where art collides

sunny side of the street

Why live on the dark side. This is what Februaries should be all about. Gorgeous bright sunny days – perfect for a walk. Except no walking today except maybe to the Bailgate. Today I have Richard from LONAP coming for our monthly 121. Always good meetings. I got in half an hour in the pool first thing in lieu of any other exercise today.

The sunshine is a great relief from the freezing miserable wetness of yesterday. The conservatory is warm and I have the fire lit in the sitting room behind me. Great conditions for productivity.

Anne is busy painting the room we have called the play room. It’s the converted old garage, Never really did much playing in there although the drum kit got used. It was a good place for the drum kit being well out of the way with plenty of air gaps for sound proofing. The kit is now in the attic.

The playroom has been renamed the gym. It has a rowing machine in there plus a bike, oh and a dart board 🙂 It’s a good rowing machine – concept 2 – so there is no reason why it shouldn’t get used, other than sloth. I have to believe it will get used. 30 mins burns roughly 500 calories which is 2 ½ pints of bitter 🙂

Before picking Rich up from the station I’m stopping off at Fosters butchers to by a Boston Butt. This is a shoulder of pork for use in Sunday’s pulled pork recipe. Quite looking forward to it. You may know that I like cooking and rarely get the opportunity to display my talents to others. This will be the second Sunday in three weeks that we have had people round for lunch! For the record we are having pulled pork, Boston baked beans, sweetcorn, sweet potato wedges and some nice bread rolls that I’ll get fresh from Waitrose after they open on Sunday.

Whilst we are on the theme of food we are also going to the Lincoln Taphouse and Kitchen on Friday and Saturday nights. That’s 2 nights in a row and four days in a row in which we will have had a big meal (inc today’s lunch at the Wig and Mitre). Friday it’s a night out with Michele Reid and a couple of her kids who are up in Lincoln from Alton for the weekend. Terry and Nige are coming along. Saturday it’s Shannon’s 30th birthday bash. Terry and Nige will be there:)

Grab your coat and grab your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep…

red sky at morning…

The registration documents for Dad’s Peugeot 406 estate came back today. Just need to get the car insured now. Also went for a swim first thing as usual. Did a few jobs related to Anne’s vans listings on the various websites and so forth.

Not been a very nice day weather-wise. Rain for most of the day and very cold out. Popped down to coops’ garage to sort out getting a new number plate for the Peugeot then bought some coal on the way home. Lit the fire. Then popped down to the Morning Star ostensibly to wet the baby’s head with Matt Russell but bit of crossed wires and he was still in the hospital. Have a nice chat with the guys there anyway.

Fish stew for dinner absolutely lovely. Delicious. Fair play to Anne. Bed.

A walk to Wragby

Ma feet is sore, as they say in Tennessee, or some simlar place. Walked from Lincoln to Wragby today. 10.7 miles in 3hrs 34 mins plus a stop for lunch in the layby beyond Langworth. For the first time today my legs were tired, especially the right leg which I think is the weaker one due to breaking it whilst skiing on a school trip to Italy when I was 13.

It’s all good stuff though. At least as far as the legs go. All strength building stuff, particularly today as there must have been a couple of miles where there was no footpath and I had to walk on the soft grass verge which was a lot harder going. It isn’t much fun really walking along the side of a busy trunk road, in this case the A158 to Wragby. In future I need to find nicer routes.

Still a lot of work to be done on the feet. I expect I’ll get there. A few observations along the route. One is that you really notice the silence when there are no cars passing. This must mean that the steady state is a lot of noise from cars.

Another is that you notice businesses that have shut down. In this case the George pub in Langworth and the Blackbirds B&B and restaurant a bit further on before Wragby. Shame really but I’m not sure why anyone would want to stay in a B&B at the side of the A158 in the middle of nowhere.

