Post being exasperated by TOMA I dandered back to base, sorted what needed sorting, had a wee nap and was awake again before the alarm.  There being no point in lying abed worrying about missing the alarm I loaded the bike and headed off slightly ahead of time, which allowed me to book in, have my usual breakfast before boarding and be showered and back in bed before we sailed; bloody luxury!

There’s nothing like a death in the family to bring out the crocodile tears. my surviving brother and myself have had more conversation in the last fortnight than in the preceding four years – and that was more than most probably the previous decade.  Accordingly I diverted on the way back to visit – and stayed for quite a while, which meant unpacking on Tuesday morning;  it is a good job that the moorings are fairly secure!

In some ways it is quite interesting to catch up with long-separated family; in other ways it is not…  Several years ago I went to an old chum’s retirement celebration and someone else suggested that former colleagues would be interested to know what I was up to; my reply was that anyone that interested just might have bothered to get in touch.  I am not the world’s most social person but I haven’t hidden myself away…  And then I thought about that one…  Fortunately someone else supported my argument.  There is nothing wrong with showing advanced signs of sociopathy, nothing at all – and I’ll just ignore anyone who says that there is!

After all the enforced idling I suffered a surfeit of energy and spent Wednesday afternoon enjoying the sunshine whilst indulging myself with angle grinder and subsequent slopping and splashing of Firtan – mind, with the price of it there wasn’t too much wasted.  Since the demise of Pete and Uta’s marriage and her moving to another boat he has now given up his mooring and Helen, a rather pleasant young woman has become my neighbour.  As she is also taking advantage of our Indian summer we have passed a few warm and sweaty moments , slaving over hot paint pots.

Having offered BoZo a choice of ditches to fulfil his promise I wonder if I was mistaken.  The Supreme Court decision that the oaf acted illegally forced him to fly back from the United Nations to deal with the emergency and then the plane could have malfunctioned, causing the pilot to ditch – and so BoZo’s statement could have been prophetic and he could have died in the ditch.  That’s they greatest problem with prophecies, they are invariably told in riddles.

With long, flowing, do I look like Donald The Trump locks BoZo could (at a stretch) be mistaken for Rapunzel and the local to Le Trou Cache chateau is (just) in the Loire region but could pass for a Bohemian one (with BoZo incerated forever in a Bohemian castle the British could have their own Bohemian Rhapsody…)  Now to make sure that no knight errant bumbles into the scene and totally wrecks the story line.

Having a mere fortnight in the UK it has conertina’d my social life (and tried a friendship).  There is a very good diddly band which I saw on two consecutive occasions at The Fleadh when it was held in Finsbury Park and Rattus Rattess had come across them playing a live gig in a small workshop type theatre close by her moorings.  She has friends, one of whom comes from Rosslare and so we had a clutch of tickets for Sunday evening, which made the day a veritable sandwich day – Ireland beat Scotland at the Rugby World Cup, followed by England winning their opening game.  Unfortunately the meat in the sandwich was trying to find a pub showing the TOMA game – everyone was more interested in Chelsea rolling over and being thrashed by Liverpool!   With TOMA down to ten men and a goal behind I revealed my fair weather fan status; oh me of little faith – they eventually won 3 – 2.  We went back to her boat and VIPBox let me down badly; at least the gig was a cracking affair.

Monday was the date of my brother’s funeral and was interesting, to say the least…  So much so that it deserves headline billing, so will start the next broadcast.  Steve The Sparks had been overwhelmed with work and so had to delay sorting the electrics on my new towbar; it is now illegal in both UK and France to have one filtted but now wired-in and JJJ had managed part 1 but not part 2.  Steve had mentioned backing the van into the workshop if inclement weather intervened and so at least he kept dry – and the van is now legal again.

Geo was out to play on Wednesday – but needed an early evening.  That he is made of firmer steel than TOO and myself was shown by us leaving in good order and at a reasonable time  – some  many years ago the latter and I met with similar caveat due to him needing to be on the first plane out the following day.  I pointed out that all that would happen is that we would just drink more and still leave at closing time…  And as we stood outside the pub at closing time we laughed and laughed (and not just because of the hoppy giggle juice).

The firmer steel of which Geo. is made may still need tempering in a hotter fire – after years of being nagged about getting a dog the water has finally drilled through the stone – he is soon to be a proud dog-walker (despite F and C both swearing their lives away that they will do their duty).  At least he knows and is realistic (and , being a Celt, even fatalistic about it).  I did enjoy his reaction to my repeated – ad nauseum – comments about bags of dogshit and scrabbling about in the gutter with hand encased in plastic.  It is a mutt but with the current fashion for crossbreeds with silly names is being sold as a ‘Sprollie’.

Having made comment about TOMA and the fragility of their defence (somewhat akin to BoZo and his shoring up the govt.) their two midweek game sandwiching the  league game on Sunday were both primarily younger players and both were substantially stronger performances.  Perhaps that nice Senor Emery will read this and pause to think.  Or then again…

The twelve foot tall, badly placed hedge is no more!  It is now a three foot tall, badly placed hedge.  Oh, what a happy slash and chop day I had…  As if to celebrate the electric hedge trimmer sprang back to life (it faces a charge of malingering but, being mains rather than battery it will not face  a recharge).  Banksy, my muse for all things maintenance , taught me to look in a very logical way for electrical faults and so I finally isolated the problem – a blown fuse serving just the one outlet.  I am not sure why one fault manifested itself as so many apparently subsidiary ones but I won’t moan (apart from the price of fuses).

