where art collides philosoperontap

I had a dream. There I was driving along in a campervan when I saw an old geezer collapse on the pavement and some other a little less old bearded chap had stopped to see if he was ok. I pulled to a halt and asked if they needed any help. The bearded guy told me to call for an ambulance which I did.

After a while on hold whilst the 999 person was trying to sort an ambulance we realised that the old geezer was just inebriated and didn’t really need an ambulance and a good kip would sort him. I killed the call and in the meantime realised that someone had nicked my campervan. Bar steward.

Now I don’t normally remember dreams but this one obviously stuck. I’ll leave it to you to interpret.

Breakfasted well and strolled, hood up, to the shed. It is raining ish but the forecast is for heavier rain. I may get stranded. The shed was unusually cold. Something tripped the power in the house yesterday and I forgot to turn the heater in the shed back on. Good job we don’t live in Alaska. I do quite like the idea of going to Alaska though. Wilderness adventure. I’d need to find someone to come with me.

…

A bit damp now as walked to Waitrose with John for a few supplies. Steady rain all the way back and my specs steamed up so could hardly see. Good job I knew the way. Jeans were totes soaked by the time I got home. Hey… Good job I had a spare pair innit.

Now sat enjoying a cup of tea in the TV room. No TV on. I’m pondering subscribing to the Disney+ channel later today as we want to watch Get Back, the Beatles series of the making of the album. I suspect that once we have watched it I will cancel the subscription. Worth eight quid though.

Good breakfast. Stroll to shed. A time for relaxation. Ease into the day. Easement would have been a good word for this but it has already been bagged and has connotations inconsistent with the sentiment.

Ahead, a day of meditation, spiritual and bodily improvement. By this I mean I’m going to pluck some partridges, fix the loft ladder and then go for a swim 🙂 .

Interesting to consider that like many repetitive exercises swimming has a strong element of meditation. Detached focus on the job in hand. I may occasionally think of things when swimming but mostly I think of nothing. 

I do occasionally look up and check the pool clock. This is not as straightforward as you might think because I’m pretty blind without my specs and although I have prescription swimming goggles they are so scratched to be almost non functional as such. They still keep water out of my eyes.

The shed is a perfect place for mediation. In the deepest days of lockdown, with the circling covid horde baying for victims, the shed was not only a workplace but also somewhere to throw down your yoga mat. In the shed you could be at one with the world around you.

Those days are long gone. The freedoms that came with the summer and shed doors wide open to the garden disappeared when freezing temperatures forced closed those doors.

We should not keep looking over our shoulders. Look ahead. Heads up and eyes on the horizon. Just writing that brought a smile to my face. The power of positive thinking. Wow.

Children walking to school outside the front of the house. An icy cold morning. In my infinite wisdom I suggested to Steve who lives around the corner that we could go on a bike ride. Hmm. I regretted it almost as soon as I’d said it but hey, these things have to be done. I have also booked lane swimming at 3pm for the rest of the week.

Steve has to be in Nottingham first thing but will be back at around 11am. Plenty of time to get sorted and to get my head in the right space.

It is all about getting into a routine. I have no problem in booking swimming slots now that I am back in the swing of it. It is quite handy being able to choose the last slot of the afternoon session as it is typically relatively quiet. Most people are chained to their desks at that time obvs.

I do like cold days. It helps having heating in the house. A couple of winters ago this was not the case and in the following spring we ended up replacing most of the radiators and the boiler. Pretty much a complete new central heating system. This January we are having the windows at the front of the house replaced and we will then be fully double glazed. 

Some might think it strange that this is not already the case but the house was built in 1939 before the inventor of double glazing had come up with the idea. I don’t now the inventor’s name but you can just picture that Eureka moment when the idea came up. Perhaps they had accidentally made twice the amount of glass for the job and decided to use it all seeing as it was there.

However it was invented it is surely a good idea Shirley.

…

Started on the fence post installation. Don’t want to rush this although the weather is turning after today so they need to be in really. The metal post receptacles or supports or whatever they are called are 60% in place and now need the sledgehammer to finish off. Stopped off at the shed as an interim act as I need to head back to the garage for the sledgehammer and the stepladder needed to hammer the actual posts in from on high. They are ten footers. Or similar.

