shewhomust | Entries tagged with personal

The lazy days of summer appear to be over, and we are suddenly busy once more: with work, with play and - annoyingly - with things not working. This is the executive summary (as we old folks used to call the tl;dr versuin):

We revisited coarse, the restaurant where we enjoyed a joint birthday meal back in the spring. We wanted to take A. and D. out to lunch in Durham, and the options (once you have decided on eating out, rather than cleaning the house enough to invite people here) are few, and fewer than they were, Finbarrs having closed. We weren't sure coarse was a good choice for a relaxed, talkative lunch: would the demands of the tasting menu tend to upstage the social side of the meal? In fact it worked very well. A.'s thankyou may have been just a touch backhanded: the waiting staff gave lengthy explanations, but were softly spoken and on her deaf side, "so lots of tastes came as a great surprise to me as well as a delight." D., who is the serious cook of the household, was taking notes. The menu is seasonal, and I'm not sure I'd want to do it more than once a season. But I'd certainly be happy to see what they serve in winter.

Our ISP has been transferring things to a new server. No doubt this was a good and useful thing to do, but it keeps knocking out our websites, and our e-mail. When durham_rambler logs a complaint, they reply that things are working as designed: the reason you can't find your e-mail on this server is that we have moved it to that server. You just have to change your settings. Oh, right. Thanks. Meanwhile, at least one high-profile client has tweeted to her followers that You'll find my forthcoming UK tour dates on my website... So here's hoping normal service resumes asap.

There's also family stuff which I'm trying to arrange but which I don't feel like talking about just now...

Went to a gig in Middlesbrough last night. The venue, Toft House, was new to us: it describes itself as "the home of unpopular music" which makes it a perfect setting for Pete Atkin, who titles his website "Smash Flops" (and who I have heard recommending that his records be filed under "uneasy listening"). It was the first time in years we've seen him live, and I wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be 'an evening without Clive James'. That's not just because it was all about the songs they wrote together, which are surely the best work Clive James ever did, but but also because Pete talked a lot about Clive, and their process of writing songs together. There were one or two songs I didn't recognise, but mostly they were old friends, and it was a pleasure to hear them. One or two stumbles, but mostly an excellent performance, which seemed to gain in power in the second half. A chilling, dramatic I see the joker, and one last delightful surprise. Apparently taken by surprise by the demand for an encore, Pete hesitated about what to sing: he seemed to be leaning towards Laughing Boy, which is fine by me, when a voice from behind me demanded Master of the Revels - perfect choice, perfectly delivered.

This afternoon was scheduled for a neighbourhood tea party, rained off from the Coronation weekend. After days of blazing heat and sunshine, at three o' clock, as the party was supposed to start, the sky darkened. Was that thunder I heard? It was indeed. Within half an hour the WhatsApp group had swung into action, and we relocated the number 17. I am not a sociable person, and hadn't been looking forward to the event, but it was fun - I chatted to someone who had holidayed in Orkney at the end of May, and been taken by surprise in so many ways...

This week could have been rather grim: my diary is dominated by two funerals, neither of which we will be attending. The death of my eldest cousin was not at all unexpected; we would have liked to attend the funeral, on Friday, but given the scheduling, the fact that it is in Bristol, and our other commitments, we had already concluded that it was impossible when we heard the news of the death of another cousin (strictly a cousin-by-marriage). This was unexpected, although that's also a sign that we haven't been as closely in touch; and the funeral is in Brighton, which wouldn't be easy but would certainly have been possible. We decided against it, though: which is why we are not there today. I have a tangle of emotions about all this, but let's not go there...

