where art collides philosoperontap

We are largely packed, though not loaded up. This is thanks to the Head Gardener’s insistence that the packing started a week ago. She is always right. Mostly.

Packing the car to go away was always a fraught time with family holidays. A high stress activity, especially when you thought it was all finished with every nook and cranny filled and you turn around to discover that more bags have appeared.

The pile of stuff to go in the car has grown over the week. It isn’t a pile per se. The jumbled array of goods being transported to the isle has spread out engulfing most available surfaces in the front room. At least we have a spare living room for this purpose. Almost as if by design. It is certainly a handy space for dumping all our gear when returning from a trip. Processing said gear could then be done at leisure.

In my mind the ideal scenario is that we fit everything into the boot of the defender leaving the back seats free to stick the odd coat and to accommodate any foot passengers catching the same ferry.

Reality is going to be v different. The baggage train includes bulky items such as duvets, three off,  and several kitchen bound trugs. As well as hiring a cottage on the prom we have our largely unfurnished house which is going to be occupied for the next few months, hence the gear.

It’s like going on a big camping expedition which actually was often the reality back in those stress filled days with four children’s worth of stuff to fit in plus the Gelert Zenith 6. The Zenith 6 was a huge family sized tent that would comfortably fit nine persons but was palatial for six of us. Two persons were needed to carry the tent and the whole team was well drilled for the erection, each with their own role in the process. Two hours was a good time from unpacking to moving the sleeping bags into position.

We eventually invested in a trailer which would take all the baggage leaving the interior of the car free for people and any entertainments needed to make the long journey more bearable. Nowadays the trailer sits in the corner of the front drive and is likely to be sold this summer.

For this family holiday all four now adult offspring will be flying from London leaving the HG and I to take the ferry, and the baggage in the car. The return trip will be without the bulky items but with more people as we are all Liverpool bound on the way back. Am hoping we will get everything in the boot. V shall c. 

Right now my condition is stress free and is expected to remain so even as I confront the task of loading up the car. I have already resigned myself to the fact that the back seats are going to come down. This is ok. This is one of the beauties of there being just the two of us.

Stay calm and if you are Belgian, enjoy your Ascension Day Bank Holiday.

Struggling to find something to watch to drown out Marsterchef on the pad of i. Quite tired tonight so will hit it early. Tomorrow is a day of sorting. A few workey bits and finishing packing for our jaunt to the Isle of Man. Dunno if it is all going to fit in the boot. Would prefer not to have to put the back seats down if at all possible. See howitgoze.

Busy busy busy today. Sort of. Preparing for our trip to the isle. Not going until the end of the week but don’t want to get there and find that we’ve left the kitchen sink behind. Schoolboy error. We won’t need the kitchen sink but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it just in case. Be prepared. Dib dib dib.

Would do no harm to have another cup of tea before getting busy. Why do something straight away when you can put it off by having a cup of tea. Only problem is I’d have to get off my arse to make it. See how it goes. 

I also need to walk to Lidl to buy some wildflower seeds. I’ve left a strip of lawn in front of the shed unmown. It’s going to be a meadow. Expect to see deer grazing there within a short few years. Will have to leave a gap in the hedge or fence for the deer to slip through. Not that I’ve seen any in the neighbourhood mind you. Grow it and they will come.

I realise that the revelation of today being a busy day is at odds with my mantra of not doing any work on a sabbath but you have to bear in mind that my adherence to the rule is very selective. If I feel like toil I will toil. Suptome innit. 

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Back from buying seeds in Lidl. 29 pence a pack. What’s not to like? Only thing is they didn’t have a pack called “wild flower mix” so I bought a few random packs of flower seed and figured that would do the job. Then on my way out of the shop I found that there was another complete display of seeds at the back of the unit I’d been selecting from. Couldn’t reach them anyway and moreover couldn’t be bothered with queuing up again even if they did have the right pack which I doubt.