Since becoming rather taken with allium flowers a couple of years ago, this year the area abounds with them – and I have been keeping an eye on them going to seed!  There are some fine specimens in what appears to be a public garden beside LPM, which is where I happened to park for the market and TYT so I took my opportunity and harvested several seed pods – and then saw that someone had looked at the broadcast where I first mentioned being struck on them; coincidence, perhaps…  On the way back I detoured via some rather nice clean pants bends to a roundabout that has a display of allia going nicely to seed, so now I have a sufficiency.

After Jo Brand was vilified by Nasty Nigel Farridge for her joke in alleged bad taste after he was drenched in milk shake about what was wrong with battery acid I wonder if BoZo will see the funny side of me offering him a choice of ditches:

They are all arguably in part mine although the middle one is the extension of the top one once it has passed under the road, so I feel justified in offering.  Well he did say he would rather be found dead in a ditch rather than delay Brexit!

Loyal readers may remember my attachment to some of the songs of Tom Lehrer and on Sunday morning another came to mind – with my return to the UK booked for the morrow the bread run was unnecessary but I still fancied my early (sic) morning dish of tea by the waterfront.  As I was loading the bike I saw cows for the first time ever in the field immediately behind my garden and then, just as I swung my leg over the bike, the hunt came straggling out of what had been Jojo’s field.  The hunt comprised several yapping and leaping gun dogs followed by a troupe of beaming, shotgun-bearing huntsmen, with Jojo himself bringing up the rear.  He is a jovial old soul and came at the lope to greet me like a long-lost friend.  Despite him having drunk away his inheritance he still believes that my allowing him access to my – non-drinkable water – well allowed him to struggle on for several years.

The song in question is one about hunters and hunting in which he claims a ‘bag’ of two game-wardens, seven hunters and a cow.  French gun-dogs have a life expectancy somewhere shorter than that of the people who put out the cones on British motorways and at the end of the season there is a requiem for the dear departed pooches.  English murderers of innocent birds refer to low flying ones as “Frenchmen”.  Writing as I do in a stream of consciousness I was reminded of the French hunter who broke his gundog’s back when trying to load it (the original was about an Irishman but that is racist).

Whenever Pat and Trevor, the biscuit runner’s customers, go away they have friends who house and moggie-sit.  These friends are keen cyclists and the man is the ‘hot’ ex-postie’s bike’s custodian.  It may be a fine point of law but I wonder if he can be handling stolen property when the bike was originally stolen but then became scrap when that type was superseded – and that from a person who once as part of a training course had to present a double lesson on handling stolen property and all its ramifications.

Bob and Leslie, the moggie-sitters, stopped by as I was brush-cutting the ‘lawn’ and we passed a pleasant while.  During the conversation I mentioned how re-wilding is now so vogue as to be a story-line in The Archers and pointed out that for the past twenty years I have been re-wilding my plot across the road…  Ever one to be at the forefront of fashion trends, it was some thirty years ago that I started living ‘off grid’ – long before Chelsea country lovers and fellow trendies invented the term.  Which made me think of a paradox I used to present my Psychology students – how could early Psychologists such as Fraud have been psychologists when the subject hadn’t been named as such/invented?

Perhaps is was bemoaning the cheapening of worthwhile trends that made me think of The Perrier awards at the Edinburgh Fringe – the best joke is always now a one-liner rather than a well-crafted tale.  Here is one that will no doubt make its way there and somebody a fortune:  Trying to go green I went apoplectic – bought a dynamo torch that didn’t work; it was a right wind-up!  There may be many a professional who could (and no doubt will) improve on it (and use it)!

Sunday evening became a real farewell knees-up!  FMC had said that she might pop down to TYT whilst I was watching TOMA as I had offered her a small cafetiere; it has a gold coloured frame and Lena has just started drinking coffee and has a thing about gold coloured objects.  Cariad John had stopped off on Saturday evening and drunk a couple of bottle of my beer, so came down (somewhat unnecessarily) to buy me one in return – and then NLY Robbie limped in; he had suffered an industrial injury but seems to be recovering quickly.  Which is far more than can be said for the TOMA defence; they were worse than atrocious.

It’s often said that motor-cyclists need eyes in anatomically unlikely places and that may have some bearing on what lead to a gold medal numpty moment.  Deciding that I needed an evening WiFi session I kitted up and rode to LCW but had seen as I got back from market that the pannier over the exhaust pipe was hanging low so had rearranged the supporting straps. Which was why, as I rode along I thought little about the uncomfortable projection on the saddle, presuming it was a misplaced bungee – until dismounting outside the bar and I found that I had been sitting on my specs for some ten miles!   The poor things will never be the same again; it is a good job that they were Poundshop specials.  As I only need them for looking at the instruments rather than at the road I hadn’t realised that I was riding ‘blind’.

Having bumped into Cariad John I had learnt that she was back in the water, hence her wet bottom:

and what a lovely sight she is, despite riding high due to John awaiting delivery of new ballast.

As the autumnal equinox approaches the difference in temperature is marked but also interesting – it is still warmer than the ambient warmth indoors during the winter despite feeling cooler if I stay in.  Which is in marked contrast to returning and feeling a bit chilled until welcomed by the residual heat – stone cottages with quarry-tile floors do take a while to heat up but then don’t give it up without a fight.  It makes for a pleasant evening ride with a warm welcome at the end.

On my height of summer visit I was taken by an advert for an agriculture festival in the vicinity and fortunately the advert was both weatherproof and still in place:

for once, single use plastic did not raise my hackles but bought a smile to my face!

Bill The Bard apparently was going to use my title for a sonnet until his publicist suggested that “my love is like a red, red rose” was catchier.  I’m still not totally convinced…

Having been a tad under the weather I have been, as reported,  liberally dosing myself with honey, lemon and cloves toddies but not eating huge amounts, so market day was another visit to the honey monsters but little else needed.  The honey monsters are the most adorable geriatric couple and most probably the most un-monster like people in the whole of honey world but they deserve the title; they have been selling their wares at least as long as I have been going to the food hall.

