where art collides philosoperontap

Up at the crack of Sperlingsfurz in Berlin. The email told us removals van would arrive at eight. Previous schedules have said between eight and noon. I guess we have to assume eight. 

We need to be there to watch over the load whilst the driver and John and his mate unload and carry the gear to the flat. I’m there to do the watching. THG is on duty as our resident German speaker to ward off any Berlin traffic wardens who might take umbrage to the van being parked in a restricted spot.

Sometime later we are hanging around the flat. The latest eta is ten past nine.

…

Called the removals firm a number of times to be told the driver had been parked up outside the appointed location for fifteen minutes. An area search ensued and eventually our John bumped into the driver who had taken the initiative to come and find us. Turned out that the address given was a building accessible from more than one direction. What we had considered to be the obvious place to wait was not necessarily the interpretation of the driver. Hey…

Stress levels subsided and all hands set to unloading what was really a relatively small amount of stuff compared to the size of the Luton van.

We are now back in da hotel for some relaxation and recovery time. Tis a beautiful yet cold day out.

Couple of observations about Berlin. This is a very new city for obvious reasons. Feels a little strange being at one of the world’s most famous capital cities but for all the architecture to be post WW2. Even in the young country known to the world as the US of A they have older buildings.

Observation number two is in regards of the fact that everyone is speaking English in the hotel. This is an American chain therefore attracting clientele from that part of the world but it nevertheless feels odd.

Nice and warm sitting in the hotel lobby. A long rectangular fireplace feature provides some relaxing distraction and the muzac is not intrusive. I imagine it could drive the staff crazy having to listen to inane tunes day in day out.

Lots of people hanging around with luggage. Either they have not yet been able to check in or have checked out and killing time before going to the airport. Our flight back on Wednesday is at 16.50 so I guess we will have to hang around a bit ourselves. We will need to leave here at around 2 – 2.30.

Sat in the window of our room at Dukes Hotel in St James. Not a particularly good view and having opened the window there is a lot of noise from a cluster of aircon fans a couple of floors down. The service levels are quite high here but not sure I’d be particularly happy to have paid six hundred and fifty quid which would have been the alternative to points. Having paid nothing I guess we got what we got. 

The room itself was good. Everything worked. Even had lights in the ceiling. One of the worst sides of hotel rooms is that for some reason they choose not to have enough lights. The breakfast was top notch as were the martinis last night. The bar was rammed all night. Amazing how many people were keen to part with twenty five quid for a drink.

In half an hour or so we are off on the next bit of our journey – LCY to BER. Our John, being a musician and creative is moving there. Berlin, apaz, is the centre of the house and techno scene. Stuff like that. If yer going to do these things do them while you are young. John is twenty four years old and has the world at his feet. Good luck to the lad.

Nice meal at Dishoom Carnaby last night. THG and I shared a starter and a main. Otherwise would have been too much. An age thing probs 🙂 I had the foresight to book a table. When we arrived there was a huge queue outside and the wait even once you made it inside the building was quite long. Like thirty mins to an hour. I overheard one queuer asking a member of staff how much time she had left to queue and got the answer “thirty five minutes or so”. 

After we finished and left the restaurant the queue outside was even longer. We had a nice time but the food wasn’t that amazing that I’d queue a long time for it.

…

Sat in seat 10C on the 13.25 from LCY to Berlin. I’d forgotten how stressful I find airline travel considering how much I’ve flown. There are two ways of doing it. 

First class, or business as a minimum, comfortable lounge with a stiffish gin and tonic or a cocktail or two and some light nibbles. Large plane with comfortable accommodation and plenty of overhead locker space. Champagne when you get on then ease into the afternoon ahead.

The other way is a full short haul flight to Berlin where they are constantly looking for cabin bags to put in the hold. I’m only in Group 3 for boarding having recently been dropped to Bronze status with the BA Exec Club so overhead locker space certainty ain’t a certainty. I’ve never been really comfortable flying until settled in my seat.

Anyway I’m ere now and working on the trefbash playlist. I can afford to be brutal. Got far too much run time. Will also have a secondary playlist to run from around twelve thirty. Bit of Frank, Sade, stuff like that.

Occurs to me this is only my second trip this year that involves getting on a plane, the last being South Africa in February. I’m seeing planes fade out of the Davies canon. Nowt planned as yet for next year other than the notion of going interrailing in September. Mind you with our John living in Berlin I daresay there could be a few hops over to see him.

With forty five minutes to go I sense the skipper has nudged the joystick ever so slightly to bring us into a very gentle slide down to Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Sbeen a while since we’ve been to the city. Would have been a Euro-IX conference. A world that casually slid into my past, masked by covid lockdown induced inactivity on the conference front.

On reflection I don’t mind not going to conferences. At least the conferency bit. I’m ok with going to the socials.

