where art collides philosoperontap

Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic. No, not really. It’s not very nice out there. I have no idea why that song came into my mind. Pretty darn random. It happens a lot. I guess life with me would be a lot more boring if it wasn’t filled with this random stuff. I keep singing it now and THG has taken her cup of coffee into another room!

God it’s orrible out there. People reading this stuff in hundreds of years time, assuming the human race still exists, will at least have a good understanding of the weather at the time. No need to look up those bland, tedious reports in the weather archives. I mean when did the BBC weather forecast ever tell you god it’s orrible. Or bloody freezin. Or cold enough to freeze yer knackers off.

In other non news, not seen the muntjac deer for a while. Wonder if they are ok. I don’t think they hibernate. Maybe gone somewhere warmer for the worst part of the winter. The fox still comes, increasingly during daylight hours it feels. Before the lake cam alerted me to the fact I can’t say we have ever seen, or at least noticed a fox in the back garden but now I spot it when I’m sat in the shed or, as was the case the other day, on the way to the shed. 

Today, btw, I am going to pot the chilli seeds wot our Tom bought me for Christmas. Just been waiting for a bag of seed compost to magically appear which it did yesterday. Won’t be long either before I can get going on the raised bed THG has requested in front of the kitchen window. Handily placed to nip out and pull some veg fresh for Sunday dinner etc. Our rosemary bush is now a good size down by the greenhouse and the thyme plant is also doing well. The knack is to not over harvest them in the early years to let them get established.

At some stage soon I will need to procure some water based plants for the lake. I realise that given time they will naturally establish themselves but impatient me doesn’t want to wait the decades it will take. I daresay Brian the fishing gnome will appreciate some more cover when he gets black from Barbados or wherever he is right now in da Caribbean, maan.

Yesterday I spent a chunk of the afternoon poring through the Episcopal Register of St David’s for 1397/98. It is an interesting read. The new bishop, Guy Mone was put in place on 11th November 1397 but the selfish bastard took the money and stayed in an inn on the Strand in London for most of the time. He didn’t set foot in Wales until the following September when he went to St Davids on a short visit for his enthronement. In his first year he gave leave of absence to 15 of his parish clergy for a year’s “sabbatical”. They didn’t call it a sabbatical in those days but my point is most of these men were English and took the job just to cream off any tithe income that came into the parish coffers. Not much of it would have been in cash form in those days. Basically a tenth of the harvest, but they probs sold the surplus left from what they needed to eat themselves. In their absence from the parish they would slip a few quid to local and almost certainly barely literate curate to look after the spiritual needs of the flock.

There was a lot of croneyism going on in those days (as well) and old bish Mone in his first year on the job gave one parish living to someone called Sir William Mone. Coincidence ou quoi? Woteva. The fact that Wales eventually became a hotbed of religious dissent was largely down to absenteeism by the local, non native, clergy. The Welsh found an outlet in dissent because the independents, baptists et al ministered to their religious needs in the absence of instruments of the established church.

Thursdays in the Davies household have a fairly relaxed start. If I did yoga that is what I would now do but I don’t. Instead I’m off to pot some seeds. Ciao teddy bears…

I keep getting AI generated Facebook posts about celebrities, sitcoms, stuff like that. Then underneath there are suggested AI queries that invariably include “what is their net worth”. AI clearly does not yet understand me. I mean who gives a flying f%ck. Obviously people must do as I imagine the system comes up with popular questions. I force myself to ignore these posts despite the fact that I might like said celebrity or sitcom. I don’t really understand the cult of the celebrity anyway. 

AI does continue to be useful though. Yesterday I was trying to get my brain around how to get from our  hotel in Rome to the one in Sorrento in March. The first bit was easy enough: taxi to station followed by train to Naples. After that it got complicated. Yer rome2rios and man in seat 61s of this world talked about changing trains, catching the slow local commuter line to Sorrento followed by nothing in the way of real advice when we got there. It’s either a 1km walk with luggage or pissing off a taxi driver with such a short trip which would be expensive anyway. 

I like to have all the details nailed down in advance. Which train to catch from which platform, where to get a taxi etc. This is particularly unclear in Brussels midi where there are perhaps 24 platforms with train services that often change platform at the last minute meaning you really have to be on the ball. Also catching the slow train by mistake adds time and tedium to your trip.

