Category — stuff

Today it felt as if we were being given one more summer’s day before the onset of autumn for real and with it the slow and inevitable slide into winter. It was the first day of John’s football season. A good morning to be out in shorts and tee shirt followed by a really fruitful afternoon of ticking things off the jobslist. Apple picking, and a goodly crop it was too, contributed to a sense of well being. Getting the crops in for storage to help us survive the long dark winter.

As I was picking apples I saw Adrian over the back fence, looking through a pair of binoculars. He had spotted a hawk eating a pigeon it had caught. Feathers all over the place and very impressive. It was a fine bird and perhaps explains the occasional pile of feathers in the allotment. I had previously assumed it was the work of a fox.

I’ve lit the fire tonight. I didn’t really need to but it felt right. The best of the day has gone and the wind has picked up outside. It is very cosy sitting in our front room in front of the fire.

With the fire lit and the darkness outside I can imagine being holed up for a long artic winter. not venturing out much, perhaps only to get some more fuel or food from the store. At night I can hear wolves howling in the distance and the wind howling around the eaves directly outside.

The gun is prominent in its place above the fireplace. We are not afraid to use it and it certainly helps us to supplement the fairly boring diet we have all winter when some hapless animal strays in the direction of the cabin. The cabin itself smells permanently of woodsmoke, as do we all but we don’t notice it. It is part of our life.

In the kitchen I hear the dishwasher being emptied and refilled by Anne as she gets ready to go to bed. Outside the occasional Sunday night car drives by and I even hear an aircraft coming in to land, presumably, at nearby RAF Waddington.

Yellow street light reflects off the Jeep in the drive outside. The fire has died down now, its purpose well served and I sit cross legged on the sofa, writing.

Miss Dunleavy is getting married. It’s the passing of an era. I am very happy for them both. I find it strange that not only will I not recognise Miss Dunleavy when we pass in the street but she won’t even be Miss Dunleavy!

There is so much I want to know. How did they meet? How did he propose or didn’t it work like that? When and where is the wedding? Where are they having the reception? Where is the honeymoon? What will her married name be?  I wonder if she has started to practise her new signature. etc etc the list goes on. I will probably never find out.

Goodbye Miss Dunleavy.  Goodbye, and good luck.

There was something very poetic about that glass of wine. He had one on the stage and I too had one sat at my table at the front. There was a bottle next to mine. We were both making a statement. We were both also enjoying ourselves hugely. He hardly touched this glass but I made steady inroads into mine. He had a job to do. Mine was to listen to him. Drinking the wine was part of it.

The wine was not top notch vintage but that wasn’t part of the fun factor so it didn’t matter. The music was incredible. Django Rheinhart meets New Orleans. Nobody spoke during the show. It would have been an insult and none of us wanted to miss a single note. We all clapped and cheered at the right moments and at the end of it all members of the band clearly appreciated the support. People play jazz for the kicks.

Afterwards we I stayed to talk to him. Joe bought a CD and got all four autographs. Reach out, reach up and go.

Django a la Creole, Lincoln Drill Hall, Friday 4th June.

Once upon a time there was a friendly gargoyle who never had a cross word for anyone and always had a wide smile. His one failing was a habit of spitting, and, because of this, Gordon the gargoyle was never spoken to by anyone except the very youngest of children who didn’t realise that spitting was a nasty, unsociable habit. Then one day a grown up who, up until then, everyone had thought was a responsible person decided to switch off the water supply to save money for the city council and so that he could go on a courtesy visit to their twin city which was in a foreign country many miles away over the sea. All at once many more grown ups decided that they hadn’t minded Gordon’s spitting and if anything they actually liked him doing it (although just because they wanted Gordon to do it didn’t mean that they thought it was OK for all the boys and girls to do it). They kicked up an enormous fuss and paraded in front of the city hall until the grown up responsible for turning off the water relented (he was the mayor by the way) and to everyone’s joy turned it back on.

For a short while people made a special effort to go go and see Gordon gargoyling, but very soon all the hoo hah was forgotten and everything went back to normal. The only people who would talk to him were the children, but Gordon didn’t really mind this, after all he quite liked the boys and girls.

The end.