On Sunday, as I was taking my constitutional, I chatted with a chap I know by sight who lives a couple of hamlets away towards the late Michel A La Ouest.  He commented on the fine evening and I replied that the forecast was for rain later on Monday.  He looked at the sky and said it might but would not be much, hence I didn’t mind the few droplets as I drove back from market – and then the heavens opened; bloody know-it-all yokels.  At least I had made it back to LTC and only had to rethink my ideas for the evening – no trip to LRB and a bit of socialising, just playing chef de cuisine and a big dinner with Radio Four to keep me company.

At last, Tuesday was fair and my energy levels felt somewhere closer to where  they should be – and the wee folk came out to play..  Somehow I have acquired a petrol driven hedge trimmer (with one of its blades being only half as long as it most probably was once) so,

petrol-powered tools being arguable less green but more powerful than electric, I hedge-tested it.  Or I would have done if the postwoman hadn’t arrived just as it fired up on full choke!  By the time I had saved her getting out of her van by collecting the one letter – which was for FMC anyway – the damned thing stopped due to over use of the choke – and tiny two-stroke engines like that are notoriously bad at restarting.  So getting out the fuel, mixing it and fuelling up amounted to time wasted, as was the time taken to drain the tank (leaving fuel in leads to emulsification and requires a big cleaning job).

Knowing that the temperamental petrol tool was untested I was sure that I hadn’t yet got rid of the old electric one but could I find it?  Answers on postcards are not required.  In looking for it I discovered some old photos so had to skim through them but eventually it came to light – and then the extension lead played Indian Rope Tricks so I had to undo several new knots but eventually hacked the front flower beds back to winter length.  Being on a roll I left the rubbish in the road and went to attack the in the wrong place hedge that has been secretly irradiated and become a mutant , giant hedge.  Which was when the electric hedge trimmer came out in sympathy with its petrol driven brother.  They must have been listening to news of the British Airways’ Pilots strike.

Whilst the hedge has been mutating and gianting Alchie Annie’s not tended a bit of garden which has joined the party – the blackberries were juicy and tasty but the brambles were running amok!  It was a pleasant, early autumn evening; I was in the shade; it was a fine time to continue slashing and cutting with gay abandon, once I had done some fault finding and come to the conclusion that the exterior socket – which is necessary for using the washing machine – and the hedge-trimmer’s lead were both defective.  Then the siren call of LCW lured me to pack up my (largely unused) tools and leave mending them for the morrow.  I am sure that the gremlins will have gone looking for other mischief by then; I hope.

Once upon an enormously long time ago all newspapers carried classified adverts on their front pages; The Times, was the last to change that format.  William Rees-Mogg was the editor and his son Jacob, was only one hundred and eleventy-one years old then.  From that day to this spring and – presumably, for years to come if nothing changes, the letters page has carried joyous greetings announcing the passing of the seasons with various people claiming to have heard the first cuckoo returning to the UK for our summer.

In those far distant days of yore food used to be seasonal rather than international and so it has been my great pleasure, with spending roughly month and month about between LTC and TBS to note the changes at the fruiterers in the markets, where the old rules prevail – last month at LTC was cherries a-plenty, now it is plums and greengages – and they are all the more juicy and fruitful for being local rather than frozen and transhipped half way round the world.  By old lore mussels should only be eaten when the month doesn’t contain an R, i.e. from May to August, which may account for them being a Breton holiday signifier.  With Saturday being the last day of the official moules season it seemed a good idea to have a final dish so FMC and I liaised and filled our faces.

Whilst mentioning food I must relate this amusing – to me at least – story.  There has been a series (on Radio Four, by way of a change…) which finished this week with mention of Mendel and His Mishbhoka and harked back to a time when Whitechapel was mainly populated by followers of the Jewish faith and Yiddish was almost as regularly heard as English.  Mendel was singing a song about his beautiful beigels, which he pronounced in the London way as b-eye-gels rather than everywhere else in the world where they are pronounced Bay-gels.  Nigh on twenty years ago I was driving close to Brick Lane in the wee small hours with a pillion passenger so we stopped at one of the 24 hour beigel shops.  It was just after the end of Crisis and the Drinkers’ Shelter had been just round the corner.

What made that year particularly memorable was an attempt to cater for homeless couples and what became known as The Honeymoon Suites.  Unfortunately some local working women realised that it gave them comfy quarters to take their clients and I had to use all my tact and diplomacy in dealing with this problem.  I obviously did well – there I was at 02.30 being thanked in a particularly effusive  manner by a young woman whose occupation was all too apparent.  My explanation to my pillion passenger conformed to Denis Healey’s First Law of Politics – when in a hole stop digging as there is only one way to go…

A couple of days later I was leading a supervision group for a couple of counsellors and mentioned the incident at which they both expressed surprise.  It was only in unravelling the situation that I discovered their surprise was not me being accosted in a friendly manner by a prostitute who knew me but that they had misheard me and thought I had been to a 24 Bible shop….  Oh how we all laughed.

With summer and the season rapidly ending I was totally enraptured by this fine specimen of a real camper (as opposed to the bourgeoisie go playing at roughing it) that I saw by LPM:

Now that’s what I call a camper.  On the dashboard was an old-fashioned landline phone with twiddly dialling mechanism of the type that lead to the British emergency number being 999; oh, the nostalgia.  It quite took me back to a trip to The Castle Museum in York, which had a mock-up street from the 1950s; for the older generation it was a trip down memory lane, for the younger it was, “can anyone really be that old?”

