where art collides philosoperontap

My dear THG,

I sit here in my suite at the Hilton Hotel at Bankside, a short hop from The Tate Modern, contemplating whether to drop in to the gallery for an hour or so. I have a reservation on the express train to Lincoln departing Kings Cross Station at twelve oh six.

You can picture the lively station scene. A bustling platform with porters wheeling handcarts full of luggage, the noise coming from the steam engines, whooshes of steam and the warning of whistles, passengers hugging their relatives before boarding, fond farewells. Do come back and see us. Remember you need to change at Edinburgh for the Inverness train. Don’t forget your packed lunch. Send us a postcard when you get to Scarborough. 

The hotel is comfortable. There is a lounge provided for the use of busy executives looking for a quiet place away from the throng in the lobby. A cup of tea sir? Don’t mind if I do. Could I have a biscuit? Yes of course. Dunk away bebe.

I have checked out and decamped to the lounge. There is more going on here. Latte not tea. No biscuits. Only four of us execs in here. One bloke on a conference call, another playing with his phone and a woman doing stuff on her laptop. High flyers one and all, I assume. International business people driving the global economy. Fair play.

My entry to the lounge is based on diamond status within the Hilton Honors programme. This is likely to be my last year at diamond. This year I will also drop off the radar on the BA Exec Club. No status anywhere. All things come to pass. I don’t pick up my pension for another five years. 

There will be a four year gap/rapid decline between the end of me being a diamond geezer and queuing outside the Post Office to pick up the pension. The Carlton Estate Post office is conveniently situated next to the Coop so I will be able to pop in there to buy a few bits and bobs for supper. There is also a cafe there so I will be able to get together with other like minded individuals for a cup of tea before walking home. 

Not sure I’m ready for the concept of pushing my shopping along in one of those trolley type bags you see people using. Maybe I’ll just get it delivered from Waitrose. They have a caff in Waitrose that seems to always be full of pensioners. Don’t think I’m ready for that.

The taxi driver from Bankside was called Simon. Nice enough chap apart from being an Arsenal fan 🙂 Just back from watching them lose in Portugal. Slife.

Now back in seat E2 on the 12.06. They must have just announced the platform as the train is quickly filling up. My fave seat is E5 but someone had reserved E6 next to it so I thought sod that for a game of soldiers and didn’t book it. 

Some knob is allowing sounds to emanate from their device so the headphones are going on toute suite. It’s a kid. The knob is the parent. I understand the need to keep kids entertained on a journey but now I’m a curmudgeonly old fart with grown up kids my attitude has changed.

The tosser in E6 has put his bag and coat on the seats opposite to stop anyone from sitting there. He is on LinkedIn. I’m on Facebook. That’s just one of the differences between us.

If you had diamonds on the soles of your shoes you would need to be careful where you walked. Wouldn’t want to scratch the tiles after all and it could be quite slippery walking there. Depends on how many diamonds I suppose.

Hello Friday, goodbye London. The coming weekend is another sporting job. Two games of rugby on Saturday then Chelski v the Pool in the League Cup Final on Sunday. Saturday will as you know be boozy but the football will be just me and you in the shed.

I’m thinking I might prune the apple tree behind the shed on Saturday morning. Wasn’t able to get to it last year due to the pile of logs randomly scattered around the base but since I’ve tidied it up the tree is more accessible.

The train has just pulled into Grantham. I also need a haircut. These two statements are not linked. One just followed the other as it came to mind. The train actually did pull into Grantham. It will shortly be pulling out of Grantham which is a better state of affairs. I don’t know when I’ll get my hair cut. Soonish.

As I write Bob Dylan is sitting in the corner entertaining me with his geetar. Strumnming away at Mr Tambourine Man. I’m in two minds about our Bob. His early stuff is truly the work of genius. Genius poetry. His autobiography is equally good reading. On the other hand, my own personal experience of him is nothing to write home about. Worse than that actuellement. Let us just remember him for his talent.

The woman sat in D4 has been reading The Harvard Business Review – The Leadership Mindset. Gosh. I’ve never been interested.

The milkman came at three seventeen this morning.

Anyway THG. I’m looking forward to seeing you when I get home. Lotsalurve and kisses.

Tref

Just noticed it’s a leap year, gosh. Was looking at dates next week and saw that Thursday is the 29th. I guess unless your birthday is on the 29th February it isn’t something you pay particular attention to until it happens and then everyone notices and makes comments about how so and so is now eight years old etc.