The third thing is the litter. Lots of discarded drinks cans and other rubbish, including what looked like a hypodermic syringe. I didn’t stop to examine it closely. I also passed a dead badger fwiw. First time I’ve seen one close up. That’s the countryside for you.

I’m back now. Anne picked my up from the square in Wragby. She noted that the passenger seat was covered in sweat when I got out. One assumes that as one gets fitter one will sweat less. Innit. I’m wearing the right gear I think. Wicking base layer and fleece layers followed by a Goretex hard shell. I’ll be investing in some new togs before Llanberis.

Had a radox bath with the hot water being topped up every now and again. I think I could have coped with even hotter today. At least my legs have recovered.

Pics from walk here.

Vids below:

Almost had to crack the ice on Yarborough swimming pool

Anne’s Van’s website finally went live today. If you are looking for a VW campervan hire in Lincolnshire then look no further. We haven’t started to promote it yet but Anne’s Van has a Facebook page and is registered with a number of travel agent type sites such as Airbnb. Look out for some promotional activity over the next week or two.

Today has been very cold but lovely and sunny. Went to the pool as usual first thing and was surprised to see so many people there. The two slow lanes had at least 4 swimmers in each lane. Fortunately they all start to get out after a while and by the time the buzzer went I only had one other person for company. In fact the buzzer didn’t go. I think it’s broken. The lights lit up though.

Followed the swim up with 65 mins on the treadmill this afternoon. Raised a good sweat and ended up with an uphill light jog for the last 90 seconds. Might not sound like a lot to some of you fitness fanatics but it’s progress. I’m quite pleased with today’s efforts – it’s very easy to cut the time short and say that’s enough for the day but I kept going

Had the fire lit all day because of the cold outside. I’ve used up all the coal (smokeless) now so will need to buy some more tomorrow.

Still having problems with the sensitive tooth. Only cure appears to be a slug of whisky swilled around the tooth 🙂 Not a long term sustainable solution though!

The featured image is the low winter sun seen from our back garden this morning.

Hedged my bets with an incinerator

The weather today has been cold but sunny. I took advantage of the sun to get out in the garden and use the incinerator I bought yesterday. It’s very satisfying for us blokes to set things alight. In the incinerator it was all controlled stuff:)

Having got the fire going and added some of the old MDF flat pack rubbish on the heap behind the trellis I had time to get on and finish off trimming the hedge. Timing wise it worked really well. I’d top up the fuel in the incinerator, trim a bit of hedge, collect the trimmings and put them on the incinerator.

It was a lot easier to do it in stages than to trim the whole hedge and have to rake up all the trimmings in one go.

After four hours on the job I’d more or less finished the hedge and burned most of the crap. It was quite satisfying to note that I’d cracked on with it for four continuous hours. Before I started this exercise regime I wouldn’t have been able to do that.

We did have a couple of small bouts of hailstones whilst I was working. Made me decide not to walk to Hackthorne. It was a North Wind and the hedge had taken a lot longer than anticipated. I’d decided to crack on and get the whole job done. We can do the Hackthorne bluebell walk another year. Although other parts of the country have it we have no snow forecast which is a shame. I like snow.

In other news England walloped Italy in Rome. Some of the boys are out there for the weekend. They chose a good match to go and see if you are an England supporter.

Tonight we are having roast pork. I’ll be making the gravy. There will inevitably be some wine involved. I’ve been a good boy this weekend  and had no booze but my toothache has returned today and the only cure seems to be swilling whisky around the tooth. It means that I’m in the mood for a drop more with the meal:)

PS although it’s Valentine’s Day we don’t do that kind of thing anymore 🙂

More pics here.

Vids below:

images of cake in link

John’s birthday. 16. Had nice family lunch. With the others away it’s as if he is an only child.

Spent the morning doing a bit of stuff in the garden. Tidied up the woodpile at the bottom of the garden which made me realise that we really needed to burn off a lot of the crap. It isn’t worth chopping up to burn in the house fireplace.

