where art collides

Bright sunny morning. The temperatures are set to rise next week which will probs see shorts reestablished as standard wear and the end of the use of heating for the season. Good.

Enough of this constantly changing weather trivia. It is oh eight fifty one and I have a meeting at ten thirty. I don’t have any preparation to do. 

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One of the ‘innovations’ I ‘might’ introduce if I had unlimited cash would be a trefor.net tea lady. OK it doesn’t have to be female but someone who would come when I pushed the intercom wielding a trolley with an already nicely brewed pot of tea with a variety of biscuits.

As I’d want near instantaneous results there would have to be a fresh pot of tea constantly on the go. Don’t want to wait five minutes for it to brew or longer if the kettle has to boil.

Now I realise some might consider this to be a wasteful extravagance but I don’t care, I could afford it. Neither is it environmentally friendly, potentially, to keep boiling water to make a fresh pot of tea.

The answer would be to have a cafe at the front of our house. That way any tea undrunk by me could be sold to passers by or given to homeless people coming inside for a bit of warmth and shelter from the elements.

The biscuit bit is a little harder. Doesn’t matter how wealthy you are if you went into biscuit overdrive you wouldn’t be rich for long you would be obese/dead. My fave choices of bisc would be milk chocolate hobnobs, digestives and bourbon creams. You may have your own faves that are different. That’s ok. Diversity makes the world a more interesting place.

During the first lockdown in order to help the family survive the unknown future I would throw in a twin pack of milk chocolate hobnobs into the shopping trolley. Once opened one of these packs would reside in the biscuit tin in the kitchen and I would on an ad hoc basis when nobody was looking dip my hand in to retrieve a biscuit or two (or three). Every time I opened the tin the level had gone down. Everyone was at it 🙂We went through a lot of hobnobs.

It is still the weekend. I think all weekends should be 4 days. In fact I decree it. Whether anyone else will take any notice is another issue despite the fact that it would be a really popular decree amongst us masses.

Years ago the Prime Minister of Ontario apparently ran on an election manifesto of getting rid of all speed cameras. I’m told he won a landslide victory. Mind you we know from recent experience near to home that politicians will say anything to get elected and then don’t necessarily deliver on their promises. 

Anyway enuff of this. We shouldn’t discuss religion of politics here. Rain is a safe enough subject, as long as we don’t stray onto climate change. I won’t need to water the onions or the grass seed today. We do need more grass seed but the Head Gardener only visits her supplier on a Saturday morning after the park run so that will have to wait.

I quite like her new title of Head Gardner. It accurately reflects a standing in the household that can be (is) extended to other areas of our relationship. I am content with this in keeping, I’m sure, with much of the populace.

Decoration for example. Our house has its original dark wood bannisters. After much resistance on my part the bannisters are now some shade of pale white. It is a big improvement. I, as a humble occasional mower of lawns and trimmer of rogue ivy could not see the improvement in advance that the Head Gardener could see.

Clearly to be a Head Gardener requires a high degree of vision as well as creativity and application, or hard work as some may call it. It also requires decision making ability and self confidence when all around are saying nay, ie me.

The Head Gardener and I are off to a garden centre this afternoon. It is rare for the two of us to go shopping together as our shopping styles are quite different, incompatible even. The culture of garden centre visiting, typically on a Sunday afternoon, is something inherited from my father inlaw who was also a keen gardener, maintained two allotments and was for many years secretary of his allotment society.

Visits to the Wirral often involved the consumption of freshly grown seasonal vegetables. In Lincoln our production capacity is much lower but we do enjoy fresh produce over the course of the season. We did at one time have an allotment but at 60m x 10m it was huge and involved far too much effort at a time when we were also raising four children. After a season or two with the allotment the convenience of buying our vegetables in Tesco only 250 metres down the road seemed compelling. We still have a gate to the allotments in our back fence.

Today does feel like a Sunday. This is probably partly due to the wet weather. Dylan Thomas always seemed to remember it snowing when he was a child. I remember it raining. Living in Wales it rained a lot, especially on Sundays. 

