Self-Catering

New Year’s Eve in the Nurses’ Residence (my temporary self-catered accommodation at the hospital) was not as exciting as you may have expected, and the catering experience was mixed with the breakfast working well (thanks to plentiful supplies of cereal, milk, bread (and toaster), butter, jam, tea & coffee) but the evening meal more challenging as my attempt to microwave a Sainsbury’s ‘ready meal’ was hampered by my lack of experience in such culinary arts and the presence only of instructions for an alternative appliance, which meant all I could get it to do was a thirty second blast, of which twelve were needed, each terminated by four loud beeps that got more annoying with each repetition well before the forty-eighth and final one; on the plus side the lasagne was very tasty, washed down with a single can of Newcastle Brown, appropriate to see in the new year in such solitary fashion.

Journey South

My trip to Birmingham to be on hand for my Dad’s hospitalisation got off to an inauspicious start when I ground to a halt after eleven miles (189 to go) just past Scotch Corner on the A1(M) due to a nine vehicle collision just ahead, which caused a two hour standstill (of the proper engine off, get out and stroll around the carriageway variety) made tolerable only by having a book on hand to pass the time, and by the thought that it was better to be delayed behind such an accident than to be part of it; once allowed to continue it was slow going through successive road works, staring through a salt-splattered windscreen into a setting sun, which made the onset of dusk positively welcome (less so the nightfall as my dirt-encrusted headlamps struggled to pierce the gloom) but eventually I arrived at the hospital having taken six and a half hours to cover the two hundred miles.

Death of a Pirate (& Parrot)

A murder mystery dinner on a buccaneering theme required a pirate outfit, so rather than hire from a local costumier (cost £20), I combined my wedding shirt from 1997 with my sons pyjamas tucked into my football socks that last saw action circa 2004, stuck silver foil buckles on my shoes with paper clips, and purchased a “light and sound enhanced” cutlass (cost £2.99); it was a good night and while the murder of Captain Kidd went unsolved there was no mystery over the demise of my inflatable parrot – punctured by the fangs of the host’s dog!

Chilly & Chilli

A bright and frosty day made for an invigorating but chilly walk, necessitating a first public outing for the Christmas jumper, around Hardwick Park, where the highlight was seeing an unleashed, undersized puppy change instantly from a yappy chaser of mallards, moorhens and coots into a cowering mutt as a swan came a-hissing; back home in time to help cook up a chilli for the visiting in-laws, and no catering cock-ups today, just a perfect dish with rice, wraps, dips and garlic bread.

Legless

Each Christmas I manage to undermine our hosted feast with a catering faux pas (cock-up in English): last year it was composting the prepared veg instead of the peelings, and today the four turkey legs, bought to accompany the turkey crown, turned out to have an eat by date of Christmas Eve and so had to go into the bin rather than the oven; we still had enough meat (a ham was also prepared) so no real harm was done other than to my already compromised reputation as a host.

Monopoly

On Boxing Day an old favourite came out of the box – Monopoly – but not as I remember it from my youth, rather the ‘World Cup’ version with the properties replaced by national teams, the houses by terraces, and hotels by stadiums, however the layout, colour groups and rents remained unchanged so I could still rattle some rents off even after all these years: £2 for Old Kent Road (here Australia), £50 for Mayfair (Brazil), and a few more in between; starting sixth out of six was a struggle but I managed to acquire the light blues (here South Korea, Tunisia and Poland) and put up stadiums, but they are not big earners and come the final reckoning (after about three hours) my assets were insufficient to win. 

Christmas Presents

We are fortunate enough to be able to give and receive multiple presents within the family, so despite being one down (with younger daughter not visiting until Boxing Day) it still took a good hour for the four of us to unwrap, admire and appreciate our presents this morning; some hours later we decamped to the parents-in-law and after a Christmas dinner of epic proportions we settled into easy chairs for another hour long bout of pass the parcel - but the best thing I received there was a text to say the presents posted only on the 23 December to my sister and her family in Cornwall, had arrived in time.

Lasting Traditions

Though times change I maintain a couple of lasting Christmas Eve traditions: a last jaunt round the shops, not panic buying but seeking opportunistic stocking fillers (and one really hit the mark for my sewing obsessed chocoholic wife); and spending the evening with friends, whose buffet spread is as splendid as you would expect in a farmhouse, always followed by games of 'empires' where the aim of being last to have a secret identity guessed, one one round, I narrowly missed.

Xmas Food Shop

Sharing the offspring with an increasing number of interested parties means our festive feast does not take place until 27 December, but we still needed to shop today to be certain of getting what we need, so the first stop was Bolam's in Sedgefield for meat and veg, primarily a four-legged Turkey (not a freak but separate crown and legs that are so much easier to accommodate in the fridge for four days), where despite the crowds we got in, got round and got out by 10:30; second stop was a tactically late supermarket swoop on Morrison's at 20:30, which was successful in avoiding the crowds but hampered by many shelves being stripped bare by earlier rampaging hordes, requiring a third stop at Asda at 21:50 where the gaps were largely plugged, so that even if we didn't have everything we certainly had more than enough - in fact the only way to get it all in the fridge was to eat a sticky toffee pudding for supper.

Sofa Sumo

One of my least favourite household chores (undertaken as a pre-Christmas necessity today) is maintaining the two sofas in the living room, which requires not only a thorough vacuuming to remove debris from snacks, cats and crafts but also a good pummeling of the seat cushions to persuade the flock filling to return from the edges back to the centre where it could actually fulfill its purpose in life; it's quite a workout, resembling a cross between a fight in the schoolyard and a sumo wrestling bout - the former due to the violent thumping involved, and the latter due to the occasional need to shed clothing to cope with the exertion.

Home for Christmas

No skyping Mongolia this morning, instead an early morning drive to Manchester Airport to pick up the elder daughter, home for Christmas after a thirty hour journey with stops in Kyrgyzstan and Turkey; after that an hour's diversion to visit her Grandad was a bit of an ask, but agreed to with good grace.

Christmas Market

We made our traditional pre-Christmas visit to the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle for the festive market, split fifty-fifty between crafts and food; we looked at the crafts but bought the food, particularly cheeses, pies and curries.

No Office Party

There was no early sign of the newly coined ‘Black-eye Friday’ in Yarm this lunchtime as I met two other retired gentlefolk, with whom I used to share an office (or at least a ‘pod’ of desks) for what I termed an office party for those who no longer have an office; the two course meal was excellent and the conversation was convivial as we caught up on news and regurgitated favourite working memories (the former finally, after a few years, becoming more prevalent and interesting than the latter), which kept us occupied for two and a half hours until the more heavy duty office parties moved in, and we, as befitted our status, moved out.

The Working Year

Christmas is coming and New Year is not far behind, bringing for me an irresistible need to review aspects of the year, and having today done my last shift of 2014, I can reflect on a varied working year undertaking four part time jobs – maths tutor, maths mentor, accountancy consultant and minibus driver (surprisingly, if belatedly, similar to roles envisaged in the summer of 2011 as I contemplated imminent retirement while on our family holiday in the Dordogne); averaging about five hours a week it has been enough to add variety and purpose to post retirement, and has earned a pound or two to help fund the occasional post-retirement outing.

Cards

Every year the intention is to add some personalised content to the few Christmas cards I actually send, but as ever the need to get them in the post takes over, meaning that today it was again a case of just writing to and from in the cards, addressing and stamping the envelopes, and stuffing them into the pillar box.

Winter Walk

Decided to take advantage of still, sunny December day by taking a short walk along the route of the first passenger railway (not the complete Stockton to Darlington, just a few miles from Oak Tree to South Burden), delighting in the look of the blue sky through the bare branches overhead and the path striped by their shadows; it was spookily quiet, just a muted tweet or two from the birds, with the only other wildlife on view being dog walkers, a couple of horse riders, and a gaggle of WI types evidently dressed for their annual Santa walk - and then in South Burden Wood a glimpse of a fox who, on seeing me, retreated back into cover.