Instead, a happy engagement which we were able to keep. On Sunday we had a phone call from a friend who lives in Paris. She has of late been spending a lot of time in Yorkshire, looking after her 98-year old mother, but we have never quite been able to make contact. Yesterday, though, she had to visit the Passport Office in Durham. We made a date with her and our friend-in-common J. There's a café right next to the Passport Office, a glass box by the river, which served us generous quantities of salad, and excellent chips. J. had to leave first, as she is attending a series of Bible study sessions on the Book of Revelation, so of all unexpected topics for a summer lunch, we ended up discussing the Book of Revelation on the basis of the first three study sessions (J), vague memories of medieval texts and the Angers tapestries (me), and a stained glass window included in one of her guided tours (our Parisienne).

Did I mention that she is a Paris guide? Yes I see that I did, though not recently. Is that really the last time we saw each other? It doesn't feel like ten years, let alone more: we parted promising to get together again very much sooner.

Bonus link: Paris Arts Club.

A warning to be careful what you wish for: yesterday I complained that I couldn't find anywhere to plug my computer in; this evening I spotted a possible extension lead in the kitchen, settled down to make use of it and the internet took advantage of my attention to deliver some bad news. Family, and not immediate family, entirely expected, but sad nonetheless.

That aside, it's been a good day. Starting with the view from our bedroom window:

We spent much of the day at Kellie Castle, which we first visited in 2014, with Bears. While we were there we received a message from a friend, a former member of the pub quiz team who is nearing the end of his job at St Andrews, inviting us to tea (and scones) with him and a visiting American at his house in Cellardyke. We drove there along the coast road, via the farm shop. So all that was excellent.

So it goes.

It's a beautiful bright morning, and I seem to have caught

durham_rambler's cold: my head feels as of it has been stuffed with cotton wool (with added sneezing).

This rather takes the edge off the e-mail that arrived this morning, cancelling tomorrow's lunch date (because of emergency plumbing): that saves us atruggling with the decision of whether we ought to cry off (and yes, I think we ought).

Yesterday we visited the Botanic Gardens: I have never seen so many students there. Presumably it's the season: I don't think I've ever been there when the rhododendrons are in bloom, either. I'm not satisfied with any of the pictures I took of them, though - too much sunshine, I don't know how to handle it. This was the only picture I really liked:

After the funeral,: immediately after I completed the previous post, we went down to the hotel restaurant in search of a light dinner, and found a couple of cousins just finishing their dinner. We asked for an adjacent table, and had company while we waited for our sharing mezze platter, and enjoyed our wine, and admired the brilliance of the sun on the trees against the darkness of the sky, and oh! look! a rainbow... Which strengthened until we could see the complete arc, and part of another, fainter bow outside it. I know that this isn't a sign, it doesn't mean anything, but it felt like a fitting end to the day.
Second thoughts (about Nottingham): When I wrote the previous post, I was a bit shell-shocked by the driving around Nottingam and trying to find places; hence the comment about Nottingham being a big city, which does not say the half of what I was thinking. On the other hand, even while we were careering through traffic, trying to find the drop-off parking, we had time to be impressed at the station's red-brick splendour. Leaving town the following morning, there were more buildings to admire: were those arches really half bus-station, half Wetherspoons pub? (Yes, it was.) I knew Nottingham had medieval remains, but clearly it doesn't stop there...
The return journey: We had agreed that we would break our homeward journey with a visit to some National Trust or Historic England property, somewhere we could make use of our membership cards, but it wasn't until just before we set off that we settled on Nostell: house and gardens, in the vicinity of Wakefield, that sounds about right... In other words, we had not done our research, and we got away with it very much better than we had any right to expect. More details when I've sorted out the photos; for now I'll say only that they have some magnificent trees:
Still earwormed by Eurovision,: which surprises me, since I thought all the entries were pretty forgettable. Most years, I become randomly partisan for one or two of them (the song or the presentation, I admit). This year the most I could muster was a mild amusement at the Game of Thrones flavour of Norway's entry, and I note that it did better in the popular vote than at the hands of the 'expert' panels. What I did feel was a solid dislike for a couple of entries - which, to no-one's surprise, came first and third. I don't know why I didn't dislike Finland's song in the same way: not that I liked it, but it didn't get under my skin.

