where art collides philosoperontap

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Monday morning, apaz. Busy week ahead. 3 lane swimming sessions booked Monday to Wednesday and off to London for a meeting on Thursday. In between swims the jobs list should see some progress. Nothing too onerous. Bit of glueing, boxing up and moving apples. Maybe even a bit of garage tidying. 

The big thing for this week is that I’m starting research for my next book. It’s an idea that has been in the pipeline for a decade since doing some family tree research. The history of my  family on the Welsh side has very much reflected what has been happening in the world over the last two to three hundred years. 

This includes becoming tenant farmers, participation in the religious revival of the eighteenth century, the involvement in the woollen factory business during the industrial revolution and then when UK cloth manufacturing stopped due to cheap foreign imports we became coal miners and engineers. My father was the first in the family to get a University degree and I have been part of a modern technology revolution that is still very much ongoing. Bewilderingly so.

There is a lot of research still to do but figured this would be a good use of some of my time. The book is not going to be about my family but about what my family was doing in the context of what was going on in the world at the time.

You ain’t going to hear much more about this for some time but I thought I’d stick it out there at the start.

In the meantime I’ve also got to get the last trefbash launched. Will hopefully be good to go next week. Keep yer eyes peeled. 12th December. 2024.

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No sooner had I posted the above and got dressed than I did the first job on the list. The magnetic door holder on the cupboard in the hallway where THG stores half her shoes was glued back in position. See it, sort it. 🙂

Then just as I was on my way out the back door to the shed with a pot of tea I heard a cry from upstairs. A big lorry had parked in front of our drive. Obvs we need to be able to get in and out to go to the gym and no sooner had I been alerted than I strode out to make enquiries. 

The young lad putting out cones explained that either Openreach or Virgin or simlar (they never got to know who) was about to undertake some fibre laying, presumably, up the road. Can’t be City Fibre as they’ve already done our road. Some time ago. The lad was putting up some temporary traffic lights. Would be gone by nine thirty so fine. The lights would still be there obvs but we will just need to keep an eye out on the traffic flows.

Anyway excitement over for now and I am in the shed. All is calm.

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Productive enough day so far. Bit of glueing, bit of kindling chopping, a start made on my bench tidy for hanging tools, trip to the tip, meeting arranged for Friday afternoon (don’t want to overdo these things), apples packed and put away, 30 min swim. Not bad.

btw we found out why the dairy closed down.  problems recruiting staff. we got a letter. you can understand why. I wonder if our guy had left leaving them short of people.

We have two eating apple trees. The one near the back fence has seen a lot of ‘insect action’ on the fruit so I’ve concentrated more on picking the apples near the barbecue. That tree is pretty much stripped now and I’ve not particularly bothered with the windfalls as we now have plenty of fruit for our first batch of cider. Just need to get yesterday’s harvest boxed up today.

A day of autumnal feasting in prospect. Roast pork with all the trimmings. Apple and blackberry crumble with custard. I do need a top up trip to Waitrose. Butter, custard and onions. Not necessarily in that order. Might also buy some stock.

We haven’t had a roast for months but now is the time. Fluffy roast potatoes, crisp crackling, sage and onion stuffing, apple gravy. Bit of English mustard on the side. It ain’t rocket science. Just the basics done well.

I used to always add a slug of sherry into gravy but not done that in a while. One slug for the gravy and two for me. Not today. Driving Joe to the stayshun later. Also I want to stay awake into the evening. Whilst a boozy Sunday lunch is one of life’s joys you do have to write off the rest of the day.

But first, breakfast.

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It is still nice enough to sit out on the deck, albeit in a dressing gown. Cup of tea at my side. Magpie croaking noisily behind me. An unattractive croak has the magpie. Nasty bullies. We saw one attacking a blackbird on our lawn last year.

The leaves are very much back. Dead crinkled shadows of their former productive glory. We will need to decide when is the best time to shift em. More will come anyway.

The Sunday service was all about harvest. I switched off the wireless because as you may know I am very fussy about the Sunday service and this one didn’t cut it. However it did remind me that this is an important time of year for us all regardless of whether you treat it as a religious affair or not. Nature’s annual cycle continues to turn.

Seasonally, I threw a couple of slices of apple into the pan with the bacon. We learned of sliced apple as an ingredient of a cooked breakfast years ago when staying at Winteringham Fields. Figured it was about time we revisited the practice. We should also revisit the restaurant (with rooms) but it is best done with friends and last time I asked we couldn’t get anyone else to come along.

My flower meadow continues to produce. The packet said to expect blooms until the end of October and it is living up to the promise. Should be even better next year. I’m sat looking at it now. Ordinarily in years gone by I’d be flicking through the Sunday paper. Nowadays it is all done online. I am doing so on my laptop. The problem is there is not a single story that has tempted me to click and I scrolled all the way down to the bottom. I despair.

The greenhouse to my right is still producing tomatoes and the odd cuke. It’s next function is to store the apples for a month or so. I do need to move the boxes in there. Currently they are using up space in the utility room which pleaseth not THG.

