where art collides philosoperontap

Phil the Greek died yesterday at the very ripe old age of 99. Couple of months shy of making the ton apaz. Won’t be getting a telegram from the Queen. I’m told she doesn’t send them anyway. The local council sorts it out. Makes sense as more people are making it to triple figures these days. She’d have to spend every morning sorting it out. Phil would have probs got a special one anyway. He had a good innings as the followers of the game of cricket would say.

Few things spring to mind. They won’t now be having a special birthday party for him although I’m sure they will be able to reuse some of the stuff for the wake. Jelly, sausage rolls etc. The latter would have gone straight into the freezer anyway. Maybe they hadn’t even bought them yet.

The passing of Phil has major significance in the historical roll. The husband of the Queen of England. One of a long line of Royal spouses some of whom are better known than others. It is something that must be acknowledged whatever you think of the place of the/a Royal Family in today’s world.

The downside of this bucket kicking is that all the major UK media channels have switched into mourning mode with wall to wall commentary on what a great guy he was. This has meant that some key TV programmes were not aired last night: to whit the Masterchef Final and Gardener’s World with Monty Don. This is a serious misreading of the national mood by the establishment. Many of the queen’s “subjects” won’t really give more than a passing nod to the death of her husband and would prefer to watch the aforementioned programmes.

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Now watching Monty. They moved him to Saturday night, half an hour after Dad’s Army. It’s really an Anne thing. We missed the start of Dad’s Army as I was busy on the bbq cooking lamb kebabs but caught up with it on iPlayer and just made the start of Monty. Good bbq. Marinaded the lamb in a classic dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, garlic and basil.

Woke up this morning and realised that my bare arm was outside the duvet and was cold. Now downstairs looking at my two go to weather sites, the met office and trefsgreenhouse.com I see that it is subzero out. I was reminded of my post university time in Bangor where during the winter of 1983/84 I lived in a top floor flat without central heating. Wouldn’t have been able to afford the heating anyway. I remember lying in bed with just my nose poking out from the duvet and my breath freezing. We were ‘ard in them days.

Today I am up early again, with the birds. The first thing I noticed was that not much has changed in the news since I went to bed. Must have been a slow news night. I note some TV personality whose programme I have never watched is said to be a billionaire. This is of little consequence and is almost certainly in US dollars anyway which is cheating. Might just as well have been in Italian Lira. Bitcoin remains at just below £42k which is somewhat bemusing.

I other news our group’s attempt to buy Rugby World Cup 2023 tickets was once again a frustrating failure. It’s a PR disaster for the sport. You had to queue for 2 hours to get in to a site that had no tickets left to sell. Would have been far more equitable if it had been run as a ballot. We are still going to go along for the craic. Probably need to brace ourselves for the campsite booking experience.

In more other news Tref’s Greenhouse is now set up to receive payments from Facebook for paid for online events. I have no plans to do any but who knows. The greenhouse site is now a brand of trefor.net ltd – they needed proper company info to make it work and “sole trader” was somehow already taken 🙂 Will cut down on the accountancy fees anyway!

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Be generally a v productive day. Some Netaxis, Anne’s Vans and a bit of creativity that I’ll share with you when finished. Probs Friday. It involves coffee and rum. Be intrigued.

Had enough now. Watching a documentary on some archaeological topic on the Smithsonian Channel. My kind of stuff. Not all documentaries are any good mind you. I’ve seen one or two on Amazon Prime with low production values and the stuff on Netflix is far too dumbed down. American market innit.

Another quiet night in prospect. Funny that. I am considering seeing if we can get into the Morning Star beer garden for early doors next Monday. Wouldn’t want an all dayer. A couple of hours say. Three at the most. Back home for dinner and then fall asleep on the settee.

The birdsong started around half an hour later this morning according to my not very scientific reckoning. It isn’t very nice out there so I don’t blame them for wanting to stay in their nests out of the wind. The performance of any outside job today seems highly unlikely.

Today is a bit of a free. A spare. One that can be filled to my liking. “How are you wanting today sir?” “Would you like a jobslist with that?”

On such days good things are often done. There is only so much time you can send sitting around doing nothing. In the end you get up and start doing stuff. I have no idea what this might involve today. I’ve been meaning to re-varnish the kitchen window sill. For years. Perhaps today will be the day. Hmmm.

Under different circumstances we would probably have arranged to see friends today. Boozy lunch maybe, carried on into the early evening. BBQ perhaps. Won’t be long now. We might have gone away somewhere. Braved the bank holiday weekend traffic. Thinking back I’m not sure how often we have actually gone away for Easter in recent memory. The traffic has put us off plus we probably have offspring wanting to come home for the weekend.

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It was snowing as I took the tea up this morning. You have to love the British weather.

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Watching a historical prog on Trinidad & Tobago – “Tobago 1677”. We are off to Tobago for Shannon and Michaael’s wedding in March 2022 so it is of interest. The documentary is about a naval battle between the French and Dutch navies for the possession of the island. 

My first observation is that we are flying there. Gatwick to Trinidad via Antigua (or St Lucia, I forget) is 11 hours 50 minutes. It seems more appropriate to go by sea. In fact by sailing ship. I’d anticipate this would take more like 3 weeks. This would be more appropriate. No jet lag either.

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Noted that this weekend the leaves appeared on the trees on the Lincoln bypass.

On this most auspicious of days the sun is smiling on the empire of the Davies. The second most religious of occasions in the calendar of the Christians was somewhat let down by the quality of the Sunday Service on the beeb. The ole Archbish of Canterbury didn’t do it for me and was my stimulus to rise from the horizontal, not unlike, metaphorically speaking,  the object of the celebration on this day two thousand or so years since.