…

STOP PRESS First release of tropical trefbash tix sold out sometime this afternoon. We were in the air. The last of the “I Like Pina Coladas” tickets went at the same time and there will be no more of those. I am able to release a second batch of tickets thanks to the huge generosity of the sponsors and because eleven people have donated hard cash for their tickets and the cause. Thanks guys and gals.

I do like a pina colada.

Sat in the darkness of the hotel room at six thirty ey em. It’s the earliest I figured I could get up as the act would inevitably wake THG. At home I’d have got up ages ago and gone downstairs out of the way.

We are moving on this morning. Really I only stayed down last night because we happened to be back in London today, Saturday, and it didn’t make sense to head nowf on Friday only to get back on the train the next day. Quiet night in last night.

We stayed in the hotel exec lounge as one of the partnership likes to dig in to the freebie hors d’oeuvres. I didn’t want any food although I did ponder getting Deliveroo to bring me a lamb doner (with hot chilli sauce). 

The one thing I did ask for was a gin and tonic. The attendant said she would pop to the bar as whilst they were free, they didn’t leave the bottles out because the greedy low life they have patronising this hotel would just swig the lot down. Well she didn’t actually say that but that was my interpretation 🙂Me being one of the low lifes an all.

So I asked for a double and the THG a single. She brought four doubles. Fair play. I complimented her saying the staff in this lounge were great, she being the only staff there. Before I knew it more gin arrived. We (I) managed to get through six or seven doubles – a single gin keeps THG going for the evening. A short time later a bowl of french fries and more snacks arrived. All because I was nice to her. It pays to be nice. The alternative is not nice 🙂

After that I abandoned the idea of a kebab and went to the room to watch England slaughter the Aussies. Enjoy it while you can.

…

So now we are more or less packed and THG is setting off to study local emporia leaving me to study humanity in the hotel reception area.

Our next port of call is twenty one minutes away by horseless carriage, in a westerly direction. At least it was during breakfast. There may well be a build up of traffic between then and when we hail said carriage. Mostly tourists I’d imagine. Had an American family sat at the next table at breakfast. The father was teaching his very young, and I’m thinking five years old, daughter the names of the US Airborne Divisions that landed in Normandy on DDay. V strange I thought.

I note that if we decided to walk to the next hotel it would take an hour. Presumably this is without luggage. Plus they haven’t taken into consideration my dodgy hip. I used to do a lot of walking in central London, assuming that I had the time available. You get to see a lot more than when in a taxi or on a bus and certainly more than when on the tube. I try not to use the tube but sometimes it’s the only mode of transport that makes sense.

…

The horseless carriage btw took an additional twenty minutes due to the horrendous traffic near Piccadilly. Bloody roadworks everywhere. Birrovatip though. Had pondered booking an Uber Exec but went for a comfort for ten quid less. The Merc that turned up normally did execs but it was a bit quiet on that front on a Saturday morning so he downgraded to pick up more fares. I knew what I was doing 🙂

Took a stroll through St James’ Park as the room was not ready. In all fairness it was only eleven thirty. I’m very fair. Sat outside the caff next to the lake. Only greenery to be seen. You wouldn’t have known we were slap bang in the middle of a large city. Once the centre of Empire. Well other than all the tourists. Yev never seen so many guided tours in your life.

I parked THG at a table on the outside deck and went in search of tea. There seemed to be a great mass of punters hanging around the drinks area. It was v difficult to see whether there was a queue or whether they were just waiting for their lahtays to arrive. 

As I got to what might be the front of the queue, not having queued, a yoof shouted “next”. A quick scan determined that there was no response to his call to action so I strode up to him and ordered a pot of tea for two. A dialogue ensued: 

“Do you want two pots of tea or one pot for two people?” 

“I want one pot big enough for two people”

He held up a small one cup, ish, pot.

“I’ll have two of them please” Sigh. Perhaps I am getting less tolerant in my old age. I didn’t say anything.

Then he asked if I wanted English Breakfast Tea. This guy was a local but I guess did not drink tea. Reminds me of the time when I asked a barman what sort of red wines they had only to get the reply “which ones are red?”

Anyway we got there in the end and no sooner had I sat down and poured when Jose from the hotel front desk called to say our room was ready. Jose is good at his job.

We are now in our room at Dukes Hotel chillin, recharging, whatever one does in a hotel room in town. It is in a great spot.

Switched on BBC Sounds when I woke up and thrillingly landed in the middle of the Shipping Forecast. Missed the start but it didn’t matter. In fact I couldn’t tell you anything about this morning’s forecast. It’s all about the comforting tones rather than content. This only happens to me maybe once a year. I should tune in to it more often.