Standardisation

If you think that the answer to a maths question is clearly either right or wrong you would be surprised that three tutors marking copies of the same exam paper could come up with three different marks out of just 36; but at entry level 3 there are less marks for the answer than how it is arrived at, so lots of grey areas and hence the need for these standardisation sessions to ensure consistency of marking - and to ensure a consistent standard of bourbon biscuits.

Frogs

What does a teaching assistant give thirty of her charges for Christmas – thirty homemade bookmarks each consisting a green felt frog on a lollipop stick, which have been in production for some weeks but only reached completion today with a group session at the frog optician to affix their googly eyes – the result, en masse, is the stuff of nightmares.

The Priorymen

The need to see grass roots football after missing two weekends took me to the King George V Stadium in Guisborough to see the Priorymen make home advantage count, scoring four good goals without reply against Ashington; a home performance marred only by the failure of the tea hut to keep pace with the demand for hot drinks on an icy day.

51 States of Grey

For the second time this week I was home alone all day and most of the evening as both wife and son had after-school social engagements, so to help pass the time I decided to improve my quizzing skills by committing to memory the 51 States of America (the party trick that so frustrated Ross in Friends); I could already recall many of the peripheral states but those without a coastline or international border tended, in my mind, to form just an amorphous grey lump in the middle of the continent, however once a logical system had been devised I was able to remember them all – how long I retain the knowledge only time, and possibly a future quiz, will tell.

Returning to Learning

It's like waiting for a bus - having had no learner there for my last two classes, two turned up at once today (my regular and another lad not seen since September) requiring me to dust off the lesson plan and get down to some algebra; the occasional student disappeared after half an hour (he may wander back in off the street some time in March) but the regular completed the lesson and hopefully is back on track.

Winter Warmers

Adopted three ways to keep warm on a cold, wet, windy, winter’s day without resorting to putting the heating on: spend an hour and a half hunched over a nice hot iron until you run out of dry laundry; go to a nice warm café to meet an ex-colleague and make a cup of coffee and a scone last another ninety minutes while having a good catch-up; visit the gym and get a real good sweat on doing the rounds of the various instruments of torture.

Angels of the Hearth

We stripped back the hearth to its original brick a few years ago, at which point two angels, gifts hand crafted by my sister, lost their anchorages, were brought down to earth and have stood forlorn on the carpet since; but today I finally reaffixed them to the chimney breast and enabled them to take wing again.

Ironing Pile

You can tell it's been a quiet day when the highlight is a couple of hours ironing, but at least the tottering pile of creased laundry whose avalanche could have buried someone alive has been reduced to more stable proportions for the time being.

Christmas Countdown No. 4

The first weekend in December is when the Christmas tree goes up and the presence of the younger daughter on a well-timed visit meant my creative input was not needed; the result was a tree tastefully decorated by my wife and daughter and some mulled wine well-warmed by me.

Etihad

About once a season, courtesy of a generous season ticket holder, I get to the Etihad Stadium to see Manchester City play, and today the drive south was enlivened by commentary on Chelsea's defeat at Newcastle, which meant if City beat Everton they would close the gap at the top of the Premiership to three points; Aguero hobbling off after two minutes was a blow but a first half Yaya Toure penalty proved enough (along with a fine Joe Hart save) to secure a win, gain three points and put the pressure well and truly on Chelsea.

Final Accounts

My term of office as a school governor is approaching its natural end and at today’s meeting I relinquished my position as chair of the finance committee, after more years than is good to remember, but not before seeing our third (since becoming an academy), and my last, set of final accounts approved by the board.

Coming Soon

In picking up some tickets from the Civic Theatre in Darlington I also picked up the Newcastle Theatre Royal’s brochure for the Spring / Summer 2015 season, which includes adaptations of four good books (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Rebecca), a stage production of a classic film (Twelve Angry Men), and the perennial Oscar Wilde favourite ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ (given a twist with the casting of David Suchet as the formidable Lady Bracknell); some difficult choices to be made there with Rebecca and Twelve Angry Men looking favourite at this stage.

Windscreen Wounders

Having cleared the car windscreen of frost this morning I thought it just needed a sweep of the wipers this evening, but realised my mistake as the water from the washers froze on contact to form a film of ice that was going nowhere; I then committed my second error as my manual scraping was interrupted by a surprisingly powerful wiper arm following its intermittent pattern, which proved more effective in removing skin from my hand than removing ice from glass.

Bags of Ivy

A day spent at home catching up after being away last week, and one job that needed finishing off was bagging the ivy taken off the barn roof three weeks ago; four bags filled today plus two that the boy did for me topped up to capacity, to add to four done previously, gives me ten to squeeze into the Juke for transportation to the tip tomorrow.

Xmas Cometh No. 3

I can accept 1 December as a reasonable start for Christmas preparations, so today happily undertook three seasonal tasks: tracking down and buying a potentially tricky present (identity not revealed in case of prying eyes); tying tinsel loops on thirty baubles for my wife’s classroom Christmas tree; and, most bizarrely, acquiring a papier-mâché reindeer’s head (antlers and all) to be decorated by said wife and mounted on the wall to look down festively on our Christmas dining table.

Sunday Dinner

After three days on the road, eating on the hoof, being back at home meant looking forward to a nice home-cooked Sunday roast dinner; and that is what I got - at the Ship Inn at Redmarshall with three meats, Yorkshire pudding, veg and mashed potatoes with lashings of gravy.

Motorways

Since moving from the North West twenty years ago I now rarely motor down the M6 motorway from Manchester to Birmingham, but last night and twice today I covered the ninety long, dreary and crowded miles three times – to stay overnight at my step-mum’s, take her to visit my dad in hospital, then return her home, but well worthwhile to give them some time together; at least it made my later route via the M62 and A1(M) seem a positively pleasant run home, with relatively few cars out in the mist over the Pennines and up the Vale of York

Visiting Hours

A day characterised by killing time between multiple visits to the hospital began with tea and a bacon sandwich at Morrison’s supermarket before visit number 1, then with the ward closed for lunch I spent an hour sipping more tea on a bench in the grounds (“mild for the end of November” remarked one passer-by), returning briefly for visit number 2 to see my Dad off to surgery before going into Northfield where I got more tea and a Panini at Sainsbury’s café (and a couple of books at a charity shop), back in time for visit number 3 which saw him back on the ward, but for me lasted only until the next mealtime when I took the opportunity to revisit Sainsbury’s for some lasagne and a milkshake (having had my fill of tea), before returning on automatic pilot for the final visit number 4; fortunately I am good at waiting around and doing nothing provided I have a book and a newspaper puzzle page to work through.

Rubery Great Park

Rubery Great Park is the name of the fun spot in SW Birmingham where I am staying overnight while my old dad gets his bad leg looked at by specialists, and adjacent to the well-appointed Premier Inn are a range of attractions: cinema, bowling and bingo, in addition to a range of eating places, from which I plump for Frankie & Benny's - lively and noisy (especially with a birthday on the next table that requires Cliff Richards to issue congratulations at full blast), but good food for the price; once fed I resisted cinema, bowling and bingo and returned to the hotel to phone home, get a cup of tea, and watch TV from my bed.

Taxing Conversation

Experienced Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs’ approach to customer service today in trying to correct my tax code, which involved a ten minute “conversation” with an automated voice that insisted any problem was clearly nothing to do with them and if I looked at their website I would be able to understand where I was wrong in any assumption to the contrary; perseverance only resulted in the following message: “I am sorry there is no one available to deal with your enquiry at the moment. Goodbye”.

Safeguarding Adults

Spent a morning at a training session to give me the basic awareness of the types of abuse inflicted on some vulnerable adults – how to recognise it, and what to do about it (in my role thankfully just tell someone else) – which involved watching some revealing videos and hearing some disturbing case studies; and while such as these have led to inquiries, reports, legislation, guidance and invective from the government, where is the cash to back up such fine words and good intentions?