In part because of the crimes against the apple tree it has been absolutely overloaded with fruit (ibid) and so I have been doing ultimate apple picking – chopping branches off with gay abandon and then stripping them of the fruit.  So far I have driven six neighbours away by trying to give them bags of apples, big bags of apples…  As a family we moved in March, 1980 to a house with a big garden and orchard which had been freshly pruned for the sale – and the apple harvest was on the large side.  There, also, neighbours would walk round the block to escape being inundated with apples.  How things go round.

The running down of TPM continues – closed all weekend.  I do wonder how much longer the place will stay open.  One of Alchie Annie’s old chums from before she fell out with them accosted me at LCW, asking me whether I was married.  I think that she has also fallen out with the place, as has Cariad John; small town politics.  There is a new bar facing TYT in the square and it seems that AA has started going there – she offered me a lift to market last week and when I declined suggested a drink there;  I remained true to TYT.

Speaking to FMC after the market it seems that many people are feeling lethargic at the moment and for once I appear to be with the majority – my energy levels are so that currently I have been spending more time asleep than awake.  And it’s not only having Test Match Special all day every day on Radio Four.

During the dish of tea ceremony that accompanies the biscuit delivery we discussed quaint French driving rules.  I had noticed that FMC will almost stop when a car appears on her right despite being on the larger road, which I thought was a throwback to older rules and life preservation as older drivers do not necessarily appreciate the new-fangled ideas (especially when they are rustics driving tractors).  According to the biscuit recipients this is not so, old rules still rule; I have lived a charmed if highly risky life.

Having popped back to LTC after watching Scotland beat France at rugby (for the second time in a week VIPBox let me down with rugby not being broadcast, fortunately Bruno took pity) I saw twice in quick succession how other drivers also believe it to still be relevant.  the road past the front of the cottage is only a country lane but the side road is barely more than a farm track and a car screeched to a halt to give me precedence. as I stuck the bike’s nose out. Then, at the top of the hill, the same thing happened – a car approaching from  my left slammed on its brakes to allow me out when that  road appears to have the right of way; I must remember these incidents for future action.

With self-preservation on my mind I thought back to being at Rattus Rattess’ and her pressing the power button on her flying insect exterminator (an exterminator for flying insects, not a flying exterminator for sedentary insects) as she was touching the killer bit and her reaction to it.  In Tanzania some years ago Joseph, the manager at the project where I was volunteering had a similar, electrified looks like a tennis racquet for killing insects; I thought he was swatting them rather than electrocuting them.  Recently, when in the Poundshop I noticed they were selling similar and invested in one then, ever the doubting Thomas, tested it; it packs quite a shock  Hence my laughter when she did it inadvertently (and [she] swore vehemently).  Had I not done it myself (deliberately) I would have wondered what sort of eejit would do a sill thing like that…

There is, perhaps, a parallel with what sort of eejit would get a friend’s husband to shear one side of a fruit-bearing tree so that, once in fruit, it would be so one-sided as to resemble a football fan discussing the merits of his/her team!  There is no wonder that my poor apple tree cracked under the strain.

Having started clearing the mess from the bottom – and harvesting the just ripening apples as I go – I can now clearly see the cause and the effect.  The poor tree is so out of balance (like the perpetrator!) that as the fruit increased in weight, had it been less well rooted, the whole thing would have fallen over.  As it is, what looks like an anaconda readying itself to swallow its prey is actually the damaged bough.  No wonder Alchie Annie has kept herself hidden for a whole week now; long may it last, says I.

And so it did – for nine days but then it blew a hooley and she was round grizzling for me to cut even more of the tree as it was scraping against the roof and disturbing her sleep!  As ever, she cannot ask for something without offering an exchange – as usual, she invited me in for a dish of tea.  A disadvantage of using the bike is the inability to transport large items and one gas bottle had expired during my last visit.  Fortunately D and C had acceded to my request over trial by my cooking and collected a new one for me during a trip to Redon later in the week; with the out of proportion, non-refundable con of a deposit system it entailed them collecting the empty, conducting the exchange and then delivering the refill.

With them working for me I was able, on their return, to give them the news of Bozo’s coup d’etat; it was but a short while later that D had forwarded  the on-line petition to me.  Eric Arthur would be turning in his grave if he was alive today; liars, liars everywhere and all the truth did shrink; liars liars everywhere who help the proles not think…

On the point of non-thinking, ever the numpty, ever more evidence – WassUp? has given up (on me at least); apparently there is a new version but my phone has rejected such impertinence.  Hence I am incommunicado on one channel but contacts won’t know.  At least, should anyone break the habit of a lifetime and try to establish non-originated by me contact they will know that I have not read their message rather than just ignored it.

With my oldest brother still, presumably, being in a hospice there is, unusually, some contact between my other brother and myself.  From him I learnt that SENGO, whom I knew to be on holiday with M’s family in Menorca, happened to be staying in the same hotel for some of the same time at least as one of my nephews.  As his father wrote, “small world, innit?”

It seems a moot point whether one should feed or starve a cold or flu.  Whatever, with the summer snuffles originating from the bike ride over and still present eleven days later, I am liberally dosing myself with hot toddies (not all laced with alcohol) but still short of energy whilst full of grot and snot; at least the ‘cure’ makes it (almost) enjoyable.  It was only on LRB market day that I realised how little i have been eating – it made for a short market shop.

From the heady days of hope when LPM opened it is degenerating into a dusty dream that was.  The WiFI is intermittent, there is in-fighting between members of the original committee and those now controlling its destiny.  Ah me, what a lesson in life for the Anti-Bozo factions…

M had one of his long-distance, open water swims on Sunday so I was able to pack and do the SLJs before going to meet him and N at a local Golden Arches to pass E’s birthday present further along the chain of delivery.  Then I drove up to Rattus Rattess’ to pay her for a couple of tickets for gigs after my return; she is an amiable soul – greeted me with a grumble about being late and not taking any wine!