Bit of a relaxing “me” day ahead. THG gets to town at around three thirty so will be at the hotel before four. I have a trefbash meeting at the Phoenix Arts Club at two but otherwise no firm plans. 

Had considered a trip to the Tate Modern but they still have the same exhibits up from the last time we were there. Tickets are available for today’s one dayer v the Aussies at Lords but only with corporate hospitality and that outside the ground. Not going to splash out a grand on that just to go on my own and anyway it clashes with my meeting.

Another option is a haircut. The guy I usually use at Raven Barbers, Giorgio, has a free slot at ten to which I am giving some thought. It leaves too much of a gap between haircut and the Phoenix meetup but might still go. Giorgio is v good. Never thought I’d ever talk about having a fave barber!

Still a bit miz out and not yet had breakfast. Just saw a woman walking by holding an umbrella. Gonna rain until mid morning so maybs that knocks the barbers on the head, so to speak

Down in the breakfast room I have a window seat with a good view of the umbrellas walking by. It isn’t just wet. It is v wet. Traffic on the Pentonville Road splashes by with headlamps lit and steamy buses take their passengers to work. Very relaxing. A young man sat to my left is eating a slice of watermelon whilst staring into his phone and listening to something on his Bose phones. I am happier taking in the atmosphere rather than cocooning myself away. Lots of people talking “to themselves” over breakfast. Phones and earpieces.

Across the road an ambulance has pulled up, blue lights flashing brightly through the gloom. Never a good sign. Someone in trouble.

The Bose bloke has been replaced by a Chinese lad. That was quick. Hurrying through life.

My tea is not very satisfactory. The water is never hot enough. They pour it from flasks rather than from a boiled kettle. I have a kettle in the room for later.

In the meantime people with no headcovering scurry to the smokers shelter outside. Bit of a jam as an electric DPD van tries to get through the hotel driveway.

Retrieved a couple of printouts the hotel receptionist had sorted for me, signed, scanned, and sent off and retreated to the room to brush my teeth. I had thought about chillin in the reception area for a bit but the inane chatter of two large american women whose every other word was “like” drove me away.

…

After years of unforgettable music and incredible shows, Sundara Karma are saying goodbye. Funny how the first time you’ve heard of a band is when they announce their farewell tour.

There is a bustle to Chapel Market in the morning as stallholders arrive to put up their shops. They were still doing this at ten o’clock which seemed a bit late to me but some of them were already doing a good trade. The fruit and vegetable stall seemed to have some great deals. A punnet full of root ginger for a pound for example. Would have been a quid for each piece in the supermarket. A chap walked past me carrying a bulk pack of blue paper rolls. Shopholders spoke to each other and tidied up their storefronts.

I am not due anywhere until twelve and pondered getting my hair cut but figured I’d leave that until tomorrow when I have most of the day free.

Back at the hotel I whipped a large bottle of sparkling mineral water from the exec lounge and sat in the lobby for a while drinking it. Looking around there were a mixed bag of people but mainly blokes with open laptops catching up, presumably, on their emails.

Accidentally clicked on an icon called “Resume” when opening this doc. Hmm I thought, as it was opening, what am I resuming? Turned out to be a Curriculum Vitae template doh. Of course in some parts of the world they call them resumes.

Start again. Up not particularly early d’aujourd hui. Got some packing to do for a week away. Laandan then Berlin. CCUK Awards in town tomorrow which I like going to but have missed the last two years due to being away somewhere exotic. Thissun is at the IET. I am a member of the IET but am going to cancel after this year because I never use it and it costs knocking on two hundred quid. Ditto the Tate membership. If I lived in London it might be different. Probs going to the Tate Modern on Friday if anyone wants to come. I have a free day. 

I’m going down today because I thought we had a CCUK board meeting tomorrow morning but we had it last week so now I have a free evening in town and an extra hotel night which I can’t cancel. Oh dear.

Regarding Berlin we are flying there with our John who is moving his base from London. He has a record label and a recording studio there with a pal. All the gear from their London recording studio is being shipped out. John has an Irish passport thanks to me and my mam (well couldn’t have done it without mam) so it is an easy enough move for him. 

Meeting @Stefan and Katya Sunday night which should be great.

The road out front is quiet. Kids are all penned up in their classrooms larnin stuff which little do they realise could prove useful to them in their life ahead. Mummies and daddies all now at work or back home doing their chores, or shopping as is the case in our house.

One of the nice side effects of lockdown was the total absence of traffic on the road. Long since back to normal.

Cooler this morning and I happen to be wearing shorts! Ok I could change to jeans but I’m in shorts now and will have to live with it. The clocks haven’t changed yet anyway which is my trigger to move from shorts to longs. Life is shorts, as they say.