The Canton cockerel stopped crowing some time ago. A shame really because I enjoyed hearing the sound. Perhaps someone who lived closer to it got a bit fed up though. Or maybe the urban foxes found it. But yesterday was a great day. Yesterday was the day the blackbirds came back into my life. They’ve been largely missing since I moved away from Balham. I used to be able to open the windows at the back of the flat and listen to the evening conversations of the blackbirds across the myriad Balham back gardens. Beautiful. And now they’ve found my garden in Canton. Let’s hope they don’t get chased away by the territorial magpie or either of the two cats who periodically fight over the privilege of sitting on my decking.

Walking back from doing my civic duty this morning I passed a chap struggling, one-handed, to manipulate a large wheelie bin along the pavement. In his other hand was a mobile phone, clamped to his ear.

Chap: “Oh aye, you’re off for a week now aren’t you ?”

Mobile phone: “I’M OFF FOR A WEEEEEEEEEK !!!!!!”

It made me smile

I saw a man walking a dog. I thought it was a pig.

woof woof. all dogs must be kept on a lead. woof woof.

it’s a dog’s life.

come by shep, wheeet, wheeet.

siiittt

The suspension on this one can be quite firm. If you are looking for passenger comfort you want a Mercedes.

Conversation overheard whilst passing a parked coach, one driver talking to another.

I might just have one of these active yoghurts and a slice of ham

Life’s a struggle, when you are a paperboy and it has been snowing all night. As I drove out to get some coal in the Jeep this morning I passed a paperboy trying to make headway on his bike. It somehow made me think of the Pony Express and how the mail must get through.

In this case it wasn’t just the mail. It was the Sunday Times, Telegraph, Express, News of the Screws and others. This doesn’t quite bring the same sense of urgency especially as I long since stopped taking a Sunday paper in favour of reading it all on the internet.

Returning with a boot full of fuel and birdseed I saw another paperboy laden down with a heavy shopping trolley. His face was a picture of grit and determination, the attraction of payday on a Saturday outweighing the obstacles to getting the job done.

I sit here in my cocoon gazing at the football grey February morning. The only sounds are the muffled voices of people outside the envelope punctuated by the occasional thud of ball.

Cars turn up and doors slam. The electrified East Coast line marks one boundary but no trains yet. It is Sunday morning.

From my vantage point I can see the whole pitch. The green of the grass is in noticeable contrast to the otherwise dull winter scene surrounding the ground.

[Read more →]

the school
the daughter
the tap dancing practice
the double wing
the slip
the elbow
the sling
[Read more →]

He lay prone, face down on the pew in the kitchen, left arm dangling limply onto the floor. On his face was a look of utter hopelessness, the vacant stare of the condemned man, the innocent about to be consigned to an undeserved fate.

There had been a time in the run up to that moment where he had sat there earnestly, waiting for the good news to arrive. The radio was on in several rooms leaving nothing to chance. There was no way, when that announcement came, that he would not hear it. So there he had remained.

He displayed none of his usual appetite while he waited. Such was his concentration, intensified by an anticipation that told you the stakes were high.

The others had heard of their good fortune quite early on in the process and had already begun to celebrate. This did not help. In fact it was part of the problem.

As the kitchen clock ticked, the remaining time shrank away and the realisation that it was not going to happen finally hit him. His shoulders dropped and pure anguish radiated from the shapeless form.

His school stayed open whilst his older brothers and sister got to stay at home to play snowballs because theirs had shut!

That place between sleep and full consciousness is a lovely one to savour. The dream hasn’t yet been forgotten and the usual neighbourhood morning activity outside is only starting to become apparent. Car doors slamming, engines starting up, rubbish vans reversing far too quickly up the one-way street beeping as they go, the odd bird jumping about on the slates above my head. This morning there was a cockerel. It wasn’t part of the dream, it was a proper, real, cockerel with as good a cock-a-doodle-doo as they get. I wonder if Cardiff City council are re-introducing them in an attempt to bring nature back to the inner city. Or perhaps it’s just another installation by the local art centre. Either way, it was good to hear. If it’s still there in six months in can add its voice to all the other birds (mostly seagulls) that wake me up at 4am every day.

Brightly party coloured frocks and heels with emigrants sequined mingle at Lime Street.

Stepping onto the platform feels as if we are heading towards an ocean liner and a new life.

The Steam Bar is only a partial destination. A woman adjusts her set.

The black ties have upped and gone and the dark haired barmaid with the cleavage has wiped the table. Gold lame and glittering red but no regulars.