With a slightly longer journey to the ferry on Monday I left with a bit of slack, the first bit of which I used by going the wrong way.  Then, having filled up the main road was closed by the boys in blue, so need to follow the old road through market town and village.  Next the M25 was its usual, world’s longest linear traffic jam – with added surface water looking as if I had been lucky with the promised showers.  Until I turned on to the M3.  I drove under a bridge dry and came out the other side in to the mother of all downpours.  Stopping to put on my wettie layer cost me time and did little as I was already wet underneath.   I was reminded of the laconic old Scillonian boatman a long while ago who, in his broad ‘Cornish’ drawl told a boatful of people that as most were grown-ups he wouldn’t tell us what to do but in our position he would put his wetties on whilst dry on the inside.  A couple of not native English speakers missed his nuance but didn’t miss the first wave once outside the cover of the harbour wall.  Oh how the rest of the passengers laughed.

Having reunited the prodigal glove with its partner (ibid) I had both pairs with me – but the ones that fit better under my storm mitts were already wet.  A pretty conundrum – that was only resolved by hanging them on the line on Tuesday which was, fortunately, a good drying day.

The Hog’s Back link was clear but at Farnham there were road works – which did allow me to ask a rather masculine woman the time (for the second time in a week my gender identification system let me down).  She didn’t take too much offence and I realised that all my slack had evaporated – 5 minutes less to drive than my rough calculation suggested I needed.  Last vehicle at the check-in, first on board; if it hadn’t been for a few even later bikes i might even have been on pole.

Then we sat for forty-five minutes after sailing time until we were told of a delay…  A warming glass of grog, a hot shower and a sleep made the greater part of the journey bearable but as I got up there was a pipe regarding a medical  emergency and we throttled back to allow the emergency services to board. Eventually we docked some two hours late.  Fortunately the roads were quiet in my direction and dry, so despite two brief pit stops I had a record-breaking run.  What can often be a four hour journey took only three, it was on that milestone that I set the alarm and bedded down, all the on arrival jobs having been completed.

Alchy Annie’s big hate has had an effect – the lopsided tree has split a bough and now hangs to the ground:

The stonework job is right beside the tree so now I must sit and ponder which job to do first, after thinking about cutting the grass first, obviously.   And then I must decide whether to climb the tree and sever the split branch in one or start from the bottom and keep removing it bit by bit.  At least the apples are just about ripe – and Rattus Rattess gave me some of her home-grown rhubarb.  With all these questions and a snotty, sniffly cold as a result of the soggy ride I fear a slow workrate.  Plus ca change…

At least the cold has given me an excuse for hot toddies (as if I needed one).  Making one in my big, bath sized Rosy Lee mug I think I may have misjudged the amount of that nice Mr. Jameson’s giggle juice; I did sleep well that night.

Thursday was a day of wildlife delights – three buzzards – one was so greedy, staying late picking at some roadkill that we almost collided as it flew off – and then a red squirrel in the garden of one set of neighbours!  Add to that a close call on Friday morning with a rather lovely but not Green Cross Code aware deer, the month has started well for being at one with nature.  The summer weather has also meant that tranquility has returned following the roar of the tractors harvesting; back to sleepy hollow.

It is slightly confusing with a surfeit of Lenas – FMC’s daughter is so named but also is the (ap)partner of John, a rather jovial Brummie chappie who lives locally.  Unfortunately his Lena has been diagnosed with liver cancer and has returned home for treatment – he is due to follow when the Siberian winter has taken a stronger hold.  We spent some time discussing Siberian winters and appropriate clothing.

Since Geo. got me on to including photos in my blog I have carried a small camera with me.  Imagine my exasperation, to arrive here having booked my return ferry for four weeks hence, to discover that I had forgotten the damned thing.  Having grumbled at mobile phone salespeople in the past about using a phone as a phone and having a camera for taking photographs.  If he who laughs last truly laughs loudest I should be able to hear them from a very long way distant…

Hippocrates and his humanitarianism had no place in my recent view of the world.  For some while I have been railing against and getting ever more vociferous about rude people marching along pavements with their noses buried in tippety-tappety devices, to the point of me declining to step round them but just stopping in front of them and getting them to walk round me.  On one occasion a youngish woman stopped, looked up, smiled and then, apparently realising that she didn’t know me, looking extremely quizzical; I felt justified.  Then I thought of the fifteen years old me, walking to school, umbrella hooked round my neck, smoking an extremely curly pipe and reading through a whole series of weighty tomes and definitely not looking where I was going.  At least it served its purpose of attracting the attention of Rosey Smith, whose path I crossed with studied insouciance…

Being Grandad-In-Charge again I arrived chez SENGO and was amused by the fashionable hairdo of N; a la many young woman around the moorings, she was wearing her hair pulled up into a quite severe topknot.  As I have only seen this fashion being worn by what might rudely be described as ‘pikey girls’ I was slightly amused – S currently sports brown, very chisel-toed shoes with whatever, often brown trousers; a fashion very much of the horsey/pikey set – after all, only a cad wears brown in town.  All this in the week of the 50th. anniversary of Woodstock!  Let him who is without a fashion crime cast the first cloth – in my mind’s eye there was I, blue corduroy shoes, blue flared and embroidered with flowers to the knee jeans, a blue canvas jacket with white stitching and a blue and white polkadot, penny-point collared shirt.  At least it was colour-coordinated, unlike kaftan and cheesecloth alternatives.  And I couldn’t even blame it on mescaline…

Mentioning mescaline, and thinking of other illegal substances, I recently saw this garden feature:

whilst some may see it as naff I was impressed by a woman who I have met a couple of times – she was going to use it as a headstone for over her recently deceased husband’s ashes.  Unfortunately she felt that his grandchildren would not see her perspective on it, so decided against the idea.