I can hear activity in the hallway. THG looking for a particular pair of shoes I daresay. These things are important. Gotta wear the right shoes. I do 🙂

Woke up in the night with stomach cramps. THG thinks it might have been the mushroom curry. Now I’m on fluids to try and flush it out. It’s a bit like the time when I woke up with a very random sore thumb. My sister Ann who is a GP said I have dad to thank for that. Arthritis in the thumb. It disappeared quite quickly but does make you wonder what else you have in the pipeline.

Just opened this doc in the shed. I started it in the house but as is my custom and practise have moved location. The interesting thing is that despite there being less than five minutes between me shutting down the laptop and arriving at the shed this doc is no longer at the top of the list and hence the most recently edited. Tref’s jobslist has taken its place. This means THG added to the doc whilst I was en route to the shed. Eat yer heart out Sherlock Holmes.

I have nothing in the diary today until four thirty when I need to be in Market Rasen. Doesn’t mean I have nothing to do. There’s the jobslist, obvs. There is also finishing off the trefbash eventbrite page in preparation for tonight’s launch. Press conference is at seven. Will be live on all mainstream media channels. Maybs.

…

Tired tonight. I managed a toasted muffin with cheese. Was getting v hungry but still had the cramps. Hopefully an early night and a good kip will sort it. Am off to da smoke tomorrow.

Tropical trefbash is now live for registration. It sells out every year and will do so again this year though if I get enough sponsorship/ticket sales I might be able to squeeze a few more in.

Not much else to say other than get registering. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tropical-trefbash-tickets-1013612400977

A wet morning in prospect. This is fine, so to speak. Living as we do in a greenish and by and large pleasant land, rain comes with the territory. This morning I propose to stroll to a nearby market in search of a packet of mixed mushrooms needed to cook the curry for tonight’s tea. I don’t think they come in packets as such. It’ll be one of those small plastic trays with a protective film over it. You know the sort. Maybe that is a packet.

In an ideal world I’d have simply had to go to the bottom of the garden and pick some fresh grown fungi but we haven’t got any. So I won’t. Can’t. Wouldave shouldave. The main problem is that the shops tend not to stock much of a variety which is what is really needed to make my mushroom curry a success tonight. Apaz. See how it goze. I will report back.

In other news the snooker season is underway. This has brought great joy to THG although we didn’t stay up late to see who won the match last night. Talking of winter sport it doesn’t look as if the one day cricket final will go ahead. It was rained off yesterday and the weather looks similar today. This was to be the culmination of the summer of sport. Never mind. Another summer will inevitably wend itself this way. As sure as eggs is eggs, as ‘they’ say 🙂

Meanwhile there is some packing to be done. London and Berlin. Everybody talk about, pop muzik. Feels a little early in the season to be going to Berlin. Or late in the year. Call it what you like. I identify Berlin with freezing weather, snow covered streets, walls and military checkpoints. That’s what it looked like in the movies of my youth. I guess things have moved on since then. I know they have. The snow geese have arrived early this winter.

The pairing of London and Berlin does evoke memories of the cold war. I only found out in recent years that the “circus” of Smiley fame was Cambridge Circus which is very near to where trefbash is held. Something appropriate about a hedonistic party being held just down the road to where spies met and plotted. Were trefbash to have been held in the sixties I might have had the occasional spy drop in. Michael Caine at least if not Smiley himself. How cool would that have been 🙂Maybs.

We should have had a spy themed bash one year but probs not colourful enough. Everyone would have turned up in trenchcoats wearing a trilby. This year’s bash is going to be launched this week so keep your eyes out. Maybe even tomorrow evening. I’ll let you have a bit of notice. In fact this could be it!

So after my swim this afternoon I popped over the road to the Coop for a few bits. Walking past the reduced section I noticed some bloke furtively stacking lots of items into his pull along basket. Didn’t really think much of it. Why he needed to look furtive I couldn’t figure out. He proceeded around the aisles, filling his basket to the top.

As I left the shop I saw him running away towing the basket behind being chased by a member of staff. Real life crime in action. The staff member didn’t catch him. The thought that went through my head on the way home was why did he bother emptying the reduced section if he was going to nick the stuff anyway. I guess lack of intelligence was one of his hallmarks.

Last week we visited St Denys, the Parish Church of Sleaford. Yesterday we dropped into St Peter’s, the erstwhile parish church of Aubourn. Much of St Peter’s is no more with the present building confined to what was the chancel. It was never as big as St Denys, Aubourn being a tiny village. For reference in 1921 the parish had a population of 212. 

A few observations. Thirty eight blokes in total held down the job of Vicar over the recorded period of eight hundred and fifty six years at an average of twenty two and a half years each. The early history is a little unclear as there is no way Geoffrey would have been in the job a hundred and forty three years. The parish website today suggests that the current building was there from around 1200AD which is consistent with when Rog started in the job.

