Golden Wedding

To celebrate my in-laws’ golden wedding anniversary five of us dined out at a local gastro-pub then repaired to our house to cut a cake; all low key (through choice), the occasion taken in their stride, which is maybe how you get to fifty years of marriage.

Sticky Fingers

The trouble with a bagel is that no matter how small the hole and how thinly and carefully one spreads, some of the jam always finds its way through to the underside to form a patch of stickiness to which my fingers are inevitably drawn.

Last Miners

Tonight concluded the two part documentary about the miners at Kellingley Colliery in Yorkshire, the last working pit in the country, over the twelve months leading up to its closure last December, which was both beautifully crafted and poignant; it could almost have been a natural history film about a rare species facing extinction – the unworldly habitat, strange male-bonding rituals, and a specialised adaptation to a unique environment that gave rise to real concern over their survival elsewhere.

Watching Wildlife

David Attenborough’s splendid Planet Earth II series gained an extra viewer tonight as the black cat took a keen interest in the sand burrowing mole, watching closely its progress across the TV screen.

Waiting Rooms

Needing two trains to get to today’s football at Harrogate inevitably meant some time waiting around, but that did not necessarily have to be on a draughty platform: at York station the Costa is rather charmingly located in what must have been the stationmaster’s lookout tower, at little eyrie of calm perched above platform 1, its scruffy Georgian paned windows giving me a 360° panorama of the hustle and bustle of the Saturday travellers – stags, hens, football fans and shoppers – while a cup of decent coffee was supped, albeit from a double banked festive paper cup, but even that was useful when the time came to board the connecting train; on my return journey the wait was at Harrogate where the conveniently adjacent Harrogate Tap, splendidly old fashioned and atmospheric with its wood panelling, glass and mirrors, provided a convivial half of USA Sessions IPA, chosen at random from a bewildering array of pumps along its extensive bar.

Hello Sailor

With my aversion to open water the nearest I get to a boat is opening a tin of yacht varnish, which I did today to apply a coat to a newly sanded window sill and more extensively to the floor of the summerhouse – God bless her and all her sail in her!

Fretting and Coping

As a grammar school boy I was denied the opportunity to include woodwork in my GCEs so I am unsure whether today I was using a fret saw or a coping saw to gingerly work on the fir cones that will form part of the table decorations for my daughter’s wedding feast; not long to go now and I was definitely fretting over the first few cones, but after completing about twenty I was coping quite well.

Autumn Statement

The Chancellor’s autumn statement made today really boiled down to one thing: winter is coming, it’s going to be long, and it’s going to be uncomfortable.

Angus-ty

Up here on Teesside last night we only got a short sharp blast of storm Angus, though its unusual wind direction played havoc with my wheelie bins that reside at the front of the house; after an early gust blew them over and into the road I hauled them back through the lashing rain and laid them down beside the car, but half an hour later they were back posing as a traffic island again, and after one more retrieval and chase down the road I gave up and with the assistance of my resident assistant binwoman carried them through the house into the relative shelter of the back garden.

The Boy in the Boro

Visiting one of our undergraduates at their university has never been easier (even though to get to Middlesbrough I did have to change buses in Stockton) nor so inexpensive; thanks to the aged person’s bus pass there was only lunch to pay for leaving me change out of a £20 note.

The Girl on the Train

A word or two on last night’s film “The Girl on the Train”, which was pretty good: I had read the book and apart from shifting the action 3,000 miles to the west found the cinematic version a faithful rendition, dealing well with time lapse storytelling; however a prior knowledge of the plot was not a prerequisite, as my wife, who watched it fresh, found it equally enjoyable.

Small Meal, Smaller Tip

Our Saturday night out – a meal and a film – began well enough, securing an un-booked table at Pizza Express, and while I went for a standard pasta dish my wife opted for the lower calorie pizza, which seemed to be the standard pizza with its centre removed and replaced by salad; despite that we were well satisfied with the food and service, but my attempt to put a tip onto the credit card payment resulted in an embarrassing addition of just 2p, requiring my wife to pitch in a couple of pound coins to at least confirm that I was incompetent rather than ungenerous.