I am pleased to announce that philosopherontap is now up to date. The site has 2,462 published posts of which 2,215 are mine. The rest are guest posts. Miscellaneous bits of poetry n stuff. Nowadays it uses the simple, standard wordpress template but in the past I’ve had lots of graphics in there. I may yet return to that format, at least with a featured image, but it will need to wait. I have other priorities. I started it in August 2008. Gosh.

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Much of the sunday dinner (lunch, depending on where you come from) is prepped. Now waiting in for someone to come and pick up the camping kitchen sold on FB Marketplace for a tenner before I can nip to Waitrose. Need ohohions, butter and something else. It’s written down but can’t remember what it is immediately. This is why we write things down. Custard, that was it 🙂Need to decide between Ambrosia and Waitrose’s posh stuff. Both have their plusses. Both need serving cold whatever happens.

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Forgot to mention yesterday that during our visit to St Denys’ church I noted the hymn numbers off the board: 105, 572, 626 and 104 in thats order. No idea whether they were left over from the previous weekend or put up in advance for today’s gig. Whatever the answer, and I’ve not looked up the specific hymns themselves, it is an important omission that I am happy to have now corrected.

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Pork Roasting guide

c gas 7 for 30 mins or until the skin has crisped up, then reduce heat to 160. c gas 3 and roast for a further 35 minutes per KG and adding on 15 minutes at the end of the cooking time, always allow to rest for 25-30 mins before carving.

So for a 1.27kg joint it is 30 mins at gas mark 7 followed by an hour at gas mark 3 then a 25 mins rest.

So for a 2pm dinner stick it in the oven at noon.

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Bought 3 onions, custard and butter (president salted) at Waitrose as previously mentioned. Had to be rescanned! The guy only scanned the custard. Fortunately it was only a small shop 🙂

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Just go with truth and beauty and forget the rest – Bill Evans (according to Tony Bennet)

Silence prevails. THG is upstairs preparing for the park run but child 3, who said he would go with her, shows no movement in the land of the living. He went out with some mates last night. I am preparing to cook a full English. 

A full English later and child 3, boy 2, has appeared in his running gear prepared to pound the track at Yarborough Leisure centre fair play to him.

I, on the other hand, am now relaxing in the conservatoire with a cup of tea contemplating the day ahead. THG and I are off to the bustling and historic market town of Sleaford. In the mid twelfth century Sleaford was granted the right to hold a market and I am hoping it will be open today when we go. Would be a shame if they had stopped doing it. Where else would Sleafordians go for their pots and pans, leather goods, spices and so on and so forth.

The cathedral bells have just struck nine, the signal for the runners to start. The fact that I can hear the bells suggests there is a westerlyish wind. Checking with the met office the wind is indeed coming from SSW/SW. Good to know.

Before we go I need to get some chicken marinating. 

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The Davieses hit Sleaford. We parked next to the Hub arts centre and strolled into the Marketplace. Unfortunately said marketplace was undergoing major renovation and the market had temporarily moved, to the other end of our car park!

As an interim move we went in to St Denys church. Quite interesting fair play. V old. Had a chat with a woman brushing away cobwebs. “So many of them around at this time of year”. I have pasted the complete list of vicars of St Denys because I know you will be interested.

Back at the car park, I mean market, we found the plant stall. In fact this was the only stall that could be arsed to turn up. Sokay, THG filled a bag with plants and bulbs and came away happy. 

The plant seller was right next to The Hub arts centre where we had lunch. I ordered a cheese and ham sandwich. I had eaten half of it before I realised it only contained cheese. Hmm maybe it was cheese or ham but upon checking, the wording on the menu seemed unambiguous. The woman behind the counter confirmed this and took back the remaining half a sandwich and replaced it with the full spec item.

Upstairs the Hub had a very interesting display. I was somewhat sceptical beforehand but no, interesting it was and time well spent. Stuff made of paper. Afterwards we called in at Cogglesford Mill. My dad was born in a watermill called Maesdulais near Pontyberem in Sir Gar. They made woollen cloth.

 Then headed home in the Silver Bullet. The fields of Lincolnshire were a patchwork of straws, greens and browns. The moving hedgerows served as a blurry filter with at one point a ploughing tractor visible through the haze. There was an interesting contrast between the hedges that had been trimmed and those still growing unkempt and random (no grammar police please, I’m not interested). A  tree periodically stood guard in the line of each hedge.

Back home I had to shed the shirt, bow tie and long trousers I had worn for the visit and am now back in my usual shorts and tee shirt.

The list of vicars now follows. Note that I used google lens on my phone to copy the text from a photo and was offered the function of storing the copied content on my Mac Mini for onward pasting. Inneresting.