The only real effect is if you get paid on the last Thursday of the month, in which case this year you have to wait another week. Had February ended on Wednesday 28th then payday would have been today. Bet the boffs never thought about such real world practical implications when coming up with the idea. They were more focused on bigger, higher level and infinitely more philosophical issues such as time itself. Quite liked using the term boffs there – not heard it for a while 🙂

Absolutely bucketing it down here and have determined to wear my Tilley hat when travelling to London later this morning. It’s not quite as bad as if someone was holding a bucket of water overhead and tipping it all over you but might just as well be.

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Been sat in a virtual meeting room for the last fifteen minutes wondering where on earth the other guys was. Turned out I’d forgotten to invite him! Doh!! Mind you he isn’t responding to whatsapp messages so no idea where he is. Probably nipped outside for a smoke and left his phone in the office.

The question on everyone’s lips this morning is do sparrows really fart? It may not hitherto have been on your lips but it is now. Also what time do sparrows fart? I was up at a relatively sedate six thirty which feels as if it is well after the hour.

I’m in the shed for eight thirty having relied on my trusty Tilley hat to keep the rain off my specs. Useful on safari as well as walking to the shed of a wet morning. It is quite peaceful in the shed. Raindrops falling off the trees onto the roof. The barely audible hum of the fridge and occasionally the heater. Distant and unfortunately persistent sound of a wood pigeon. Do they serve any purpose other than food for the local peregrine falcons?

There is a fresh cup of tea on the desk, recently tidied. I wouldn’t want the desk totally tidy. Would diminish its character. The clock on the desk still needs a new battery. It’s been like that a few months but it is a non standard battery size so I have none “in stock”. I don’t really need a clock there anyway as I have a Gudbye to Jane vinyl clock on the wall, one on the monitor in front of me and one on the phone. I only keep it because it is posh and it belonged to my mum.

I’ve just noticed I also have last year’s INEX calendar featuring one of my pics @eileen. Should really put that away somewhere. There, it’s gone. The desk also sports numerous beer mats including the trefbash one and a Laphroaig leaflet offering me a free square foot of Islay. I must sort that out.

Yesterday I took time out of my busy schedule to sort the posters out. I have a load waiting to be put up but there are too many vintage Isle of Man holidays ones. These have been whittled down to just the one. There is an Isle of Man railways one already on display on a different wall.

My biggest challenge is to get the heavier posters up. The signed and framed Pink Martini tour poster for example. I don’t want to put any holes in the pristine plasterwork. Command strips are the way forward. It just needs the application of time and a little lurve. The PM poster has been waiting for more than a year. It’ll get there 🙂

The neon beer sign also needs hanging up. It was replaced by the Lagunitas sign but is still worth displaying. Somewhere the lighting can be appreciated. Might work on that today. 

It is Wednesday and the milkman came at four oh five ey em. Now you know. 

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Well it’s been a busy enough day. I’ve been out and about and I’ve also done some work. I’m also now the proud owner of a square foot of land on Islay. I must make the effort to visit it. 🙂

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Bit of a multimedia evening. Listening to Liverpool currently losing to Luton whilst half watching Porto v Arsenal on mute. Still plenty of time but like I say they are currently losing. What a fast paced game. Just two minutes after that last sentence we are two one up.

A new day. Refreshed and in the shed by eight thirty ey em. Lots to do. To help me get into the swing I’ve stuck a calming classical playlist on’t stereo.

It’s a bit of a non day outside. Cloudy, not particularly warm so the heating is on in’t shed. One has to be sensible about this sort of thing. Health and safety in the workplace etc. I’ve also switched on the Lagunitas bar sign just to help brighten the place up a bit although the shed is pretty well lit. TBH I can’t see the bar sign from my desk as it is hidden behind a monitor but it’s the thought that counts. Knowing that it is switched on.

Been sat here for half an hour already but not quite got going. Perhaps the music is too calming 🙂 Finished my cup of tea and there is more in the pot except I’d have to go into the house for milk.

I’ve been reasonably good at not looking at the news although it is impossible to completely ignore it. There are more important things in life. I pay others to sort out the crap.

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Tis almost five o’clock and very much still light. This is encouraging isn’t it? The conversation amongst our dispersed family has today centred around what seeds should they be planting. THG has advised sweet peas, tomatoes and nasturtiums. I’m sure the greater Facebook community would chip in with more.