In my mind Geoff was an appointee of someone who came over with the conquering Norman hordes and his church was quite possibly built of wood. Although significant in our history as the first recorded vicar he is to a certain extent an outlier. He was probably a monk.

In any case I’m not interested in producing an academic work of detailed historical accuracy. It’s the trivia that are of more interest. Sixteen of them died on the job, so to speak. A few lasted quite a long time, the longest being James Pilkington whose sixty years spanning a big chunk of the seventeenth century has to be considered good going.

Nine resignations in there. Some went after a relatively short space of time and you wonder what was going on? Maybe some of the short lived ones didn’t cut the mustard. Maybe they didn’t get on with the flock or got a better offer.

There were a couple of “exchanges”. Were church swaps a thing? In seventeen seventeen the position became “lawfully vacant” which does arouse some curiosity. The Patronage at that time appeared to have lapsed to the Monarch. I dunno.

One thing that does jump out of the page is the ending of the patronage of the Prior and Convent of Belvoir which appears to coincide with the English Reformation. Inneresting. Mildly. Patronage fell to the reigning monarch for over a hundred years. Power.

Another observation is the possession of university degrees from the seventeenth century on. This was the law and the only two places you could pick up said degrees were Oxford and Cambridge. It was a way of controlling who got into the church and therefore into positions of being able to influence the populace. 

On 1 April 1931 the parish was abolished to form “Aubourn, Haddington and South Hykeham” which will account for why John Alderson Seaton, A.K.С. Was in 1931 the last recorded Vicar. Did he get the bigger job one wonders? Also what’s the A.K.C. all about?

Size and current usage apart there is one other major difference between St Denys and St Peter’s and that is the fact that the latter had no hymns up on the board. Either they rarely use the church these days, which is probs the case, or someone is very efficient in putting up and taking down the numbers. I quite like the idea of the last hymns sung being left up there. Hey, who am I to say?

Because I know you want to see it, the list of vicars is presented below.

	Name of Vicar	Date	Cause of Vacancy	Patron
1	Geoffrey, Clericus de Aubourn	1076
2	Roger de Lundelthorp, Chaplain	1219		Prior and Convent of Belvoir
3	Nicholas de Belver, Chaplain	1230		وو
4	Robert			وو
5	Roger de Graveley, Presbyter	1276	Death	وو
6	Richard, s of John de Botheby, Presbyter	1324	Death	وو
7	William			وو
8	John Colselt de Ludford, Presbyter	1361	Death	وو
9	John, s William, s Alan de Wyffelingham	1384	Death	وو
10	Richard Tirynton, Presbyter	1389	Resignation	وو
11	Thomas Bretton, of Allington, Presbyter	1397	Exchange	وو
12	Roger Scotton			وو
13	Robert Outhorp	1409	Exchange	وو
14	William Morecroft	1418	Resignation	وو
15	William Blakeston, Presbyter	1419	Death	وو
16	John Ostyler, Presbyter	1421	Death	وو
17	Henry Garbray, Presbyter	1428	Resignation	وو
18	John Browne, Chaplain	1433	Resignation	وو
19	John Wasse, Chaplain	1435	Resignation	وو
20	William Alwode, Presbyter	1480	Resignation	وو
21	William Johnson, Presbyter	1507	Death	وو
22	Richard Smythe, Chaplain	1528-9	Death	وو
23	George Ewyn, Chaplain	1529	Resignation	وو
24	Nicholas Bennett	1562?	Died 1569	Patron unknown
25	James Wolfenden, Clerk	1578	Death	Queen Elizabeth (on Petition of Master Garthe)
26	Alexander Gee, Clerk	1585	Death	Queen Elizabeth
27	John Bawdon, Clerk	1605	Resignation	King James I
28	James Pilkington, B.A.	1612-3	Death	وو
29	Adam Lawson	1673		Patron Unknown
30	Christopher Nevile, M.A.	1716-7	Lawfully vacant	King George I (by Lapse)
31	William Thomlinson, B.A.	1720	Resignation	Gervase Nevile
32	Herbert Leak	1735	Death	Christopher Nevile
33	Andrew Chambers, B.A.	1772	Death	وو
34	John Watkins, B.A.	1821	Death	وو
35	Francis Miles Willan, B.A.	1834	Death	Christopher H. Noel
36	Joseph Potts, M.A.	1890	Death	T. H. Burroughs, of Ketton, Rutland (pro hac vice)
37	Joseph Henry Davis	1912	Death	Geoffrey Henry Nevile
38	John Alderson Seaton, A.K.С.	1932		وو

My first act upon coming downstairs this morning is to open the laptop and type this sentence. The momentous opening lines of my latest post. Not perhaps the greatest opening line in history. Edged by the likes of “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” for example. I daresay there are other famous opening lines but at this stage of the morning that’s the only one I can think of. 