I’m going to mix them all up in a bowl and then add some compost before scattering randomly on my meadow. All subject to approval from the Head Gardener obvs. We’ve been in this house a good 25 years or more and it has to be said that the garden is still evolving but it is heading in the right direction.

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Seeds randomly scattered and watered in, hopefully. We must remain optimistic and I have no reason to think that the flowers will flourish. It’s a percentages game.

A gentle start to the day. Sat in the conservatory sans cup of tea. Not given breakfast any consideration yet. Plenty of time. No rush. What’s the hurry?

It’ll go quickly enough anyway, time. I feel as if I should be sat cross legged on the carpet meditating. Ommm. Ommm I say.

The sound of wood pigeons is mildly irritating. What would life be like without them? Can they not change their tune? Bang.

I’m hoping to be able to cut the grass this afternoon. Should be ok. Then it’s steak on the bbq tonight. Bit of salad. Simple fare. Might buy a bottle of wine. See how it goes.

Bloody cold again today innit. Have switched the heating on in the shed to take the edge off it. Outside everywhere is green and growing, benefitting from the not insubstantial amount of April showers that have spilled over into May. Lawn needs cutting but for that we need a dry spell. I am going to leave a strip in front of the shed unmowed in anycase.

Sunday morning and the rain has stopped. Looking out into the garden it feels as if the new grass has shot up significantly over the last couple of days. I’ll pop out to inspect the onions in a bit and feel confident of similar progress. Today should be dry but back to normal British summer weather tomorrow.

Had a surprise birthday party for the Head Gardener yesterday round the corner at Eve and Steve’s. THG thought it was a coronation party but that was just the front. Was a wet old afternoon but Steve’s double sized gazebo came in very handy. A good time was had – thanks to our excellent hosts.

It being the sabbath the morning will be spent avoiding work of any kind. I don’t think I could stand being excommunicated if I was found to have broken the law. The shame of it. I sense that time spent in quiet contemplation and introspection would be appropriate. Some focus on my own spirituality. Maybs.

The blackbirds are out hunter-gathering. Plenty of worms in that lawn. Mostly males so I imagine the ladies are sitting on their nests. Were I to take the lid off the compost bin the blackbirds would have a feast. Lots of worm and insect activity turning the waste into fine compost. I prefer to leave this worms to their excellent work.

Strawberries are fruiting, or at least in full flower. The grape vine is coming into leaf. All is well.

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Sunday Sunday, feels good to me.

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Stan Getz, Girl from Ipanema. Went to Brazil decades ago. I’d visit the Amazon but otherwise feel no compulsion to return.

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Halfway through the weekend. Interesting to observe how the BBC toes the royalist line. All wine and roses in the kingdom. The succession reassured. 

Tis indeed Saturday. I have broken the fast and am now enjoying a cup of hot water infused with tea in the TV room. Said device is in the off position. I already made the mistake of turning on the wireless after having recently advised everyone not to do so. The wireless is also now in the off position.

I do like Saturdays. In fact I like every day. It would not be right to favour one over another. I do prefer good days to bad days but I try not to have any of the latter. Seems to make sense.

The Head Gardener has left for her Saturday morning park run, in a park. Boultham Park. I have not. I do have something to look forward to though. I bought two packs of socks from Marks and Spencer and will break open one of them today. It is nice to wear new socks. 

Probably if I were a multi billionaire I would treat myself to new socks on a frequent basis. Some might think that were this the case I would be flaunting my wealth but discretion would be very possible. Nobody would need to know the socks were new and under those circumstances I certainly would not be broadcasting the fact on Facebook. Nosirreebob.

If you spot me in new socks there is no need to say anything. We can just exchange knowing nods and walk on by. Nothing to see here.

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Very happy with the progress of my onions. 

It’s actually a big weekend. Uncle Ted’s 80th birthday bash. I think it might be a surprise bash but Ted ain’t on Facebook so I don’t think I’m giving anything away.