I sense that this year I will leave all gardening decisions to THG. My responsibilities in recent years have lain with the planting and supervision of the onion crop. I’m just not sure whether it is worth bothering with onions. The ones you can get in the shops seem to be bigger and better quality and I can’t detect any difference in taste especially as they are typically fried and absorbed into a dish with other more dominant flavours.

The one crop where a difference would certainly be detectable would be peas but you have to plant a lot of peas to make it worthwhile. Peas fresh from the garden are hard to beat.

Do you have any favourite home grown crops? We have in the past had some good tomato yields. Peppers and chillies have not fared so well. Cukes do well in the greenhouse. Apples have good and not so good years. Our pear tree is a write off.

Listening to a bit of Jacques Brell…

0 degrees longitude. I quite like that, being on the prime meridian. It is of course somewhat artificial, dating as it does, back to the day when the sun never set on the British Empire. I’d far rather have country code +1, itself also artificial. Life is interesting isn’t it.

It took us eleven hours to fly from Johannesburg to London, converging as we were on the prime meridian.. The flight time is a feature of our frenetic lifestyle. It’s really quite ridiculous that we can travel so far in such a short time. We try to cram so much in. 

You can get a container ship from London to South Africa with a 26 day travel time. Stops at six ports en route. I quite like that idea. Most of the stops are in Europe, presumably picking up cargo. Hamburg is one, Antwerp another. I like Antwerp. Then it stops somewhere near Tenerife before hitting the high seas and down the West African coast.

Can’t quite see how you do it as a passenger as opposed to cargo. Needs some investigation. Not sure it is worth the effort as I can’t see THG wanting to make the trip. That trip is something you would have to do on your own and make productive use of the spare time. It would be the opportunity to write the hit west end stage musical I’ve had in mind. ‘snotgonnahappen.

Connectivity to the internet would be a no go. It is only without access to the internet that you truly recover time. When we recently spent time big game hunting in the low veldt the only reason I needed connectivity was to backup the huge number of photos and videos of big game. Even then the backup could have waited but if you can you do it.

On a twenty six day journey on the high seas the photo opportunities would be quite limited. The occasional passing whale or albatross. Before you know it, it disappeared far to stern. Lost in the wake. 

The purpose of the trip would be to isolate the mind from external distractions and free up the creative juices. The discipline of the onboard routine would help. Fixed mealtimes in the mess. A regular promenade on deck. It is almost certainly only a small deck. We are talking container ship after all. Not some romantic steamer with first class passenger lounge and restaurant. Maybe I am wrong!

There are plenty of cruises to SA but that is not what I am after. What I’d really like is to call in some exotic port and go ashore with the crew, visiting bars and places of ill repute on the quayside before being carried back onboard by the least intoxicated sailor and dumped unceremoniously in my cabin. When I awoke the ship would be once more at sea and said port a mere distant memory. Why not? Unlikely innit.

As life progresses I increasingly appreciate the finer things. Time spent with THG, just basking in each other’s company. Tonight we will watch University Challenge. It is something we do together. She gets loads of questions right and I may sneak in one or two. It is the way of things. The one thing to note about our relationship is that we laugh at each other’s jokes. What’s not to like? 

One day, many moons ago, our daughter Hannah came home from school and told me she was really worried that she had picked up my sense of humour. She would crack a joke and half of her friends would laugh and the other half would look at her quizzingly. You either get it or you don’t. If you don’t get it that is fine. We are not here to pass judgement.

It is now dark out and I await the call to table. Risotto. THG makes a good risotto. It is a Monday evening and although it is dark it feels as if spring is a coming. It was a fresh afternoon and buds are to be seen emerging in the hedgerows. Life is about to start again.

This morning we wake up in Chelmsford having delivered a bed and a few bits and bobs to our fave dort Hannah. Also met Martin John and his lovely wife for a couple of sherberts and in the process delivered a scratch on the defender’s wheel arch.  This is a bit annoying as I was thinking of selling it this week. Now I’ll have to get it sorted first. Stopping by the garage on the way home.

Before that can happen we have to take some paint back to Wickes and drop some stuff off at the Chelmsford Recycling Centre. Never a dull moment innit. 

Meanwhile back in Lincoln the milkman dropped his load at three forty three ey em.

Un sandwich de bacon est consumee, or words to that effect. And a bit of toast. The most important meal of the day especially as this morning we are pointing the chariot south to deliver a bed to Hannah & George’s and will need sustenance for the journey.  Basically if we are to stay at theirs we have to have a bed so we have to take one with us 🙂 It’s a three hour trip. Now you know.