Anyway I shared my troubles with Gemini and it said “don’t mess about Tref, book yerself a limo pickup from Naples Central Station and hey presto, you’ll be sorted”. Doh. It’s only obvious with hindsight. I had considered this option natch but figured the traffic might be an issue. I messaged the contact that gemini gave me and to cut a long story short a driver named Luigi is meeting us by the fountain at the end of platform 24 with our name on a piece of card. He might not be Luigi. I guessed that bit. Could be Mario or a variety of common Italian first names but I digress. I also booked the return dropoff at the airport at the pickup time suggested by the limo company. Simples. Happy days. It’s about taking the stress out of life. Let the limo take the strain…

The wireless timed out before thought for the day came on so now I find I’m still in bed when really I should have got up fifteen minutes ago. Takes much longer to type things on your phone and I’m not ready to use dictation yet. Take a memo Miss Jones. Do people still have secretaries?

Today I’m off out for a walk. Lee Road, Nettleham Road, stroll around the Bailgate, castle and cathedral and back down Greetwell road before turning left onto Queensway and right on Wragby Road and home. It’s cold out but nice and crisp. Gotta start building up my mileage. The goal is to go hillwalking with THG. A few years ago when I was in training for the coast to coast I did hundreds of miles around Lincolnshire. I found this didn’t really help me much when it came to walking off road, up and down hills. You have also to train on the right terrain. This time I know better. Forewarned is forearmed. 

Will also take in a swim though I’m going to push that back and try later in the afternoon. See if I can find a quiet time. The old hands in the sauna the other day were talking about how much busier it has got. Noticed it meself.

A slight lightening of the sky at six thirty this morning suggested the days are stretching. Not noticed that for a while. It must be so. My turn to make the tea, hence the six thirty bit. It is now an hour and twenty minutes later and I’ve just switched off the wireless. I think they should ditch “thought for the day” even though it is a useful prompt for me to get up. Wouldn’t matter if I accidentally stayed in bed a little longer in its absence.Yesterday’s John Rutter workshop was wonderful. Sir John Rutter I should say. I felt like the least qualified person in the theatre. Sounded as if most people there were regular choir singers. The guy sat next to me had come over from Paris especially for the event. I got by 🙂 JR recanted the story of how one of the pieces had been written. The phone rang one day and it was David Attenborough calling to ask if he would write a piece for some nature charity or other. Sir John thought it was one of his friends playing a prank! We then sang the song.THG and I stopped to pick up a takeaway from The Castle View on the way home. Couple of beers in the Vic while we waited. They used to serve Gamma Ray there but the guy behind the bar said they had just stopped. Brewery price increases meant they would have had to sell it at £12 a pint. Nobody would pay that much. I bloody wouldn’t have although I don’t usually ask how much a beer costs. That would soon learn me. They’ve also stopped serving Guinness as that would have to be £7.50 – £8 a pint. London prices. Trying Murphys instead. As I recall I found Murphys to be a bit on the sweet side. Back into the normal routine today. Granola for breakfast, swim at lunchtime. A few work bits and bobs to do and the putting away of some of my stuff from the Berlin trip. THG is off weight training. Pumping iron. She does two sessions with a ten minute break in between! Different instructors.Nice as it is to go away on trips it is also v nice to get home innit. We are here now until the first week in March when I have a London meeting followed by a trip to Italy. Due birre per favore.

I quite like a nice cold frosty winter’s day. Unfortunately the miserable cold damp days we are getting doesn’t fit this description. It did make me wonder when spring is due so I googled it. Not that spring is a sure fire guarantee that the weather will change. In all probability it won’t, this being the disunited kingdom, but we can but dream.

Anyway google told me that in 2026, the first day of spring in the UK (astronomical spring) falls on Friday, March 20, marked by the vernal equinox at 14:45 GMT. Meteorological spring, which is used by forecasters for consistent data, begins on March 1 and runs until May 31. Hadn’t quite grasped that there were two springs. This consistent data business is a little too sterile for my liking. Man trying to create order out of the natural order, or disorder of things.

Reminded me that our John and I visited the Deutsches Historisches Museum on Thursday only to find the bloody place closed for renovation. This seems to happen to us. On our last visit we decided to go to the Pergammon Museum only to find it was closed until 2027! The DHM fortunately had an annex that was still open with a special exhibit on Nature and German History so we went in there. Was quite good fair play. I learnt from Martin Luther’s doctrine that all people’s souls were free and that when you are dead it doesn’t matter who you were in life – your soul would be treated in the same way as all others. Words to that effect anyway. Now this caused ole Martin Luther a lot of problems as the peasants interpreted it as everyone was equal in life and became revolting peasants. People see things in a way that suits them whether it’s how good the ref was in the big match yesterday or whether it was right that they should be subjected to inhuman slavery conditions.