Abigail’s Party

An unexpected treat on BBC4 tonight with Mike Leigh’s ‘Abigail’s Party’, a classic comedy of manners, social sniping and cringing embarrassment from 1977 with a tour de force performance by Alison Steadman as Beverly, a character that seemed to reappear thirty years later, older and a little wiser, as Pamela, the mother and mother-in-law respectively of Gavin & Stacey.

Watts

I got back to the gym today after a two week layoff with a stiff neck, and eased my way back with some low level resistance settings on the machines, noting in passing that I was generating 35 watts on the rower and 55 watts in the exercise bike, both considerably less than that produced by the solar panels (even in yesterday’s November fog); a fleeting idea of using an exercise bike to boost the ‘feed In tariff’ was quickly scuppered by the calculation that I would need to pedal for four days solid to earn £1.

No Prizes

I rarely partake of raffles but having paid only £3 to get into West Auckland’s second round FA Vase tie against the splendidly named Shaw Lane Aquaforce, and seeing quite a small attendance, I thought the odds were worth a punt - and came up quite close, missing the second prize by just one number, which was closer than West Auckland who were four goals short of a win; and at tonight’s cricket club quiz we had lucky numbers come up either side of us, but again no prize – and not much success in the main event as we finished seventh out of nine.

Connected

A week after the solar panels went up they were finally connected as 70 metres of armoured cabling was threaded round the perimeter of the house and garden, through five walls, on its way from the barn roof to the main distribution board at the front of the house; by the time it was all done darkness has fallen so the only power flowing was going the other way as the simultaneously installed lighting in the barn was switched on to see what was what in there.

Money Laundered

A few weeks ago, at a presentation night at Sedgefield racecourse, I used the only banknote in my wallet, a twenty, to pay for a round of drinks costing less than a tenner, but when I returned home and emptied my pockets I found only small change, leading me to curse first the barman for short-changing me and second myself for not even noticing; however tonight, out for a meal with friends, I noticed a rustle in the breast pocket of my freshly washed and ironed shirt, eased out a wan, rather flat, folded over, ten pound note, and silently mouthed an apology to the racecourse barman.

Books for Boys

Visited an interesting exhibition at the Palace Green Library at Durham University linking the World War I centenary with literature produced in the preceding decades (both in Britain and Germany) aimed at developing the ‘right’ moral attitudes and encouraging an adventuresome spirit in the future foot-soldiers of the respective empires, made possible in Britain as the 1870 Elementary Education Act vastly increased child literacy and provided fertile ground for the fiction of RL Stevenson, John Buchan, H Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Erskine Childers and the like, and of course for the seminary ‘Scouting for Boys’; the old volumes on show were attractive to see but untouchable in their glass cases, with the most unexpected exhibit being Baden-Powell’s camp fire blanket (more of a biblical robe) complete with prototype badges sewn by his (literally Lady) wife.

Auld-fashioned Football

A rare Auld Enemy encounter these days, but Scotland v England was, in my youth, a regular and meaningful fixture, especially when I was living north of the border in the seventies, and two of them spring immediately to mind: in May 1972 I was at a hostile Hampden to see England win by a single, scrappy (Alan Ball?) goal, and in February 1973 I was in a roomful of Scottish students watching on a black and white TV as England ungraciously marked the Scottish Football Association’s centenary by beating their hosts 5-0; tonight’s televised game brought another England win in a game most remarkable for its display of some old-fashioned British football values – fast pace, proper tackling, no diving, no feigning of injury – combined with some modern one-touch play that brought some top class goals.

Scaffolding Mystery

Last Wednesday, while no-one was home, scaffolding for the solar panel installation inexplicably appeared in our inaccessible back garden, and today, job completed, it similarly disappeared while I was out at the shops; how they got in and out remains a mystery.

Xmas Cometh No. 2

A week nearer Christmas and the stores’ mini-feature length adverts are in full swing with the John Lewis effort featuring the boy and his penguin the pick of the crop being both clever and touching; I had some animal welfare issues with the penguin but apparently it is just very good c.g.i. that that puts it on the bus and in similarly unlikely locations.

Journey’s End

In early 2011 I began the ‘along the library shelf’ reading journey, aiming to select and read a library book from 26 authors new to me whose surnames began with each letter of the alphabet, in order from A to Z, and after four years I have finally completed it; overall it has been successful in introducing variety in my reading in terms of genre (venturing into historic / period fiction, horror and biography), authors (in particular encompassing a higher proportion than normal – 11 out of the 26 - of female writers), and perhaps most telling, in geographical setting (going well beyond the staple of the UK and USA to include West Africa, Argentina, China, Japan, the Middle East, Hawaii, Mongolia and Iceland), so successful in fact that I may just start over and do it again.

Ups and Downs and Ins and Outs

A day spent mainly in as the solar panels went up and the rain poured down on the poor installation guys, to whom coffee went out often to keep their spirits up; it meant I couldn’t get out to shop, so tea was brought in from the Indian take-away, which went down a treat.

Ivy

The erection of scaffolding to the barn, ahead of tomorrow’s installation of solar panels, provided a small window of opportunity after finishing work this afternoon to access the roof and remove what I thought was a bit of the neighbour’s ivy; once up there the vast amount of greenery and the tenacity with which it clung to itself and the masonry was a bit of an eye-opener, which was just as well as soon it became difficult to see much in the fading light and falling drizzle, but eventually all the tiles and much of the parapets seemed clear, although a chunk of the garden had disappeared under a mound of tangled stalks and leaves.

Impatient Outpatient

A drive to Manchester to see my Dad, now 89 and with mobility newly impaired by an uncooperative knee, which under doctor's orders must not bear any weight until it is checked out by a specialist; unused to frailty he makes a poor invalid, still shuffling around the house on a zimmer, bemoaning instructions not to climb stairs or drive his car, and even trying to self-propel his wheelchair like a demented Ironside.

Poppies

Armistice Day, 100 years after the start of World War One, and the final ceramic poppy of 888,246 (one for each British military fatality in that conflict) was placed at the Tower of London to complete what even on TV looks a stunning and moving display; I am pleased to say one of the poppies is ours, and it can be for my great-uncle Thomas Edgar of the Lancashire Fusiliers (one of the 888,246 fallen heroes) whose medals are currently in my safe-keeping.

Lost in Translation

Today, needing to know the value of a tugrik, the monetary unit of Mongolia, I opened up Google on the Hudl, but thought I would emulate the smart-arse on the Google talk advert and just said “Google, what is the exchange rate for the Mongolian tugrik”, which generated two interpretations on the screen for me to choose between: one was spot on and gave me the rate of £0.00034 to the tugrik; the alternative was “what is the exchange rate for the Mongolian to Greggs”, the answer to which may be useful next time I want to buy a sausage roll in Ulaanbaatar.

Xmas Cometh No. 1

As Hallowe'en recedes, fireworks fade, and Remembrance becomes a thing past, the way is open for the Christmas run-in, and while visiting Matalan, armed with a 25% discount voucher, my wife and I made our first concession to the season by succumbing to the dubious charms of the Christmas jumper; as a result I will now be indispensable at yuletide quizzes, being able to name Santa's reindeer (all nine including Rudolph) anytime, merely by glancing down at my chest.

Well Kept

FA Cup first round day usually entails a trip to Victoria Park to see Hartlepool United make their entry into the competition, and all too often their exit as well; but not today as they beat non-league East Thurrock United by a comfortable 2-0 that would have been more without the brilliant performance of the visiting goalkeeper who made a string of great saves, was named man of the match, and was generously cheered off by the home fans at the end.

Tail of Woe

The white cat's tail is broken at its tip and so tends to flop about a bit but the rest of it is unruly enough for the whole, demonstrated this evening while I sat drinking my cup of tea and giving him a stroke, when he gave my empty cake plate, balanced on the arm of the sofa, a hefty whack with the aforementioned appendage; as I moved quickly to catch the crockery he, startled, moved even quicker in a northeast direction across my chest and neck, via the back of the sofa and away, leaving me with a lap full of steaming tea and two puncture wounds to the neck, but with the tea set still intact.

