Friday Five and the year's nosedive

What a week. I knew I had to be in Croydon on Tuesday but what I didn't know until I was checking my email on the train that morning was that I would have to be in Slough on Wednesday AND Thursday. So there's hardly been time to breathe until now, let alone blog. I'm just grateful for the chance to work at home today, as well as spend some time with Natalie and Blythe (having picked them up early for their weekend visit).

The end of August already! Where has this year gone? Already two-thirds done; kids going back to school next week so the roads will be a nightmare again every morning; Universities starting in another month so my eldest will be tantalisingly close to us when she starts the next chapter of her life; and for us...the long slog to Christmas with no more public holidays to look forward to. I know I'm not alone in thinking that the UK needs another Bank Holiday between August and December 25th. Whether it's Halloween (frowned on by some commentators as being "unChristian" but actually a very old holiday), Guy Fawkes' Night (frowned on by others as being to anarchic - I mean why would you celebrate someone trying to blow up Parliament? Err...how long have you got?), or some other convenient and meaningful date around the end of October/beginning of November, it would break up that gloomy autumn period a bit.

End of August also means that it's a year since I finished the first draft of my novel and the first rewrite has not been progressing much of late. I have a friend reading the entire thing to give me a fresh perspective on it and as of two weeks ago he was about halfway through and says he's made copious notes, so that might spur some activity, but I can't rely on that. Gotta re-evaluate the time I spend on other things and get back to it. At this rate I'll be retired before I can knock it into a fit state to approach a publisher!

I finally had chance to pick up Nikki's new PC from PC World. I was relieved, after what their call centre had said, to find the offer was still on. And still £40 below either the Internet price or the price the call centre had reserved it at. So I ignored the copy of the email in my pocket which contained the reserve ID number and played along as an innocent buyer. Well, not that innocent. For instance I spotted the fact that the sales girl "forgot" to take the extra £40 off the sale price until I queried it, and also that she "forgot" to take off the cost of the first month's "Tech Guy support" contract that I'd said I didn't want. You've got to watch these people. They're bonused on the extras they sell you (and the "mistakes" they make that result in extra revenue, presumably).

We left the store with the PC; monitor; USB wireless dongle so we can connect to our home network ("have you got a wireless router at home, sir?" Duh! Of course I have. Made me wonder though how many people are stupid enough to buy a wireless-enabled PC and expect it to work when they don't have a wireless router. I guess there are some, or the shop people wouldn't ask the question); a nice new *wireless* multi-function printer and a set of flat-panel speakers. Woohoo! New toys! Looking forward to setting this lot up!

I thought it was all over for these Friday Fives, but then they started up again. As Di said, maybe the author was away.

1. At the end of today, do you think you'll feel spent or refreshed?
How can you feel refreshed at the end of a day? I don't think I *ever* do. No, it'll be spent for me sadly.

2. Do you like back rubs?
Love them. A really good one can send me to sleep in no time, which is kind of a shame cos then I miss half of it!

3. When did you last mislead someone?
In a personal context not for many years, but my Facebook "purity" score is only 47% so you can infer that I have done so at some stage. Professionally there are often occasions when it's not possible to tell the whole truth so I guess you could call that misleading. All in all not very satisfactory really. I've learned my lesson now though :)

4. What color are your eyes?
Blue. Deep blue. In fact they're such a deep blue that back in secondary school when we divided the class up by eye colourthe teacher insisted I stand in a category all on my own.

5. Friday fill-in:
Lastly, let me know ___.
__if I can help you with anything.

Personal Catastrophe

...another meaning of the abbreviation PC and one we almost encountered had it not been for Nikki's little voice.

She was concerned at the alarm bells ringing telling her to call the store and check how long this PC offer was on. And with good reason. When she eventually did call they told her the offer closed at 8pm tonight. I spent the entire day in Croydon, so there was no chance of me getting the to store before closing.

Luckily they offered to put one aside for us at the sale price, which I can pick up later in the week. Much later, as I discovered on the train on the way down this morning that I have to go back to Slough tomorrow and Thursday :(

Back in the Study

Having run out of excuses, I started the gloss painting this morning, with the large window on "my side" of the study. I'd been dreading this - the first time I'd painted sash windows that weren't already painted shut. Worse: windows we'd paid to have refurbished. It turned out not as bad as I expected (yet more proof that the fear of something is always worse than the thing itself) and although the end result will require some scraping of paint off glass, at least the windows still move freely.

After a short break for lunch I resumed with the door frame and skirting board, but I hadn't quite finished half of the skirting before Nikki came upstairs to point out that if I wasn't careful I'd have spent the entire Bank Holiday painting, and enquire whether I wouldn't rather stop soon and relax?

I don't think I'll ever stop being awed by Nikki's capacity to (a) know how I'm feeling; (b) say the right thing; and (c) make me feel OK about not achieving some self-imposed target. I'd wanted to get the first coat on the whole room today but this would certainly have taken up the rest of the afternoon and left me feeling pretty knackered. Not to mention it not being entirely necessary to finish the whole of one coat in one session.

With a sigh of relief I painted up to the next corner and called it a day.

While I was painting Nikki had been researching PCs online and I soon discovered an ulterior motive to the "stop painting" suggestion when she wondered whether it would be worth a quick jaunt to PC World to look at what was on offer.

Once we'd completed a circuit of the store the machine we wanted was a no-brainer. We both stood drooling over the latest top-spec Compaq machine with 3GB RAM, a 500GB hard drive and built-in wireless networking and TV card. We had to rein ourselves in though and be realistic. This was to be a new machine for Nikki and since she uses it for email and browsing, with a little low-end gaming thrown in, this tasty machine was totally over spec'd. For about £500 less we found a more sensible machine bundled with a 20" flat panel monitor, and rushed home to find a better deal online. To our surprise the best offer we could find was £40 MORE than the store price, so I guess we'll be returning later this week to part with some cash.