Anyway the point I was going to make in relation to order and nature was about the straightening of the Rhine. You may well have been aware (I wasn’t) that the Upper Rhine was significantly straightened and canalized between 1817 and 1876 by the German engineer and hydrologist Johann Gottfried Tulla. Working with Baden government officials, Tulla directed this massive engineering project to reduce flooding, reclaim agricultural land, and improve navigation between Basel and Worms, shortening the river by approximately 81 km. Wow I thought. Impressivo. Certainly the good people who lived around the Rhine thought so. The improvements led to increased commerce and job creation. Good times all round. What they hadn’t foreseen was the knock on effects of lowering the water table and its subsequent detriment to agricultural production. Shame really that humanity feels the need to try to change and control nature. Live with it, people. 

Another thing in the exhibit that jumped out of the page at me was the effect the industrial revolution had on bee populations and diversity. The picture says it all. The number of bee species pre and post industrial revolution.

Whilst investigating the first day of spring google took it upon itself to appraise me of Easter (that’s Spring Break for the Americuns amongst us). On the Gregorian calendar, used by most Christian denominations, Easter typically falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, known as the Paschal Full Moon. I always knew it was something like that but was never sufficiently interested to dig deeper. Now we know. Doesn’t really help that much as my knowledge of things natural doesn’t extend to having a handle on dates of the full moon, dates being an unnatural construct anyway. Woteva.

I will leave you this morning with the news that breakfast today was buttered toast with THG’s home made marmalade. Deelish. Also we are going to Nottingham this pm to participate in a singing workshop conducted by John Rutter no less. Cool or what? Outside remains miserable and damp.

Farewell to Checkpoint Charlie. Flung the curtains of my room open early this morning to find a blanket of snow once more covering the ground. My time in Berlin has been characterised by cold February rain with the pavements still covered in rock salt scattered there only a few days earlier when they were skating in parks and skiing on the old templehof airfield. The return of snow seems fitting.

My time in Berlin has been both productive and enjoyable. I can’t tell you the real purpose of my visit, lets just call it meetings, with the cover story of visiting son John to celebrate his  birthday, but it has been worthwhile and included seeing people in smoky jazz bars, a trip to the Russian military command post under the pretence of seeing where the Germans signed the surrender document at the end of ww2 and a beer in Cafe des Westens. The finale was the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra gig last night with Lang Lang on keys where we drank champagne purchased with western issue Euros. Escaping observation, we were one of the first out of the building into the terrible stormy night and immediately got lucky with a taxi that whisked me back to the comfort and security of the hotel bar.

At breakfast a bright orange refuse truck did its rounds with a guy in orange hi viz vest and shorts walking alongside feeding it binfuls of trash. I also observed a guy in shorts and flip-flops helping himself at the breakfast buffet. He clearly hadn’t looked out the window before deciding what to wear this morning.

My driver picked me up on time. We exchanged passwords. Anas, I uttered. Trefor he replied. I’m now in an uber headed for the new airport and a flight that will take me back to London and the circus of the six nations. The drive to the airport was uneventful. I didn’t really care if we were being followed by then as I had already done what I came to do and was now just heading home.

Then came the schoolboy error. Security was a breeze. I avoided check in because I only had hand carry. Fast track worked and I was soon through the schengen area walking briskly through C gates looking for the lounge. No signs whatsoever. Gemini told me that the lounge was before schengen security. Doh. The gate, C15 was one of the furthest away. I am now sat trying to look inconspicuous in plain view near the desk at C15. There are 12 others that I can see at the gate. I am far too early.

I am expecting the flight to be a quiet one. A ten twenty five take off to LCY means a cup of tea, my book and an earful of relaxing sounds.

…

Western Europe is covered in cloud. The bright sunlit uplands at 30,000 feet don’t represent the lives of people with their feet firmly on the ground.

…

1st officer Gilbert Tyrer pulled rank on me in the queue for the up front loo. I politely deferred to him. Back in my seat my right lense fell out of my specs. Nightmare. Found it underneath the seat in front. Since I got my new lenses I found that there was something not quite right in my Oakley specs. Unfortunately Oakley don’t make them any more and I will have to resort to buying a second hand pair off tinterweb. Will be much cheaper than a complete new frame and lenses. I have had the old Oakleys for yonks so they’ve paid for themselves. However wouldn’t have bought new lenses for them had I known the trouble they would give.