Another strange coincidence is that it is also the quinquagenery of The Troubles starting and Radio Four (variety is allegedly the spice of life) has had a programme presented by a young woman from Co. Down (guessing from her accent) trying to make sense of what became the backdrop to her childhood.  Has she never heard the expression, “anyone , who has the answer to The Irish Question didn’t understand the question” ?  Or whenever Disraeli thought he had the answer to the Irish Question the Irish changed it overnight.

The two events from the same year do throw into doubt the “summer of lerve”.  It was worldwide newsreels of the Ulster B Specials brutally attacking innocent and passive civil rights marchers that threw into doubt the impartiality of the RUC and Stormont Government (and BBC) – although at the time the fake news was that it was an IRA-led uprising.  That, with some of the Catholic enclaves bearing the graffito, “I.R.A. – I Ran Away” suggesting that Donald The Trump is not the first to allege propaganda being disguised as news.

Idly but not unusually, yesterday I was daydreaming and came up with a new name for Lynn Truss’ English As She Is Spoke Stormtroopers – Rees-Mogglodytes.  Rather than “I am a citizen, not a subject” (beloved of [non-USian] republicans) “I am a citizen not an esquire”. may be relevant.   Member for the 18th. Century?  He isn’t that up to date.  I wonder how long it will take Red Molotov to nick that one off me.

Every force having its equal and opposite force meant that I had the devil’s own job working out the logistics of finding out what, buying the same and sorting out delivery of E’s birthday present, not having much (to say the least) contact with that branch of my family.  Once the what had been established a trip to the Lego shop twixt The Dilly and Leicester Square became a brave the brats but enjoy playing with the toys and then carry a large box back to base on a dreech and dismal day.

That brilliant human misconception was reinforced last night and this morning – planning for eight hours hence when one doesn’t know what will happen in eight seconds time! By 22.30 I had nothing left to do so bedded down re a sportsfest to come.  I was awake before the alarm and in Prets for breakfast and New Zealand Vs Australia at Thuggeryball – for VIPBox to let me down!  Thinking that I wouldn’t need travel toys meant staring out the window, a glum and forlorn expression on my boatrace; planning? Pah and thrice pah!  NGO, like many children in Western-influenced societies, like the familiar, hence many a trip to Kinver Park .  On one occasion G and O had scrambled up a rigging type piece of apparatus and for the life of me resembled (for those with a vivid imagination) the young seamen of old who ‘manned the mast’ – a naval ceremony which necessitated the button boy standing unsupported on the topmost part of the mainmast and others standing in the rigging:

The button boy would be rewarded by the senior officer.  The button boy didn’t have a right tight-arsed grandad as a senior officer; a score amongst all the ratings as holiday ice-cream money will have to suffice.

WVM has been in touch regarding details of the driving licences of all drivers so I have officially severed the umbilicus.  I am tempted to ask how many copies of one driving licence they need.  For the first time in quire a few decades I am totally commitment free!  With what may transpire to be the last great stravaig in the offing I think it best to stay footloose and fancy free until my (hopeful) return in the spring.

On Thursday last I had my third in three weeks where are you calls from WVM on a day when I was not expecting to (and so did not) attend but it set the scene for the final week.  After the fairly heavy weekend I was not exactly liverish but neither was I brimming over with charm and goodwill, so Monday being a repetition of last week’s shortish route with a pleasant van boy was a good thing.  MMG apparently grows vegetables and had brought in some courgettes from his garden, which he proceeded to turn into a rather tasty ratatouille with the help of some bits and pieces lying about the kitchen, so lunch was taken care of.

Tuesday was a fitting, most probably final, day after some 15 years of off and on WVMing.  The affable but not terribly efficient redcoat who was officer of the day informed me that there was nobody to either help me load or accompany me – and then retreated behind a desk.  It is not good for wrinklies to harp on about days gone by but William, the last real redcoat (who became a non-person with undue haste) was always ready to lend a hand under such circumstances ; the new crop of important people do not compare favourably.  Fortunately a lovely woman who works in the depot saw me and offered her assistance with loading.  One of the reasons for most probably not going back is that there is now an air of twitchiness amongst the redcoats whereby they seem cowed into treating the paperwork as the be all and end all instead of getting the food to needy customers.  At all three deliveries I met pleasant and helpful people so the job was nowhere near as arduous as it could have been.  Back at the depot Natalia Sheftalia, another redcoat – apparently currently in charge of the rota – accosted me regarding next week.  Despite her being very pleasant and smiley I have a sneaking suspicion that she is one of the terminally inefficient .  I have not christened them redcoats because the look like British soldiers from 200 years ago, it is because of their entertainment value – just like Billy Butlin’s holiday camp staff uniforms but lacking the jollity.

Having entitled this broadcast it became slightly inappropriate with the information that the older of my two brothers has been admitted to a hospice; he has been suffering from prostate cancer for some years and it appears now to have entered its terminal phase.  It was WVM to which I was referring.

One of the oddities about my family is that information gets passed via a third party – in this case it was our other brother who passed on the message.  Whatever, with various calls on my time it seemed best to contact the relevant sister-in-law and arrange a visit, which I duly undertook on Thursday.  The hospice is run by the Sue Ryder foundation and she was married to Leonard Cheshire, who was the founder of another NGO – the one for which I raised money by walking through some of the Tien Shan mountains some years ago.  It seemed inopportune to mention that I had given up such money-raising when I found out how much of the money supposedly raised for charity was being syphoned off by scallywags, leeches, whoremongers, cut-purses and bear-baiters.