Is it a result of watching the semis as well as the final that makes me ultra-aware of how repetitive all the songs are? Or is this a genuine trend: one verse, one chorus, repeat for as long as necessary. Congratulations to Italy, anyway, for a song that did something a bit more complicated than that - though still very much a Eurovision song.
Aftermath of the accident: Further progress: builders arrived this morning, and have placed the nice new coping stones on top of the wall. Just one more step to go: we await the arrival of railings...

We are in Nottingham for the funeral of my cousin: which is always a strange sort of reason for a strange sort of party. A. was one of the family group who come up to Sunderland from time to time, to watch the football, and are kind enough to allow us to join the for the post-match meal. So I knew that he had been diagnosed with a fairly advanced cancer, and the treatment only made him feel even worse; the invitation to his funeral did not come as a surprise. We looked at the details, and were puzzled that they suggested we would be at the crematorium for two hours - but A.'s daughter, in a rôle somewhere between celebrant and Master of Ceremonies, explained all: A. had worked with his children to plan his funeral, and had produced quite a detailed running order. "I suggest you book a double slot," he had written. "Because I'm worth it."

So there was time for a potted biography, and reminiscences from friends and family, and songs from the Sherwood Chorus, including one A. had written long ago. His companion and partner of recent years, P. read Robert Burns' Epitaph on my own Friend:

An honest man here lies at rest,
As e’er God with His image blest:
The friend of man, the friend of truth;
The friend of age, and guide of youth:
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d:
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.

I thought this was perfect, and not just for its brevity. So many of my memories of A. are characterised by his enthusiasms, his enjoyment of life - from a visit in my very early teens when he swept me off the play me his latest purchase, Bert Jansch's LP (there was just the one, at that time) to dinners more than fifty years later when we talked about what his book group was reading...

Long before his illness, A. had declared his choice of music to which he wanted his coffin consigned to the flames. In fact, this dramatic event does not happen in that way - but we played the Crazy World of Arthur Brown nonetheless.

Then we adjourned to a nearby(ish - Nottingham's a big city) pub, where there were drinks and food and people struggling to hear what each other were saying. We made plans to see each other, but not at a funeral next time (some combinations of us can hope to achieve this, others probably won't). By means of pushing in to conversations which weren't intended to include me, I managed to talk to a couple of members of the younger generation, in conversations which opened out into something real (at least, I thought so, and hope they did too). Mission accomplished, we ran the Bears back to the station, and are overnighting in a hotel (and recharging the car) before we head for home.

...to bring you the news that we have a car. Delivered this morning on a low-loader from the garage in Hull; driven to the parking shop this afternoon and equipped with a resident's parking permit. It is very similar to our previous car: a little older, a little fancier (sun roof!), same colour (black). I had confused it with another car that we ended up not buying, and was expecting it to be blue, but no. I'm only a little disappointed about this.

I haven't been inside it yet, but we will drive it down to this evening's residents' association meeting.

The builders arrived, as promised, on Monday morning. And departed on Tuesday evening, having removed the bent railings, and the coping stones in which they were set, and having rebuilt the brick retaining wall below. It all lookes very neat, if you ignore the lashed together barrier of wooden planks and the council's plastic panels (which prevents passers-by falling into our area).

Now we wait for as long as it takes for the stine masons to cut new stones to top off the wall, and arrive to install them (builders thought, three weeks). And then for the railings ...

Meanwhile, the insurers have offered us a lump sum which is worked out by some calculations of their own, and does not actually match the current list price of our car. But since no new models of our car are available, this is not entirely relevant.

durham_rambler has tracked down a one-year old, slightly flashier version of the same model, in a garage in Hull. At one point we thought we would have to make a trip to Hull to buy it (and were nit entirely reluctant to do this) but it turns out a) that the garage will deliver the car to us, but b) not until the beginning of April.