I assume that the use of imperial measurements will now return to mainstream in today’s dysfunctional society even though you have to be my age really to refer to them with any regularity. I doubt kids talk in yards, feet and inches when a centimetre will suffice. You can picture the scheme in the playground (yard?!). “Anyone got five bob I can borrow. Two and six would do. I’m taking Doreen to the pictures later” Snorrapnin.

I do find it a little odd when building materials are quoted in millimetres. 2,400 mm when it is clearly 2.4m. Or ten feet. Or 3 yards 1 foot.

The other thing I find odd is the continental way of swapping commas and decimal points in numbers but that is another story.

Gorrago. Fenceposts don’t put themselves up yanow.

On hold now for over two minutes. I’m half expecting this to be an hour’s job as it is British Airways but we shall see. It’s an I want a refund not a voucher job. It was a reward flight but the tax must have been around £1,400. I want both points and tax back. 

Their music on hold gets a little tedious after a while. The first few times you hear it it isn’t too bad. A bit of classical geetar. Now I want them to change the record. Never mind.

En route to the shed this morning the tree was dispatched through the conservatory door. Still needs relocating to the woodpile which itself needs a big tidy up. A morning with the chainsaw.

Part of the BA irritation is that the music occasionally stops making you think you are about to be put through to a person but what you get is the same “all of our agents are busy message”. The irony is that their website where I have the page open on my booking times out before anyone answers.

I was downgraded from gold to silver a couple of weeks before they extended everyone’s status last year, or was it the year before. Had I still been gold they would quite possibly have already answered the phone by now. Ah well.

We were going on a big trip but the continuation of the pandemic makes it too risky. The risk, apart from perhaps finding lots of places closed on our trip, is that of catching covid and having to isolate in a (expensive) hotel room somewhere in the Caribbean or USA. We were going to 4 destinations.

We will reschedule the trip.

Fifteen minutes. At least I get time to write this. As I write back in the house the decorations are being boxed up for another year. I quite like the relative austerity of January although the first two months of the year do quickly get tedious with their low light levels. 

Today, as it happens, is not a low light day. Perfect for getting out in the fresh air, were I not on hold to BA. Needs must. After the BA I need to cancel an American Airlines internal flight. I’ll have to see how that goes. I booked a fully flexible fare in case of this eventuality and they have also change the flight time, fwiw so it is likely to be just the hassle of calling them. Might be able to do it online. Who knows?

All this hassle does bode well for our campervan rental business Anne’s Vans. It is likely to be a lot easier to continue holidaying in the UK. Advanced bookings are up 78% year on year and that’s before we add the fourth van to the roster. Might do that this weekend although it is still undergoing internal refurbishment and we are short on photos.

Thirty minutes.

Fifty minutes and it is all done, at least the BA flight. An espresso made on top of the stove and now onto American.

First impressions. Poor quality line and appalling music on hold. It’s Caribbean steel band music which together with the poor line grates.

In other news my Caravan & Motorhome club membership renewal email arrived yesterday. “It’s only £56*, when you think about the great adventures you can start planning and booking, we think that’s well worth it.”

I joined a year ago in order to book a trip with some pals this coming April. You need to be a member to use the particular site we are headed to. Not used it since then and haven’t even had the stay yet! 🙂 There was a time where I wouldn’t have been seen dead being a member of such an organisation but the “motorhome” bit justifies it. When I joined they gave me “Count” as an option instead of Mr, Mrs etc so I adopted that title, at least for use in exploring the great outdoors presented to us by the club.

Meanwhile American Airlines are focussed on providing me with excellent service and are working very hard to be with me as soon as possible and appreciate my patience. Huh! Thirteen minutes. The musical interlude between these statements seems to be even shorter than with BA. They must have done some research on the subject. 

The science of music on hold. Music is still crap. I think the poor line is that connecting to the music on hold media server. The message that keeps being injected into the music stream is pretty clear.

In forty minutes I need to take Hannah to the station. I would hope this is finished by then. It will have taken an hour. I dunno.

Twenty five minutes. I should have brought a book. I do have a few here in the shed, “History of the Adjustable Spanner” being a notable volume. However I don’t want to get distracted from the task in hand of being there when the music finally stops and they will give me a limited window to actually say something. This whole process is stupefying. It would at least be nice to know someone was going to answer the phone if I stayed on long enough.

They should start paying me/callers if they don’t answer the phone within a certain time. That would soon get their staffing levels sorted. I know these are extraordinary times, which actually is why I’m cancelling the trip.