The Head Gardener also comes from the western side of the country and would therefore have ‘enjoyed’ the same weather. This could well have explained their frequent visits to garden centres where there is always an indoor section and a coffee shop.

Today’s destination, Scothern Nurseries also has a coffee shop to which we will repair if only to raise a cup of coffee to gardeners long passed. Americano please.

Talking about coffee shops, it has just occurred to me that I have not yet had a hot cross bun this Easter. Wtf?!  This is because I am on a keto diet. Ordinarily I am happy with the keto diet. I don’t miss beer and can survive without bred, rice and potatoes (with the occasional day off) but when it comes to not having hot cross buns then it is starting to get serious 🙂

The not drinking beer bit is easy really because I quickly see the results in being able to tighten my belt by a notch or two. Beer gets replaced with an occasional gin and slimline tonic. The diet is however a total disincentive to go to the pub. There is no point in drinking gin and tonic in a pub. You just don’t get enough gin in your glass, unless you want to push the boat out. 

I suppose I could drink sparkling water or similar but I did Sober October a few years ago and said to myself never again. My problem wasn’t really about not consuming alcohol. It was the fact that during that month of October I spent two weeks away on business at conferences and events where the order of the day was long days at the coal face but hit the bar afterwards. 

I had the long days but serial glasses of mineral water in the bar afterwards didn’t seem quite right. V boring. This was particularly the case at the RIPE conference in Copenhagen (or Amsterdam or similar). You may or may not know that the internet runs on alcohol.

In other news many trees are now coming into leaf and much blossom is to be seen around town. Spring is well under way.

Bit of an incident on the bypass this afternoon. Was on the way to drop the scarifier back at Lee’s but a cop car had closed it off. There was also a fire engine there with an extendable ladder. Plan B was through the Ermine to Burton Road and down through Burton village but that too was closed. Burton Road has a bridge over the bypass which is unfortunately sometimes the scene of tragedy and one assumes that this is the case this pm. Very sad. 

Plan C was to go through town but that was gridlocked with the knock on effect of the closure of the bypass. I gave up and went to Wickes to buy some compost. En route home from Wickes a couple of panda cars were hot footing it in the direction of the hospital. I made sure I was sticking to the speed limit!

Yesterday we officially declared our victoria plum tree dead. Killed off by last summer’s drought. It will be replaced by two trees in a slightly different position. These we will potentially purchayse this afternoon after a second attempt to return Lee’s scarifier. Always assuming anywhere will be open. Pennells Garden Centre would have been the obvious choice but they are a deeply religious lot there and are shut for the day.

The death certificate was issued after cutting a small branch to examine it for signs of life. There was no greenwood to be seen. We do have another, smaller, plumb which has flowered and therefore warned us that the health of the older tree was not as it should be. 

The smaller plum was purchased as an unlabelled stick for a pound from some shop with no idea as to what would eventually grow from it. It is a small miracle that said stick even took root and sprang into life. Plants can be very resilient.

Twill be a few years before the stick will yield usable quantities of fruit and the planting of new trees must be seen as a medium term investment.

Today is Easter Sunday, the Feast of the Passover or Spring Break, depending on your nationality and orientation. It would be a real shame if the use of the term Spring Break ever became the norm in the UK. Nowt wrong with Easter, especially as we get two bank holidays yay.

I am minded to make the day totally job free. Our family does have form in this space. My great great great great grandfather the Reverend Daniel Davies of Llandysul was excommunicated from the local Baptist chapel after it was discovered that he had let his farm hand work on a Sunday. They relented a few years later and let him back in to great relief all round. It must have created quite a stir at the time.

I visited his grave around ten years ago when I was researching my family tree. It was one of the oldest  in the cemetery and the gravestone was starting to deteriorate. At least I have it photographed.

Not got back any further than Daniel who was born in the middle of the eighteenth century.. Church records from before that time are somewhat incomplete and we Welsh unhelpfully did not have surnames in those days so it is difficult to spot a relative even if the record is there. I will revisit this some day.