Home

Saying our goodbyes to the sleepy village of Shipton, we took the scenic route to my Mum's through Northampton and Melton Mowbray, stopping for a pint at the Griffin in Plumtree.

This is probably the first pub I ever visited - it was the one my Uncle Ken used to take us to occasionally on Sunday lunchtimes when my Dad and I visited my Nan. At the age of 8 the journey from the Meadows (where my Nan lived) to Plumtree seemed to be a trek worthy of Amundsen but in reality it's only about 10 miles.

In those days, too, the presence of an 8-year-old meant the adults were forced to drink their drinks sitting in the car park. There was no beer garden and no adventure playground like there is now, nor any "relaxed" policy about kids sitting inside the pub during daylight hours.

Social mores have changed out of all recognition in the last 40 years.

Blenheim & Shipton

Still full from last night's excellent repast, and conscious that our day's destination - Blenheim Palace - might be subjected to a Bank Holiday surge (or should that be siege?) of visitors, we decided to skip breakfast and head straight there.

We arrived just as the gates were opening, but with still almost an hour and a half before the house opened to the public, and an hour before the craft fair got underway. We walked around the house and down to the Bridge of Vanbrugh, a walk which afforded us a magnificent view of the lake and Capability Brown's excellent handiwork in the landscaping of the grounds. The air was still and crisp, hinting at the heat of the day to come and in the early morning quiet, the honking of waterfowl on the lake echoed around the hills while a pair of cranes flew low over the island and away to the distant woods.

Over the bridge we walked as far as the Column of Victory and then retraced our steps, conscious of the time. Most of the fair stalls were still setting up, but the local hamster club were already in full swing, sharing their tent with an owl rescue centre that had four different owls on display.

In total the fair occupied about a dozen marquees, each one housing perhaps twenty stalls. They varied from wood turners to jewellery makers, fine art to handmade toys, home made curry sauces (all natural ingredients), through European sausages and Danish pastries to various cheeses, ginger cordial, celtic spirits (whisky, poteen and blackcurrant brandy).

By the time we arrived back at the entry point the Punch and Judy show had finished and a display of ferret racing was in progress. How quintessentially English! The ferrets alternated with a falconry display. Some lovely birds were present today, the smallest of which even though fully grown weighed only 3½ ounces.

Leaving the craft fair for the time being we headed off for the next nearest Blenheim experience - the "Secret Garden." This proved to be a waste of time, apart from the butterfly house. Home to a number of attractive butterflies and this (mam)moth which Nikki wouldn't let me prod in case it took flight. It's about 9 inches across. I have, obviously, included this photo here purely for the delight of those with a moth fetish whom I know are regular readers.

The other good thing about the Secret Garden was that we could catch the miniature railway back to the main house, which was a lark. This brought us to the house itself, which we both agreed was an utter waste of time apart from parts of the Churchill exhibition. Most of the house is closed to the public (although you can volunteer to be ripped off again to be allowed access to the Duke's "private apartments"), they have a 19th century policy on photography (it's banned; forcing you to buy the cheesy postcards of the interior) , and compared to Chatsworth the interior is nothing to write home about. They do, however, take many more opportunities during the tour of the house and gardens to guide you obtrusively through the many gift shops.

Having been diverted into the one-way-in-and-the-same-way-out garden and spent a frustrating 30 minutes trying to find an alternative exit, we concurred that if it hadn't been for the craft fair the day at Blenheim would have been a real let-down.

Returning to pick up our cheeses, some sausage, three bottles of ginger cordial and a bottle of apple and blackcurrant brandy, I chanced another walk past the wonderful surrealist oil painting of a sailing dinghy done with half-a-dozen masterstrokes of a palette knife. I was still strong enough to resist its charms, but if I'd had five hundred quid in my pocket I could easily have spent it. In fact I could probably have spent a couple of grand - some of the hand-made wooden artefacts were simply stunning and there were numerous other needful things begging to be bought.

We left Blenheim at 3pm, the sun still blazing, and returned to Shipton where the village summer fete was in full swing on the green. The top of the field was occupied by the biggest bouncy castle-cum-inflatable climbing frame I've ever seen and all around the green were stalls manned by locals selling the usual homemade cakes, jams, and contents of boxes from under children's beds. Attention was centred however on the makeshift racetrack in the middle of the field, bounded by bales of hay for spectators to sit upon, where a sack race was just finishing. This was followed by two rounds of an egg-throwing contest where partners faced each other 3 yards apart, each taking a step back upon successful completion of a throw and a catch without dropping, or breaking, their fresh egg.

Needless to say several contestants ended up somewhat eggier than they began, as did a few spectators who unfortunately found themselves under a failing catch.

Once around the field was enough for us, fun as it was, and we retired to the hotel for a (small!) meal and an early night.

Chedworth & Burford

Way back when the year was young, my wonderful partner Nikki - ever mindful of the need to relax well and often - decided that by the time we reached the August Bank Holiday we'd be in serious need of some R&R and suggested we book two extra days hols to make it a *very* long weekend.

Owing to one of the many cock-ups with the bathroom fitting, she'd had to forfeit one of her days which meant I spent yesterday at home faffing about with some of the smaller jobs in the study while she slaved away over a hot telephone. But by dint of doing the early shift AND forgoing half her lunch break, she managed to get away at 4pm and we set off for a short break in the Cotswolds.

The first 95% of the journey was frighteningly familiar to me, it being the same as the journey to Slough or Bracknell, but when we left the M40 at Junction 11 all became calm, new and exciting.