Outside it is a classic wet British day. I don’t mind this. I have a raincoat although the glasses are a bit of a hindrance. Not too bad if I wear my Tilley hat. Handy come rain or shine, a Tilley hat. The instructions tell you to wash it periodically but I’ve never washed mine. It’s not a fashion accessory, it’s a useful bit of clothing when on an adventure.

In other news our DAB wireless set appears to be on its last legs. It’s a posh Richards job but dates from the early days of DAB services in the UK so we must have had it a while. The FM bit still works. I still have the Ferguson radio I got for my sixteenth birthday. The aerial is broken but it still picks up radio Lincolnshire especially if I attach a coat hanger. Not that I listen to it v often. I might move it into the shed.

Now listening to Radio Cymru on BBC Sounds. Bore Sul with Bethan Rhys Roberts. This is a v rare occurrence. I should listen to it more often. Quite relaxing although I’m not really listening to what they are saying. It’s mostly bad news. Just like most news type programmes.

Upstairs THG is moving around doing a few final bits and bobs before the trip. I too need to pack. It’s just for one night so not much to stick in. They have a kitchen sink.

This is an interesting one. Would you go and stay with someone who didn’t have a kitchen sink? It would be a real faff. Presumably they still have a dishwasher otherwise how on earth would they get the dishes clean? Honestly! There’s the disposable plates option but this is not very environmentally friendly, unless they were compostable. Still not ideal. 

I don’t know the answer other than to buy them a kitchen sink. Christmas present maybs. You’d probs have to throw in the installation unless you bought them that for their birthday which is not ideal as there would be a gap between receiving the sink and being able to use it. Unless you bought the installation first but that would spoil the surprise. They would know there must be a sink to follow. Be easier to buy both at the same time and call one of them an advanced birthday present. Would be a bit over the top to give both sink and installation as a Christmas present. Let’s keep it sensible.

Some people would give their eye teeth for a kitchen sink for Christmas, especially if it came with a kitchen. I know I would. Actually no I wouldn’t. I already have a kitchen sink, and a kitchen, with all the gadgets I could possibly ever need. Anyway who brought up the subject of Christmas? It’s only February, for goodness sake.

Three rounds of sourdough toast (they aren’t very big around) and half a grapefruit is all you need to set you up for a Friday. I think I’m just about recovered from the trip. Wasn’t jet lag. More like a few days of four thirty ey em starts followed by a long journey and kipping on a plane.

The skies above the shed are a lot clearer than they were this time yesterday. Our neighbour had Tom the Tree Man and his team around to cut back a holm oak. It’s already had several large branches/trunks go in the wind and is hopefully now a lot safer, considering a lot of it was directly above the shed.

Much of yesterday involved things falling on the roof of the shed but at least I get all the logs out of the project. Many logs. Last time I got Hannah’s boyfriend George to shift them all 🙂. Good lad he is. Might have to do it meself this time. No rain forecast for today so will don my old pair of jeans.

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Fast forward. Did start carting the logs into the garden. Little by little. One log at a time (they are heavy) and before you know it the job will be done. Winter heat secured for some time to come. Not that we rely on logs for heat. They are just an occasional treat. In fact the heating is now off. It isn’t cold enough to have it on although we all know the vagaries of the British weather eh?

My two pee em conference call has been cancelled and I therefore consider the weekend to have arrivééd. More logs to shift. I probs do need to do a bit of work n all.

Today is Shrove Thursday. I am planning to eat as many pancakes as I can or until the batter runs out. The latter scenario would simply be bad planning. There had been a run on Jiff lemon juice at Waitrose so I bought some fresh lemons which is probs better anyway. I also bought some President butter.

Yesterday, Valentines Day, the milkman came at four oh eight ey am. Deliveries have been sporadic during my absence over the past fortnight and were not being recorded. Normal service, if there is such a thing, is about to resume.

Dropped off to sleep during the snooker last night. This was partly because I was tired from travelling and partly because Wildthing swang by the shed late afternoon and accepted my offer of a gin and tonic. It isn’t the done thing to let a pal drink on his own so I had one two.

I am now home and appear now to have a lot of stuff to crack on with, none of which involves writing a hit West End musical which I have been meaning to get on with for the last year or more. It all comes to he who waits, maybs.