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It does very much feel as if I could be getting on with some jobs but I’m too relaxed and it is a day of rest. The shed doors are flung wide open. I do need to finish tidying the shed but manana bebe manana.

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There’s a big event playing on an iPad in the kitchen. I don’t need to see it but there is some decent choral work being sung

This is a week for putting away the winter wardrobe. I’m having difficulty finding my trainer liners amongst the morass of winter woollies that will no longer be required. I suspect I will need to refresh the stock of trainer liners but will not really know until after the tidy up.

Of course one tidy up leads to another. We are off to the Isle of Man later this month and will be taking some stuff along to survive in a near empty house. The camping box, duvets etc. In doing all that I will need to clear out the trailer. We are going to sell the trailer so that needs sorting anyway.

The trailer was very useful when four kids filled the family car and we had to put the luggage/camping stuff somewhere else. Now the two of us either head off in one of our campervans or stay in nice hotels and we can chuck all our gear in the back of the Defender.

I also need to finish tidying up the shed. Non stop innit. When will it ever end 🙂

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Socks have been sorted. I defo need a new stock of summer socks although reality is when the heat of the British High Summer kicks in I won’t be wearing socks as sandals and flip flops will be more the norm.

Ordered ten pairs from Marks and Spencer.

Bank Holiday Monday. Quiet on the road in front of the hoose. Waiting for the tea to brew.

The Head Gardener has gone to the gym. I have broken the fast and am easing into the day. As momentum grows a job or two will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. There is no rush. Still more tidying to do in the shed and some more grass seed to sow.

The birds are in fine voice around the garden. Reminds me that I need to revamp the mostly old and manky feeders. I also need to add some wire runs between the posts where the plum tree is going to be trained. To do that I’ll need to find where I put the wire 🙂.

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Festoon lighting finished. Espalier framing done.

Been offered a firmware update for my Apple Studio Display. I believe this could be the first time I’ve seen a monitor do a software update. Obvs when you think about it. The telly does one every now and again. I’ll do it later. Busy right now and I don’t know how long it will take.

Miserable wet morning although I don’t mind that. I am comfortably ensconced in the shed. It is v relaxing. All I can hear is drops of water falling onto the shed roof from branches above and the very faint whirr of a fan somewhere near the desk.

I have a call at nine am this morning and picking Jose up from the stayshun at eleven oh eight and the rest of the time will be spent writing stuff. Probs nip to the rose for some groceries too.

There’s a plant pot on the table outside the shed door containing snakes head fritillaries. Looks v nice. I also see the occasional bird foraging in the garden. Apple trees will soon be in bloom. 

The only issue I have with all this ongoing nature is the fact that when sat at my desk I wear my ‘screen specs’ which are not provisioned for long distance vision. Third world problems eh?

I must sort out the bird feeders and finish putting the grass seed down. Too wet today. I also need another string of festoon lighting to complete the ring around the bbq. Might swing by the shop en route to the stayshun.

Yesterday I went to see the Rossetti exhibition at the Tate Britain. It was nice enough and every piece was interesting in its own right. However I’m not totes sure I’m big on this Victorian era stuff. Also I can’t get into the whole ‘art has a theme and meaning’ thing. When you look at big renaissance masterpieces they almost always had to have a meaning. Even portraits would have the sitter holding accessories that meant something. Divine power or world domination or similar.

I’m not saying that this was always the case with the Rossettis but when someone takes years to paint a picture and does many versions until he is happy he got it right there must have been some element of truth in my assertion.

Some of the poetry was good and I did stick my head through the shop door to see if there was an anthology I might purchayse but they seemed to be trying to flog large format glossy books about the exhibition so I gave it a miss and went to the pub.

What was interesting was the fact that addiction to Laudanum seemed to be quite common amongst the artistic community of the time. Amongst a certain class of Victorians in general I suspect. I don’t know how anyone can be creative when this is the case. It’s not as if it was LSD and you got lots of wild visions. I certainly can’t write anything if I’ve had a beer or two. I will go back and spend more time at the Tate Britain.