Changing Landscape

My familiar walk ‘down the lane’ has undergone a change in landscape since last I strolled that way due to the erection of four wind turbines that although about five miles away are big enough to seem much closer; my reaction to them reveal some ambivalence – I am in favour of renewable sources of energy, but four windmills in a field about fifty feet above sea level won’t do much (certainly today - cold clear and still - when the solar panels discreetly tucked away on my barn roof will produce more) and though their size and elegance is impressive, they do detract from the landscape, at least while freshly planted in front of it – hopefully in time familiarity may lessen the impact.

Desk Jobs

A couple of years ago, passing through Ashbourne in Derbyshire we spotted an old school desk for sale, which we bought for my wife to up-cycle and use as a sewing or craft table and though as yet un-elevated it has served well as a perch for the sewing machine and more recently for the lap top computer when a more extended session is required, like today when inclement weather kept me indoors; it makes for an anachronistic combination as a computer was science fiction when I first sat at such a desk, dipping my pen nib into the inkwell and scratching out sums in pounds shillings and pence, or miles furlongs chains yards feet and inches, or tons hundredweights quarters stones pounds and ounces.

Leonard Cohen

In a belated tribute to the recently departed Leonard Cohen I hunted out my CD of his “Songs From The Road”, recorded on his 2008/9 tour, to play in the car; I first came across his music in the soundtrack to Robert Altman’s exquisite film ‘McCabe and Mrs Miller’ seen at my university film club in the early 70’s and then I rediscovered it in the 90’s through a greatest hits cassette tape which I played until it disintegrated, and though on this latest CD the voice is even more gravelly the words and delivery remain from the heart and soul, accompanied by an instrumental and vocal backing that adds a luscious depth while remaining supportive to the main man - who may be gone but whose music will live on.

Lone Ranger

Today was forecast as the brightest of the week so I decided to combine a shopping trip to Sedgefield with a turn around Hardwick Park (actually a two and a half mile double circuit of the lake) where the usual suspects were to be seen, dodged and overtaken – aged couples, buggy pushers and dog walkers – and where I was the only lone ranger in sight; the drawback of such a state is that at the café (also busy) a singleton cannot both bag a table and queue for service, so a calculation has to be made whether or not to risk ending up with a full tray and nowhere to sit – I took the safe option and headed for Sainsbury’s café instead, where seating is always available.

Leaf Relief

Normally by this time of year I would have had to clear the front garden of leaves several times and still be knee deep in the pesky things, but this year, due I think to light winds, and those mainly easterly, we have escaped the usual deluge which has either fallen vertically or been blown down the other end of the village for a change; so today’s raking up was the first of the year and yielded only three bags full.

Risotto Worth the Wait

Every few weeks I buy a butternut squash and some chorizo sausage in the hope that my wife will combine them with mushrooms, onion, white wine and Arborio rice to produce her signature risotto dish, but as often as not the perishable ingredients are binned as their eat by dates expire ahead of her culinary inspiration; not so today – a cracking tea it made with plenty left over for tomorrow as well.

Into the Clouds

Getting to today’s football match at Pickering (ticking off another new ground) meant crossing the North York Moors on one of two routes, and my outward choice led me up the 1 in 4 slope of Sutton Bank which half way up disappeared into the clouds, the poor visibility persisting all the way to Helmsley; for the return journey I tried the alternate way via Bilsdale but still ended up in thick cloud, patchy all the way to Teesside.

Autumn Stroll

The promise of a fine day tempted me out for an autumn stroll along the Tees from Yarm to Preston Park in Stockton (one way only having used the bus pass the other); the mist lifted to reveal blue skies and sunshine so the five miles slipped by easily, as I admired the late autumn colours on the river bank and within the park.

Trumped

The new president’s moniker has connotations that are both interesting and foreboding: a card of little intrinsic value that nevertheless wins the trick; an unpleasant emission from the nether regions; a final blast that heralds the end of the world; or (you never know) his trumpery (falsehoods) may not be such and he may “come up trumps” and save the day, the US, and the world.

Map Redding

In a night only too reminiscent of Brexit I saw Democrat hopes flicker and gradually fade as the results came in, recorded in red or blue on my home made election map of the USA that had each state’s size adjusted to reflect their electoral college votes (cloned from a similar one in the “i” newspaper); while Florida and Pennsylvania remained uncalled there was still a hope for Clinton but she’d need both, and at 5am when Florida went Republican red by 1% (Pennsylvania would soon follow by the same narrow margin) the game was up and I could go to bed in the knowledge that no nightmare could beat this.