On track to be on hold for longer than BA. Not much of a claim to fame is it, for either company. Sounded like the BA call centre was in India. Any bets on where AA’s is? 55 minutes.

At least I’ve done a little job that needed doing in the shed. Put my Gudbye T Jane vinyl single clock birthday present up again. I did originally stick it up but needed to change the command strip arrangement for reasons with which I won’t bore you. I now also have a DVD player on my desk, solely for the purpose of playing the 50th Anniversary of Recordiau Sain triple CD that my friend Nest gave me, again for my birthday. Lots of good old numbers on there. My amp doesn’t have a DVD/CD player or a USB port otherwise that would have been the obvious place to leave it permanently.

Lunchtime has arrived. One hour and two minutes into the hold. One hour and six minutes and I’ve started looking up AA hold times on tinterweb. Anything between two and 12 hours. This does not bode well. I’ll give it another ten mins and then bail. The flight isn’t for ten weeks or so. Next time I’ll call using my mobile and whilst wearing headphones so that I can move around and do stuff.

BREAKING NEWS: One hour and ten minutes and someone has answered the phone. Now I’m back on hold whilst she consults the tariff department. Always a bit of a worry 🙂 Being put on hold that is. The number of times I’ve been in this situation and the line has dropped is not funny. Just hope there isn’t such a long wait for their internal calls.

Must have taken nigh on 90 mins for the whole process including filling out a bureaucratic refund request form online but I got there in the end. Collapses into an amorphous state. That’s a couple of grand’s worth of refunds and a morning spent on hold.

That’s all folks.

I think I understand why the 1st of January is when it is but it would make more sense for a new year to start at the winter solstice. I’d like to bet that in pre history this was far more the marking of the end of the annual cycle than the day we now use. Afaik they didn’t number the years. Probably used the number of years that king Og had been in power. Stuff like that.

Can’t see why we wouldn’t want to change it. This has been done several times over the centuries. Look it up. I don’t need to explain here. Under the new rule we would already be ten days in to 2022 and already on dry January and eating sensibly.

At the same time we could get rid of time zones and the very arbitrary move to daylight saving in the spring. Would feel a lot more natural.

The need for dates is clear. Without a calendar and clocks our society would disintegrate. “Let’s do lunch”. “Lovely when?”. “Day 233 when the sun is at its zenith”. Would be somewhat a relaxed affair when the sun doesn’t get very high and is often hidden behind clouds. One person is bound to get there a lot earlier than the other. Be on their second cup of tea.

Even in summer it would be difficult to be particularly precise. Every lunch would be a long one as you would need to factor in waiting time. Might as well open that second bottle straight away to let it breathe…

My suggestions are unlikely to be adopted. A prophet is never recognised in his own country. I am right though.

Who would you tell anyway. Not much point telling the government as there is nothing in it for them. Unless there were spinoff business opportunities as yet unrevealed. Could be I suppose. We would need to brainstorm it.

The new calendar would also need a name. I am not for one minute suggesting the Treforian calendar which would be narcissistic in the extreme. That suggestion would in any case need to come from someone else and I would not actively support it. Obvs.

Those are my thoughts at the beginning of the new year. A year that for all of us comes with high expectations, or at least high hopes. A new dawn. 

It’s funny that I can say this even at a time when the latest covid infection rates are skyrocketing. 190k people yesterday. If, as scientists were originally saying, the rates of infection double every two days then in ten days time six million people will test positive. Twelve million in twelve days! 24 million people being infected in less than a fortnight. Now that is “going viral”

The pandemic will be over by the end of January. One way or another. The world’s infrastructure will either have collapsed or be well on its way to recovery.

As we are taking an optimistic approach to 2022 I am saying the latter. Hope your 2022 is good. Big hugs…

…

Now sat in the car in a car park whilst a household member does the park run. I’d need to build up to the park run. On the one occasion I did it I managed two laps in the same time as her three. I was nursing an injury though! Will see if I can build up to it in 2022. That’s not a resolution. I don’t believe in such things.

I am parked next to a church with a yew tree in the graveyard. This feels right. I don’t know who is buried there. Most of the graves will be long forgotten although I do see one or two with fresh flowers.

I have occasionally give some thought to the concept of burial. I quite like the idea of my bones being in the ground. Cremation seems too final to me. I realise that death is a very final act whether you choose cremation or bones in ground but the latter feels more traditional. I’m not a Hindu. I’m not a Christian either so whether a church would accept me into its graveyard is another thing. 

