8.00 take tom to kayaking 8.40 take hannah to help out with baby ballet 11.15 pick hannah up from ballet – go to newark to pick up car left after beer festival 13.00 take john to tennis lesson 14.00 pick john up from tennis 14.15 take hannah to dance class 16.00 pick tom up from kayaking 17.00 pick hannah up from dancing 18.00 take tom to party in Normanby by Spital 19.00 take hannah 2 babysit drink wine
Single parent Saturday or Anne is away
June 8th, 2009British summer
June 7th, 2009The strong summer breeze cracks the flags on the two flagpoles above the cricket pavilion. It is cold as we wait for the others to turn up. The building is locked and there are few people around. This is real summer weather as opposed to the artist’s impression.
Later the rain comes and the wind drops. A vertical soaking in prospect. A downpour of the sort that characterises the typical British summer. It is still cold but out and about and dressed in shorts and waterproof coats we stand underneath the large umbrella being fairly relaxed. We buy two bunches of asparagus fresh cut this morning before the weather hit.
At 4pm the boys arrive and we head for the Morning Star for a luxurious late afternoon beer. The pub is surprisingly full of refugees from the rain. One rare hour of liquid hedonism.
The noise on the conservatory roof is deafening and we have abandoned our ambitions to have a barbecue. We cook on the stove in the kitchen and move into the conservatory to eat. The children are a credit and impress our visitors. We should have dinner guests more often.
Later still the cacophony of birds in the back garden is loud enough to compete with any of the noises we have heard today. Mostly blackbirds I think and I wonder if I am hearing this year’s brood.
Finally, sometime towards the end of the day, the heavy, random drips of the water from the trees onto the glass roof. I recline on the sofa pondering the days climatics.
Through the Office Window III
June 4th, 2009There are eight lovely little blackbirds enjoying themselves in the sun on my small patch of meadow. It’s a very safe place for them. No one goes out there, and the landscape contractors are not due back for a while. They fly off every now and then towards the trees in the car park. They’re great, big trees; eleven of them, in a strip of grass left untarmacked. Someone once told me that the trees represent the eleven players of a cricket team, and that at one time the factory car park was the first cricket pitch in Wales. I think that’ll be a factory myth. A cursory google proves nothing. Looking through the trees I can see there’s not much activity across the road in the SPAR distribution centre; it’s all quiet. It’s quiet here too as most people have been bussed up to London for a company Barbeque to celebrate its centenary. So I’m having a quiet afternoon watching life go by outside. And I was right about the buttercups, they’re all starting to emerge again.
Through the Office Window II
June 1st, 2009It’s a beautiful, still, sunny day outside. The hot air is trying to move the branches of the trees, but without much success. It’s the sort of day that when you’re indoors you want to be outside in the sun, and when you’re outside, you want to be indoors because it’s too hot.
The landscape contractors are back, and have obligingly parked their white van by the ‘Contractors Parking’ sign. There’s a man driving a lawn mower around my patch of meadow. He’s sporting a yellow, sleeve-less, high-viz top. I feel like asking him whether he’s got any suntan lotion on. We used to make it here, and there’s plenty in the staff shop. But I won’t disturb him. He doesn’t look particularly friendly. The daisies and the buttercups are gone, which is a shame as I was enjoying them. But they’ll be back very soon – the irrepressible force of nature will keep the contractors in employment all summer.
There’s a growing mound of freshly-mown grass in the back of the van. There are probably thousands of landscape contractors all around the country, right now, contributing to the nation’s freshly-mown grass mountain. Where does it all go ?
A work of sculpture by Tom Davies and James Geary
May 31st, 2009
“How fair is a garden amid the toils and passions of existence?”
Benjamin Disraeli
Throughout history there have been countless examples of man flexing his technological muscle. Yet, despite all our progress we are still to become the planet’s dominant force. The fact, which the human race seems incapable of comprehending, is that man can never conquer nature, and it is this what we have tried to portray in our work.
The apple is a gift to man from nature and fruit is a core part of our existence. Without his five a day, man would suffer from not having a balanced diet. This said, it is typical of him to wantonly disregard it. When the nail is driven through the fruit it begins to decompose, typifying the destruction of ‘our’ natural world. The fruit becomes inedible and sustenance must be sought elsewhere. If left long enough, the apple will rot to the extent that it completely disappears. Though nailed to the board, the fact remains that it cannot remain there forever. Mankind will never pin down nature.
OR
We wanted to nail an apple to a bit of wood and see if it would win the House Arts and Craft competition at school.
The green wall of summer
May 31st, 2009The green wall of summer,
Birds in evening chorus in the park,
New growth ripples along the hedge,
The light remains,
Though sense says it should be dark.