America Decides

A late night beckons as the USA decides between the toxic two for president; I do not normally stay up to watch the US elections but the unpredictability of the result combined with the potential global implications will keep me awake and engaged well into the small hours.

Planet Earth

I got round to watching the first episode of David Attenborough’s new natural history series and was not disappointed by the procession of startling images and stories (the latter surely fabricated to some extent to fit the pictures) – a swimming sloth in search of a mate, a tree that kills birds, crazy ants that devour crabs, wrestling komodo dragons, racer snakes pursuing baby marine iguanas (this looked like a CGI enhanced scene from Indiana Jones as the predators emerged from the rocks and just swarmed – it really should have carried a health warning for ophidiophobes), and a finale featuring plucky penguins; even the ten minute diary feature at the end showing the film crew at work on the penguin island was a treat. 

Cup Run

Yesterday’s jaunt to the Etihad could have put an end to this season’s sequence of FA Cup ties visited (one from every qualifying round so far) but fortunately the game at Hartlepool was scheduled for today so I was able to keep the run going for another round at least; there were significant contrasts in the two matchday experiences as today I was on my todd, the weather was wet and windy, the crowd was fifty thousand fewer (but no less enthusiastic), and the players weren’t household names, but on the other hand it took only thirty minutes to get to the ground and I was closer to the action.

Footy Chick

Today I had the rare pleasure of my wife accompanying me to the football, lured by the glitz and glamour of the Premier League (using borrowed season tickets) for the  game at the Etihad to see Manchester City (my home team and by association her adopted one) and Middlesbrough (her home town team and by proximity almost my adopted one); the day was bright but cold, we arrived early (early enough to have a browse in the club shop and bolster her credentials as a footy chick with the purchase of a City hat), enjoyed a decent game in which City’s dominance was cancelled out by late Boro equaliser, and broke the long journey home with an excellent fish and chip supper at the Wetherby Whaler – who says I don’t know how to show a girl a good time.

Theatrical Performances

My first visit to the Georgian Theatre in Richmond (North Yorkshire) included an unbilled but entertaining prelude of watching the audience assemble in the authentically cramped gallery of the tiny auditorium, where from our relatively spacious bench on the third row we watched the front row fill up quite comfortably until the arrival at one end of a gentleman of generous proportions who managed to park just one buttock until some begrudged shuffling enabled him an increase to one and a half, meanwhile a lady with elbow crutches was battling with the foot high steps down to her seat along one edge of the gallery, which her family had occupied early – too early for three girls whose seats further along the row were then only accessible by climbing over from row two, at some danger of overshooting and falling into the pit below; oh, and the plays, a comedy double bill of Tom Stoppard’s ‘The Real Inspector Hound’ and Peter Shaffer’s ‘Black Comedy’, were also a very good watch.

Pastry Test Cases

There is always more pastry made than that needed to cover a pie and this afternoon I thought I would use up not only today’s small trimmings but also last week’s more significant surplus (frozen since but now defrosted for use); rather than mix the two I decided to test frozen v fresh in a jam dessert – the frozen produced a pretty flat and unsightly jam turnover whereas the fresh made a jam tart that was light, crisp and golden, so in the future any leftovers will go straight into the oven rather than the freezer.

Friday Feeling

One advantage of continuing to work part time is that I still get that Friday feeling at the end of my working week – which is generally a Wednesday – so tonight after seven hours work spread over four ‘employers’ and two days I indulged in a bottle of Hobgoblin ale to celebrate the onset of my five day weekend.

Bemused a Triangle

Called in as a late substitute to drive the minibus, I needed to combine the shift (itself extended by a parcel delivery in between ferrying the children between sites) with a trip to the tip (disposal of tree prunings) and the supermarket (acquisition of bread, milk and other run down staples including petrol); fortunately the various destinations coalesced into two villages and a town forming vertices of a triangle whose three sides I travelled at least once in each direction (one side twice in each direction) in rather a haphazard order that would have left any casual (eye in the sky) observer somewhat bemused at my purpose.