excellent) and one a plain sponge that Mum had bought as a plainer alternative, and also with a view to Nia decorating it. She did indeed write ‘Nanna’ quite creditably on the top of it with an icing pen. Here she is assisting Mum blowing out her candles.

A couple of nice new things have opened for public use in Reading recently. The new footbridge over the Thames at Christchurch Meadows is finally complete, and jolly nice it is too. It's lit up at night by lots of little LEDs. Link to picture gallery here.

Also, on 6 December we ceremonially walked recently through the newly opened Napier Road subway on our way to Homebase (and, at my persuading, Toys R Us to look at Barbies, Lego etc). It’s been closed for some years, but has now been re-opened for pedestrian use linking Napier Road (and hence the oddly blue-roofed flats at Luscinia View) to the Forbury retail park and the town centre without having to trail up to the roundabout to cross the railway. The tunnel apparently used to be a route for two dear little trains that carried biscuits from Huntley & Palmer to a siding at Reading station.

Ray introduced me a few months ago to the baroque quartet Red Priest so I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were giving a lunchtime pre-Christmas concert at the OU on 9 December. As he was eager to come up to the concert I took the morning off and we began with breakfast at Buskers before going for a walk around Linford Wood, somewhere I hadn’t been as yet. A few pics here. Well marked and surfaced paths – one of the finer features of going for a walk in MK, especially in the light of our later bog experience (see walk below) – and a series of cute wooden sculptures. The concert was well attended and held in the Hub Theatre rather than the church, so they must have been expecting a good few people. Red Priest are an amazingly lively act, particularly the recorder player Piers Adams, who bounds around the stage and switches rapidly between an array of different-sized recorders (far more types than I’d realised there were). Although the violin isn’t one of my favourite instruments, I was mightily impressed with the violinist Adam Summerhayes – though he’s not in fact a permanent member of the group but was standing in for their usual violinist Julia Bishop. I’d definitely go and see them again, and may seek out one of their CDs.

Linford Wood

Ruth and I went down to Chichester early on 12 Dec to pay a visit to her godmother Rosemary, as well as doing a bit of Christmas shopping in tasteful cathedral city, etc etc. We arrived at around 9.30 – actually a little later than I’d intended but the AA route planner took us on an ‘as the crow flies’ route along A-roads, which needed a bit more careful driving than just whizzing along the motorways. Parked up at the Premier Inn where we were staying for the Saturday night and walked into the city seeking a second breakfast, which we had at Artie’s Kitchen, a self-professed ‘Artisan Café’, which led to much scoffing at the modern over/mis-use of the word ‘artisan’ to mean home-made faux-rustic put together by leisured middle-class types goods. Our breakfast of muffins topped with bacon and poached eggs did indeed come with a tasteful mound of rocket on the side, which marked it out as dead classy.

My Chambers dictionary defines ‘artisan’ as ‘a handicraftsman or mechanic, a skilled manual worker’. At the time Ray worked at Temple Golf Club in the 1990s, there was an ‘Artisans’ club separate from the main club, to which working chaps such as himself could belong. (From what I recall, he had his membership terminated through non-payment of fees.) This site notes that ‘artisan golf was created in the 19th century to give working men the chance to play on good courses affordably’. I assume there are a number of such clubs across the country, as there’s an Artisan Golfers’ Association. It seems rather anachronistic these days but if it enabled play on quality courses at a reduced fee, I guess it was a good thing (though I can’t recall now whether Temple Artisans also required members to play at off-peak times, e.g. 3am, in the pouring rain, etc. Let’s hope not). The Artisans at Temple had their own clubhouse separate from the main clubhouse, presumably so as not to contaminate the company directors with their rough-hewn workaday qualities.

Southgate basin

Returning to Chichester: after breakfast, we continued into the city and did a spot of browsing, including around the Christmas market – reasonably busy but nothing like the pre-Christmas nightmare in Winchester a few years ago. We arrived at midday at the nursing home where Rosemary is now resident, to find her nowhere in sight – a member of staff confirmed that she wasn’t in her room and someone else chirped up that Rosemary had been seen leaving the premises some while earlier. In something of a panic Ruth hot-footed it back into town to the Côte Brasserie, where we had arranged to meet (I scuttled behind in manner of small panting person), to find Rosemary sitting at a table waiting for us. We had a pleasant light lunch (divine tuna carpaccio starter) though made somewhat frustrating by communication struggles due to Rosemary being slightly hard of hearing coupled with the ambient noise in the restaurant. After lunch we returned to the nursing home via a branch of Thorntons for R to buy a box of chocs for the home staff.

Bishop's Palace Gardens

We had a nice dinner at Wildwood on the Saturday evening. Made two attempts to visit the cathedral during the time we were in Chichester, but miscalculated rather as there were services on on both occasions. It looked jolly nice from the outside though. On the Sunday morning I had an early solo walk around the town, including a circuit of Southgate basin, the Chichester end of the Chichester Canal, before meeting Ruth for breakfast at Carluccio's. After breakfast we went for a stroll around the Bishop's Palace Gardens before heading home.

Had our first Strategy & Information Office joint Christmas 'do' on 15 December; pictures here. An attempt had been made to combine traditions from both former teams, which meant merging the Information Office 'tradition' of going out around 12 noon, having a largely sober lunch and coming back to work again, with the Strategy Office's rather more fun tradition of going out around 5pm after work for a meal and then on for drinks. The upshot was we went for a 2pm lunch at The Banana Tree, a pan-Asian chain that has a branch in The Hub, and around 10 of us went on for drinks at Missoula afterwards. The Banana Tree's Christmas menu contained pretty much nothing resembling a traditional UK Christmas lunch, which didn't bother me but there were mutterings to be heard beforehand from certain colleagues. There seemed general agreement though that the food was very nice. Jan and Louisa from the Strategy Office had brought several festive hats into work that day and the bar session was largely spent passing them around and taking photos of each other.

Among all the pre-Christmas chocolates being passed around in the office, Bart produced what were claimed to be dried worms, and had a good go at persuading all his colleagues to try one. I managed to resist, but several people did try them. I like to think I am quite open to trying new things, but certain things I'd have to be pretty much starving before trying.

Set out on the morning of Saturday 19th with Ray for a refreshing five and a half mile walk out of ‘Rambling for Pleasure around Reading’, this time the ‘Chapman’s Farm and Chalkhouse Green’ walk. A few pictures here. We parked in the car park next to Clayfield Copse at the top of Caversham Park Village and had a pleasant walk via alternately footpaths and country roads. VERY muddy in places, to a tedious degree that involved a choice between sinking into a bog or getting tangled in brambles (some law decrees that lanes prone to extreme muddiness must also be fringed with prickly bushes). I had artfully packed a picnic lunch, which we enjoyed sitting by the Millennium Green in Sonning Common, before heading across to Chalkhouse Green and thence down Chalkhousegreen Lane back to Emmer Green. Stopped briefly to look at the Emmer Green water tower before heading back to the car via Tower Close and Clayfield Copse.

Ray sourced me a Yule log in Clayfield Copse, after a short while communing with the woodland gods. It was duly carried ceremonially into the house, only to be immediately carried out again by Ruth shrieking about moss and spores. Carried it back in again while she was out of the room. Made it look pretty and dead spiritual.

In the evening Ruth and I went for dinner on Ray's boat - he has recently been getting back into slow cookery and had prepared us a shoulder of lamb, which was lovely. I had assumed that one could only prepare stew-type things in a slow cooker, but no. He also did a divine baked Camembert as a starter, with the result that we ate slightly less of the lamb than we might have done otherwise. Apparently it got used up though.