That brother has a view on life which is not congruent with mine and has a liking for a certain style of being.  Thus, I think he will be happy with the former posh house where he now resides:

When I emailed his wife asking permission to visit she had suggested that I didn’t fight with him and must have been pleased at how well I behaved as she even left him unguarded for a short while!  It was also a lovely evening for a bike ride so I made the most of the return journey.  One of the nice things about the A1 is that between stretches of motorway standard there are a few bits with roundabouts where one can be a real boy racer if one is so inclined.  Not that I would, of course…  After all, speeding is illegal (as it says on one of my TT tee shirts).

To help things along the appointment for a new windscreen to be fitted to the van that had been booked for Thursday afternoon had been brought forward to 09.00 by the company. Disliking the tie-up between insurance companies and repairers and disliking more the high-handed way that the fitters had instructed me rather than asked if they could alter the appointment I was up for a bit of fun and had been honing my tongue accordingly but as it was I decided to let sleeping fitters fit; I must be feeling my age.

Friday became a day of minor disasters; I had half arranged a tourist day in Bristol, then added where I was going to meet SBD – who had forgotten that she had a boiler repairman due to visit.  We decided that, time permitting we would still meet and as her day unravelled, so out RVP changed.  Eventually I caught another train – to Taunton where despite both being delayed we managed a brief meeting.  Crosscountry trains may have been having a bad day or on the other hand it may just be a crap service.  With more luck than good speed I made the return connection at Bristol with a couple of minutes to spare – and then that train was delayed due to the aftermath of a previous train hitting a pedestrian somewhere just west of The Big Smoke.

Fortunately S listens to sensible, sports-based radio stations rather than boring , stuffy old Brexit and pompous presenters only Radio Four.  He texted me to let me know that my Sunday of TOMA, England playing rugby and getting to him for GICing duties had been thrown out of kilter – the football and rugby kick off simultaneously!  At least that means only having to look for one WiFi post/place with a TV!

Subsequently I learned that my criticisms of the rail companies may have been a tad harsh – National Grid also had an Oh, Bugger day.  If I was not so alhumdulallah so might I – Red Molotov, of outre tee shirts with political messages, has nicked my BoZo idea and now produce one with that appellation and a picture of our Dear and Beloved Leader thereon; bang goes my idea for untold riches, capitalist, profiteering bastards!

Hell, handcart, expressway.  Wednesday started so well – at least as far as Finchley Road…  The semi-fast train which has become my norm on WVM days was waiting and all the way I had time and space to play with travel toys but trotting across platforms I was just in time to hear the driver of the next train explain that a dead train further down the line meant a 20 minute wait where we were followed by a slow journey.  Along with many others I turned on my heels but was unable to get back on the original train – or the next.  Eventually, after much shilly-shallying I got to Liverpool Street from where there is a direct bus all the way to the depot.  For one who was once au fait with The Big Smoke and its public transport I have become a yokel let loose, so much has changed.  It is now twice this year that I have been outpaced by a horse-drawn hearse whilst trying to traverse the thriving, thrusting metropolis.

I first noticed people sitting in aisle seats and leaving the window seat empty during one Palestine trip; it now seems ubiquitous.  It is a bit like putting bags on seats and only moving them when requested – an attempt to browbeat less confident people into not asking for the seat.  It was only after I had moved past the young woman by the aisle that I realised that she was upset and crying.  Bystander apathy was a phrase coined by psychologists after Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered in New York despite having cried out for help for an interminable period and was once a popular field of enquiry – and came to mind when BoZo’s partner cried for help and the man who called police was vilified by certain members of the Tory party.  Accordingly I asked the young woman if she needed any assistance but said I would keep quiet when she declined.  As she alighted I was rewarded with a watery smile and a small wave – of gratitude, I presume.

At WVM Joel, a new gauleiter, had taken ‘my’ van and delivery re my very late arrival but I was graced with an extremely pleasant van boy and had a good, short, quick route, hence was back, sorted and off and running at a more than respectable time.  Last week I had popped in to the shop where Uta works and been given more details than I needed about her current circumstances.  During the drive I had received a WassUp message from her which seemed to to be testy in the extreme so I visited her at work – and came across the second tearful woman of the day.

There is much negativity and pain in her life at the moment, all of which she wants to keep within a very small circle, so after a box emptied of tissues (by her) and half an hour or so I left with a promise to try to catch up with her before we dander in different directions .  At least it was a day of finding women in distress rather than leaving them that way.

With regard to Saturday’s forthcoming fun and frolics Rattus Rattess had invited me for the weekend but advised me to not arrive too early.  Friday was a lovely evening for a Clean Knickers ride out and there is a real route for old times sake – the old A41, beloved of customers of the Busy Bee.  The Ace survives, having been resurrected, but the Busy Bee lies between housing estate and two hypermarkets – and the road itself is now a three-lane dual carriageway while the old road has been redesignated as the B something not very memorable.

Rattus Rattess had told me of a beer festival local to where she is moored which is a charity fundraiser – and I can think of no better way of supporting local people in need.  Accordingly Saturday was spent in the arms of Bacchus (apart from when we walked back to feed and water her dogs, which may have been a blessing in disguise).  The programme suggested folksy-type music (wrongly) and many fairly local, worthwhile beers (correctly); it was a score draw.  The security guards were diligent in searching bags for illicit alcohol at the entrance (reasonably) but also prevented festival-goers taking charged open receptacles out; we had a slight debate as he was giving wrong information about the law but he had a job to do so we quaffed merrily at the gate.  The bands sounded better from a distance as well.  It was that last, rushed pint that did it…

To complete the weekend there was a theatre group performing in the open air on Sunday so we really did culture high and low.  I was not au fait with the story in Much Ado About Nothing but two of the cast gave a very good description and synopsis – and when they called for volunteers for a play with their swords, epees and rapiers…  Well, an old luvvie can hardly be blamed for elbowing little children out of the way…  The parents of the crying babes forgave me when they understood the whole reason.