Well Certificated

The nagging doubts in the back of my mind that there was some error in the boy's excellent GCSE results were finally put to rest as he received his certificates at tonight's celebration of achievement at the school, and as a bonus he picked up a gift voucher for 100% attendance, and a badge for his Duke of Edinburgh silver award; this latter was confirmed by the assessor as won in the worst conditions he had known in his 20 years involvement, with the three expeditions suffering, respectively, monsoon rains, blizzards, and blistering heat, which at least provided variety.

Waterstones Watershed

Passing Waterstones in Darlington I glanced, as ever, in their window only to find a complete absence of books, triggering a tumbling of thoughts: thought one, it being bonfire night, was that I had slipped into Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 without noticing; thought two was they had closed down without telling anyone; thought three, which eventually struck home, was that bonfire night is the obvious time to create your window display of books for Christmas, a mere fifty days away; and after tutting at such nonsense I stepped inside and began making a mental note to Santa.

Still Autumn

The mildness of the last week ended with our first frost this morning, but it is not yet winter, the day stayed fine, and the lane beckoned me for a walk among the subdued greens and browns amid the leafless trees; with nothing moving in the still air but me it was conducive to some necessay contemplation and I returned with my head in a better place.

Tessellations

Monday is lesson planning day and this week it is polygons (not dead parrots but many-sided 2D shapes) and tessellations (polygons or other shapes that fit together in a repeating pattern that leaves no gaps), the internet providing some exotic and clever examples of the latter, with my favourite being dovetailed seahorses and interlocking lizards.

Place Matress

My wife's shopping yesterday was for wadding to incorporate into her home sewn patchwork placemats destined for our dining table at Christmas, but the material purchased, once sandwiched between the top and bottom fabric, produced something more like a mattress than a mat, so thick that a heavily laden plate might well have sunk without trace; so she will be back to the shop tomorrow, without me to distract her, to source a more appropriate alternative.

Chips

With me still doddery with a stiff neck, my understanding wife amended her planned shopping to accommodate a lift to Bishop Auckland so I could take in their FA Vase tie versus Holker Old Boys, and the game was good if goalless up to half time, at which point the chip wagon provided me with a wholesome snack; and in the second half the Two Blues scored three good goals to ensure by the end I wasn't the only old boy who had had his chips today.

Solar, So Good?

The solar panel salesman called on Monday and produced financial projections that were interesting enough to secure my signature in the knowledge that I had seven days to examine the figures more closely and cancel if necessary, and sure enough under scrutiny the benefits seemed over-egged so today we high tailed down to the office with a cancellation letter; this caused some consternation and the big boss and I thrashed out the figures for an hour or so before we left with greater understanding and a new set of more accurate figures to consider at my leisure (but without the cancellation letter that remained with them in the meantime).

Zizzi's Harrogate

As my daughter and partner returned from the Lakes to Nottingham we intercepted them at Harrogate where we all lunched at Zizzi's on tasty Italian cuisine; the service was a little slow but that suited us fine, giving us more time to exchange news, views and plan to do's.

Fifth Wheel

The fifth wheel on a vehicle is usually superfluous, but I have found driving for the last six months (and five years before that in the previous car) with the wheel-shaped well in the boot housing only a patented rubber solution and a complicated looking pump, somewhat discomforting when on the move and utterly useless when punctured; however today I took delivery of a "space saver" wheel that tucks neatly away in the bottom of the Juke's three tier boot, from where it will provide peace of mind, even if it does turn out to be superfluous (I should be so lucky) in a practical sense.

Metro Centre

With today designated, within the half term week, as day out but heavy rain forecast for the afternoon, we took a pragmatic decision to motor up to the Metro Centre retail complex at Gateshead, where five hours can be spent without even seeing daylight never mind any rain, to do a bit of pre-Christmas window shopping pencilling in presents and fleshing out wish lists; mission was accomplished with even a few items bought, and tea at Frankie & Bennie's took us past the worst of the rush hour and all of the rain, making for a better than usual drive home.

Eyes Front

Some stiffness is to be expected after exercising, particularly following a bit of a lay-off, but it was not my legs, arms, back or shoulders that seized up but my neck - the result no doubt of staring up at the TV screen while using the gym equipment yesterday; the result today - an inability to look anywhere but straight ahead.

Pumping (Grid) Iron

My first proper session at the new gym was aided and abetted by one of the TV screens showing the NFL live from Wembley, the view being fine from the treadmill and the rower, but a bit skewed from the bicycle; the engrossing play helped to pass the time quickly and I even got home in time to see the last, exciting quarter wherein the result remained at issue to (and even beyond) the last kick of the game.

IT Unblogged

Our IT's resilience was seriously tested as, with the laptop in the shop for attention, the Hudl suddenly decided to display only a blank screen on Blogger, which left, as the only alternative, requisitioning the boy's laptop, prising the password out of him, and trying to navigate Windows 8; fixing the Hudl seemed easier and we eventually discovered the problem (Java script disabled) and, to everyone's relief, fixed it.

Leaving out the Expletive

Despite shunting a load of leaves down the road on Tuesday, more than enough remained to combine with reinforcements to impede getting the car completely onto the block paving, so I set to work with the rake, brush and grabber, creating a huge pile on the lawn to then stuff into five big bags for disposal; about forty-five minutes into the job my neighbour rapped on her front window to suggest I could clear her block paving as well and my reply got as far as mouthing an F before I spotted she was accompanied by her seven-year-old, causing me to bite off the end of my planned response.

Fargo

Finally, after a couple of restarts, I completed watching Fargo, serialised in ten parts on Channel 4 last April to June, and lurking with menace on the PVR over the summer awaiting its time, the dark evenings when my wife is out and there are no distractions, and each episode can be savoured (a week apart, I think gorging on several episodes at a sitting detracts from the pleasure); the plot was pleasingly complex, the performances of Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman were characteristically excellent, as was that of Alison Holman (a new face to me), but every single character was beautifully written and played, and every scene was shot with cinematic style and panache - just brilliant.

Angles

A heavy session of lesson planning today finalised a set of tutor notes, resources and exercises covering all the angles - angles at a point, on a line, opposite, corresponding, alternate, interior, exterior, in triangles and in quadrilaterals; however I've a feeling tomorrow's learners will just be angling for regular breaks, as they tend more to the obtuse than the acute. 

Leaves Leaving

The windy remnants of Hurricane Gonzalo had, by mid-morning, piled leaves into foot high drifts in the sheltered spots at the front of the house, however with the wind still blowing strong I decided to use it to advantage and surreptitiously tried brushing a pile out of the shelter and into the jet stream blowing through the village; sure enough, half an hour later that pile had disappeared without trace, and a couple of repetitions later I had made quite a dent in the drifts, but my plan to complete the job under the cover of darkness failed as the wind dropped as night fell. 

Induction

As new members we got our gym induction tonight, consisting a tour of the various machines with brief demonstrations although we did not linger in the free weights area, presumably as our guide assumed it was not for us; this may have been due to our lack of tattoos and wife-beater vests (or muscles).

New Gym

We attended the Athletics Club presentation evening last night and to our surprise the boy not only picked up his AAA grade II and grade IV badges but also came away with the under-17 track performance of the year trophy (that we had only returned a week previously), but none of these achievements will make him reconsider his decision to quit the sport (at least temporarily) which only goes to suggest his success so far has been a triumph of natural ability over bone idleness; in an attempt to at least get him to do some exercise his mother and I looked at a newly-opened gym and were sufficiently impressed to sign up (him as well as us) in the hope that mutual encouragement and avoidance of shame will prove incentive enough for regular attendance.