I do mean to write a family history some day as it mirrors a lot of what was going on in the world in Wales over a couple of hundred years. The move from farming during the industrial revolution to owning woollen mills and then coal mining with participation in the religious revival movement thrown in for good measure. It was only because of the religious nature of my ancestors that I was able to trace them in the census. In Wales there are Davieses everywhere but only a few of them were labelled as ‘minister of religion’. One of my cousins, William Davies was the first Welsh Baptist missionary to die in Africa.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Leisure time beckons.

Totes beeootiful sunny day in the shire. Taking my cup of tea this morning in the conservatoire for the first time this season. Good Friday in prospect 🙂

Bit of campervan rental, bit of scarification, bit of culinary activity. I don’t know why it’s just dawned on me but a curry is a very keto diet compatible food item, as long as you stay away from the bread and rice. So I’m cooking a curry today in preparation for tomorrow night’s meal. It’s always better the next day.

Got to walk down to the garage to pick up campervan Jade. Jade is going out on hire this afternoon but it being a particularly Great Friday the garage is shut so doing it from our house which is fine. Jade is our fave van and the one we would take when heading off for a jaunt.

Lots of tomato seedlings in the tray on the floor next to me. They will need potting on shortly I dare say. We usually have more than we need once they have all been planted out. I’ll let you know availability nearer the time.

It must be a westerly wind because I’ve just heard the cathedral bells strike the half hour. This is good. Warmer. Were there any clothes on the line they would dry more quickly than would otherwise be the case, unless it was a southerly 🙂

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The garage is almost back to pre electrician visit condition which means it is still in dire need of a good sort out. This will happen over the weekend. Probs. It is nice to have an officially long weekend although the good folk in Belgium with who I work are still at the coal face and sending me emails

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Jade ready to go. Lawn scarified. Will do the aeration once the hirers have picked up the van. Cleared out the garage. Moved the large bookcase in the conservatory back into place. I know I hadn’t mentioned that before but now you know.

Halloumi kebabs for lunch.

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Today is the first seriously spring-like day we have had. I’ve been out in the jardin de Tref & Anne scarifying and aerating the lawn. We used to have Green Thumb do this but almost half the lawn needs reseeding post chafer bugs so I figured I’d do it all meself. GT don’t do chafer bug treatment.

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So made it into the pool, heventually. It was the start of the last session and quickly filled up. My lane must have had 9 or 10 punters in it. I prefer the last session before closing where it is not untypical to only have two or three of us in a lane and sometimes only me.

When it is that full it it doesn’t necessarily make for a good swim although today didn’t seem too bad. There are stories to be told.

First of all two girls got in, did two lengths, hung around the end of the lane for a while chatting and preventing anyone from making it to the side so we had to turn early. They left after less than ten minutes. Good oh.

The some bald geezer kept doing one length and then stopping for a break. After a suitable rest he would launch himself underwater for six or seven metres before coming up to a slow breast stroke.

A husband and wife combo then got in and swim in tandem. I can’t do this with Anne as she is much faster than me and goes in a different lane. Anyway they didn’t stay the pace either.

Three yooves hung around the edge of the pool before eventually getting into the middle lane. They splashed vigorously whilst doing the front crawl with their heads high out of the water. I think they only lasted ten minutes as well.

In all around fifteen people occupied the lane in the thirty minutes I was in and when I got out there were only four left. Felt good having done my half an hour. Would have done more were it quieter.

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I have a curry cooking slowly on the stove top. It is very loosely a lamb Rogan Josh but won’t taste anything like a RJ in practice. It is for tomorrow night.

Thursday is the new Friday, especially when tomorrow is Good Friday. Good name Good Friday. Whoever came up with it did a good job. An enduring brand.

Thursday is also the new Friday if your weekend starts on a Thursday. Always assuming that people celebrate Fridays as the end of their working week. Never done that myself, at least not for years.

Good Friday is not a good day to travel. Nor is the Thursday before Good Friday. Unless you consider long traffic jams and queues at airports to be a good thing which I don’t. 