Also realised that the bow saw is totally useless. Moreover the bloomin chainsaw has lost the main cog that drives the chain. It will be on the floor of the workshop/garden store somewhere but there is so much crap in there that I couldn’t find it. It will have to wait until the spring where we sort the shed out.

In consequence before lunch popped down to B&Q and bought an incinerator and a new bow saw. Looking forward to using them both.

Also spent some time working on the hedge. It needs trimming but at at least 20m that’s not a small job. There’s a lot of ivy in there too which needs pulling out. Made a bit of progress but it will take quite a few goes at it I think. Last night I ordered a new step ladder from the B&Q website. 10 rungs/3m. It will allow me to properly do the front hedge and also be useful in the autumn for reaching high up apples.

No walking today. It’s a rugby afternoon and I’ll be watching France v Ireland and Wales v Scotland. WIll have to see the second half of the Welsh match on iPlayer as we are off to the flicks with John to see the Dad’s Army movie. On the way home it’s a Dominos Pizza for John and a takeaway curry for me and Anne.
Selected pics here
Couple of train vids :


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Lincoln to Heighington and back

Seems I have just learned to retune a TV at the tender age of 54. I realise that most of you learn this at your mother’s knee, or at least when you bought your first TV. I bought my first TV 11 years ago. I must have tuned it in. It probably had a step by step installation process where it assumed my IQ was 30 and did it for me.

Ditto for our second TV which was a flat screen job that didn’t take up half the room. We didn’t need a new TV but it was cheaper than building another extension to the house.

The TV I just learned to tune was an inheritance. It hurt my brain when all I got from plugging in three different aerials was “NO SIGNAL”. How can a simple TV that is just supposed to show mostly rubbishy content be so difficult? The answer is technology of course. What is designed to add value also adds complexity.

It’s the same with my car. We only have one key. A second is going to cost £96, or £126 if I want the remote unlocking to work. £96 for a key??!! It’s because car keys these days have chips in them with added value security. Fair enough but the whole car is like that. It’s supposed to make things more reliable and safer but basically it just adds expense.

Rant over. The TV now works and is fine with both aerials we bought to try. Anne will have to choose one and take the other back to the shop.

Today’s walk was 10.52 miles home to Phil and Rachel’s at Heighington and back. Long sections of the old railway line, now a cycle path, between Stamp End and Washingborough with nobody to be seen. Feet and back knackered by the end. All good stuff I guess. Progress towards doing 23 miles in a day.

Pics from the walk here

Vids below

Picasso eat yer heart out

Another walk this afternoon. Outer Circle Road, down to Monks Road and along to the West End Tap. Had a chat with landlord Nige and he gave me a lift home. 3.5 miles plus this morning’s swim.

Was later getting to the pool due to having to scrape the ice off the car windscreen – see pic below. On the walk passed three items of interest (at least I think they are interesting).

One was Fosters Butchers, newly reopened after their fire last year. Yay. Second was the Lincoln telephone exchange viewed from Waterside North. And finally in the featured image is a pic my friend Alan Ward in his garret.

Al is the artist who carved the new Eleanor Cross for Lincoln – see here for posts on the subject. Al is a born again artist. By this I mean he was driving along three weeks ago and had a heart attack at the wheel. He was rushed to hospital where they stuck a couple of stents in him. He seems right as rain-ish now.

Booze? Crisps? Broccoli?

I’m not giving up anything specifically for lent. I did think about saying “religion” which I thought would be suitably ironic but I gave up on that many years ago.

Today I swam for 45 mins and walked 45 mins. I had considered walking to Cherry Willingham but the body was less willingham and I left it a bit late really. Instead I walked to the Carlton Centre Post Office to repost the DVLA application to register dad’s Peugeot in the UK. My original application was rejected because I sent the wrong amount of money!

Also dropped by Wickes to find a clamp to help glue the kitchen chair together. They didn’t have one big enough so I’m going to improvise.