No hang on. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” I had to look that one up not being a regular reader of that historical tome but it is fairly well known generally. Certainly around where we live being so close to the cathedral. I wonder how many people could accurately quote the first sentence of the bible.

I am glad of the existence of said heaven and earth. By heaven I assume we mean the rest of the universe. A bit of a simplistic way of putting it but I guess when they wrote the bible they weren’t aware of the Andromeda galaxy or the Milky Way etc. Odd that they named a galaxy after a confectionary bar. A serious coup for the marketing department. That bit of sponsorship must have cost a bob or two.

Anyway I’m not rushing to have breakfast this morning. It will be poached egg on avocado toast but seeing as THG is off out to the Park Run there is no particular hurry. We are off to the open day at Aubourn Hall Gardens when she gets back. Nice to do things together yanow. I daresay it will provide her with inspiration for her role as head gardener at the Davies mansion.

I note that today is officially the last day of summer. This came as a bit of a surprise as I’ve been calling it autumn for some days now. It has certainly felt that way. I anticipate that tomorrow, on the first official day of the new season, the leaves will all decide to change colour and fall on the lawn.

In celebration of it being the last day of summer it has been decided that the barbecue will be fired up and some protein thrown on the griddle. To this end I have a shopping list that includes the line “your tea for tonight”. THG already has a piece of fish for herself but I will be opting for a non pescatarian alternative. Maybe a bit of lamb. Anyway v shall c.

I happen to have a fifteen pounds off when you spend fifty voucher for Waitrose that has to be used before the end of September. I don’t have fifty quids worth of stuff on the shopping list so the rest will have to go on wine which we’ve not been drinking much of but I daresay it will come in handy. What with Christmas being so close an all.

…

The shed doors remain open. This last day of summer remains summery. Season appropriate although we all know how wet a typical summer is in the UK. Might pop a waterproof coat in the car when we go out just because I’ve been around the block a few times.

I very much like the changing of the seasons. It is part of what makes life an interesting place to be.

…

Whilst drawing the curtains I looked out of the window and saw a brightly lit bus speeding by. I did not register how busy it was but (limited) experience suggests that at seven thirty pm with the bus headed away from the town centre there would have been few passengers.

Surprised to read about schools now banning mobile phones. They were always banned in our kids’ school. Seems like a nobrainer to me. They certainly weren’t allowed in my own school in the Isle of Man. No wait. They hadn’t been invented then!

I’d like to reduce my own mobile usage but I can’t, I just can’t. I’m hooked. They’ve got me. In fact it is currently charging on the kitchen worktop, out of reach and I feel nervous not having it by my side 🙂

I do quite like going out without my phone. It’s a release. Freedom. The only problem is that nowadays I tend to use it to pay for things so if I was out on a shopping trip, eg to the pub, I’d need to make sure I had an alternative means of payment with me. Easy enough to slip a card into your pocket and I suppose cash still works though not everywhere. Certainly not down the gym but I never need to pay for anything there anyway, being a member an all.

The other thing about going out without your phone is not being able to book an uber or call THG for a lift home, from the pub. I’d need to have a prearranged time for the pickup with THG. Doable. The pub is walkable but it’s about a good pint’s worth so it just depends on whether you want to squeeze in that extra beer or not. Two if you count the time to get there as well. Could simply set off earlier I suppose…

Now back in the conservatoire with a cuppa letting my granola n yo settle it is observed that the grass needs a cut. I will jump on this and will definitely get it done, over the next month or so. Can’t rush these things. When you think of it the longer you leave it the longer the grass will grow and the more satisfaction you will get from seeing the end result post cut. Obvs there is a limit to this. It doesn’t make sense to let it get so long it needs a scythe to cut it. We haven’t got a scythe anyway. Bloody dangerous things.

Whilst I talk about cutting things I should mention that I do need a haircut. Can’t do a thing with it. I like a number two or number three back and sides with a trim on top. Don’t want to be able to grab hold of it, which I can right now. Maybe today is the day.

Gotta look good for our trip to the theatre ce soir. We are off to the Broadbent Theatre in Wickenby to see Educating Rita which is being directed by a pal of THGs. Not our normal night out but what the heck. In fact we don’t really have a normal night out. Who wants to be normal! An occasional night out would be good though. Oh yes, we are going tonight 🙂

There was a time, before the kids came along, when we would be out most nights. When we lived in Greetwell Gate there were three pubs within 100 yards of the house: The Morning Star, Bull and Chain and the Peacock. We rarely went to the latter. The Star was our go to for years until the long term landlord, John Smith retired after which we tended to go to the Bull as the new people who took over weren’t that good.

Nowadays I don’t have a regular pub night. Lockdown killed it off. The boys do occasionally go out but I’m usually home by seven. Worra lightweight. Btw don’t forget the Morning Star carol session is on Sunday 22nd December conducted by yours truly.