A few years ago I had the idea of consolidating a year’s worth of BBC radio travel alerts to text so that all roads mentioned in the year were covered. It would show a gridlocked nation. Would have been a great piece for philosopherontap.

Didn’t happen because I couldn’t be bothered to listen to and transcribe every bulletin and didn’t come up with an automated process to do the job. I would also have had to listen to Radio 2 every afternoon which wouldn’t have worked. The project is not dead, just delayed, in keeping with the folk sat in traffic jams.

We are staying put for Easter although we might head to the coast or somewhere on Sunday. Take a nice picnic. The picnic will inevitably be eaten in the car, washed down with a flask of tea as many places will still be shut and the weather will be inclement, as the Brits like to put it.

Sitting eating a picnic in the car with food items spread out on the dashboard is a very traditional thing to do. Ideally with the rain lashing down on the windscreen or a freezing wind blasting in from the North Sea. This is after a brief five minute walk on the beach spent mostly bent over holding the hood of your coat down over your face and quickly coming to a mutual decision to return to the car.

Will have to give some consideration to our destination this Sunday. Haven’t been to the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Museum for years. That could work, although Grimsby is a bit grim, knowworramean.

Any ideas/suggestions for a day out (afternoon more likely) within striking distance of Lincoln on Sunday will be considered. In the meantime I’m off to make the tea.

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The sun has emerged from behind a cloud that had held much water which this morning was emptied on the good burghers of Lincoln. There is now optimism in the air that the lawn may this afternoon be the subject of scarification and aeration. If the lawn isn’t dry enough then it will get done over the weekend, definitely 😉 You already know that we are at home for the Passover feast, mostly.

The burghers themselves will also have emerged, from their refuges where they will have rushed to take shelter at the time of the deluge. Those caught out in the open will themselves now be drying off in the sun in the manner, no doubt, of spread-wing cormorants at the seashore. Soak up that sunshine!

Silence now reigns in the shed.

The light has gone. Having a new consumer unit put in so the power has just gone off to the house. I can tell because the screens in front of me have just died and I am now on a fully charged macbook pro hooked up to a fully charged phone.

Outside is a beautiful spring day that started with a frost. Ne’er cast a clout until May is out and it is only at the start of April. I am wearing a thick woolly jumper particularly as the heating is now off in the shed. In theory I was going to scarify the lawn and plant onion sets today but the combination of no electricity and the cold may delay that.

The concept of not having two 27” 4k screens in front of me is a little strange. Nowadays I don’t feel as if I am sat anywhere productive without the real estate to play with. Even the two screens have to be supplemented with windows that need to be swiped into view to be seen.

Sometimes when using the laptop in the house I have to move to the shed for productivity reasons. It is also quieter there and I am less prone to being disturbed. A good separation between home and work life.

In one sense the switching off of power to the shed is like the beginning of armageddon. How it all started. If the shed represented life, humanity, it would now be all about what happens next. I would have to adapt. Move away from my cosseted twenty first century  existence. Obvs I know the power is coming back sometime later today but if I didn’t know that it would affect my behaviour.

We do have some candles in the house. Some are there for decorative purposes and I believe there is a box somewhere with a mixed bunch of wax sticks. One year, aeons ago, there was a short power cut during our Christmas Party, the one where we sing carols. Out came the candles and we had the most atmospheric sing song that we had ever had, the glow from the log fire keeping us nice and warm.

That is in the past. In the present the washing is being hung out to dry. Must have just beaten the switch off.

I am looking forwards to an April largely spent at home. I have already resisted the urge to go to UKNOF in Manchester this week and to a VON Evolution conference in New York City later in the month. Mostly due to diary clashes but the attraction of giving the body a rest from travel did play a part. I do need to arrange a trip to Antwerp at some stage and have a pleasant lunch arranged in London in the last week of the month. 

I like leisurely London lunches. Wotslifeallabout? If anyone would like to book me for a leisurely London lunch during the summer feel free to get in touch.

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. 

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

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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.

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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.

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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.