Normally associated with lazy summer days, the French windows open into the garden, Test Match Special on the wireless and me, sprawled on the sofa half dozing, half listening. Cricket can rank as one of the most frustrating games going. Teams swing from stellar performances to disastrous collapses. One moment you are glued to the set and the other you have to switch off to avoid the unbearable tension.

However cricket is at its reassuring best when nothing is happening. Hot, slow scoring afternoons with ball after ball left outside the off stump, the occasional safe prod back to the bowler,  drinks breaks, chocolate cake, seagulls and double decker busses trundling down the Old Kent Road.

When there is no run all is well.

Doesn’t happen very often!

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Observation #1

I got 2012 right first time. I often get the year wrong the first few times when it is a new year. I guess I wasn’t just writing a date there though. I was specifically referencing 2012.

Not much of an observation perhaps as the first of the new year. Nothing hugely meaningful as people are wont to spout at this artificial date in our timeline of progress (gravewards). I expect you thought I’d express joyous and optimistic thoughts geared to lift the spirit, parting perhaps the mental mists that remain in front of eyes, bloody from the closing celebrations of 2011.  Nope.

Observation #2

I was in my pyjamas until 11.30 this morning. Unheard of!  Having hit 50 in December is this now the beginning of the end? The ride down that slope, time-worn brakes offering no protection against hitting wall, ditch or hedge. It could be though it probably isn’t.

Observation #3

My cup runneth over no longer. The tea has been drunk, consumed, absorbed and its effects noted. It is an empty cup. Plenty of potential there and no cause for concern. Fill, cup fill. I stare expectantly. It will only happen if I get up and do it myself.  So be it.

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I have woken up
We sit obediently in rows
Occupied with our own musings
Watching the map of a flight path
That moves too slowly
Eagerly anticipating every small change

Frankfurt, Mainz, Bonn Cologne
Staring ahead at the curtains that separate
The poor from the privileged occupants
Of the business class cabin
The duty free trolley makes it’s way
Pushed by stereotypes
Aachen, Eindhoven, Utrecht, Brussels,
One hour to go and the drinks trolley
Interrupts the monotony
It is a disappointment.
I wonder if the man and woman
Sat next to me are a couple
They both have the same ebook reader
But have not said a word to each other
He orders a Ginger ale and sits there in contemplation
Watching the bubbles
Something to do, reads the list of ingredients
And squeezes the last drops out of the can
Looks a bit like Lenin.
The English channel finally appears on the map
And I can see good old Norwich

Looks a beautiful cloudless day out there,
I miss the Internet connection
We are cocooned, insulated from the world
Revolutions and tsunamis go unnoticed
Their ripples do not reach thirty thousand feet
Dinners burn and children scrape their knees but we are oblivious
And completely unfocussed,
Lives revolve around new major decisions
Shall I get up to go to the toilet?
Is there a queue?
Man reads his book
Having memorized the inflight magazine on the outward journey
Bruges, Dunkerque, NORTH SEA,
Upper case copied faithfully from the monitor
147 miles to go, thats downhill
My ears pop and the couple have a nuzzle
He whispers something and she laughs
Two little girls watch a movie on what looks like an iPad
Open mouthed, blue and pink headsets
That keep the rest of us thankfully ignorant.
The captain pushes the joystick forward
Assuming they still have joysticks in commercial airlines
I imagine he is reliving the old days in the RAF,
Take her down Caruthers, enemy fighters at one o clock
My ears pop again and I wonder what book she is reading.
I will never find out. Also I don’t want to be disappointed
I don’t want to find out it is some trash novel, or highbrow history
Which would reveal something about her.
After three hours of non communication I want her to remain mysterious
Rush hour at Heathrow and we are in a holding pattern
30 minutes to landing
Aaah I looked, the book is called Bone Magic
Will have to look it up later
We bank again as the plane flies in circles
Eeeeoooww dakadakadaka got him that time Biggles
The fields down below are green squares
I see no plane plummet, plume streaming from punishing
Machine gun bullets fired by ace pilot
Perhaps they can see it out of the other windows
No matter
The nose lifts up slightly as the captain tries to hold her
The muscles on his face tense as he fights the G forces
Beads of sweat appear and the stewardess arrives with a flannel to mop his brow.
Ooh you are brave captain!
He regains control and the aircraft gets back on an even keel
The passengers all cheer and a woman names her baby after him
Someone on the row in front adjusts the air jet above their head
And the kids movie appears to have ended because
Juvenile American accents are now to be heard
Down below rows of ordered red bricks appear
Suburbia disappears in scattered cloud
I don’t suppose they are both reading the same book.
Newspaper read by man in front “Septic Sepp, FIFA in scandal”
I don’t want to know, I am in a cocoon dammit
Their model of ebook is called a nook.
Will have to look that one up
Probably a BOGOF or maybe 50% off the second if purchased at the same time, I don’t know
Woman on the other side of the aisle cuddles bloke
The daylight indicator on the map shows we are approaching the middle of the day.
Casablanca, Alexandria, food for thought, fuel for the imagination
Close those eyes and picture the palm trees. No breeze so no swaying although occasionally a coconut is heard dropping to the desert sand
God its hot
Ahah, cabin crew ten minutes to landing!
The plane perks up and the toilet facilities are no longer available
Remaining drinks containers (ok plastic ups) are collected
And I have to switch off…