Tonight is a parents evening at school to discuss revision timetables! And so the cycle begins again.

Have another pancake y’all… Greetwell Hollow passed on my walk today.

Will get around to them all in due course

get spare key for the Citroen

clear under the eaves

repair pelmet in kitchen

bash out dents in tin trunk

screw bookcase to wall

fix deckchair

trim front and back hedges

wax jacket

lightbulbs -kitchen, tv room, conservatory, front floods

glue kitchen chairs

go to tip

Pancake day yay plus ten miler and Red Arrows

I love pancakes. Why on earth do we only cook them once a year. That isn’t entirely true as Anne regularly makes banana pancakes for breakfast. However I am talking about the pure indulgence of eating pancakes dripping with butter and lemon juice in sugar.

Around 6 large ones is an appropriate level of consumption and no other food is required. Unfortunately, and I don’t say that with enormous seriousness, we are having a meal before the pancakes get consumed. In a sense that is ok because it means less room for pancakes which are presumably more calorific than the roasted vegetable tart I will be eating before hand.

An entirely vegetarian meal. If I can stick to beans on toast or simlar for lunch I’ll have had a wholly vegetarian day and lived to tell the tale. I realise that lots of vegetarians do this every day but as someone who would ask for an endless supply of bacon sandwiches with brown sauce as my luxury on Desert Island Disks you perhaps understand my perspective.

So this morning I swam for 40 minutes, consumed breakfast and booked Darren the plasterer who is now coming to plaster the attic on 12th April. It will take several days and I think make the room that bit tidier. The attic floor is boarded over and there is plasterboard and insulation on the walls/roof.

At around 11 I set off on my walk for the day. The beautiful sunshine was in great contrast to the rain offloaded yesterday by Storm Imogen. I was planning a 10 miler. 5 miles to the Daisy Made Ice Cream Cafe in Skellingthorpe for lunch and back a different route along Skellingthorpe Road and along Tritton Road into town.

The walk out along the Fossdyke towpath towards the Pyewipe pub is a real pleasure. After the pub I saw very few people until I got to the caff. Did notice a few things though. Firstly I could hear the Red Arrows training. Couldn’t see them. Then I arrived at what seemed to be a memorial for RAF Skellingthorpe. Also saw a lump of concrete in the woods by the side of the path that must have been part of the airfield. Most people wouldn’t know the memorial was there. You have to walk or cycle along the path. You are into serious industrial farming country as soon as you pass the Pyewipe.

Daisy Made was a great opportunity to  sit down and take the weight off my feet. Lunch consisted of beans on toast and a cup of tea. I had to remove a fleece and my waterproof as the warmth of the cafe was too much after the walk. I’m not sure the base layer and fleece are performing the moisture wicking as they are supposed to although it could be that I’m not fit enough yet.

After 30 mins or so I set off for the 5 miles return trip. Easy enough although my feet are still the weakest link. Feels as if my boots are starting to wear in but the feet still aren’t used to the pounding. There’s a definite improvement though and I reckon it will only take a few more walks to get them sorted.

The whole trip took around 4 hours for 10.2 miles. Not bad. My longest so far during this training run up to the Coast to Coast. Steep hill was more of a challenge than if I’d done it at the start but not too bad considering it was after 9 miles of walk.

Had a Radox bath when I got in. Just right.

The roast pepper flan was a hit but I only made enough pancake batter for 6. Doh! 2 each. Never mind. It’s been a good day for net calorie consumption with all the exercise.

This evening I’ve been working on Anne’s Vans. The website is nearly ready to rock and roll. Expect news v soon.

I leave you with some videos and a link to some pics from the day.
Pics here

Vids here:

Imogen struts her stuff – bee-ach

Very relaxing sat here in the office/conservatory. The forecast rain from storm Imogen has just arrived and is falling steadily on the roof. The Dyson fan heater is working away in the background and I’ve just settled in front of the screens having swam 35 mins and had a healthy breakfast. Good eh?

