where art collides philosoperontap

Sitting with my headphones on avoiding having to hear cheery chappie TV chef Jamie Oliver. Bloody annoys the hell out of me. Carnival of The Animals. Will keep me going until University Challenge 🙂I realise this might be a shocking overreaction but I must be in that sort of mood. Not sure there are any TV chefs that particularly interest me. Call me a miserable so and so.

I do like cooking. I remember one evening years ago when I was the only person in the house. I was dropping Hannah off at a party and before leaving the house I opened a particularly nice bottle of Pauillac to breathe.

Driving back home I had the car windows in order to take in what was a beautiful summer’s evening. There was a smell to it. When I got home the wine had breathed and I cooked a simple rib eye steak on the griddle and rustled up a green salad. Didn’t need a TV chef to tell me how to cook it. Must have been one of those memorable meals for that evening to have specifically stayed in my memory. 

We have over the years collected innumerable recipe books. I started off with Delia’s ‘how to cook’ or similar during my bachelor days and soon added more including a cheapo Mexican cookbook from Sainsburys or simlar that we still refer to today.

More likely to google a recipe nowadays. Typically I’ll check out a number of sources for the same dish and opt for what seems the right one for me.

Gotta go. UC is on. Starter for ten.

Just paid the staff. Now have thirty mins or so to play with before heading for my stretch and flex class at Yarborough. I am in desperate need of stretching and flexing.

Tis a lovely sunny day out there and the first of the season where I am in shorts. Longs would be a backwards step from hereon although I don’t preclude them on occasion. Summer is short. Wear shorts. Life is short. I’ve turned the shed heating down a couple of notches and the door is open. Won’t be long before the heating will be switched off until Octoberish.

Today is a mixed day of campervan prep, doing my accounts and some Netaxis stuff. First hire of the season goes out tomorrow. We have reduced expectations for this season due to the economic s&^te going on in general but surprisingly the first couple of months are ahead of last season so it may turn out ok. 

…

Back from stretch and flex. Boy is it a tough class.

…

Interesting discovery this pm. I recently adjusted my monitors to what I thought was the appropriate height which is top of the monitor level with eyes. However because my specs are varifocal I find myself lifting my head up a bit so that I view the upper half of the monitor through the lower bit of the specs. If I don’t do this then I’m looking through the long distance viewing bit of the specs.

I need to decide whether to lower the monitors further to accommodate this. Not going to rush into this one especially as it would result in the gap between monitor and desk being too small to slide my deskphone under. I don’t use the deskphone that often and normally have it unplugged and pushed to the side of the desk behind the right hand monitor.

…

This evening I have the house to myself and have a relaxing bath in prospect. I’m still working my way through my book on New Orleans’ history: Empire of Sin. NoLa has always been a happening spot 🙂

After yesterday’s hectic boozy day out at the races a quiet night is just the right thing. Off to Caadiff tomoz so will be back to being hectic. Need to check out the Oriel Canfas exhibit. Still plenty of time to get there if you haven’t yet been 🙂

Have an hour to kill before prep is underway for racing at Market Rasen. When I say prep I really just mean sticking on a shirt and jacket, maybe even a bow tie. I don’t do normal ties. Symbols of enslavement to the system. The machine. Same with suits, mostly although I do recognise that in the right place a suit can be good. Otherwise it is the uniform of the modern office bound factory fodder.

So I’m sat in the shed listening to tunes and scribbling. I do occasionally think of work  related stuff but just stick it down as a calendar reminder to do in the morning. Will be a busy day tomorrow.

In the meantime, en route to the course, we will need a visit to the cashpoint to ensure we have enough stake to make the winnings of the day appreciable. By tonight we could be rich, rich I tell you.

Playing some Deep Purple. This morning is not about relaxing background music. It is about loud, uptempo tunes that get the adrenaline going.

Not been to the races for years. It’s a good day out every now and again. Will need to source some info on the runners and riders. Sporting Life? Not a v responsive website. They need to sort out a CDN. BBC was straight in.

The first race has only three runners and racing expert Tim tells me the fave is 1-12 on so hardly worth the effort.

There is another big decision to be made and that is which hat to wear? Some have feathers, some don’t. Feels as if feathers would be appropriate today. Mustard maybe. V shall c. So will you.

I invested in some binocs for this trip. Been thinking of buying some for years but not really had an occasion to use them. They will come in handy for other uses such as bird watching and, well, bird watching 🙂

Bird watching is a noble activity although it has the drawback that you need to be able to identify the avian objects in the lens. I have the Collins Book of British Birds or similar which is supposed to be the authoritative text. The problem is that there are so many birds covered within its pages that it would take me ages to flick through and find the particular bird I was looking at by which time it would have gone. 