This morning we are taking advantage of the oasis of warmth in an intemperate sea at the start of April by visiting the gardens at Doddington Hall. Never been but Anne has and wishes to revisit their presumably verdant surroundings. Tis fine.

On the covid front all the graphs continue to head in the right direction. Yesterday only ten deaths were reported. Strange that we might celebrate the fact that ten people died but this is a reflection of the change in people’s sensitivities at a time of war. It feels almost like someone dying in the last few hours of the first world war before the armistice officially kicked in. We shall remember them. Perhaps.

Although there have been no direct Davies casualties in this war it has had its effect on the family. My dad has been isolating in his “assisted accommodation” and only recently allowed one visitor, my sister Sue. Her visits, behind a glass screen and in full combat gear, have not been in ideal circumstances but are better than nothing. Anne and I are waiting for our travel permit to be signed off and the rules surrounding visitations to be relaxed before we head in his direction. It involves border crossings, potentially at night. The risks are there.

Today in Lincoln everything is under control. The steak and ale pie filling was slow cooked on Friday and I will make the pea and watercress soup before we depart for Doddo. It’s all about making life easy later. 

Ciao for now.

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We walked around Doddington Hall Gardens. It will be a totally different experience in summer when the plants have all grown, they have finished renovating the gardens and the extensive scaffolding has been removed from the house. 

As it was we had a good time in the blazing spring sunshine. Felt as if life was starting again after being locked down all winter. Lincoln was rubbing layers of sleep from its eyes, stretching its arms out wide and warming its face in the sun. We picnicked on the lawn in front of the church and purchased two cups of cardboard tea from a bright yellow catering unit at the entrance to the grounds.

Laid on my back on the picnic blanket, eyes closed to the full glare of the sun I was prompted to sing The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring followed, for what it’s worth by I Have A Song To SIng, O. The latter has great lyrics. Sung to the moon by a love lorn loon who flees from the mocking throng O. Look it up. It is good to be alive.

In the farm shop I bought two expensive jars of honey, and expensive marmalade and an expensive raspberry jam together with an over priced bottle of red wine. I didn’t mind. It’s part of the experience. It wasn’t really expensive for what you got 🙂

Amazingly up, breakfasted and ready for the day by 8.30am although not yet dressed. It is a Saturday and I am able to meet someone in the back garden although no plans to do this. I’ve always found that impromptu back garden meetings are the best. Not exactly sitting out weather anyway. Also if you were going to call ‘round on spec you should let me know so I can leave the side gate open. Not exactly impromptu then.

Yesterday I had in mind to put some paving stones down in a new sitting area we are creating behind the greenhouse but didn’t happen. Might do today. The highlight of today is going to be a trip to B&Q to buy compost. The exciting lives we live. 

Somewhat disingenuous to say that a trip to B&Q represents a high point of life when I was sat in bed this morning planning a jaunt to Florence. We are already in London in October to see Anything Goes at the Barbican and have a hotel voucher from a covid cancelled trip from last year. Thought it might be an opportune moment to nip over there for some pasta. 

Still a bit dodgy organising travel to Italy I’d say, even in October, but the voucher has to be used up before the end of 2021. I took pity on the hotel and accepted the voucher instead of insisting on my cash back. Conveniently BA flies to Florence from LCY. 

Some of you may know I did a two week run in Anything Goes at Lincoln Theatre Royal with CAODS around 28 or so years ago so will be nice to see the show. Also did Guys and Dolls which I subsequently saw in the West End with Phippo an Terry. Had a great evening singing along to every song. Will be the same this time 🙂

Good Friday, great Friday,

Relaxing start.

Good breakfast, then to the market 

For supplies.

Aerobics class, heard upstairs,

Puffing sounds pervade.

Cutting into the calm, downstairs.

In the shed there is cricket. I have relocated whilst the Aerobics continues to compile a shopping list. It might be body balance, or body pump. Something like that. There is not much on the shopping list. It will be a case of what fresh seasonal produce is available. From anywhere around the world.

All planned jobs done today except those involving being in the garden. It isn’t the warmest of days. I’ve decided to take most of next week off although I’ll rock up to the occasional meeting already arranged. Hopefully I’ll get things done in that time. The weather aint looking particularly nice for the whole week mind you.

Will use the time to get the vans sorted for the forthcoming season. Things like buy new table and chairs for our latest acquisition Ruby. Get a few accessories. Stuff like that. Also one or two jaunts – we have booked open air swimming at Jubilee Park in Woodhall Spa. Yes you are right. Total nutters. Hopefully the snow will stay off 🙂

In the early eternal light there is perfect clarity. I gaze ahead into the distance. Everything is there. Born with a set of preprogrammed memories.

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My cup of tea has gone cold. This is my fault. The pot was made just as I was sitting down to breakfast but I left it there until I was ready to walk to the shed. Now in the shed I will soon have to go back to the house to make another pot. I drink too much tea. 

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Perfect spring day. Golf this pm.

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It was just one of those perfect golfing afternoons, the weather being more like late May or June. Played a 6 ball around the Laughterton par 3. Although I hit a few good shots the overall quality was pants but the banter was great and a good time was had by all. Stiff now, not having used some of those muscles for 5 months since Lockdown 2  began. I’m told the weather is taking a turn for the worse over the Easter weekend so I guess we took advantage of it whilst we could.

I sense if I got back into golf properly I could sort out a decent handicap. My lowest has been 13 but in the years with 4 kids at home and lots of travel I wasn’t playing enough to sustain it and the handicap began to rise. Eventually I packed in my membership as I wasn’t getting good value out of the £800 subs.