Our approach to LCY took us round the shard and over tower bridge and were slightly late landing due to the de icing delay. This delay was exacerbated by the fact that a passenger needed paramedic help and we all had to stay in our seats whilst he was attended to. Fair enough. The upshot was I missed my train. Fortunately I was able to repurpose that ticket whilst I was sat on platform 2 at Stratford International and before the original train had departed. My alternative was to catch the 13.03 to Newark and Uber it home from there. Wouldn’t make that much difference in the time taken to get home as it happens. 13.03 looked a little tight so I bought a flexible ticket but in the end made it in a somewhat breathless condition with 30 seconds to spare. Whew. Nailbiter. It’s not about the money. It’s about getting back in plenty of time to settle in for the six nations.

Berlin is just as dull and damp as Lincoln. Where I am sat at breakfast I can see an ad for a Berlin Phil gig in March. Dvořák Symphony Number 9. Oo. Prompted me to look and see if owt is on this week. To cut a long story short we are off to see Lang Lang play with the Berlin Philharmonic tomorrow night. You have to grab these opportunities when they are presented. All because I was sat in the window at breakfast. Advertising does work.

This trip is notable for being totally joint pain free. I particularly notice it when I am walking along in a stream of people in an airport. In the past most of them would have overtaken me but now I’m walking like a “normal” person.

When I got home from the rugby club last night I ordered a takeaway chinese curry. Went to the shed whilst waiting for it only to fall asleep and wake up 20 mins after it had been delivered. Fortunately it had been left in the porch and was still warm so didn’t need to stick it in the microwave or owt. Can’t have been too long after that when I hit the hay.

Another soggy morning in Lincoln town. Dropped THG off at the stayshun to head for Liverpeul and I have a car arriving at ten fifty to start my journey to Berlin. The capital city of Germany is quite a bit colder than Lincoln so have warm gear on. Picture snow on the ground, the cold war is in full sway and the flight to Berlin a real adventure. I’ll jump in a cab on arrival and head for the Doubletree Kudamm. The snow geese have arrived early this winter. No hold baggage.

Slightly fuzzy disposition this morning after yesterday’s rugby. Don’t want to talk about it. I realise it was me wot brought the subject up. Will be walking to pick up the car a little later. Could have walked there yesterday but had a few bags to take so THG suggested I drive round. She always makes a lorra sense does THG. Gets me a bit of exercise an all.

Otherwise a relaxing day ahead observing the sabbath. Oo look it’s the sabbath. Yes, so I see. Shall we observe it? Why the devil not! Pun intended. I may stick some paper down on my coffee table top project. Have decided to apply a base layer of miscellaneous coverings – maps n stuff. I also have a scorecard from a test match at trent bridge. Oh and a card from the Deauville-La Toques race meeting we went to a couple of years ago. Good times. It’s a big sheet rather than a card, showing lots of different racing colours.

Made a very interesting discovery yesterday. I was transcribing the will of John Jones, my 7 great grandfather. I had decided it was going to be a lot easier to interpret if it was in Arial 11 font rather than the original scribble. John Jones died in 1731 but his will was made in 1723 when his death seemed imminent. Fortunately the lad recovered and lived another eight years. There was no mention of his wife so I’m thinking she predeceased him. In 1722/23 there was a severe smallpox epidemic in Carmarthenshire so that may well have done for her but he made it through.

Anyway the interesting bit was the fact that he left a bushel of pilcorn (oats) to the poor of the parish of Llanlloney and another to the congregation of Pencader. Three trusted friends were given guardianship of his son David. They were James Lewis of Llanllawddog, David Johnes of Penkarreg and David Thomas of Llanlloney. I have the wills of the first two. They were both ministers of religion, the former in Pencarreg and Pantycreuddyn, two of the early Independent (Congregationalist) churches in Wales. Dave also mentioned these two places together with Rhydybont, a nearby baptist church, specifically in the context of them being protestant dissenting churches.

So that tells me that my ancestor was a religious dissenter at a time when this was still very much in its infancy. Quite a few families from the area left for the Americas, a hazardous trip not to be undertaken lightly especially if you were a child. The odds were not good for children under the age of six to survive the journey. John Jones’ son David also left a bushel of pilcorn to the congregation of Pencader so he must have quite naturally continued with the dissent. After the Toleration Act of 1688 private homes could be licensed to hold religious meetings and such gatherings are documented at our farm, Maesnonni, in the 1740s. 

I’d better stop there as I can go on for hours on this subject. The time has come to break the fast.