Had a good day out in town yesterday and very sensibly caught the 16.06 train home. Tucked myself away in the last row of Coach E. Two very private seats and always the first to be served the free gin. The gin on LNER has improved since they dropped the Greenalls rubbish that would have been introduced as a cost cutting measure. I complained. Took em a while to get the message.

En root to da smoke again. CCUK strategy meeting. If you know you know. Caught the oh seven thirty. First direct train. My return options are not particularly good. There is a direct train at sixteen oh six and nineteen oh six. Can’t see me catching the first as I have a ‘meeting’ in the Parcel Yard pub after the CCUK job. Any other train not worth catching as the connections are not attractive. The alternative is Newark Northgate and taxi it home.

Left the laptop at home. Just my Bose phones in the large inside pocket of my coat and a USB cable just in case. My phone should last two days before it needs a charge so should be ok anyway.

A laptop, whilst useful as a workhorse for the global traveller, is a liability when you are planning to end up in the pub in Kings Cross Station. Any short but important (obvs) updates can be done from the phone.

I quite like the idea of picking up a curry from the Kings Cross Tandoori before getting on the train home. This is perhaps not desirable from the perspective of the other travellers but I probs won’t care by then. It’s been done before. The quality of the food at that curry house is not that good as I recall so we shall see.

Looking like a warm day in town with the temperature set to hit twenty five degrees Celsius. That would normally be shorts weather but decided it is jeans today.

Also a bit of a result on the train. I’m in coach E and three out of four seats are reserved from lincoln to London. However the other two haven’t turned up yay. Bacon roll on order.

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Bit more of a result.  Loads of people got on at Newark but none of them elected to sit at my table. What’s more the next stop is Peterborough and not Grantham. The only negative is that some bloke sat behind me has whipped his phone out and started talking before the train even left the station. Ah well. Bring on the Bose.

Listening to a tropical playlist on spotify. Bit of market research in advance of tropical trefbash on 12th December.

Lots of “road warriors” on board which you would expect for a train that gets in to London at nine twenty. One of them doing his emails on laptop whilst watching football on his phone and eating a bacon roll. On the table next to his laptop is a Radisson hotel branded notepad with lots of handwritten notes.

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It’s a new dawn, a new day and I’m feelin good.

Freedom!

Sausages were offered as a breakfast item this morning. Rarely knowingly refused. THG dug them out of the freezer. Fried with shrooms, garden tomaytoes, no baycon and an egg. Un oeuf is enough, as they say. Well I do anyway. Fortunately they were Fosters sausages. Could detect their saltiness, interestingly. If you look at food content there is a fair bit of salt in sausages. Only discovered this when I recently restarted reusing myfitnesspal. Woteva.

Today is a Wednesday. I know this because it tells me at the top right hand corner of my laptop screen. Not given much consideration to the day ahead yet. I have a lane swimming session booked for 3pm and might see if I can get the chainsaw going to continue tidying up the woodstore area.  Not totes comfortable with the idea of using the chainsaw and it needs a bit of tlc to get it started anyway so it might not happen. I’ve got all the gear though!

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One of my present tasks is tracing my Welsh 5G grandfather/mother. I have the 4G grandparents and his brother was the rector of several churches in Cardiganshire in the late eighteenth century: Llandysul, Bangor Teifi and Henllan. Slim pickings I imagine but at least there is a chance there will be some record of his origins and therefore the 5Gs.

The problem is the church records are a bit patchy from that time and you do have the issue of nobody having surnames. His name was David Davies. That would have been derived from David son of David after St David. The area is in the Diocese of St Davids. 25% of the people in that area are Davieses and any records going back from that time are likely only to have the Christian names.

I contacted Carmarthen Registry Office who told me I had to subscribe to Ancestry.co.uk to get the info online. Sigh. I was hoping they provided it themselves. Bit of a copout really. I’ll probably sign up when I really need to. At least they were quick responding. I could nip down the library here in Lincoln because access is free there. That is, however, downtown… Also gawd knows how much of a queue there might be to use their computers. Easier to just fork out the cash innit. Just looked and it’s cheaper than I thought. Sokay.

Then yesterday I messaged the Diocese of St Davids. One would hope they might have some info. They haven’t come back to me yet. I guess they maybe only work Sundays? Nah only joking.

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Went for a ride on my ebike this morning for the first time in over a year. My god my hips are stiff as hell now. I have mild osteo arthritis in the hips and just the gentle cycling motion has really had an effect. They do get a little sore after swimming and definitely after walking any distance but the cycling is a first. When you think of it the hips are being used all the time when riding a bike in a way that is not otherwise the case.