Nikki had found a fab place for us to stay in the little village of Shipton-under-Wychwood (Cotswolds names are so Middle Ages aren't they?) - a 700-year- old hostelry known as the Shaven Crown. The Crown is a ramshackle mixture of old and new but very tastefully extended. It has a welcoming bar, attractive "beer garden" courtyard with fountain and a stone-flagged lobby with a most impressive staircase. The hotel "reception" is the small desk underneath the stairs and the part of the porter's bell is played by the shop bell hanging off the back of the lobby door.

We arrived shortly after 6.30pm and after dodging the low ceilings, wrestling with the room key that doesn't quite fit the door and dumping our bags, repaired to the beer garden for a bar meal and a couple of pints.

This morning our first stop was to be the roman villa at Chedworth. Originally discovered and excavated by the Victorians, this was a bit of a curate's egg.

Although they had taken great pains to preserve the exposed walls by adding twee little caps of brick and tile, which resulted in a very well preserved site, they had laboured without the advantages of modern archaeological technique, so no notes were made as they dug down through the layers of evidence, and much that would have been useful in determining exactly who lived there, what they did, when they did it, etc, was discarded in the digging process.

Nevertheless the site is impressive. The mosaics on the bath house floor are almost completely intact, and the hypocaust-heated rooms with their brick flues and raised stone floors are in marvellous condition for a site estimated to have been built around 4 A.D.

Owned by the National Trust, this is probably the last Trust property we will visit on our family membership which we decided last year to let lapse. It's very nice to be able to walk up to the ticket office, flash a membership card and gain free entry, but at over £60 a year you need to be visiting more than five times a year to make it worthwhile - something we never did. So with an expiry date of 31 August on our cards, it felt good to finally get some benefit from it.

After a "full Cotswold" breakfast at the hotel this morning (as far as I could tell the only variance from a "full English" was the lack of baked beans) neither of us felt much like lunch, but Nikki did spot an intriguing sign for a pub set on the banks of the Windrush. We took a detour and found a delightful pub - The Fox Inn - in the village of Great Barrington. The Windrush proved to be a small river, but well-named (especially after recent floods) as it was still in full flow. A little muddy as the flood waters drained off the fields, but gurgling happily along in the late August sun, which was nevertheless still hot enough to make our swift halves all the more welcome.

On the way to Chedworth we'd driven through Burford - a charming Cotswold village with a wide range of antique, art and craft shops. We decided to stop off here and see what it had to offer. What we found was quite surprising - a huge range of gift possibilities including handmade garden furniture, countless jewellery shops, three or four well stocked antique shops, a flea market (entry 50p) in the Methodist Hall, another (entry free) in St. John the Baptist's parish hall which stretched over four rooms

In all we spent over three hours walking up and down the hilly main street of Burford and were left with the impression that it was a fascinating place for visitors, but must be very frustrating to live in. Of the fifty or so shops on the main street there was only one butcher and one newsagent that would be of regular use to the locals.

Having dined in (rather frugally given the lateness of the hour) yesterday, this evening we were determined to branch out and seek the famous "posh nosh" location in Shipton - the Lamb Inn. Tucked away around the corner of the road leading to Digger's Wood (I kid you not), at first this looked no different from any other country pub of the area. Low beams, low lighting, very clean and quiet, the first difference we discovered was the guest ale - a wonderfully clear dark pint with a hint of blackcurrant behind its hoppiness. But the best was yet to come. The meal!

Soup for me - carrot and orange - in a deep bellied bowl, probably enough for two people and fabulously orangey, with a deep carrot colour the consistency of thick cream. Wonderful. Nikki started with a tart tartin, on a bed of caramelised onion with a wedge of goat's cheese on top. Her main was a stuffed and honey-glazed breast of chicken with salad, while I tucked in to a fillet of beef and wild mushroom stroganoff. Now I've eaten beef stroganoff many times over the years, but this was a universe away from anything I'd experienced before. The sauce was so heavily laden with paprika as to be veritably a-glow with redness, and yet had a rounded flavour without a hint of bitterness. There were two - possibly three - different wild mushrooms in the sauce, each with a distinct flavour that crept up on you halfway through a mouthful. The sauce was thickened with slivers of red onion that imparted a delicious sweetness to the mix and this sweetness was occasionally and temporarily heightened when an unexpected sultana burst between your teeth in a wave of fruity goodness that was almost akin to an orgasm. OK, that's enough to secure my place in Pseud's Corner, but you get the picture. If you're ever in the vicinity do not pass the Lamb Inn by without stopping for a bite to eat. The place is an undiscovered gourmet paradise.

Dessert course, which we should have declined on account of being stuffed, we both couldn't resist once our eyes lit upon the first entry: Ginger Brulee. The ginger part did not disappoint - the whole dessert was crammed with it - but the brulee part was closer to a mousse with a nod in the direction of its title in the shape of a caramelised sugar topping. It was served on a circle of the thinnest meringue I've ever seen under which sat a thin bed of chopped pineapple which added another dimension to the flavour and prevented the mousse being to cloying. Perfect - the only trouble being that we could hardly stand by the time we'd finished.

Chocolate

Here's a test. Buy yourself a Twirl and eat one bar. How long can you leave it before you eat the second bar? In my case the answer is "leave it? What do you mean leave it?" There is no concept of a pause between the first and second bars. (Maybe this is what Bon means by "bothbarson"?) And yet I know there are people in the world who might even get to the point where they've forgotten there is a second bar.

I'm sure this is another example of how my upbringing ruined any chance I ever had of a normal eating pattern. It was always "finish your dinner!" "You'll sit at that table until every scrap is eaten up!" "If you don't eat it today, you'll have it again tomorrow" etc, etc. No matter how large the portion or how inedible the meal, those plates had to be licked clean. Bags of sweets and bars of chocolate? Same approach. To be finished in a single sitting and the quicker the better. No concept of savouring the moment. No, the right way to deal with it was only two letters away from savouring, but a metaphorical universe separated the two. The right way was: devouring.

I had eighteen years to learn this lesson and, so far, I've been unable to UNlearn it in the intervening 32 years.