I am in a cocoon. I can see Imogen playing with the branches of the trees outside. It’s not a happy place out there. This afternoon’s planned walk has been postponed until tomorrow and a couple of hours will now be spent in the gym instead. it takes a bit of willpower to do two hours in the gym because it is so boring and you are forced to look at screens containing daytime TV. I have my spotify account to distract me.

A couple of squirrels are hanging around the bird feeders. They can’t get at the contents of one of them but the peanut dispenser is easy for them to feed from. This isn’t what they are for but other than not using the peanut feeder I’m not sure what I can do about it. I’m not about to invest in an air rifle.

Mondays are very quiet in the Davies house.  Anne is out. She goes to a Monday Group from church and also hears kids read at Eastgate School. It’s probably the most boring day of the week when I am in Lincoln. Anne has developed her routine over the last few years.

Today I got Campervan Betty registered with HolidayLettings.co.uk – part of TripAdvisor. So Betty is now registered with Camperbug, Holiday Lettings and Airbnb. Won’t be long now before the site is up too and we will be able to start pushing rentals in earnest.

At around 2pm I shot off to the gym. There was no sign of the forecast rain so I just wore a fleece. After an hour on the treadmill on a variable slope setting I stopped to look out of the window only to see Imogen emptying her load with a vengeance. I only had my fleece with me so got somewhat soaked going out to the car. A cup of tea and a hot shower and I’ll be fine. It’s a good job I didn’t go for that walk. I think my waterproof coat ain’t so waterproof anymore.

On a final, culinary note we are having fajitas for tea tonight which should be nice. I like fajitas. I will then be closeted in the TV room as Anne has the ladies of the craft creations group coming round to discuss Easter!

Rain from Storm Imogen.

After the walk

As I was approaching the prison this morning, only to walk past it you understand, I heard a lot of noise coming from the playing field. Sounded like a rugby match or simlar. Turns out it was an American Football training session. Who new?  Quite timely what with the Superbowl happening tonight – not that I ever watch it.

The photo below is of a photographer on the site of the now closed Coop garage on Outer Circle Road.

Stardate Sunday 7th Feb 9.25am

It’s only 9.25am and I already have so much to tell you. Fell asleep watching boring Scotland v England game on iPlayer when we got home last night . Suspect it was the booze that made me fall asleep and not the rugby but who can tell?

In consequence forgot to update my food intake diary which I did this morning. A diavola pizza has over 1,000 calorie in it!!! WHo’d a thought I’d ever by a calorie counter but this MyFitnessPal app is really good. It gives you control. At least it makes me think I have control. You can see that when you have a few pints you had better get some exercise in to offset the effects.

I’m wearing my boots around the house again this morning. I think they are starting to wear in. Hope so anyway. If I get a chance I’ll take them for a walk later this morning. I need to buy some leather boot spray from GoOutdoors and also a couple of bottles of white plonk from Tesco. We never drink white wine but our lunchtime guests might. If they don’t we can always use it for cooking. The beef stew I slow cooked yesterday is looking pretty good today.

The first real news of the day, that which I rushed to tell you at 9.25am, is that the daffs are out. Not sure if this is early. Probably is. Ah well.

The second bit of news is that whilst setting the fire I came across a “Tiny Computers” brochure from 1997. The first PC what I bought myself was that Tiny Computer. It was a P166MMX and it cost a whopping £1232 inc VAT. Blimmin eck. Worra ripoff.

Those were the days of dial up and just before I got my first ADSL line. I was paying BT£145 (or simlar) a month for a 1Mbps connection. After a year or so I moved to a 2Mbps Plusnet line for £110.

I held off scrunching up the Tiny paperwork I had planned to use to start the fire and used some old C&G mortgage documentation instead.

breakfast and lunch