The eagle has landed

BA675 non stop Istanbul to London Heathrow, 3rd July 2011

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Helen has gone back to a bob with a fringe – she’s really blonde
I’m growing mine back
You do look young but I don’t think that is a bad thing.
I think you should go back to your redhead – the desperate housewives redhead.
I love it when it is like that.
It makes me feel more feminine when it is longer

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In November 2010 the snow line divided the county into those who lived to the east of Wragby and those to the clear lands of the west. It was a short lived notoriety for the Lincolnshire market town but one that its residents would remember for days afterwards.

The line soon moved further west leaving Wragby temporarily buried under the snow. Whether everyone coped or not does not play a part in this narrative.

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There was no way of telling.

Elsewhere in the compartment sat a few people in varying states of bedraggledness and a woman of indeterminate age. I wasn’t sure whether she was looking good or good looking. It was all a matter of perspective.

The train driver was also a woman.

I was only physically there.

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coffee table

The coffee table is functional, though its intention is in the main decorative in its place in front of the fireplace. This is a room seldom frequented by the family because, sad though it may be, the television is elsewhere. As a result I, its only real inhabitant, use and abuse it as I wish within the limits of toleration set by my wife Anne.

I have the fire lit as I sit to write this and the decorative coffee table is covered with the refuse of the family. The contents of a school bag is strewn over it together with a trumpet case and a book, “Silverfin” by Charlie Higson.

The shelf underneath the table is covered with sheet music, mostly jazz that Joe and I occasionally get out and play. Joe is the other main occupant of this room. It is where he practices his trumpet. His music stand is a permanent fixture in the corner near the double doors to the conservatory.

This is a very comfortable room with three comfortable settees of varying sizes. Two of them are big enough to stretch out for a good sleep. It is also a very cool room on a hot summer’s day beautifully complementing the heat in the conservatory.

Anne likes to bring guests in here during the day, at which point the coffee table does become functional, for putting down cups of coffee in fact. She has, I think, grown accustomed to the fact that the underside is now home to the music though this wouldn’t be her preference.

This is not to say that nobody else uses the room. We just don’t typically sit in it as a family. We are fortunate to have a house that can comfortably lose a few members of this large family and even a guest or two. On the Saturday of the Lincoln Christmas Market the room comes into its own as host of the annual Davies carol singing party. Everyone gathers round the fire and sings carols until we have had enough.

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The rain is doing its best to drown out the music but I have it on as loud as the little USB speakers will allow.

Everyone’s a Winner, Hot Chocolate
Moondance, Van Morrison
Mustang Sally, The Commitments
Riders on the Storm, The Doors
Sweet Dreams (Are made of this), Eurythmics
Hotel California, The Eagles

I remember during my first year at Bangor University I left my Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits LP on the deck on the windowsill. The next day was a hot one and I came back to find the record completely warped. I think I must have gone out and bought another one. Frank was pretty indispensable.

The first two LPs I bought were the Soundtrack of the Stud Movie and Sgt Pepper. Sgt Pepper is still one of the greatest records ever made. The Stud will be long forgotten.

Ne Me Quitte Pas, Jacques Brell
Is She Really Going Out with Him, Joe Jackson
My Baby Just Cares for Me, Nina Simone
Girl From Ipanema, Toquinho E Vinicius
Child in Time, Deep Purple

All classics. Now listening to some modern dance music – no idea what you call it. It’s Tom’s last Friday Night show on SirenFM. Not my kind of thing, the music, but he is my son, and he is leaving home to go to Warwick University tomorrow.

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