Boxst in

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity of being a passenger in a Boxster.

Impressive acceleration, beautifully designed dashboard (I was most impressed with the mobile phone integration. The car has its own SIM and the owner can flip his phone number between the SIM in his phone and the one in his car by entering a simple code), excellent sat nav but dear me! The noise!

Engine right behind you, roaring and whining away and if that wasn't bad enough the road noise added to the thrumming ear bashing throughout the journey which, furthermore, was one of the most uncomfortable I have ever experienced. I guess you don't buy a sports car for comfort, but the seats look really plush and relaxing. They aren't.

To the extent I ever had any "sports car days" they can be said to be over. This is one "luxury item" that it definitely isn't worth remortgaging my house for.

Up your nose

The second coat of Satinwood went on a treat with far fewer drips than yesterday and in far less time. As well as covering the streaks, slight colour variations caused by different levels of filler and rough edges where the original paint had flaked off were all covered up.

The second task of the day was to prime the skirting. No matter how thoroughly I stir primer for some reason it's never thorough enough, so I was halfway round the room when I noticed it was now going on white, whereas it had started off translucent.

I retraced my steps and overpainted the earlier boards.

The other downside to primer is the smell. I'd hate to see a list of the volatile organic compounds it contains but I could almost feel my lungs shrivelling up as I painted, despite having both windows open. It became so bad that Nikki rushed upstairs to tell me our next door neighbour had left his gas on again. The chemicals make the gas cooker smell like kerosene when the oven is on. And oh! How it gets to the back of your nose and stays there like...well...a bad smell.

By the time I'd finished I had a thumping headache and even after driving the girls home to Yorkshire and arriving back at the house I could still smell that pungent organic spirit smell.

A Whiter Shade of Cornice

With only two days remaining of my holiday, I was determined to make some serious progress with the study today. Up that ladder I strode, paint tin and brush in hand, to apply the first coat of white "satinwood" gloss to the cornice.

One side of the cornice has suffered badly from the ravages of time. Its lower edge is almost completely gone, to the point where in places it's indistinguishable from the wall. We decided long ago that the best way to deal with this was to mask it off in a straight line and paint it as if it were still whole. Having barely a half-inch of Natural Hessian emulsion left in the second tin, and not wishing to start in on the third, I had to finish the cornice off in case any touching up of the walls proved necessary owning to drips or splashes.

This proved to be the right decision as I'd forgotten quite how runny Satinwood gloss can be, and overloaded the brush along the first section of cornice leaving four or five drips in my wake.

Like most first coats, this first coat ended up looking very streaky in places but in those places where it wasn't streaky the final effect was visible and most gratifying. For a little light relief I glued and fixed the quadrant moulding I'd cut on Thursday afternoon ready for priming tomorrow, and called it a day. But not until I'd peeled back the masking tape to reveal a wonderfully straight-edged finish to the damaged cornice. Close scrutiny will still reveal the chewed-up edge but out of the corner of your eye (the usual way to see cornice), the damage is unnoticeable. Result!

The Manchester wheel

Feeling a little guilty for not having done many day trips with the girls this week, I enquired whether they'd like to go on the Manchester wheel. After a resounding "yes" we worked out that today was the best day to go - a combination of fitting in with other projects and fitting in with the weather!

Various things conspired to delay the start of the day but eventually we hopped on the bus and arrived in the city centre around noon, having passed and pointed out many of the landmarks on the way. Now that Natalie is definitely coming to Manchester I felt honour bound to give her some points of reference - especially the bus stops she'll need to use to catch the bus to our house!

I've only ever been on the wheel once before - when CP was here last year - and the queues then were quite long. Today, even though it's the middle of the summer holiday, we only had to wait for the ride in progress to finish before we could embark. The shortest possible wait time!

Aloft in the wheel I pointed out other landmarks, this time from a different perspective. We also spied our selected lunching establishment - the Old Wellington - and some rather strangely attired individuals who appeared to be handing out leaflets to passers-by. We decided to find out what they were up to once we left the wheel.

But first, lunch was calling since at least one of us hadn't had any breakfast. We dined on tuna melts and ham, tomato and mustard sandwiches washed down with suitable beverages.

After lunch tradition dictated a quick visit to the cathedral, since it's only just tucked around the corner from the Wellington. I've never been in the cathedral when there wasn't something going on. Last time we visited with Nikki's brother we were treated to a choir practice; the time before that they were holding an exhibition of stunning digital photography. This time a "young pianist" competition was in progress, with a small orchestra ensconced in front of the choir stalls and the pillars draped with special contest livery for the occasion. All very colourful.

I was glad all the orchestra gubbins and internal scaffolding didn't prevent us from seeing the Chapter House. This remarkable part of the cathedral is, as the Wikipedia entry suggests is often the case, a very ornate room.

Panelled in oak, the detail in the carving is extraordinary. Each of those panels has a complex network of arches and pillars at its top and below the lowest arch, three per panel, can be found four roseate details. Every single one of these details in the room is different.
Flowers, berries, symmetrical designs, small faces. Each is unique and only a very few have been damaged or are missing.

All this was very distracting - by the time we'd remembered about the strangely-clad leafletters we were on our way back to the bus.

Retracing our steps we approached the nearest lady to discover on closer scrutiny that her costume was emblazoned with the word "cash." What better way to get the public's attention in a bustling city centre? The ladies, vaguely reminiscent of town criers and the gentlemen on springy modern hi-tech stilts who were doing back flips were all there to promote the new co-op.

This was a far cry from the down-at-heel corner co-op of my youth, which always smelt of stale milk and whose management took a hard line with local scallywags who used to make off with the odd packet of dolly mixtures. No, this was the 21st century Manchester city co-op. All bright and shiny, steel and glass, handing out prize draw entries with a top prize of £20,000 just to raise public awareness of their existence.