Mowden Park

Another visit to the Darlington Arena, this time to see the big boys play rugby union, Mowden Park versus Hartpury College in National Division 1, watched on a pleasant afternoon by a pretty good crowd of a thousand or so providing a convivial atmosphere; it was a good open game with the visitors winning by the odd converted try in seven, thanks to more clinical finishing of their fewer opportunities, in contrast to Mowden Park who had too many handling errors, unlike one of their fans who managed to field a towering touch kick despite holding a beer in one hand – at a cost it has to be said of spilling most of it down his front.

Civic Civility

We visited the Darlington Civic Theatre tonight (a week after the Michael McIntyre rumpus) to see John Godber’s April in Paris’, a two-handed comedy with Joe McGann and Shobna Gulati playing a long-married and hard-up couple whose relationship comes under scrutiny before, during and after a free trip to Paris; an enjoyable evening with fine performances and plenty to laugh at in Godber’s script, the only disappointment being the half empty auditorium (but at least those present were well-behaved and the stars stayed on stage throughout).

Minus One

I am used to my disaffected young learners not turning up, arriving late, or leaving early, but not until today had I had one stolen; due to a mix-up another tutor had (she insisted) been assigned to one of my pair and she was determined to teach him something in the good ‘tutorial room’ (i.e. cupboard with a table and three chairs) leaving me with the other learner and the less good ‘tutorial room’ (i.e. cupboard with a table, two chairs, and a sink) where nevertheless I was able to impart crucial geometric knowledge for an hour before finishing off with several games of 3’s and 5’s dominos.

Darlington Arena

It was nearly three years ago that I was last in the Darlington Arena, at one of the many ‘last games’ before the football club’s demise and eviction, since when (after a decent interval) the stadium has been taken over by Mowden Park RUFC, and today they hosted a primary school tag rugby tournament in which my role was driving the minibus and cheering from the touchline as our school did brilliantly to finish runners-up; the stadium still looks good, if a little faded, particularly from the middle of the pitch, the main difference being that the turf and the posts have both grown to rugby, rather than football, length.

Routines

I like routine, especially in the morning when it defers the need for conscious thought for the best part of an hour as I go through my ablutions, get dressed, drink some orange juice, dry and put away last night’s pots, tend to the cats’ various needs, then get my own breakfast while reading the sports pages; and now that my work pattern is established I can similarly schedule the weekly chores and still have a couple of days designated to retirement activities – DIY Wednesday and Fun Day Tuesday – and although the today’s weather put me off going out and about, I did get to have a bit of a bake, producing two batches of scones: plain and cheese.

Eye-watering Teaching

Sometime during the speeches at yesterday’s Golden Wedding I wiped away a tear, which seemed odd as no one else was getting particularly emotional, and only one eye was in production; by today the left eye was leaking quite badly, along with its matching nostril (as if I had hay fever in just half my head), which interfered with my teaching, but fortunately only a bit as I mostly present my right profile to the class as I write on the flip chart.

Golden Wedding

A lovely sunny Sunday for my wife’s Aunt and Uncle to celebrate their Golden Wedding anniversary with family and friends at their home in rural North Yorkshire, augmented for the occasion by a marquee cunningly erected to extend the conservatory into the back garden, within which were tables laden with sandwiches, pastries and such an impressive array of home-made cakes that we may well have been in the Great British Bake Off tent – and although the quantity may have resembled the early rounds the quality was worthy of the final.

Seasonal Change

Today marked another milestone in the turning season; not the reversion to GMT due tonight, but the reversion to piping hot porridge as the breakfast of choice between now and spring.

Low Numbers

With my Friday morning maths class cancelled due to low numbers (very low numbers, in fact no numbers at all) the day was freed up to get quite a high number of jobs done, some household (washing & shopping), some clerical (filing & finance), and some personal (hair cut & library), but most important was reserving a table for two at The Tuns at Sadberge; it used to be the Three Tuns pub but now it too has lost its numbers in being transformed into a chic eatery that provided us, this evening, with an excellent meal.

Bin There, Not Done It

Refuse collection arrangements have changed for our village and today is the first bin day under the new regime that collects recyclables (black bin with green lid and green bottle box) and non-recyclables (black bin with black lid) on alternate weeks, starting today with recyclables, as indicated by the helpful calendar that I, if nobody else, found inside the new green-lidded bin; of course it is a bit of a shambles out there with various combinations of rubbish receptacles out at the roadside awaiting attention: no bin at all (the most popular option which could indicate most folk may not bother sorting out the recyclables and bung it all fortnightly in a black-lidded bin); the black-lidded bin (which they will have either have to drag back full or leave out for a week); the green-lidded bin (correct); and green bottle boxes with any of the above (that’s alright too) – the tension to see how the operatives would deal with it all rose through the afternoon, but remained unresolved as no bin wagon turned up anyway.

Well Baked

Future Wednesday night TV will be poorer following the conclusion of the Great British Bake Off which came to a fitting finale tonight; appropriately enough I produced one of my own signature dishes for tea, combining smoked cod loin, salmon and prawns in a fish pie, which despite being a bit oversize was still well and truly scoffed.

Fricassee

There was just the two of us in for tea tonight, providing an opportunity for culinary experimentation, and with a chicken breast, bacon, leeks, mushrooms and cream in the fridge, “fricassee” called out to me over the decades; my 1970’s cookbook’s recipe began by boiling a chicken, so I ignored it and busked my own version instead, with a very acceptable result.

Groceries

I was shocked at the supermarket check-out today as the operator calmly announced eighty-two pounds odd for my small trolley-load of shopping, and when I got home and looked at the unpacked groceries on the kitchen worktops I was even more appalled, until I realised there was still a large bag on the back seat of the car; I suppose the fact that I had bought too much to fit in the (admittedly small) Juke boot should provide some comfort.

Well Done

I assumed my role in baking the Christmas cake was completed once I had cut out the greaseproof paper to line the tin (I knew the formula for calculating the circumference from the diameter would come in handy one day) and washed up the sticky bowls and utensils, but no, apparently I had one further contribution to make, which was to let it burn while my wife was talking on the phone; it’s well done but still edible (not by me, I don’t even like Christmas cake) however not up to the Mary Berry standard required for the big day, so we’ll call it a prototype and have another go in a week or two. 

Picnic Bench

At Billingham Synthonia’s ground (venue for my FA Vase game today) refreshments are served from a window at the front of the cantilever stand, just a few yards from the team dug-outs, the proximity proving too convenient for the surplus players on the bench, a few of whom joined the queue for hot dogs, pies and chip at half time.

Quizmaster

I found myself on the other side of the quiz table tonight as I asked the questions for a change; it was also a change to know all the answers.

Marigolds

The bright yellow rubber gloves are an essential for a heavy duty washer-upper like me and although cheaper alternatives are available I find they soon succumb to a fork point or knife edge whereas the Marigolds tough it out longer; even with them, eventually, one hand or the other lets in water, but my tip is only throw away the glove that leaks and keep the sound one, then when one of the new pair fails you have a replacement ready (hopefully the hand you need, but if not (like tonight) just put it on back to front) to defer the expense of renewal for a while.

Manchester

Took a train trip to Manchester to see my Dad, inexpensive with the Trans Pennine Express Club 55 cheap ticket offer that got me to Victoria Station for £15, and between changing trains I spent an hour or two revisiting a few old haunts in the city and spotting a few new attractions, including the National Football Museum where I lunched on themed fare of pie and tea (what no Bovril!) and browsed the shop (nothing there as eye-catching as the goalmouth urinals in the gents) before catching a suburban train to my Dad’s; there they had the lawn mower ready and waiting for me, but that admittedly rare filial duty over, I was rewarded with coffee and homemade cake and we chatted until it was time for me to depart for my return trip home.

When I’m Cleaning Windows

Up a ladder at the front of the house, bucket and leather in hand, I was not surprised to be addressed as George Formby by the next door neighbour, but with nothing noteworthy for me to peep at inside the house my mind instead wandered free and alighted on a couple of thoughts: first, my wife’s complaint that I do not clean the toilets fails to take account that quite a lot of what I was washing off the glass and white UVPC frames is actually fly faeces; second, my removal from every corner of every window of woolly chrysalis matter, at this time of year, could severely affect the moth population next spring.