Problems problems. I bet they don’t have the same problems on the lower Serengetti wetlands, assuming there is such a place. I imagine it will be teeming with wildlife.

One more tune and then I must away. Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends. Great cover version. Do you need anybody? I just need someone to lurve.

I find the notion of writing lyrics like this difficult. I already have someone to lurve so if I was writing a song it couldn’t be about anything like that. I have a few ideas though. Stay tuned, so to speak…

Noise, noise, noise. I have some sounds blasting away in the shed. Have to be careful not to have it on so loud that the neighbours can hear. Obvs it could also affect my hearing when I’m older.

Now playing Street Life by the Crusaders. Stuck my vinyl version on at some point but I’d played it so much that the sound quality was rubbish it was so worn out. I’ll probs go in the hoose once this has finished. Bean chilli for tea tonight. Yum.

…

I was awake from 3.45 until 5.01am afaik. Sometimes when you are awake in the night you drift off and then wake up every now and then without realising that you’ve been asleep in betweentimes. 

I finally awoke at 07.36 and sounded the alarm. One of us usually nips down to make the tea at 06.30 but we had both slept through.

Had a busy morning of it and at 11.40 got ready to nip to the barbers down the road until I remembered I was expecting a delivery. Nobody else in to sign for it so I’ve postponed haircut. The barber isn’t expecting me anyway.

Woken up in Lincoln. Yay. We do like our trips but there is no place like home. We are lucky to have a nice place to live.

Breakfast was some granary sourdough toast with half an avocado and some chopped walnuts and a balsamic drizzle. Lunch is going to be an omelette and bean chilli for dinner. All good.

Now chillin’ on a sofa with a cup of tea contemplating the day ahead. A few days at home to get the campervans ready for the season with the first hire going out on Friday. 

Great few days in God’s country and will be pointing the car east after a leisurely breakfast. Fortunately it is served until ten on a Sunday. The only drawback is the long drive home which on this occasion will be broken by a stop on the Wirral. I’ll have the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port. My annual pass has expired so I’ll have to dig deep and fork out another twenty quid for 2023 and beyond. Rewind. Just checked and it expires today so I’ll be ok. Result, yay. These little victories in life all add up.

I started at number eleven but am now number four in the queue, after eleven minutes and forty seconds. I’ve been number four in the queue for a while. I wonder how much time I’ve spent on hold during my lifetime. Probs wouldn’t really want to know tbh. I should have brought my book with me but it is in the house and I am on the phone in the shed that I only use for making calls where I think I might be on hold for ages.

The main issue when on hold for a long time is when you decide you need to go to the loo but have no idea how much longer you will have to wait before the phone is answered. Currently I am working on my second cup of tea. There was enough left in the pot 🙂 . On previous occasions I’ve turned the volume on the speakerphone up to max and nipped out quickly.

Twenty minutes in I am now number three. I budgeted some time for this call but now have used up half the allocated amount. I have a conf call in twenty four minutes.

Thirty two minutes and have been answered but I’m on hold again as the person needs to ask something to someone else. Sounds like they are new on the job. All sorted, I’m sure you are glad to hear.

A perfectly damp spring day in the shire. Wet but not miserable. The garden is starting to grow again. Unfortunately it is the forest of sycamore seedlings that is most apparent but the apricot has been in flower a few days now and there is evidence of the waking of the apple and plum trees from their deep winter slumber.

The sycamores will be cruelly terminated on the first suitably dry day which will coincide with scarification and aeration of the lawn.

At the time of scarification and aeration. Sounds very dramatic, as if out of the Lord of The Rings. Trollen blade wielding horde marching in ranks across the lawn in front of the kitchen.

I was born in sixty one and am sixty one years old. I think 🙂. Couple of things spring to mind. I’m a lot stiffer nowadays and I have to scroll a long way down when inserting birth year online. The two are unrelated apart from the age link. 

Just looked and apparently a pint of beer was 2s 1/2d in 1961. That would have been of no interest to me at the time, particularly as my birth month was December as regulars at trefbash will know. Presumably we are talking ordinary bitter here. A pint of beer nowadays is a lot more and is very much dependant on where you are.

A pint of milk was 8d, something a lot more relevant to me at the time, I’d guess although I’m pretty sure I was breast fed.

The scrolling down might be annoying had I not had 61 years to get used to it and it has crept up on me over time. It does however annoy me when I have to scroll down to select ‘United Kingdom’ when the country at the top is ‘United States’.  Tossers. There, you can see I’m annoyed.