In other news we have a splendid display of red tulips in front of the bbq area. Pic taken from the shed to show you as I’m sure it will be of interest to many 🙂 Also the onions and shallots continue to thrive. Long may it last.

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Listening to a contemporary music playlist in the shed. This is because I am sharing my space today with one who knows about these things. I don’t typically listen to new music. It isn’t that there is no good stuff being produced these days. There is lots of it. I suspect it is because your music listening tastes are cemented around what you were playing at a certain time in life. Perhaps we aren’t listening to tunes just because they are good but because we associate them with a specific set of memories.

I’ve had enough of ‘work’ for the day and now just whiling away the time before my optician’s appointment at three thirty. Decided I like my ‘screen’ specs enough to get another pair for every day use, ie non screen use.

Good start to the day with a full Lincolnshire breakfast. Basically same as a full English/Welsh but using spicy Lincolnshire farmhouse sausages from Fosters on Monks Road. Now relaxing with a cup of tea. I can hear what sounds like Marseterchef playing on an iPad upstairs. Each to their own 🙂

My days all start like this, with a variation on the breakfast fare. Today is a Saturday, apparently. I know this because there is a lot more sport on, although with the World Snooker Championships happening at the Crucible all other sports could be forgiven for taking a couple of weeks off knowing that everyone would want to watch every frame. 

This they do not seem to have done. Talk about not putting the customer first! I suppose there are some mavericks who might think otherwise. The Head Gardener’s two sports are football and snooker. Fortunately because of the magic of online streaming she doesn’t have to miss a minute of either sport. A happy Head Gardener means a happy Tref.

Happiness is a warm gun mama. Happiness is good. Try to be happy everybody. There is no other state of being worth considering. Stay positive. Do good things.

As I mature in years (note this is an age thing not an emotional maturity thing – I’m really just a kid innit) I increasingly try to be nice to people, even if I think they are knobheads. Actually with knobheads I just try to avoid them. Life is short. Anyway the point is nice is good. I like it when someone smiles back at you when you smile at them. And why not?

It’s been quite some time since I abandoned convention with clothing. When tidying out the shed yesterday I came across the friesian cow print gelabia and fez that were the tour attire for the rugby world cup trip to paris in 2007. It’s a long story but it is true. This reminded me how comfortable it was to wear. Why not? Now I’m thinking kaftan.

Next December’s trefbash is going to have Music Festival as a theme. A kaftan would work quite well there, maybe with a suitable hat to accompany it. I’ll have to give it some thought as I have already been hatching a different plan for attire for that night. You will find out soon enough. 7th December if you haven’t already got it in the diary. You are invited.

I have various screens on the go. Sort of watching the football although it has become less absorbing since Nuke Arstle slowed down their scoring rate. I also have two snooker matches on, together with open WhatsApp and Facebook windows.

You might think this a little excessive but in reality I only need to watch the replays of all the Nuke Arstle goals as they happen and the long snooker ‘shot times’ mean that it is quite easy to follow two matches. For the hell of it I’ve also stuck France v Wales in the Women’s 6 Nations on. It’s just like being in a sports bar, without the beer. Off swimming after the football so beer would not be a good thing to do. Not got much in anyway.

When I were a kid it would just be a black and white cowboy film on a Sunday afternoon, if you were lucky, or Lucile Ball.

Perfect spring day in the shire. Refreshingly wet. I shall not need to water my shallots. Wet is good, in moderation. There is an easterly wind so it is slightly parker knolled but I complain not. I accidentally left the heating on in the shed last night making it already pleasantly warm inside.

Yesterday afternoon I took the money at the golf. This included a quid for the longest drive on the seventh for which I used a six iron. This kept me on the fairway when the others, with their showy drivers, failed. I don’t bother keeping woods in the bag as I haven’t been hitting them very well. I can, or at least used to be able to, hit the ball a long way but not necessarily in the right direction.