We entered. Twenty grand would be just enough to ensure Natalie came out of Uni with zero student debt, and more than enough to buy us a new roof. Keep your fingers crossed!

Get back, funky cat

If my day out last November accompanying Natalie to her interview day at Manchester University could be called surreal, then today's trip was like being drawn back into that nightmare land of exams and, more to the point, results.

As we drove from Manchester to Huddersfield the radio news was full of reports that today was the day half a million students would be receiving their 'A' level results. We already knew. We were on our way to college to pick them up.

Although we arrived in Huddersfield town earlier than results were supposedly available there was still a fairly strong current of students wending its way collegewards. We elected to stick to our plan and breakfasted in the little coffee shop which Nat and her friends frequented. Later, hearts firmly in our mouths, we made the short walk to the college gates. "See you in a bit then," said Natalie, her nonchalance belying her undoubted trepidation as she crossed the road and disappeared past the throng of students who were already gathered by the gates, their congratulations and commiserations communicated only by body language at this distance.

The wait seemed endless. After the first hundred years Blythe and I were starting to get a little hungry again, breakfast having been so many decades earlier. But we only had to wait another three hundred years before Natalie appeared back at the gate accompanied by her boyfriend. She crossed the road and handed me her papers, beaming. The results were good. Very good. But the grades were slightly at odds with her offer from Manchester University. One equal with the requirement, one higher, but one lower. We headed off for the village to give Mum the good news and also to get on the Internet and find out whether Nat had, after all, secured that much wanted place.

Manchester has a very enlightened entrance policy. Their courses are so oversubscribed that they only offer places to students whom they really want to attend. They hand-pick them at interview not just for academic ability but for what else they can bring to the party. Natalie, being skilled in many extra-curricular activities and interests, is exactly the kind of student they look for. Their offer came with a promise that, even if the grade quota was not quite achieved, she would still secure her place.

Even so, those minutes between leaving college and arriving at the house, and the extra minutes standing in the hall while Natalie rushed upstairs to the computer to check the university admittance website added another couple of hundred years to the morning.

"I got in!!" she shouted from the study.

We all breathed again and time resumed its normal pace.

With the next three years now mapped out before her and most of the worries of the last two years beginning to be replaced by worries of what is to come (for such is life, leaving one worry behind so as to confront another), we drove home and celebrated first with another afternoon in the company of the X-Men (I'm starting to make quite a handy Ice Man with my slow ice beam and my shards) and later with a trip to the Nawaab for an excellent curry dinner and a glass of mango lassi.

I've spent most of the latter half of the day fairly bursting with pride at the achievements of my first born, and also reassuring Blythe that there really is no pressure to equal or better the "bar" Nat has set. We shared a joke about that on the way back to the car this morning, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness to the humour. I never knew what it was like to have an older sibling, but I guess sometimes it can feel like you have to run just to stand still. For me though, there is never any of that sort of comparison between them. Both my daughters are wonderful, each in their own way. Each better at some things than the other, each with their own unique qualities, their own outlook on life and their own path to tread. I see my job as just being there to provide a shoulder to lean on, a listening ear when they need to share, and to move some of the rocks off their path when necessary. What else is a Dad for? Oh, yeah, a cuddle now and then :o)

Skirting around the subject

I've been on leave this week as you may have realised by now, spending some time with my daughters but also trying and, in the main, failing to make some progress decorating the study.

However in fits and starts over the last five days I have at last managed to affix the skirting board which I cut to size recently, to fill the largest of the gaps between it and the wall, and to sand this filler down ready for painting.

The room is really starting to take shape now even though it still looks like a building site. Propped up in the corner are a dozen lengths of quadrant moulding that still needs to be fitted along the bottom of the boards to prevent draughts soiling the carpet edges, but apart from that I'm almost ready to start the gloss painting, which is the final job that needs to be done before the carpet is fitted. This project has been on the go since before our housewarming party at the end of May, so I'm really glad the end is in sight!

Fame at last - even if only for a few seconds

The moment we've been waiting for since we entertained the Granada film crew back in April finally arrived this evening when I appeared on the BBC4 programme The Book Quiz.

We almost missed it. The other four programmes in the series had been broadcast at 11pm but this one - the fifth and final one in the series - was brought forward for some reason to 9.30pm. If it hadn't been for the eagle eyes of two of the other book club members we would not only have missed it but also failed to record it.

You can read my full review of the programme here but basically the programme is a pretty standard quiz with several different rounds, one of which is where the contestants watch footage of a book club discussing a book and try to guess which book it is. The discussion is very cleverly edited to make it tantalisingly difficult to guess, and any references to the title, author, or obvious plot points are edited out.

It was a bit of a schizo experience seeing myself on the telly. On the one hand it was desperately weird. It is, after all, quite out of the ordinary. On the other hand, it was me, and I'm very familiar with seeing me every time I look in the mirror, so in a way it seemed perfectly normal. I don't know if that makes any sense, but as the whole programme is only 30 minutes long and this is but one short round, I was hardly on screen long enough to register if I'm honest.

Last respects

We made a subdued journey over to Yorkshire this morning so that Blythe (mainly, but Natalie also) could pay her last respects to Twig. It was an upsetting but fitting way to say goodbye before he goes to be cremated. Then she'll have to decide what to do with his ashes.

Tough decisions at any age, but very hard when you're thirteen. I know she'll make the right choice for her though.

In these situations you look for the small mercies and in Twig's case it is that there wasn't a mark on him, so he probably didn't know anything about it when it happened. Even though there are speed bumps through the village there are still some mad drivers on that road.

By the time we'd returned home and had lunch I needed to spend some time putting the sad thoughts away, so we spent the afternoon together as X-Men, fighting the bad guys and completing several missions before dinner.