Rays filter through the canopy,
A rose commends its lovely presence,
Its colour in delicate harmony,
Without the wall,
Pink beauty conferred with deep fragrance.
When was the last time you used a phonebox?
May 28th, 2009When was the last time you used a phonebox?
Freedom is going out without
your mobile phone alone.
When was the last time you used a phonebox?
Only the strongest constitution
can take this liberation.
When was the last time you used a phonebox?
Blow a raspberry to the Blackberry,
real men don’t need email on the move.
When was the last time you used a phonebox?
The text message
May 28th, 2009The phone goes ping, ping. Someone’s poking me.
Oooh, a text. Who can this be ?
A thought, a plan, or maybe just a wave, which
I save, because it has enriched
My day. Then I send back my reply, and try
To be witty, and clever, but mostly it’s meant
To return their compliment.
The Burton Road Strip Launch
May 27th, 2009This is an advance notice of a local arts project being launched on Burton Road. It is entitled “The Burton Road Strip” and is centred around a series of poems and photographs published on this website on the subject of some of the shops, eateries and pubs on Burton Road.
The work is being displayed at the Gainsborough Festival on Saturday 6th June and is being showed at local studio No10 Burton Road the following weekend on Saturday 13th June.
The Lincoln event will be announced/covered on the Rod Whiting Breakfast Show on Radio Lincolnshire on Friday 12th June.
On Saturday the Studio at No10 Burton Road will be open from 1pm showing “The Burton Road Strip” together with other work by local writer and poet Tref. At 4pm on this day we are planning some readings together with a glass of wine which you are very welcome to attend.
What to do on a bank holiday Monday
May 25th, 2009A no pressure potterday,
None of this making hay,
That’s what you have to do,
On a bank holiday.
Nothing exists outside these four walls
May 23rd, 2009Nothing exists outside these four walls,
The light is reflected on the windows and
All is black beyond the glass.
My access to the external world
Is a mobile phone which is used
To send text messages,
And Facebook.
It is a virtual world.
I finish a bottle of red wine
And have nothing but my thoughts
And the tick of the clock on the kitchen wall.
The kitchen
May 23rd, 2009A sirloin steak, rare, 2 minutes on the first side and 1 minute on the second, coated in crushed black pepper.
A simple salad , lettuce, vine tomatoes and spring onions with olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar dressing.
Caramelised red onions and whole button mushrooms cooked in their own juices.
Salt, pepper and Dijon mustard.
Wolf Blass, Yellow Label, South Australia, Cabernet Sauvignon 2007.
Crusty white bread with butter.
Blackness outside.
Silence.
Thoughts at sundown
May 23rd, 2009Anne and Joe have gone to Grandad’s birthday dinner on the Wirral. Hannah is out babysitting. Tom has gone to a party and John is in bed early because he wants to nurture all his strength for a cricket match tomorrow. An unusual situation.
So I’m sitting here watching the silhouettes in the garden and listening to the birds call their last for the day. I have a bottle of red wine at the ready in the kitchen but it is as yet unopened. I’m waiting for the right moment. That moment when I feel ready to get the griddle out to cook the steak.
The occasional car is still heard on the road at the front of the house. I can’t understand this having spent all day ferrying children to and from their various activities. People need to chill out now and they can’t do this whilst driving.
It is still May but June is fast approaching and I do wonder what happened to spring? I’m sure I happily observed it as it was emerging but somehow the season seems to have rushed by.
Life is incredibly busy. So much so that I often have no idea what is happening the following week. I have to check the calendar on Sunday night to understand where I am going to be and what I will be doing over the subsequent few days.
Because life goes by so quickly the one thing I learnt long ago is the need to savour every minute of it. The children, Anne, friends, and to enjoy everything I do as much as I can. Including work.
Time to cook that steak…
The Northumberland, Kings Cross
May 19th, 2009GUINNESS
Robbie’s funeral
Thurs 28th May 10AM
St Pancras Cemetary
High Rd East Finchley
All welcome
RIP
DVDs 4 for £10 – from a Chinaman in the pub
Happy Hour
Mon – Fri 5pm – 8pm
£2 pint or bottle
The men sit at the bar drinking or play pool. Women and children, if there are any, sit at home watching TV.
Pool knockout – every Wed, £2 entry, winner takes all.
The workers away from home have all gone back to their digs.
A foreign couple, he with a half pint and she with some clear liquid, sit watching the adverts having finished their conversation. They occasionally talk. Then they go home.
Random Symmetry
May 17th, 2009I see a random symmetry
As the drops hit the puddle
And concentric circles grow
Until they collide and are consumed.
Cares vanish as the rings fade,
Geometric self-hypnosis,
Walking in the gentle rain.