The only thing in my diary today is a swim at three o’clock. I have lots of stuff to do but none of it involves a deadline. Some of it, relating to my Isle of Man state pension doesn’t need doing for years but I figured I might as well get it out of the way, sometime.

I did start tidying the cupboard in the shed yesterday pm and this job needs finishing. The problem is it isn’t just the cupboard that needs doing. The whole of the space under the ‘shelving unit’ also needs a good sorting out. I just hide it all with some old bits of corex signage at the mo.

This morning grass has emerged on the newly seeded area of lawn. This all happened overnight. The joys of nature. I still haven’t finished putting the seed down – other areas need sorting out. Norraprobem. Will have to wait until it dries a bit now methinks. A good excuse to put off a job.

I think I will end up doing a bit of everything today. Might as well carry on with the shed tidying as there is now a lot of cupboard detritus scattered over the floor. Some stuff needs moving to the attic. There are several old computers that were retrieved from there a year or so ago during one of the lockdowns. They were part of a project planned by one of the kids that never reached fruition. I’ll move it all bit by bit.

We are lucky to have a house with lots of space. It does however seem to fill up quite quickly. We periodically have a sort out and things get thrown, freeing up space that is then soon filled again.

Tharrldofornow. Stuff to do, as you know.

Another fine afternoon in prospect although an easterly will somewhat suppress the temperature. Note the slightly nautical term there, easterly. It’s going to veer north easterly on occasion which doesn’t help the cause. It’s probably not nautical per se but certainly associated with the sea. The shipping forecast perhaps.

From the age of six I lived mostly near the coast. Since leaving university all those years ago I’ve inhabited an inland island called Lincoln. I miss the sea. The nearest coast, the East Coast, is not particularly attractive at least when compared with the rugged scenery of Wales and the West where I grew up.

Too late. Ain’t gonna move now. Lincoln is in any case somewhat of a paradise surrounded by miles of featureless agricultural flatlands. It’s interesting that one of the more noticeable aspects of the Lincolnshire countryside are its churches. They stand out and can be seen from miles away across the fields. A clear reminder of the past.

At one time the countryside would have been teeming with people working the fields and filling the churches. Not particularly because they wanted to be there but because they were given no choice.

Now we choose to live in Lincoln and whether to go to church or not. I choose to go for christenings, weddings and funerals although few funerals tend to be in a church nowadays and I can’t remember the last christening I attended. Probably our youngest son John. Longtimeagonow.

This gap since the last christening could be partly to do with the fact that it is only in recent years that we’ve started going to weddings again as our friends’ progeny reach marriageable age. There ya go. Another throwback to the past. Marriageable age! It’s about time you got married young Godwin, Larkin or Caspian. Or Agnes, Constance or Petronilla.

I had to google ‘mediaeval names’ there. As an experiment I also just googled ‘most popular boys names’ and for the UK it came up with Noah, Theo and Oliver. Still mediaeval really although they would probably have used Theodore, or Theophilus even. Good name Theophilus. I dunno. It’s all Greek to me.

Outside three towels, left out on the line overnight, sway gently in the morning breeze. Two pinkuns and a ddraig goch. Also a pair of swimming shorts left out to dry after my swim yesterday afternoon. Another booked for today. Two forty five.  Actually one of the pink towels is a quilt cover. Doesn’t matter.

At six twenty five it has been light for some time and farmer Noa will have been out on his tractor for a while already. Probably starting to think about going in for his second breakfast. A hard life. We stayed with our friend @Cyberdoyle last summer, on her dairy farm in Wray. Her son, the farmer, was up very early every morning to do the milking. A hard life. I guess working in the great outdoors does offer its compensations. 

Gotta go. Time to mek the tea.

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Sat in the shed listening to some calming classical music. The shed feels a little like a fulcrum. No, not a fulcrum because that suggests there are just two sides to life. The centre of Tref’s known universe perhaps.