Swim booked for 9.15 this morning so up and at it early for a spot of invigorating granola n yo. A few freshly picked berries thrown in for colour. Well they were freshly picked at some stage. Good kip 6h43m with a score of 84 @Domhnal.

Looking a bit hazy out there but the forecast is for sunshine. It will no doubt be the weather for making some more inroads into the woodpile. There is something deeply satisfying about a good pile of logs. It is currently a haphazard assembly thrown there with no sense of tidiness or appearance. 

The area under the actual log store is full of old fence and bits of discarded furniture that really needs extracting and sorting/chopping down into kindling. Assuming I can actually get to it. The problem is some of the logs in the way are fairly substantial and need cutting down to size. There are also a few thicker branches that are good for the stage between kindling and logs. Don’t fret pet, I’ll sort it.

I have several wood related books. Well two. Must be a thing. I’d quite like to get into a bit of woodworking but currently there are other priorities.

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As I wait for The Head Gardener to be ready to go to the pool there is a bird chirping away in the garden. Why wouldn’t you want to chirp on a lovely sunny day in late autumn. I wonder what he or she is saying. Lifting up its head and belting away for anyone who wants to listen. Life is good. Enjoy it.

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Some very noisy fast jets just took off from RAF Waddington. I scanned the skies looking for them but was dazzled by the sun. Just like in the Battle of Britain. Gotta be careful. Dakkadakkadakka. Eventually I saw a small black shape disappearing into the northern aether. Continued along the path to the shed with pot of tea in hand.

Can’t get over how nice a morning it is. The shed doors are wide open once more. Indian Summer. Clinging on to the real thing.

The line is full of washing that will almost certainly be dry. Except perhaps for the swimming togs I just hung out. I have two lots on the line because I left the ones from yesterday overnight. No dramas 🙂

I dunno about you but I quite like writing about everyday stuff. If you look at what others write in the media it is full of political crap, disasters and the fact that some member of the royal family is now forty years old and has changed a lot since he was thirty. Well tbh who gives a flying f&*k.

Some of the news is probably relevant to me. Might affect how much tax I pay or whether I can heat the house over the winter but I pay people who like to dabble in such matters to sort things out. I don’t want to have to do their job. I just vote.

Life itself is a work of art that should be able to entertain and keep us happy. It does help if you can apply a splash of colour to the canvas but it can’t be a non stop rainbow. Life has different shades and hues obvs.

There is a medium sized dark green trug full of kindling on the deck in front of the shed. Chopped up bits of fence. I am going to transfer the wood to a larger trug and fill that up. I have a yellow one with a split in the plastic that is perfect for the job. I keep a hand axe in the shed especially for this purpose.

The deck btw has improved since I cleaned it up and applied the preservative. No longer slippery. Rosso when he was here putting up the new fence in the front, also screwed some of the edging back in that was coming apart. It should now be good for a few more years. I’ve moved the planter onto the path in front as the base was rotting and not doing the deck any good. 

The deck looks a lot better and there is more room now for folk to sit around a table during the summer months. I just need to source a good solid bench to finish it off.

As well as tidying the woodpile there is some old wiring I need to get rid of at the side of the deck. This is not a huge job. Just need to do it. It isn’t even on the jobs list which is normally a prerequisite for anything to get done.

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Remember, remember the twelfth of December, cocktails, dancing and trefbash.

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Been quite a busy lad. Tidied up the logpile a bit more as mentioned. There is now a path to the woodstore. More to do but a lot of it relies on the big logs being cut down to a sensible size which will have to wait until Tom the Tree Man comes to do his annual hedge maintenance. Sometime this coming winter. Lots of kindling now in the yellow trug under cover of the store on top of the logs. That is enough for today, probs.

Removed the old cabling and box that had been there to connect the floodlights on the old trellis from the pre shed days.. Still some armoured cable there but I couldn’t pull it through. I’ll need to get my spade out to get at it. Manana. My god it is all happening.

This is great stuff to do while the weather is nice. Not too hot either. Looks like another good day tomorrow. Progress, progress.

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Listening/half watching to Young Boys v Aston Villa. Have heard of very few of the players. The one that does stick in the mind is Onana, assuming that’s how you spell his name. Only because it sounds like the lyrics of a song: Onana, na onana, na onana onanah.

I like some sports people just because the name rolls off the tongue. Novak Djokovic for example is another very poetic name. Then there was Divok Origi, he’s my baby. Not really. It’s a song  Dewsbury-Hall sounds like a stately home. I always say Phil Foden’s name the wrong way round. Foden, Phil sounds better to me.

I’m sure there are others. There was Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink which is a v cool handle. Don’t think he’s playing anymore. Whenever there’s a Davies on the pitch I always call him cousin so and so (insert actual name).

Anyway that’s all. I thought I’d share that with you. The football match itself holds no interest to me whatsoever.