A death in the family

Late tonight we received the sad news that Blythe's brown tabby cat Twig was killed on the road outside their house earlier today.

We'd spent a happy family evening watching the three X-Men movies together and were preparing for bed when Blythe checked her voicemail messages at almost exactly the same time as I was reading the email from her mother marked "urgent."

I don't think I've ever been so pierced as I was when I heard her scream of anguish from her bedroom, nor ever climbed the stairs so quickly. And I know for a fact that I've never felt so helpless as I did while I sat beside her on her bed, cradling her in my arms as she sobbed for the loss of her beloved pet.

I never knew him, but from Blythe's measured and moving obituary it's obvious he was both a very loving and a very loved member of the family.

Off the wall

First day of holidays today and after a leisurely breakfast we set off to walk the walls of Chester. First time I did this was in 1977 so it felt a little weird to be repeating the exercise 30 years on with Nikki and my daughters.

It was a beautiful sunny day, made all the more special on account of us not having had many sunny days this summer. After parking close to Northgate Arena we mounted the walls at North Gate and proceeded in an anti-clockwise direction at a gentle stroll, stopping frequently to take photos.

It's only a couple of years ago that I did this same walk with some friends from Canada, but that didn't prevent me taking many of the same photos over again. Sunlight makes everything so much more vibrant, and when I'd walked the walls in 2005 the day had been overcast. Today everything was bright and colourful, including our spirits.

One of the nicest parts of the walk is the part along the River Dee, and today we were graced with a number of interesting sights. We stopped for an ice-cream at the quayside and sat for a while watching the seagulls fighting over scraps of bread, the pleasure boats and pedallos coming and going along the river, and a lone canoeist training for some unknown white water event or timed race.

Ice-creams finished we headed north again along the eastern side of the wall, past the cathedral whose gardens were resplendent in the late midday sun and back to North Gate at the perfect time to enter the Chester & North Wales cat show, which had only minutes before opened its doors to the public.

Today was the first time I had ventured inside a cat show in almost ten years; an event which at one time was an almost monthly occurrence. Several of you will know just how big a bellyful I'd had of cat showing back then and I would not have set foot in that arena but for the fact that Nikki fancied the chance to see a variety of breeds, and the girls were quite keen to have a quick look too.

Ten years had not changed the smell; the first impression to assail the senses on entering the hall. Mainly cat pee (there would inevitably be a number of entire male cats in the hall) but overlaid with fur, sweat, the metal of the pens and the pungent aroma of the disinfectant used by the judges as they move from pen to pen. Neither had ten years changed the attitude of the judges. Although after all that time I recognised only two, every one of them had that demeanour of superior officiousness that I always despised. These petty pinch-faced individuals lording it over the common masses in their tiny kingdom represent everything mad about the "cat fancy" to me.

There were some beautiful cats in the hall. Probably, Nikki and I agreed, about half a dozen we could happily have brought home out of a selection of perhaps 4- or 500. As for the rest - the brittle, bat-eared orientals; the pug-faced persians and the fluffy, cutesy, bland semi-longhairs - you can keep them. And I hope it's at least another ten years before I have to endure that smell again.

Ephemera

My stay at Burnham Beeches concluded this morning with breakfast. I was shown to a table for one set in the window, looking out over the front lawn. These lonely breakfasts are a feature of working away that many must be familiar with. You get used to it after a while and I've never been uncomfortable with my own company, so I shared a few pleasantries with the jolly waiter, ordered coffee and toast, and went off to fill my plate.

By the time I returned, the lady who had been breakfasting alone on the other side of the bay window had finished and left. The waiter was in the middle of resetting the table. With a practiced flick and a polish of clean cutlery all trace of the previous occupant was removed. I downed my juice in one and turned my attention to the plate of eggs, beans and hash browns.

A few minutes later, having checked out, I walked around the front of the hotel on my way to the car park. Glancing in through the bay window I noticed my table had been expertly reset now too and it was I who no longer had a trace. The ephemeral nature of hotel breakfast hit me. The good natured production line that greets, welcomes, explains the routine to the unfamiliar, takes the order, serves the toast and coffee, replenishes the cup if required, bids good day and then efficiently erases the event in preparation for the next visitor. Hour after hour, day after day, plate after plate. No-one was ever remembered for the hotel breakfasts they ate.

The other word that occurred to me as I drove away, along with 'ephemeral' was 'unhealthy.' This is something so deep-seated in my psyche that I'm sure it would take a huge effort of will to break. Faced with a table laden with a fabulous array of healthy food, fruits without number, cold meats and cheeses, crusty bread and fruit juice, yoghurt and prunes, what do I choose? A large dollop of scrambled eggs, an even larger dollop of baked beans and some hash browns. Oh and a rather nice herby sausage. And toast and marmalade. And coffee. What do I normally eat for breakfast? Either nothing, or a bowl of cereal. Just the one bowl. No cooked food and no toast to follow. But stand me in a hotel dining room in front of a row of heated trays containing breakfast items and all conscious thought leaves my head. On a kind of culinary autopilot I lurch from tray to tray spooning this and ladling that until my plate is full.

I'd like to think that if I worked away from home often enough I'd get bored with it, or a subliminal message would filter through that I don't always have to fill my plate (or my belly) at every visit. Hasn't happened yet though.

Wild Beech chase

Thanks to all those who tried to help me find the Burnham Beeches hotel this evening. As it turned out it would have been a lot easier without your help.

I've only stayed here once before, and on that occasion I travelled down by train and took a taxi from Burnham station. I checked the location out on googlemaps before setting off from Bracknell and it seemed fairly straightforward, so with unfounded confidence I didn't print the map off.

Crossing the A4 outside Slough in the direction of Burnham I passed the station and was surprised how close it was to the main road. When you travel by train to an area you're unfamiliar with it's easy to get completely turned around. My confidence increased as I recognised the road leading away from the station and one or two other landmarks. Then I made my first mistake and turned towards Burnham Beeches.