I looked up  ‘centre of the known universe’ and the folk who know tell me there is no centre. ‘According to the standard theories of cosmology, the universe started with a “Big Bang” about 14 thousand million years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no centre to the expansion; it is the same everywhere.’

This suggests that the big bang happened everywhere at once. In some respect that is the same as my universe.

I’ve travelled a lot and one thing that has always struck me that people’s lives carry on when I leave their world and return to mine, the shed. So the Black Boy Inn in Caernarfon continues to serve guests when I am not there and the woman selling food in the floating market in Thailand is still probably floating her boat.

So my universe carries on regardless and is still happening everywhere. Everywhere I’ve been. Sometimes my universe has been known to collapse in parts. People die, pubs and restaurants close and buildings are demolished. My universe must be constantly changing.

The centre of my universe is certainly a communications centre. I communicate with many friends I’ve met all over the world. I see them live their lives, their kids being born and growing up and getting married. It is an amazing place to be. Many of them I won’t see in person again. Swayitgoze.

Big mystery innit, the universe, and how it all began 🙂

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Pool update. Two forty five today. Already six people in the slow lane when I arrived poolside.  Only two in the fast lane but I know my place. Fortunately it didn’t take long for five of them to get out so I was left with just one other. She was even slower than me but we didn’t get in each other’s way.

After a while a bloke got in who did one length and man handled his way for his second length clinging on to the side. Thought this was a bit odd but hey, maybe he was in rehab or something. Then he dived in at the deepest part and swam along the bottom, reaching the other side in no time whatsoever. Hmmm.

After that his pal came in and they seemed to mostly hang around the side with the occasional dive to the bottom, until the attendant came and shooed them away. This was a lane swim not a social event 🙂

The slow woman then got out leaving the lane to just liddle old me. Did forty minutes of front crawl which I am quite pleased about. This swimming is making me generally a lot fitter and I find that I am walking with more (well a little more) of a spring in my step ish.

Before heading poolwards I planted the plum tree purchaysed a few days ago. Feels good. Obvs it will be a year or three before we start to see results but I am going to make a point of espaliering this one  and doing it properly.

Arrived a bit early for my afternoon swim so I nipped to the Coop for some greens for tonight’s tea. Couldn’t immediately see any green beans so I asked the member of staff who was busy restocking the tender stem broccoli. “No we don’t do green beans”. Then I spotted a packet of ‘Fine Beans’ right next to the broccoli. “Ah yes” he said. He’d been on holiday, although I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of soap.

Back in the carpark it was school pickup time. Amazing how many parents sit there in the car park with their engines running. Problem is you would just open yourself up to abuse if you mentioned it.

Was first in the pool. Luxury swimming. Didn’t take long for others to turn up. A bloke with a bigger belly than mine trundled poolside. I thought it would be just typical if he got into my lane, the slow lane, when there were two totally empty lanes. He got into the medium speed lane. Fair enough. 

Then a ginger geezer did get into the slow lane but he was no trouble. Although I am usually one of the slowest swimmers in the pool I caught up with him a few times but when I did I just turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

After him a woman of a certain age got in. I could see her slowly approaching the ladder as I swam up to it. Now some people have no clue and get in just as you are reaching the end to turn. The nightmare sitch is that they start swimming just as you make your turn and thus totally get in your way. She climbed in but tucked herself out of my way, clinging to the lane marker. Fair play I thought. Then she started swimming next to me, the wrong way around. Wot! I soon outpaced her and when ginge came up in the opposite direction she had to tuck in behind me.

Next up was a very large person who swam in the middle of the lane so nobody could overtake anyway and who only pulled in as you approached. I dunno. I did manage to overtake at one point, quite comfortably. Something I only do if there is a lot of clear water ahead. At the turn I found she had already turned and was headed in the other direction. Nowt so queer as folk.

Both she and ginger got out before me and when after thirty five minutes I hoisted myself up the ladder there was only the woman of a certain age left in the lane. Good swim. It’s very rare for me to be the fastest in the slow lane (cue music).