VICARS OF SLEAFORD PARISH CHURCH, ST. DENYS

1277: HENRY DE SWINDERBY
        : RICHARD DE BRAY
1284: ROBERT DE WHYTEMORE
1313: JOHN DE KIRKEBY
1336: HENRY DE LEVESINGHAM
1340: THOMAS DE WERDALE
1515: JOHN GODFRE
1539: WILLIAM WARRE
1545: ROBERT BAYT.
1553: CHRISTOPHER BICKERDICK
1558: GEORGE COCKET
1577: JOSEPH OVERTON
1587: THOMAS WESTCOTT
1591: JOHN HUDDLESTONE
1603: EDMUND NEWTON
1618: RICHARD FLEAR
1627: THOMAS GRIFFITH
1630: ROBERT ALFORD
1644: RICHARD MILWARD
1640: MILES LONG
1648: HENRY TEONGE
1656: GEORGE BOHEME
1660: HENRY ALLEN
1682: WILLIAM WYCHE
1691: EDWARD SMITH I. M.A.
1703: THOMAS SELLER M.A.
1737: WILLIAM SELLER M.A.
1769: WILLAM SMITH II
         : RICHARD BRANSTON
1780: JOHN PLAMPIN
1781: EDWARD WATERSON. M.Α
1809: RICHARD YERBURGH I. D.D.
1851: RICHARD YERBURGH II. B.Α.
1882: ALFRED LANGDON B.A.
1926: WILLIAM NORTON HOWE M.A.
1938: CHRISTIAN FREDERIC WAUDBY Μ.Α. ΟΧΟΝ
1960: PHILIP ERNEST MANN M.A. CANTAB. B.A. LONDON 
1972: HENRY GORDON MITCHELL. M.A.
1986: JOHN STEPHEN THOROLD
2002: JOHN ANDREW PATRICK B.A.
2013: PHILIP ANTHONY JOHNSON, MA, FIBMS

The milkman didn’t come again this morning. There are six empty bottles in the front porch awaiting collection. Reality is the milkman ain’t coming no more, no more, the milkman ain’t coming no more.

It feels as if we have lost a member of the family. A pretty terminal state of affairs. No longer will I need to check the CCTV to see what time he arrived, or be woken by the clinking of bottles as the porch door was opened and then closed behind him.

Dropped by Coops’ garage on the way back from the tip. He mentioned that they still got their milk delivery this morning. V strange. So I called the Peterborough head office to find out that Coops’ postcode (LN4 as opposed to our LN2) was supplied from the Grantham depot which didn’t deliver as far as us. Ah well.

At this point I need to do a bit of wrapping up on the milk delivery front. Firstly some stats. I started logging the milk delivery times on the eighth of January this year. Don’t ask me why. It’s the engineer in me. I didn’t really know what I was going to do with the data. It is an historical tidbit that may be of interest to people in centuries to come but probably not. At least it is a snapshot of life in the year twenty twenty four.

Our milk was delivered three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The average delivery time on Mondays was 04:29, Wednesdays 03:49 and Fridays 03:53. Overall the average delivery time was 04:03. His earliest delivery date was 02:54 on the fifteenth of March and the latest was 05:37 on the fifth of August.

There was only one occasion, the twenty sixth of June, where the person delivering was not our normal guy. This may have been because of illness or he might have been on holiday. Who knows? You might consider that only one day’s holiday is not very much but we have had quite a few gaps where our delivery was cancelled due to our own holidays so milkie might have taken that opportunity to go away himself. Only once did I record him using a torch but he may also have used one on other occasions.

We never found the name of our milkman and probably now never will. It certainly isn’t worth putting in any detective work here. It is best that he remains the “Unknown Milkman”. One day, when he is called to the great  dairy in the sky his gravestone could well simply read “Milkman”. Or “Here lies the milkman, the safeguard of the nation’s breakfast”.

He joins other milkmen in our collected psyche. Ernie springs to mind. He of the fastest milk cart in the west fame. There’s also the old Norman Wisdom classic The Early Bird. Actually those are the only ones I can think of. If under a certain age you may need to google them. Feel free to chip in with more suggestions.

Part of me thinks we have a duty of care to our milkman. How is he now going to earn a living, put bread, milk, cream, eggs and orange juice on the table. Had we ordered more items off him would that have kept the milk float afloat? I don’t feel guilty here. The milk was around a pound a pint.

It doesn’t feel as if we have an alternative supplier, other than supermarkets. Adie suggested McQueens but they are in Mansfield. Too far man, too far. Newark was far enough.

I do like the idea of the occasional trip to Home Farm Dairy, twelve miles north on the A15. They sell raw milk direct from the farm. Unpasteurised I presume. I like the idea but it would very much only be the occasional jaunt. They don’t deliver. We live too far from @Chris otherwise she might have sold us some milk direct from her own farm.

Not much else to say. This isn’t a subject upon which we should dwell. Need to move on. At this stage if anyone would like to share their thoughts, memories perhaps, on our milkman or any other who may play a part in their own lives wherever they are please feel free to do so.

I will finish by wishing our former milkman well. Let us hope that he finds gainful employment that will fully utilise his undoubted and well proven skillset. Goodbye and good luck 🙂