Sawn-off Levis and no cod piece was not exactly how Elizabethan men dressed but as all ex-Am Dram stars (and weren’t we all?  Cameo roles?  In Am Dram?  You’re having a laugh) all know, the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd means that just one line in a walk-on part is that critical line on which the whole performance stands or falls.  So it was only fair that I gave the young popinjay a quick lesson in the finer arts.

When one of the heroines was hoisted to her feet by her hair it quite took me back to a workshop run by a professional fight supervisor in preparation for a performance of The Three Musketeers.  Much though Mr. Grumpy, our very own would be Alfred Hitchcock, could throw tantra like a frustrated two years old he did insist on people having liquid in whatever container when they were drinking; in some ways it has spoilt theatre for me because I always look and he was right – you can tell.

Weighing up situations before acting can be interpreted as dithering if one spends too long doing it, hence decision time regarding WVM has most probably passed, I am just waiting for the thinking time part of breaking (up) distance to elapse before applying the coup de grace.  As if fate was trying to make think again, my van boys on both Wednesday and Monday were lovely, pleasant and hard-working corporate volunteers (and, as it transpired, from the same company).  To help with my decision making, Thursday was a debacle, thus biting the bullet and making my decision  to leave and beef ‘at the current situation.

On Wednesday, Carl, USian by birth and raised there but now married to a British woman and living in the UK (despite them meeting in the US) was pleasantness personified; he is of a similar way of thinking and has relatives who write via the internet extolling perspectives with which I totally concur.  The day was hot and sunny but we whisked round our route and were back before the heat of the afternoon melted us.  But then I dawdled and got collared to move all the vans from where one hand had told us to park them to facilitate re-asphalting to somewhere else where the asphalters had told the other hand they actually wanted them.  Ho Humm…

The Thursday debacle was covered in my last broadcast so I will gloss over it but going as van boy to a smoker who took the opportunity at each deliver to have a snout whilst I did the pushing and shoving helped me with my decision making.  He drove well but it was an oil and water non-mix.  With the record-breaking heat on both days I declined my new, fitter, walking regime and caught a bus to the oxo.

Monday was cooler and I was blessed with two lovely van boys – Dominic and Lucy.  She was from Larne, Co. Antrim and by the end of the day we were swapping jokes; she knew of Ranjit walking down the Shankill!  She also congratulated me on my accent in the B and Q in Balefaast before chipping in with the little girl who told the nuns at the convent school that wanted to be a prostitute (and their relief because they had misheard her as saying ‘protestant’); a happy day was had by all.  Dominic was French, with all the dignity and aplomb that often attaches itself to French people.   And then a message from Carl pointing out the coincidence.  Just to confirm my decision, I was then accosted back at the depot by the redcoat (corporal) who checks on return times because I had not completed another unnecessary piece of paper.

When with Rattus Rattess we had visited the marina where she was first moored and saw the joint owners, who were once an item but are now kept apart by court order.  It was a rarity to see them there on the same day and an education to see his subservience to her; he also invited me to move my boat north, an idea which is gaining traction and feasibility.  Should that projection come to pass WVM would be far from practical and a definite non event once the ULEZ is extended to the Circular roads.

An invitation from TOO to join him for lunch on Tuesday – and an inclement weather forecast – made that an obvious choice (as if the weather forecast affected it really) – and then, when I was going to tease him about running out of playmates, to be joined by Hugues.  I thought him to still be on holiday but he has recently returned, so was thrice blessed.  It was as pleasant and enjoyable as ever and also profitable as TOO came bearing travel toys including a book to exchange with the one I had to return to him.  This trying to read out and dispose of my library is a labour worthy of Sisyphus.

My lovely pension supporting wage-slaves had to return to the bosom of Mammon and so I was able to dander but this time had a little more purpose to my stride.  It is a good while since I have visited the Freedom bookshop but with the govt. minister calling Extinction Rebellion anarchists and me picking up a magazine at Rickyfest published by the latter and printed by the former it seemed that the fates were calling me… and so a post-prandial prowl to Angel Alley.

The external wall bears this mural that would set many a Security Service officer’s heart a-flutter – and not one of those highlighted as right-wing as Ulyanov, Bronstein, The Great Helmsman or Groucho’s cousin.  It did my old strawberry good to see such a paean to those that struggled.  As it did to see inside works by Ilan Pepe, Noam Chomsky and a horde of others.  With The Moral Maze (on a certain BBC radio channel on Sunday) being about the conflation of Zionism, Judaism and the camouflage of anti-Semitism for any criticism of the state of Israel there was a certain synchronicity.

Angel Alley lies just to the east of The White Hart, once a lovely old pub deep in the toby of Jack The Ripper but sadly now fallen victim to renovation and modernisation:

A while ago now (c. 2002/3) the Drinkers’ shelter was based within spitting distance and on the last night TOMA were playing Newcastle in a televised match.  Geo. TOO and I met for some pre-shift entertainment and there we sat, one on sparkling water, one on lemonade and one with an orange juice; three real roughty-toughties getting in the mood…

It was during that week that I had my worst ever night as shift leader.  When my predecessor had his equivalent he went home, had a large scotch and a spliff before his flatmate woke up and cut him a line (so he said); after mine I went back to base, meditated, did half an hour of yoga and then a cryptic crossword; there’s sad bastards and there’s sad bastards, but better a tranquil sad bastard than a stressed one.