Mam and dad were both cremated and are buried in a wonderful spot next to the golf club in Peel in the Isle of Man. The views are great. It is a fitting place for them to be put to rest as much of their social lives revolved around golf. There is nowhere quite like it in Lincoln. Their grave will not have flowers today but we are going over in June on a pilgrimage. For the TT races.

Runner just turned up. 25 mins late. Bounded towards the park carrying a large bottle of water which seems a bit over the top but who am I to say. He was a tall guy if that makes any difference. At the same time the pack leaders have finished and are just starting to walk back to their cars.

Woman just walked past with a large dog called Mabel which was clearly being subjected to obedience training. Looked as if Mabel was only about half way through the course. Both dog and trainer will need to persist. 

More runners now coming through and cars starting to leave the car park. I am parked on the grass. It’s a rare off road treat for the Defender. It’s interesting to just sit here watching people. The runners look to have far more vitality than those who are just off out for a stroll in the park. We should all aspire to such vitality. The strollers have uninteresting faces. Part of life’s rich tapestry but only the beige bits. Try not to be beige.

The lawn is at its lowest ebb in the flow of the seasons. Appearance unloved, forlorn. Staring at it engenders the shutdown of the brain as any real thoughts are smothered by the seemingly hopeless disposition of the grass. Were it frozen there would be some mitigation, justification of the sitch.

In the house Handel’s Messiah is playing quietly. Neville Marriner. A few jobs have been ticked off and I’m taking advantage of the opportunity for a quiet sit down in front of the fire. The fire is set but not yet lit. I’m hoping it will light naturally from the embers. Save a match 🙂 Normally catches light eventually.

It is the day after Boxing Day. The feasting has been in full fling for a few days and a slight toning down is called for, especially as I was asleep by 9pm last night. Again. There is plenty to keep us entertained and I have a swim booked for 1pm. I’m in two minds about this. It will undoubtedly do me good but is certainly a great contrast with what has gone before it for the past few days. There is time yet to decide.

This is the first Christmas with none of our parents around. Last year we had dad here and I sensed it might be his last. He was getting very weak and awash with the problems of old age. It was really fantastic that we were able to have him here. A great contrast with the subsequent “covid” isolation that ultimately did for him.

The passing of parents should send out a strong signal to get on with life. Just having turned 60 I am fortunate to be able to make fundamental directional changes to my own path. In 2022 I shall only be a part timer in the world of telecommunications and internet and have time to devote to side projects, some of which are already becoming mainstream.

Anne’s Vans is such an entity. Having started with one van 5 of 6 years ago we will be going into the 2022 season with four. This will merit me spending more time on that business. It is a very rewarding activity. Customers bring vans back and tell us what a fantastic time they have had. What’s not to like?

I also want to spend more time writing. I have one or two projects in mind that will soak up the days. See how I get on. The other activity is getting out and about more, exercising. I have the pool, the bike and want to do more walking.

Telecoms will still very much be there but I’ve decided to focus more on the bits that I like doing. Hence part time. 6 days a month is the notional plan. It’s all about taking the stress out of life and maximising the fulfilment. I like the people at Netaxis which is a company on a nice trajectory so it will be good to maintain links in there.

That’s it for the mo. I could probably fit something else in if the right offer came along but it isn’t something I’m particularly chasing.

The nice thing about this plan is that it leaves room for ad hoc activities. For example we are eyeing up a trip to see My Fair Lady in May or June sometime. Nice little mid week trip to town. There is here an element of risk. To make sure of seats you have to book early but at this stage the hotels are expensive. They will come down in price, presumably. 

The other curveball is that I am organising a conference in Antwerp (as you do) sometime in the spring. Not nailed the dates yet. Feels as if this is something I need to get on with during the first week in January. It’s an incentive innit.

Nothing feels guaranteed or straightforward these days, certainly from a planning travel perspective. In February Anne and I are looking at a nice little trip to Brussels (work), Antwerp (work and play) and Amsterdam (total self indulgence at the Waldorf Astoria) but this is entirely contingent on these countries being amenable to our turning up without having to isolate in our hotel rooms for the whole trip.

When I booked the Waldorf I was immediately asked for our travel plans and arrival time. I told them this was a little ambitious at this early stage. Amsterdam is handy though as it is a short hop home from there via Humberside, particularly in comparison to the 8 or so hours elapsed time when travelling to Brussels. My gut tells me we won’t be going but the next two or three weeks will give us more of a feel.