Fleet Management

The Smart car has been in for repairs following an assault by a bus a week ago, its place in the fleet temporarily taken by a nice little Fiat Panda, but today, repairs completed, it was time to swap back, which meant giving my wife the Juke keys so she could get to work while I took those for the Panda, to be exchanged at the garage for the keys to the Smart, returning home ready to hand them over and get back those for the Juke, so that by the end of the day it had all become rather reminiscent of a 1960’s swingers’ party.

Geometry

Some people think they will never have any use for geometry, but if, like me today, you need to construct a cardboard steering wheel for a school make-believe pirate ship, it helps if you are handy with a compass and ruler.

He Ain’t Heavy

As the evenings cool the cats gravitate together for mutual warmth, with the black one often just plonking himself down in the bed on top of the white one, who just looks up uncomplainingly as if to say ‘he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother’; but at the end of the night it’s a two man job for my wife and me (too soft to disturb them) to pick up the bed and carry them through undisturbed to their sleeping quarters.

Cakes and Ale

Another literary heading, chosen to reflect a quiet day punctuated by the acquisition of some home-made cake from a neighbour’s Macmillan Coffee Morning fundraiser and the less philanthropic acquisition of some excellent real ale from the Blacksmith’s Arms, where we had our tea.

Ratios

My young student today was showing little enthusiasm for learning about ratios, somehow the relevance of mixing paint and baking cakes did not fire his imagination, however with prompting he did come up with a ratio more meaningful to him – the kill to death ratio in the Call of Duty video game; so that’s one to use in the future.

To The Lighthouse

The least said about the final leg of the Teesdale Way (6 miles from South Bank to Warrenby) the better as not even my low expectations were met by the dreary route, made worse by a footpath closure requiring 2 miles of path between the steelworks and the river to be replaced by 3 miles of the busy A1085 between the steelworks and the chemical plant, which kept the Tees exit to the North Sea well out of site until Coatham Sands, with its distinctive offshore wind farm, was reached; fortunately it was only another mile along the beach to Redcar where the excellent Seasons Café in the Beacon lifted my spirits with a wedge of citrus cake and a frothy coffee, a fitting reward for completing the 72 miles from Barnard Castle over the last twelve months.

Equinox

The transfer from the astronomical summer to winter is reflected in some fundamental domestic changes: the turning-on of the central heating to ward off the early morning and late evening chill; the return to Channel Four of late night live NFL, providing a stock of recorded sport to enjoy; and the change of favoured tipple while watching it, from chilled beer to a warming tumbler of Famous Grouse and Stones Ginger.

Deflated

While driving to work this morning I was taken aback to see a large red Virgin balloon loom large over the trees ahead of me; a couple of bends later it had shrunk somewhat, and by the time I cleared the tree line all that was left was a sadly shrunken skin alongside an upturned basket in an adjacent field, which only a couple of hours since dawn indicated a premature end to someone's flight.

Roast Dinner

My wife being a little under the weather it fell to me to produce a roast dinner, taking me a little out of my culinary comfort zone, but I just went for it and managed to serve up a presentable beef joint with roasted parsnips and potatoes, accompanied by peas, carrots, swede and gravy; one thing I did right was to sear the beef in hot fat, one thing I did wrong was not remove the batteries from the smoke alarm first.

Union Jocks

As the devolution dust settles, the Scots’ decision to remain in the Union is welcome, not least as the effect of cessation on the Union Jack, or more correctly the Union Flag, would have been disastrous, with the loss of the blue leaving it rather anaemic; I toyed with some alternatives incorporating the Welsh flag but fitting in that big dragon proved particularly problematic.

Working Week

Another split shift day brought an end to a busy working week that impinged on three mornings and two afternoons; it is all relative of course and pre-retirement these ten hours would have constituted just a normal working day at the senior management coalface.

Split Shift

My two maths tutor sessions today were split by an inconvenient three and a half hours, too long to hang around but too short to get much done once travel time was taken into account, but at least the learners both turned up, an improvement on my previous two scheduled classes when I ended up looking at an empty seat and four walls for three hours – good for preparation but bad for motivation.

Bowes Museum

I had not visited the inside (as against the grounds where we go each December for the excellent Barnard Castle Christmas market) of Bowes Museum for ages, and then I had been encumbered by two young daughters who needed most of my attention to keep them engaged and out of mischief (I think a children’s treasure hunt fact sheet may have been involved), but today, attracted by the ‘Shafts of Light’ exhibition of miners’ art, I was able to give my full concentration not only to the featured work of Norman Cornish and his like, but also the permanent collection in the picture gallery, which includes a couple of Canaletto’s, a Turner and an El Greco; I had to browse the rest of the stuff (silver, ceramics, furniture, fashion, textiles, and toys, some of the latter worryingly familiar) quite quickly, but did linger to take a close look at the iconic (literally - it is the museums logo) Silver Swan, an eighteenth century working automaton, and then lingered a little longer in the comfortable café over tea and scones.

Travelling Books

I enjoy the occasional travel genre book (a few good‘uns that come to mind are: A ‘Short Walk in the Hindu Kush’, ‘Seven Years in Tibet’, and ‘Hunting Mr Heartbreak’) but today’s travelling books did the journey themselves, in the mobile library van, to which I made my first ever visit during its 45 minute stop in the village; time enough to peruse the limited but interesting stock and make a selection, the pick of which was the autobiography of Chris Hadfield, the astronaut who gave us his rendition of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ from the International Space Station – now that’s what I call travelling.

Well Oiled

For once the oil tank was low at the optimum time of year, allowing a big order at summer prices that should see us through to the new-year, and today the convoluted delivery arrangements worked like a well-oiled machine: clear the tiled hall of furniture, cover the carpeted area with old curtains (that probably cost more than the carpet), put in place the home-made buffers to protect the walls and doors as the oil pipe snakes through the house, clear a route in the garden and barn to get to the tanks, and afterwards do it all in reverse – such hassle being another reason why it makes sense to fill the tank and get us well-oiled for the winter.

Last Cut

The first cut may be the deepest but the last one was eminently manageable today as I gave the rather parched-looking back garden what should be the final mow of the year; the grass box collected more leaves than grass, but at least that helped me tell where I had been from where I yet had to go.

Shildon

Today’s FA Cup tie led me to Shildon, home of the railways but down on its luck in recent years, hitting the news a year or two ago when the last bank in town closed up and moved out, but on my way to the match I noticed a brand new Costas Coffee on the High Street, so things must be on the up at last; however I was not to be tempted and reserved my custom for the old tea wagon in the ground.

Driving Jobs

Two driving jobs today, but neither remunerated: this morning required a meals-on-wheels delivery to get my wife’s forgotten packed lunch to her place of work; at the other end of the day Dad’s Taxi was booked by the boy for a pick up from a party, which just after midnight should have been double rate, but that still came to nothing.

Grammar School

Partook of staff development today that included a session on good oral and written communication, in other words better English, concentrating on spelling and correct use of punctuation such as commas, colons and semicolons, in order (amongst other things) to make complex sentences clear and unambiguous; naturally I paid close attention but can’t think of when I may need to put it to use!

Beer Money

Having completed an audit for a local voluntary organisation, I handed the signed accounts over today; there is no fee involved - it would only be beer money – but the Treasurer was very grateful and gracious enough to present me with six bottles of artisan beers from around Europe, which in a way just cuts out the middle man.

Re Decorating

Applied a final coat of paint to the ceiling and woodwork in the utility room today as I reckoned the previous coat, applied 28 May, was probably dry by now.