The Burnham Beeches hotel isn't actually at Burnham Beeches. It's closer to Burnham. An easy, but unfortunate error which led to several minutes driving up and down very picturesque but ever more unfamiliar country roads. I passed the golf course and almost mistook it for the hotel. Finally, I spotted a couple of pedestrians and contrary to all the rules of manhood, stopped to ask directions. In extremely broken English (!) the older of the two ladies directed me back the way I'd come but then down a small turning off the main road. "Go down there," she said, "and you can't miss it."

I went down there. I missed it. This was to prove entirely unsurprising as the hotel is in fact about three miles away from that location, but I didn't know that at the time. Eventually the small and winding country lane met the main road again at an attractive country pub. I went in and enquired of the barmaid where I might find the hotel. She offered to fetch someone in the know, but two gents sat at the bar offered instruction.

Their directions returned me to the original main road a little closer to the turn-off suggested by my first "helper" and then down exactly the same route as she had described. This time I travelled much more slowly, peering down each gateway and path in the hope of spotting the hotel. No luck. I reached the pub again and retraced my route, taking a couple of alternative turnings with no more luck. I was about to pull over and call the hotel when around the next bend came a woman walking two dogs. "Go back to the main road," she told me, "and turn right." (The opposite direction to that suggested by the previous two experts).

This took me in the direction of Burnham and led, after I'd followed my nose and my instincts a little further, to a turning marked by a very small sign: Burnham Beeches Hotel. You'd think, in an area with comparatively few hotels, that one so large and impressive would be better signposted. Of course, next time I stay here, I won't need the signposts. I hope.

New lamps for old

When you work for the same company for a long time, you get to watch their building management over the years, sometimes with interesting side effects and hidden messages.

I visited our offices at Bracknell today. Over the past year or so they've been engaged in a refurbishment programme for the lifts in the tower block (10 floors) and decided on a very high-tech system that uses the very latest software and algorithms to achieve the most efficient pattern of lift travel between floors. To achieve this, the lift has to be able to plot its route in conjunction with the other lifts and the demands of the users. Lift designers worked out that the most efficient way of doing this was if the users could choose their destination floor at the time they called the lift, rather than once they were inside.

So the lift call buttons were replaced with touch-sensitive screens displaying the numbers 0-10, and users were supposed to touch the button for their floor, at which point the display would change briefly to tell the user which of the (up to three) lifts they should take once it arrived. Once in the lift, the only buttons available were the usual door open, close and alarm buttons. There was no way of selecting a floor from inside the lift. To do so would defeat the pre-scheduled route of the lift and make the operation less than optimal.

This was the clearest case of technology driving its users that I have ever seen. Usability and human-oriented features were abandoned in favour of the holy grail of achieving the most efficient servicing of the outstanding calls. The whole idea was to speed up the total time for each individual's journey. As it turned out, it had almost uniformly the opposite effect.

Visitors to the building often didn't realise they had to pick a floor number, especially when other people were already waiting for the lift. They would get into a lift only to find no way of selecting a floor. Those who had selected a floor would occasionally forget which lift they had been told to take, and get into the wrong one. Again, no override was possible. Arriving at the lifts at the last minute, it was impossible to dive into the one that was just leaving. If you hadn't selected your floor it could be going anywhere (a display panel inside the lift lit up the floors it would be calling at, but riders couldn't influence the journey). Finally at peak times, the delays as the display switched between "select" mode and "please take lift X" mode for each person led to large queues building up and half-empty lifts leaving the ground floor because the remaining users hadn't had time to select their floors.

After a few months and much grumbling the scheme was abandoned, and refurbished lifts are now having an internal panel fitted to allow riders to select floors in the normal way.

By way of contrast, in a less public but just as essential part of the building, refurbishment is long overdue. I remember when the gents' lavatories were last refurbished in this building and it must be at least 20 years ago. At the time, they were the height of lavatorial chic. Now, there is hardly a square centimetre of chrome remaining on any of the taps, the basins are cracked, the taps drip when they're turned off, and never run at very much more than a drip when they're turned on. The floors have been mopped so many times they're almost worn away and the whole place has an air of abandonment that is most depressing.

I can't help feeling that a little less high-tech in the lifts would have freed up some funds for a much-needed revamp of the "facilities." Maybe next year...

Studious setbacks

After the recent setbacks with the decorating of the study and having effectively taken the day off from DIY yesterday, I was determined to set to today and affix all the new skirting boards around the room. I'd already cut them all to size on Friday, all bar the final piece which presented something of a challenge.

The wall to the left of the door is an unusual shape. To allow easy access to the landing cupboard (which essentially now contains nothing but the loft ladder and will, if we ever get around to properly converting the loft, eventually be used to take the staircase) the wall is not straight. It's the shape of a hockey stick.

The original skirting board made a half-hearted attempt to follow the curve by using one long and one short piece of board joined at an angle; the space behind the shorter piece being filled and painted over. I was keen to do a better job than this and had cut several perpendicular grooves in the back of the last piece with the intention of bending it to fit. I had a vague idea that all I would need to do was soak it in hot water and the wood would bend easily to my will.

Ha! For a start the length was way too big to fit in the bath, so I ended up standing it in the bath and resting what would be the straight end against the wall. Since our dear bathroom fitters had only applied the bare minimum of paint, this resulted in a nice white scratch about 8 feet up which I'll have to paint out at some stage. Using the shower head attached to the bath taps I directed a stream of hot water over the dozen or so grooves for about ten minutes and then returned to the study with the skirting board dripping steamily over the floor.