Time for a swim. Anne tells me there were only four people in the pool when she went…

I am reliably informed that as well as wild boar, cheese was one of the staple banqueting items of our forefathers when gathering for the winter solstice festival at Stonehenge.

This being the case and today being the winter solstice I have been out and purchased some fromage. Three different types of cheddar. I wanted a bigger Dambusters than they had so we opted for a second. Joe liked the second but I was only ok with it so we threw in one more for good measure.

Also got three different goats cheeses as the pack of two was a bit on the small size. Threw in a wodge of Old Amsterdam, some Epoisses, a nice brie de meaux and some smelly blue Spanish stuff that was very similar to Roquefort but I can’t remember its name. I think that was it. We beat a hasty retreat with two bags of the stuff, now in the fridge in the garage.

I made the bit about cheese and Stonehenge up btw but I understand that archeological evidence supports the wild boar hypothesis. You can actually picture prehistoric man gathered around the fire eating bacon and brie sandwiches. Special occasion after all. Couldhave/wouldhave/shouldhave happened. Tomorrow I’ll nip to Fosters for the meat. Will include a bit of descendent of wild boar.

Now back in the shed waiting for it to get dark so that we can get on with lighting fires and roasting game. I do have a brace of pheasant and partridge hanging in the garage courtesy of @Simon Forshaw but they won’t be ready for this evening and I am anyway planning a game pie for sometime over the festive break. I’ll take the rabbits as well thanks Si and I might chuck in some venison for good measure.

Feels a smidge early to be breaking out the mead it only being a Tuesday and despite it being the final run in to Christmas. Tomorrow we have the carol singing at the Morning Star where plenty of mead will be consumed. Not really mead. Just metaphorical mead. More likely to be Guinness with maybe the occasional dram thrown in for good measure seeing as it is Christmas.  

There will be a nice firepit on the go, reminiscent of the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Hope to see you there. All are welcome.

I’ve held the carol Singing at the Star for a few years. Some time before that there was an old guy called Norman who used to tinkle the ivories in accompaniment to us all singing. The intro for each carol was identical so you couldn’t really tell which one was coming up, other than the fact that it would have been the next one on the page. Tomorrow night the singing will be acapella.

Notwithstanding all this I have the Crusaders on in the shed playing Street Life. One of my faves and just feels right at the moment. As night begins to fall it is almost as if the Crusaders are on stage in the corner of a club banging out their stuff. Soon the lights will come on. I feel an irresistible primordial urge to celebrate the solstice…

Don’t know about you but I had a great night’s kip last night. Went to bed around nineish and slept through until 6am, afaik. Unless I did a bit of sleepwalking. I dreamt no dreams. Twas indeed the classic dreamless sleep above which the silent stars go by.

This morning I breakfasted well on two slices of brown toast and half a grapefruit and am now in the shed addressing the issues of the day. The greatest issue is the pressing need to mop the floor inside the shed door. 

This relatively straightforward job is made slightly less straightforward in that my mop has only a half length handle. It was purchased in order to facilitate the cleaning of the greenhouse glass for which a shorter handle makes more sense. The shed floor however needs a full length mop if I am to avoid having to crouch down to clean the floor.

I know the cynics amongst you will challenge this with “what’s wrong with crouching down, I do it all the time when searching for my dropped contact lens” but I live in a world where life has been made easy for me. It is akin to the days of the Roman empire where the ruling classes would be seen to lie on chaise longues and be fed bunches of grapes.

Reality is that on a Monday morning I like to get my brain around anything that needs doing workwise before the day gets going. The first item on my works list says “butcher”. This is not a work item but I stuck it in my work calendar so that no rash individual would book a meeting with me thereby scuppering said planned retail expedition. We do need a trip to the butch but the Christmas meat shop can wait until tomorrow where my whole day is blocked out for a “work” pub crawl in York which ain’t now going to happen.

The winner is the shed floor. I’ve decided I need a big mat for the entrance but the mopping has been accomplished. Need to let it dry now before reentering.