Dinosaurs and Blackberries

On a fine day it was back on the Teesdale Way Path, starting at the Tees Barrage in Stockton, but the aim to get all the way to Redcar was ambitious and I soon moderated my plans to reaching South Bank station, which at least gave me scope to linger in a couple of unlikely spots: the Teesaurus Park was unexpected but weirdly impressive with an array of large steel fabricated dinosaurs tucked away amongst the trees, tough enough to withstand urban youth, if not their graffiti; the other unscheduled stop was in the industrial wasteland of East Middlesbrough on a narrow path between the A66 and the railway line, where I stopped to harvest a stretch of brambles, filling my (by now empty) lunch bag with squidgy blackberries necessitating the use of the last of my water to rinse my stained and sticky hands.

Chicken in Raspberry Sauce

Tonight’s planned dinner of chicken in barbecue sauce hit an early snag with the discovery that the stock of Magners Cider was exhausted, a situation not wholly unconnected to my daughter’s presence over the summer, leaving just a few cans of Kopparberg available, which would have been fine if they weren’t flavoured with raspberry; however as the alternative was a walk down to the pub and back (the return potentially subject to considerable delay) I took the chance that the fruitiness would barely come through all the soy sauce, mustard and ginger, and slopped it in anyway – result A OK.

Pitch Invasion

I’ve seen a lot of football at a lot of grounds and very often heard players, referees and just the general play described, indeed addressed, as (although usually in cruder terms) excrement, but today at Darlington RA’s FA Vase tie we had the real thing on the Brinkburn Road field of play; thirty minutes into the game the referee’s attention was drawn to some poop on the pitch prompting him to halt the game and call for a club official to get out there with a scoop, but as the embarrassed groundsman hurried off to his shed an enterprising fan came to the rescue with his empty (plastic) pint pot to do the honours, a pitch invasion that for once sped up rather than delayed play.

Wolf Hall

Today I completed reading Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker prize winning ‘Wolf Hall’ (the excellence of which chips away at a personal prejudice against their judgement) which I found an interesting counterpoint to ‘A Man For All Seasons’, Robert Bolt’s play, studied for my O-level English Literature and so still ingrained in my brain; the latter portrayed Sir Thomas More as a bit of a hero and Thomas Cromwell as an upstart and a villain, whereas Wolf Hall shows Cromwell’s humanity as well as his ruthlessness and makes More out to be a bit of a pious hypocrite, which only goes to show that while history is written by the victors, anyone can have a go at historical fiction.

Baked Off

Apparently while 5 million people tuned in to watch the live England v Norway match last night, nearly twice as many watched the Great British Bake Off instead, and although I watched neither (preferring the delights of an FA Cup replay in Bishop Auckland) it was the Bake Off that was on the timer to record, however before I could settle down to watch it tonight, Radio Five Live started the sports report with an amusing mini-feature on the contrasting viewing figures which appropriately reflected the excitement generated; despite being well practised in the art of avoiding football scores in advance of Match of the Day, I was unprepared for a GBBO spoiler and failed to block out the name of this week’s evictee (fortunately, as it happens, no great surprise).

Charity Case

I dutifully put out my Great North Air Ambulance service charity bag for collection this morning, but it was still on the doorstep after lunch so, it being Wednesday when my wife is home, I suggested we take the bag to their depot/shop in the Newton Aycliffe industrial estate and call in for a coffee at the similarly located Jackson’s Café - I know how to treat a girl on her day off; she was game so we found the depot and while browsing (it’s no use just taking things to charity shops, you need to buy from them as well) we spotted a large suitcase similar to the one my daughter set off to Mongolia with but arrived there without (and is still waiting for), so we snapped it up foe just £2, “just in case” she needs a new one.

Pens

I like to write with a nice pen and I have a couple of favourites: one was acquired while searching the Disney store in Orlando circa 2000 for a souvenir that was neither useless nor tacky, it meeting both requirements as its Mickey Mouse credentials were well disguised within a stylish design that housed a Cross biro; another, which I’ve had even longer, is a Papermate that I bought due to its then revolutionary ability to defy gravity and write uphill, even upside down; however they are both high maintenance and today buying a refill for each left me with little change from £10, but at least I can fondle Mickey’s ears or write on the ceiling whenever I like.

Normal Service Resumed

Home alone today, which with the new academic year commencing will be the norm, and appropriately enough normal service was resumed with a bit of housework – washing, hoovering (ceilings not floors), mopping (that was floors) and shopping – around which I dipped into all four books currently on the go; the feeling of transition and annual renewal persisted as I received a regular set of annual accounts to review, as well as this term’s schedule of tutoring work, and all of course as Life is a Sentence rolled over into its second year.

Last Day of Summer

With September starting tomorrow and my wife and son heading back to school and college next week, I regard today as the last day of summer, an ominous sign being the line of swifts perched on the electricity cables as I looked out of the back door this morning, so after a quick tidy up of the front garden (more hoovering leaves and straw than cutting grass) and some lunch, the best option was to take advantage of the sunshine, stillness and (for once on a Sunday) quiet to just sit out and let time pass; there won’t be many more opportunities before the climate catches up with the calendar.

Referess?

FA Cup days come thick and fast at this time of year and today I attended the preliminary round tie between local rivals West Auckland and Darlington1883 where the match was given the added interest of a female referee, who controlled the game very well and clearly had the respect of the players – when West Auckland’s Shaun Vipond unceremoniously clattered an opponent her voice cut through the crowds hubbub with a commanding “number four, here!” at which the luckless player shuffled forward with his head bowed as if his Mam had caught him with his hand in the biscuit jar.

Cat Watch

Although a week has passed since we retrieved our cats from the cattery, for some reason the webcam link remains live on my Hudl, and remains for my wife a source of fascination on a par with Facebook, enabling her to monitor the comings and goings of a range of cute felines (today’s occupants included the spit of our black one) and chuckle at their antics, which in almost every case have been much more entertaining than when our own pets were ensconced.

A Level Anxiety

The boy starts sixth form college next week and today had to get down to some work set in advance, but with his choice of subjects not overlapping with mine of yesteryear (I don’t think sociology even existed then) I feel I will be of limited use from now on; certainly in compiling a report to consider whether crayfish feel anxiety he was largely on his own and though I read it through I still don’t know how anxious crabs and prawns feel, but I reckon it is less than I do about the next two years of his education.

Dalton Park

A little later in the year than normal I did my annual summer clothes shop on a visit to the designer outlet complex at Dalton Park where I perused the unfamiliar delights of M&S, Next, Cotton Traders and most usefully GAP with the latter providing a complete casual outfit of trousers, polo shirt and jacket which, along with a pair of jeans from Next, set me back less than £80; for my wife it was a case of role reversal, but she managed to trail round after me, trying to look interested, for a good hour before cracking and having a bit of a spree herself in M&S before we left.

Parcel Shelf

It’s all very well removing the parcel shelf from the Juke, but putting it back is a challenge due to the way it attaches to the open tailgate in such a way that it drops into place as it is shut; I thought I had, with difficulty, managed it this morning, only to find as I drove off and checked my rear view mirror that 60% of the back window was obscured, requiring me at my first stop of the day to try again, and this time having inserted the shelf the right way up I was able to proceed with 20/20 rear view vision.

Return of the Prodigal

As the Leeds Music Festival concluded it fell to me to go fetch the boy and two mates and all their camping paraphernalia, giving rise to two potential problems: problem 1, it’s a Nissan Juke and they are big lads with a big tent so it is prudent to remove all the stacked boot trays (and contents), and parcel shelf before I set off; problem 2, I don’t know exactly where I’m heading, and following the “pick up / drop off point” signs takes me in a ludicrous loop, two hours in a 5 mile queue, three-quarters of the way round Bramham Park to the wrong car park, before being redirected to complete the final quarter circuit and eventually locate them, sat in their chairs by the roadside; from then it was plain sailing as everything piled in  - tent, equipment, rucksacks, boys – relatively comfortably and the drive back was trouble free, dropping off the mates before reuniting mother and son, the return celebrated not by killing the fatted calf but by her baking a show-stopper cake for him.

