The Last Post

At least for now, after four years of daily reportage Life Is A Sentence is taking a break to review its format, frequency, focus and future.

Beer and Brains

The twin attraction of happy hour prices ahead of a quiz drew us to the Tuns at Sadberge for an enjoyable evening of beer and brainwork; the beer, Timothy Taylor's Boltmaker, was more successful than the brains, our quartet finishing just out of the prizes at fourth of the eight teams.

Iron Men

A marathon ironing session was made light of thanks to watching the Rugby League Cup semi-final live on BBC, the iron men of Hull and Leeds providing a fast open game full of skill and physical endeavour, close until Hull steamed ahead in the second half to win comfortably.

Handlebards

Went to see the Handlebards, a bicycling troop of Shakespearean players – this year the females, perform As You Like It in the walled garden at Raby Castle, preceding the performance with a picnic; the four girls were excellent, playing the full cast with panache, humour, and no little skill, even through the rain that arrived at the interval, simply incorporating anoraks into their various costumes.

Lunch on Me

Met the undergraduate son and his girlfriend for lunch in Middlesbrough to hear all about their recent Italian holiday, which they evidently enjoyed, managed well and most surprisingly returned from with some Euros unspent; however as the café dealt only in sterling I still ended up footing the bill.

Norwegian Noir

In preparation for a holiday in Norway I scoured the library shelves and Amazon for some appropriate Scandi-noir thrillers to read on the trip, settling on books by Anne Holt and Karin Fossum; hopefully their grizzly tales are no more representative of life in Norway life than those of Ian Rankin’s are of Edinburgh or Colin Dexter’s are of Oxford.

Cupboard was Bare

Today we tackled our version of what my mother used to call the glory hole, a cupboard that holds a multitude of items ranging from the essential to the obsolete, but it all came out, got sorted, rationalised, reorganised, thinned out with goods redirected to elsewhere in the house, the barn, charity shop, or rubbish; the outcome was the unfamiliar sight of some clear shelf surfaces – a state of affairs unlikely to last long.

Job for Life

At Coopers Tea shop and Coffee House (a regular Monday morning haunt) the coffee was off the menu as the expresso machine was in bits getting repaired or serviced by an engineer and what looked like his young apprentice who, given the mushrooming abundance of such equipment, should have a career for life; fortunately the kettle was still working so my pot of tea continued to be available.

Craft Day

My wife having a crafting day left me largely to my own devices, able to devote time to reading, watching the finale of the Tour de France, and completing most of the History Magazine crossword - provided I kept her supplied with cups of tea; her output included a chalk painted picture frame, a decoupaged tea light holder and a flock of scary looking sheep.

Bus and Boat and Plane

A day punctuated by pings on my wife’s phone recording the progress made by the elder daughter jetting off back to Costa Rica and the undergraduate son returning from Italy on coach and ferry; thankfully both ended up safely where intended.

Milk Race

I have clearly been watching the Tour de France to excess as this morning I awoke from a dream featuring the race, but in a version in which several of the bikes were being ridden by cows – perhaps a throwback to when the old Tour of Britain was sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board and so dubbed the milk race.

Sabbatical

My wife’s usual haul of end of term presents was bigger than normal due to her not returning in September, not exactly retiring but more taking a sabbatical to fully share with me for twelve months or so the benefits of a work-free lifestyle; of course money will be tighter but at least we now have enough prosecco, chocolate and scented candles in stock to see the year out.

Garden Statuary

The disposal of the old washing machine from the back garden had created a void that needed filling, a job completed today as I fixed a repainted flower pot holder to the wall and put the finishing touches to my up-cycling of an old Singer sewing machine frame into a plant stand.

Well Gelled

The NHS continued what seems to be my 65,000 mile (or 65 year) service by giving me an unsolicited appointment for a formidably sounding abdominal aortic aneurysm screening, which I nevertheless attended today; having sat through many a scan on a pregnant partner, this time I found myself on the receiving end of a copious amount of gel and a hand held implement that the nurse wielded like a smoothing iron on a creased duvet cover, however the outcome was OK - father and aorta both fine.