…

Just returned from a successful Christmas shopping trip. Just 3 people to buy for and nailed it. Can’t say any more just in case they are reading this, knowworramean…

It is Monday of Christmas week. Christmas Day, being Saturday, is still a fair way off yet but we are in the final run in. I assume most of you have your plans sorted. Ours are very much phased:

1. The Sainsburys shop to use up all the Nectar points (£155) was completed last weekend. I don’t collect Nectar points and there are few places to spend them.
2. The Waitrose delivery is due tomorrow between 1pm and 2pm. I have just under two hours to add anything but it isn’t a biggie as I’ll be doing a Waitrose run first thing on Friday morning
3. Carol singing in the Morning Star Wednesday evening – 7am start if you fancy coming along. Will be in the heated marquee so plenty warm.
4. The meat run to Fosters will take place Thursday. I expect to have to queue.
5. That last minute trip to Waitrose as you know happens on Friday. This is to buy fresh fruit and veg and bread plus anything else I think I might have missed or just feel like buying anyway cos it’s Waitrose and it’s Christmas. Probs go early. Waitrose opens at 7am on Christmas Eve. If I can get there for 7am I will although it will to some extent depend on what pre Christmas festivities happen on Thursday night. Lbefine.
6. Friday afternoon is listening to the wireless whilst I get myself sorted for the big day. Maybs rope in a few veg preparers. Do the brandy butter. That kind of stuff.
7. Friday evening will involve picking up takeaways. Chinese from Tang on Newland Street West and Indian from Castle View, Two of the best. I’ll do the Castle View run and have a beer there with the owners. We give people the choice – mix and match Indian and Chinese or just one of them for starter and main.

Historically we used to go to the Morning Star for early doors on Christmas Eve but latterly the crowd there has been unfamiliar to us so we may not go this year, especially with the looming spectre that is covid. See how it goes.

Thassitfernowseeyalater

This morning I offered to cook the Davies lads breakfast. They are all home, for the moment. However I am the only Davies lad up and at it and am happy to dedicate a few moments of reflection on a settee in the front room. The settee is surrounded by bags of Christmas decorations.

The coffee table in front of me has six bags of chocolate tree decorations. Make that 5 bags. I scoffed one last night. There seems to be a dearth of these items in the supermarkets (singular actually) I frequent so I ordered some online and this particular order was a pack of six. Must have been a good deal. The problem is the chocs are a bit on the small side. Good job there are 72 of them. 60 I mean.

Whilst waiting for some company at brekkie I have busied myself replacing broken light bulbs, one in Hannah’s room and another in the kitchen. There is a third, in the kitchen, that needs doing but I can’t get at it until another pile of empty Christmas decorations boxes is moved back to its place of storage in the garage. Another job to be getting on with. It’s a 2 person job because someone needs to hand the boxes up to me on the ladder.

Alan Titchmarsh is on the wireless – Classic FM. This is very cushy gig for Al. He just sits there reading out some links between the music thinking of the chink chink of the till after the show when someone counts out some gold sovereigns into his outstretched palm. 

The other seasonal media item that immediately springs to mind is the Coca Cola advert. It’s a full length movie designed to make us feel good about Christmas ending with a communal Christmas Dinner where the only drinks to be seen are bottles of full fat coke. Doesn’t sound like a very representative lunch if most people I know are anything to go by. I won’t need reminding not to buy any full fat coke.

One final observation is that today is the last date for posting a letter if you want it to get there before Christmas and only have second class stamps. That of course will be no use to you if the letter is the one to Santa. Your only recourse here will be to opt for Parcelforce Worldwide express24, AM, 9 & 10 which you can leave until Thursday.

The only thing I’d say is what on earth are you up to leaving it this late to get the letter off to Santa. For one, regardless of any perceived SLA on offer, it is a bit risky. 

The second thing is that it is all very well getting the letter there but if it doesn’t arrive until Christmas Eve that doesn’t give the Elves much time to get everything processed and onto the sleigh. Especially with the staff shortages being created by the Omicron variant.

Moreover one assumes that each letter has to be properly scrutinised by the “has this boy or girl been good” committee. How do we know that this esteemed body of worthies don’t down tools themselves after lunchtime on the 24th and head to the pub or get the last minute grocery shopping done.

Your problem not mine.

A robin sang to me this morning as I trod the well worn path to the shed. It reminded me of the Thomas Hardy poem, The Darkling Thrush and was quite inspiring. We live in tumultuous times not dissimilar to the fervourless world of the poet. Unfortunately Hardy got there first. The robin remains unrecorded in rhyme, historically unheralded.