The hot water and the cuts had precisely zero effect on the malleability of the board, which steadfastly refused to bend past about 3 degrees, with even that being accompanied by a rather worrying splitting noise. So that was where I left it on Friday. Past experience has taught me to walk away when things reach a stage like that. In my youth I would press on, trying ever wilder and more imaginative ways to achieve the desired effect, becoming ever angrier and more frustrated until eventually something would split, break, rip or bleed. No. I walked away until both I and the skirting had cooled down.

So Sunday dawned and my enthusiasm was back to its normal levels as I returned to the study (resignation coupled with a realisation that if I didn't get on with it there was a real chance we'd be eating our Christmas dinner on our knees while our twinned computers continued to occupy the dining table). Before I fitted the skirting I decided it would be a good idea to refit the power sockets. Unfortunately this revealed that the accuracy of the plastering around the sockets was less than 100%. In all but one case there were gaping holes between the plastic and the plaster. Off came the sockets again while I filled around the cavity with my trusty filler (now cutting the cap off my fourth tube in this room).

Thus prevented from realising my goal of actually fixing the skirting, I did drill and plug the holes on those lengths that would require screwing as well as gluing. In all there are five lengths that are either slightly bowed, or being fitted on walls that aren't straight, or a combination of both. In one case the wall bends one way and the board bends the other, leaving an elongated eye-shaped gap between the two. A single screw is all that's needed to bring the two halves closer together and hopefully will save me opening that fifth tube of filler.

Finally I turned my attention to the hockey-stick section. Having failed dismally with the grooving approach I decided I may as well adopt a variation of the original fitting, only with smaller pieces, so I set the mitre saw up for a 90° angle and prepared to cut loose the longer, straight section. The handle of the hockey stick. As I sat there on the floor about to make that first cut, it occurred to me there was the possibility of an alternative strategy that would take advantage of what, until now, had been a bit of a pain in the Rs. The skirting I'm using is 6-inch and my mitre saw will only make a 4¼ inch cut. So all the while I've been fitting it I've had to turn the board over, reverse the cutting angle and make that last 1¾ inches with a second cut.

But now...what if instead of just grooving the back of the board, I cut all the way through, but only down as far as the saw goes in a single cut? Wouldn't that allow the board to bend, finally? And if it didn't, what did I have to lose? The timber merchant had for some reason cut this piece much longer than required, so if this approach failed I would still have sufficient left to return to plan B. So that's what I did. And...it worked! OK, as soon as I removed my foot from the bend it sprung back out again, so I will have to screw it back against the wall, but the idea was good and the execution was also good. It just means there'll have to be more filling and sanding on the front surface of the board to hide the cuts, but since the front is on the inside of the curve the cuts will be almost completely closed, so I'm confident the final result will resemble the dog's doo-dahs.

Birthday relaxation for a special person

Nikki's birthday today and we were planning a day out in the Lakes. Some of the Chorlton Players had decided to spend a few hours wombling around Haweswater and we also have a much-delayed appointment at Jennings brewery in Cockermouth to return the empty barrel from our housewarming party, so it seemed like a good idea to combine the two and meet up with the Players just in time for them to hit the pub.

In the event the forecast was for inclement weather so we cried off. I wouldn't say I jumped at the excuse not to go - I would have been perfectly happy either way - but as it's Nikki's special day it was only fair for her to have the final say. She opted for an afternoon/evening in front of the TV with a plate full of comfort food and a double bill of her favourite movies on DVD, preceded by one which was new to both of us, but which could well become a favourite: The Devil Wears Prada.

I was all set to hate it. On the face of it, there's very little to recommend it apart from Meryl Streep. It was a bonus to discover Stanley Tucci also stars - I've been a fan of his since watching Murder One many moons ago - but the subject matter? Haut couture in the offices of a New York fashion magazine? Didn't sound like my kind of thing at all.

Was I ever wrong. With consummate writing in general and razor-sharp dialogue in particular; with beautifully nuanced performances from just about every cast member; this is an absolute gem of a movie that had me laughing out loud many times over. And while it was having a great laugh poking fun at the vacuous fashion industry it was also driving home a carefully crafted message about being true to yourself and your core values, and demonstrating how hard this is when you get sucked in by something as superficially big and glossy and important as a job with a major magazine. How something that presents itself as the opportunity of a lifetime, a must-have can't-miss drop-dead life changing chance can indeed change your life and not for the better. You may find yourself chasing a dream that was never yours to begin with. Turned around and chewed up and spat out until you are not only unrecognisable to your friends and family but you don't know who you are any more either.

Fortunately for the main character (wonderfully played by Anne Hathaway), not only did she recognise this was happening before it was too late and walk away (literally), she also enjoyed the beneficence of an employer who, although cold and demanding on the outside, had a heart hidden deep beneath her crusty exterior and recognised the worth of her deputy assistant to the point where she was prepared to give her a good reference. Outside of the Hollywood version of high fashion and even higher corporate power broking, this would be highly unlikely. Made for a happy ending though!

Friday Five

I don't know where Diane keeps getting these from, but I love 'em and I'm gonna keep on shamelessly nicking them as long as she does.

1. What is your local lake/river/sea?
Ah. That would be the River Irwell. A rather sad little stream that runs around the centre of Manchester and Salford. Famous for pollution, rusty bikes and discarded supermarket trollies, and for at least part of its course, it disappears under several tons of concrete in the aforementioned urban conurbations. But never mind, the Lake District is less than an hour's drive away, and once you're there you can take your pick from dozens of lakes!

2. Do you believe in dragons and unicorns?
Not on this planet, but I believe in the ones on Pern.

3. What is your favorite fruit?
Blueberry.

4. Do you smoke?
No. I grew up in a house of smokers. Sometimes the air was so blue with it you couldn't see the telly. I hate it. Hate the smell, hate the taste. Always vowed I would never start, and I never have. Played around with cigars on holiday once when I was 19, but I still hated it and never inhaled.

5. Friday fill-in:
Together they would _____ .
make a pair.