Sat on the 10.06 seat E2. First to get served from the trolley. Not that I’ll want much more than a cup of tea. It’s been a full-on three days in London. Really I’m in a state of trance. Never got round to my planned visit to camden market yesterday. Breakfast started at 8am and finished at 10.30. Lunch then started at noon and finished at around 5.30. Ma gurd. An early night is called for. 

A French woman is holding a loud conversation on her speakerphone. We are about to hit some tunnels so hopefully that will sort her. Otherwise I’m going to say something. Huh, harrumph.

I still have a few things to do this pm that I need to gather the energy to sort. Meetings, meetings, meetings. Not much reely. Just need to tick a few things off the list.

The Frenchwoman has stopped but has been replaced by someone on the next table who is a wedding organiser. At least I can only hear her end of the conversation although that in itself is quite irritating. I’m also getting the hello? can you hear me? I’m on a train.

Vaughan Williams to the rescue. I happen to know she gets off at the borough of Pete but that is an hour away.

Sorry if I’m boring you as I periodically have a bit of a rant about other people’s loud train conversations. I suppose it is why some folks have private jets 🙂I’m not about to get a private jet. Nowhere to keep it for one thing. You can’t get anything in our garage as it is.

It has been snowing in Lincoln and the house will be cold. I may repair to the shed where, before leaving for the South, I just turned down the heating rather than switching it off.

Now listening to a Mozart Horn Concerto No 4 in Eb Major K495 I. Allegro maestoso. It isn’t really doing it for me. Let’s move on to Bizet. Carmen. Actually no, let’s not. Donna Summer Hot Stuff. Raise the tempo.

Kid opposite is still working his way through his bacon roll. Finished mine ages ago.

I’m glad to be leaving London behind. Full on big bad fast paced city. Not a place for the faint of heart, or the weak. That said, we are returning for five nights in June. The lure of the bright lights. Hoping to make our fortune, or spend it. Will find somewhere more convivial to stay than the Doubletree Angel.

The norther we get the greyer it seems to get. A smattering of snow still on the ground. I invented a new word there. Norther. Seems reasonable. I don’t really care whether it is liked by the grammar gestapo. Ve haff vays of making you spell.

Just to spoil a different, politically correct party I should at this point tell you that I identify as Tref. Not he/him/it or duck billed platypus or any other description you care to apply. Came up in conversation yesterday. Occasionally I am addressed as Sir but that is premature and I am quick to correct anyone that makes this mistake. My name is Tref. Glad that’s settled. Or Huw. My full name is Huw Trefor Davies. Call me what you like.

As the sleepy hamlet of Grantham gets nearer the landscape gets whiter. Horse drawn sleighs glide silently through the picture postcard streets of the ancient market town. Smoke billows from the chimneys of cottages lining the road on the way north. 

The train has ground to a halt to the south of the station awaiting a signal change. Owen the Signal, on secondment from the Meirioneth and Llantysilio Railway Company, wakes up with a start from his untimetabled nap, gets up and pulls the lever. The train begins to move again.

We are thirty five minutes away from Lincoln and the train’s final destination. The spire of St Wulfram’s Church disappears to the rear.

Left the heating on in the shed overnight thinking we were in for a big freeze. Doesn’t seem to have rocked up. I now have the door ajar to the garden.

Tis a Monday morning in the merry month of March. March is not a particularly merry month but I’m trying to raise your spirits. Cheer you up a bit. I realise it is a little presumptive of me to think that your spirits need raising but even if they don’t there’s no harm in upping them a bit more. You might move from a state of happiness to being ecstatic. What’s not to like?

In reality March is quite a miserable month. It offers a sniff of spring and better times ahead whilst reminding us that we are not quite there yet.

As I write a robin is chirruping merrily on an apple tree branch. I expect it will particularly be looking forward to the good times ahead. I must buy some mealworms. Robins like mealworms. 

I quite like the idea of burying myself in gardening activities. There is something quite wholesome about it. Better to be worrying about greenfly than the shenanigans that life otherwise throws your way. Need to get some grass seed anyway and to deploy the scarifier that I borrowed from Lee yesterday.

The main issue over the next couple of weeks is that I am pretty much booked up. 4 days in London this week and the rugby on Saturday. Then next week it is 2 days in Brussels, one in Bangor for the Annual Engineering Lecture and Dinner about which I am v excited, and finally two days in Cardiff before dashing back for the 6 Nations Super Saturday. All go innit.