Interesting to consider Thomas Hardy’s powers of observation. He must have heard that thrush and leant there listening for a while. The moment stuck in his memory enough for him to sit down and write when he got home. Did he carry a pencil and paper with him to note ideas as they happened in case he later forgot? Makes sense to me.

It should be added here that the path wasn’t really well worn as it is formed of york stone. I said that to indicate that my journey to the shed was a regular one. The path hasn’t been there long enough to show any wear from the relatively few footsteps it would have seen. 

Were I to have crossed the lawn every morning in the same direction there would definitely have been some wear specially at this time of year. As it is, I spotted some signs of wear early during the summer and started to avoid walking across the grass, or at least taking different routes to get to the shed. This also has the benefit of making an ambush less likely as any wrongdoers would have to guess which particular route I would choose on any given occasion.

I still have a tendency to cross the lawn on my way back to the house, at least when it is dark. Hey…

Now I am sat in a regular conference call on mute, camera off and the volume turned right down so the proceedings are just audible. It is quite distracting and I find myself coming off mute to chip in occasionally. In all fairness this meeting is probably the most useful of the week 🙂

Today is filled with meetings until 3.30 at which point I decamp to the Morning Star for the annual sole traders Christmas bash. In which the self-employed in my circle of friends, most of my friends actually, get together to celebrate the end of the year and reflect on the 12 months that have just gone by.

In reality there is little reflection involved other than whose turn it is to buy the next round. This year the numbers will probably be down for obvious reasons. Last time we held this party was two year ago. I was just getting over a horrendous cold and when we met in the snug of the Strugglers I passed it on to the boys. Ah well.

Had a mushy banana with my cereal for breakfast. Only a bit of it was mushy and I cut most of that off. However when I picked up the skin to remove from the table I caught the mushy bit underneath. Yuk. Nothing really. A little snapshot of a day in the life of Trefor Davies.

As I was leaving the kitchen Jamie Oliver was on the iPad offering some Christmas cookery tips. His programme doesn’t interest me. I heard him mention that after not being able to get together with anyone last Christmas he had prepared some recipes for this year’s round of parties. Recorded in the summer obvs. I’m sure he could have wangled an invite to last year’s Number 10 Christmas bash had he wanted to go! Neither being of a political persuasion nor a celebrity chef I wouldn’t have been invited.

Today I have a meeting at 09.30 then we are off to Sainsburys to spend the £116.97 worth of Nectar points accumulated on trips with LNER before they changed the rewards scheme again. I’ve had the points for a couple of years but we don’t use Sainsburys as it is at the wrong end of town. Figured we should get rid before they change the scheme themselves. 

Tinned grapefruit is in prospect. We only ever buy it at Christmas. I wonder if everyone else is the same. Do shops have to stockpile tins of grapefruit in anticipation of the seasonal rush? Dunno. Maybe it’s just me. When I were a lad tinned grapefruit was always on offer for breakfast on Christmas Day. In the shoebox. Luxury living.

Cavalleria rusticana is playing gently in the shed. Tres relaxing. There may be bits to the music that are not relaxing but this bit certainly is. Now the Lark is Ascending.

It’s a quiet morning in the run up to Christmas. Two kids are here and a third is due today albeit temporarily. Neither is up. I saw the lights on at 3am and suspect that a late night/early morning cricket watching session was in prospect. I didn’t want to look at the score when I woke up but I have now. Although the colonials have started well at least England aren’t all out for 93 or some similarly inadequate number.

I must go now. I must away. There is a cup of tea to prepare before 09.30.

A varied day. Began with a conference call with “South Africa” followed by a photoshoot down at the Anne’s Vans depot on Great Northern Terrace. We are documenting progress on our new van on YouTube and today was all about what it looks like before we have done anything to it. Vid probs won’t be posted until after Christmas.

Ended up at the Italian caff in the Carlton Centre for a sandwich with our photographer John. Quite a nice ham and mustard mayo with rocket on the side sandwich on focaccia fair play. Turned down the offer of chips! 

This is partly because chips are likely to be on offer at the Friendship Inn tonight where our little golf society is holding its end of year booze up. Not everyone can make it but we will have a quorum. The usual choice of meal is pie and chips. It’s not a bad pie and chips although it tends to be a little light on the chips. 

…

Pie was off – you have to order them. Had medium rare steak. Came out medium to well done. Won’t do that again…