Lasagne

We do not have lasagne for tea as often as we should due to the boy’s mealy-mouthed complaints about onions and mushrooms, which he picks out and pushes around his plate, but as he is still in Leeds there was nothing yesterday to impede my wife preparing a perfect specimen with onion, mushrooms, and even a red pepper in there, and with only two portions eaten last night there was no need to fight over the leftovers, which provided two ample helpings for today’s lunch.

Who’s Dr Who

With the local pub holding a Dr Who themed quiz tonight, and my experience of the TV series beginning and ending with William Hartnell and the Daleks, watched as a ten year-old from behind the sofa, I took a quick squint at the Dr Who website in advance and memorised the thirteen Doctors, twelve of the sidekicks and three of the monsters just so I could make some contribution; as it turned out just reeling off the Doctors quickest was enough to win the team a specially designed ‘Dalek Buddha’ T-shirt each, and though the rest of the research wasn’t called on, my teammates were on the ball for the next round, winning us a round of shots and a supply of crisps.

MOTD

Fifty years of BBC’s Match of the Day were commemorated today and though I may have missed the first year or two (our house lacked BBC2 where it began) I have probably made up for it since with what some may regard as a semi-religious zeal.

Not Run of the Mill

GCSE results day dawned with my wife and I still in the mobile phone dead-spot of Dovedale and the boy at the Leeds Festival eighty miles from school, so I land-lined the school for the grades and we headed for civilisation in the form of the old mill town of Belper, where we enjoyed a guided tour of the remnants of Jedidiah Strutt’s cotton mill; eventually we achieved contact with Leeds and passed on the good news of a fistful of A grades (and a C), definitely not just a run of the mill result, with the only downside being the high personal cost of the financial incentive scheme I signed up to.

Dovedale

From the hotel it was just a five minute walk to the river from where a well-trod path led up Dovedale, past Lovers’ Leap (gave that one a miss) to the tiny hamlet of Milldale where we got some welcome refreshment at Polly’s Cottage (“Polly puts the kettle on – and makes sandwiches too”) dished out through a serving hatch in the cottage wall; the return trip made it a fine 7 mile walk along the crystal clear river surrounded by towering limestone slopes and pinnacles, with a well-earned ice cream at the finish.

Izaak Walton

It seemed a good idea to take a mid-week break at the Izaak Walton Hotel in Dovedale while the boy was at Leeds Festival (working not watching) and the location, when we found it, was idyllic with only one drawback - no mobile phone signal – which rendered our exhortations to him to text us regularly useless and necessitated a quick trip into Ashbourne (a pretty town) to make reassuring contact; on the plus side the hotel WiFi was excellent, enabling us to access the webcam to check out the cats in the cattery – only a pity the same facility was not available in the tent at Leeds.

Incey Wincey

I have no wish to harm spiders, possibly a remnant of my adolescent Buddhist phase, but I prefer not to share a bathroom with one big enough to scare the cat, so late last night I got a yoghurt pot and piece of cardboard from the recycling bin, carefully removed the giant specimen from the downstairs toilet wall, deposited it in the back garden, and thought no more about it until this morning - when it leapt out at me from under the washing up bowl in the kitchen sink (presumably having made its way back, Incey Wincey style, up the drainpipe); a little startled I gave it a whack with the bowl and took advantage of its stunned state to scoop it up in a tissue and stick it in the outside bin – I did mention the Buddhism had lapsed didn’t I?

Seaham

Seaham on the Durham coast is always worth a visit for the delights of the Lickety Split ice cream parlour with its American 1950’s diner décor and exquisite ice cream sundaes (my choice being the lemon meringue pie featuring lemon flavoured mini jelly babies among the more obvious ingredients) and now there is an added attraction with Ray Lonsdale’s impressive Eleven ‘O’ One statue, known locally as Tommy, that graces the sea front gardens; the oversize WW1 soldier sits hunched on his ammo box holding his rifle, head bowed deep in thought, of what – home, fallen comrades, his next meal – we don’t know but we feel for him and his generation.

FA Cup

The long road to the FA Cup final at Wembley next May starts this weekend and although none of the teams playing in today’s extra-preliminary round have a hope of reaching it, there is much fun and excitement to be had trying; the match I went to at Newton Aycliffe was close fought with the visitors, Garforth Town, coming from a goal down to edge it 2-1, providing the ‘crowd’ of 136 (not including the three dogs) with a good afternoon’s entertainment to get the season underway.

Steak and Mushrooms

The boy being absent, camping out at a friend’s, my wife and I indulged in an adult evening meal of fillet steak, mushrooms, peas and new potatoes, washed down with an excellent Cornish rosé wine (a present from my sister who after living there for 40 years almost qualifies as a local); this meal always goes down well for two reasons, first what’s not to like, and second it has nostalgia value as it reprises one that I produced early in our courtship when I arrived on her doorstep one night with a carrier bag of ingredients that I proceeded to cook, more or less successfully, on her unfamiliar gas cooker.

Cotton Picking

It is so annoying when you run out of cotton half way through a sewing project (apparently  - though the chances of me running out of cotton are only marginally lower than those of me owning any) so when it happens to my wife it means an expedition to Boyes’ haberdashery to find some more of that particular shade of coppery-brownie-gold; once in the shop we soon pick out three or four bobbins of different hues and manufacture that in turn seem close enough - but not quite – until we unearth the very one, hidden behind a misplaced reel thoughtlessly pushed into the wrong slot, whereas (of course) the rejects we then replace are done with care and accuracy even though this requires squinting at the labels at such close range that we first bend double, then kneel and finally, quite comically, end up sitting on the shop floor.

Urban River

The rest of the family being otherwise engaged and the weather being fine, I took the opportunity to complete another section of the Teesdale Way Path, from Eaglescliffe to the Tees Barrage, from suburbia through parkland and scrubland, reclaimed wetland and abandoned urban margin, to the spruced up riverside at Stockton; that makes it eight stages covering over fifty miles from Barnard Castle since last September so there is a good chance of reaching the North Sea within the year.

Pub Grub

Tonight for tea we tried the local’s new pub grub menu, my wife and I both choosing pie and chips - lamb & mint for me, steak and Guinness for her; at least that was the order, and that was how it was eventually eaten, apart from a mouthful of each needed to establish the identical looking meals had been served the wrong way round.

Supermoon

The return trip from Manchester Airport was on deserted roads (to be expected around 3 a.m.) and it was drier and clearer than the outward journey as the remnants of Hurricane Bertha dispersed, and I did think the M62 and A1(M) unusually well moonlit; the explanation emerged today with a news item revealing that the moon is currently at perigee (closest proximity to the Earth) and so is noticeably bigger and brighter than the norm; tonight was also clear and I took a more measured look from the garden and saw it bright and stunningly clear, throwing my deep black shadow on to the wall behind.

Fond Farewell

Sent the Mongolia-bound daughter on her way with a Sunday dinner, a few family games, her last cheese and biscuits for four months, and a lift to Manchester airport in the middle of the night; well worth the drive to shorten, by two and a half hours, the gap until I see her again at Christmas.

Roseberry Topping

With the family gathered prior to the departure, tomorrow, of the elder daughter back to Mongolia, we took advantage of the fine, if breezy, weather to make an ascent of Roseberry Toping; always a popular destination, it was all happening up there today with a steady stream of competitive fell runners impressively using it as a particular punishing checkpoint and more impressively one guy using the beauty spot as a memorable place to propose (judging by the champagne opened she said yes) but I hope he realises the potential implications - a yearly trek up the hill on each anniversary, come rain or shine.

Spitting Feathers

I can’t remember whether my dear departed mother used the phrase ‘spitting feathers’ to express her speechless rage or raging thirst, but it was more literally applicable first thing this morning to our white cat, whom my wife discovered the in the study with a dead bird and a carpet that resembled a girls’ dorm after a pillow fight; I was summoned from my morning ablutions by the not unfamiliar cry of ‘there’s a dead animal down here’ and having confirmed it was not a cat I proceeded to deal with the corpse while my wife hoovered up the forensics.