So we wait for that, too. Once

durham_rambler has accepted the insurance company's offer, we have to return the courtesy car within the week, so we may be without a car for a few days. I'm sure we can cope.

Tonight we are going to a party. I'm less confident of coping with that: I may have forgotten how to party. Time to go and be indecisive about what to wear.

We knew this was going to be a busy week. Ten days ago we compared our diaries, and said How odd! A quiet week with nothing written in it, and then a week of all the meetings, and a visitor at the end of it... And then it just got busier, and more complicated. Until finally the week got so packed that things began to cancel themselves out.

Let's see. I think the first thing was a message from H. saying "I have sent you an invitation to my birthday party on Saturday, haven't I?" Ah, no, not exactly. We had the long-distance warning that a party was being planned, but not the when and where... Never mind, D. will have left for his Wake (Lyke Wake club dinner) which is also on Saturday, so we can do that.

Then came the notification that builders would start work on Monday (this) morning, repairing the damage to the front of the house, expect them to be here all week. This is good news, and we can cope with this: I hope we can still keep our Friday lunch date in Romaldkirk, but if we can't, we can't. We spent some (but not much) time over the weekend clearing an access route through the house for them, while hoping they wouldn't need to use it, or not much. That's about the case: having removed the bent railings, they have put a ladder down from the street into the area. I don't regard the clearing as wasted effort, though: boxes of wine have been re-arranged into drinking order, piles of books have been shifted and admired, and a few Folio Society editions have even been shelved.

durham_rambler has had poorly ears for about the last week: I think this has been going on for more than a week, he thinks less, but inevitably by the time he accepted that he should seek medical help, it was Sunday. The duty pharmacist at Boots advised getting a doctor to prescribe antibiotics, so we spent much of Sunday afternoon on the phone to 111 - and when I say 'we', I mean 'I', of course. I don't love the phone the way

durham_rambler does, but his current deafer-than-usualness has caused a cooling between them. 111 were very healpful: they weren't, it seems, allowed to make an appointment with our GP, but they could and did make us an appointment that evening with an out of hours service based in a Portakabin in the car park of the local hospital. The doctor there prescribed an antibiotic spray, and

durham_rambler collected it from Boots this morning. Meanwhile, on the doctor's advice, he isn't wearing his hearing aids, so he has pulled out of several of those meetings, which should make the week a bit easier.

We set the alarm for this morning, so we were eating breakfast when the first builder arrived at 7.30 am. He has promised that it won't be so early tomorrow - which means eight o' clock, I think.

Since the building repairs are now happening,

durham_rambler e-mailed the vehicle replacement department, to ask how they were getting on. Recent communications from them have insisted on providing a like-for-like replacement for our car; that is, they won't allow us to accept the smaller model which the garage actually has in stock; nor will they settle for a nearly-new demonstrator. It has to be a brand new, identical model (though we can have any colour we like). The problem is that there is a nine month waiting list for these.

Ahem.

Today they have finally told us that they aren't going to be able to replace the car, and will we accept a cash payment? We have to go back to the insurers to find out how much that payment will be, but it means we can buy a car. So that's something to deal with tomorrow.

Almost a year ago, we marked

durham_rambler's significant birthday with a tentative sort-of-party. We declared very firmly that presents not not required (indeed, were not welcomed) and on the whole this was respected. But there's always someone, isn't there? As I grumbled at the time:

M. stood on the doorstep, refusing to come in (because people at her evening class have been catching Covid) and proffering a triffid; it comes with hand-written instructions which claim that it thrives on neglect, and if this is true, it has come to the right place.

I placed it on the windowsill in the spare bedroom, and occasionally when I am in there hanging out laundry (because that is where the drying rack lives) I remember to water it. Rather to my surprise, I have not yet killed it.

Indeed, it does seem to be thriving on neglect:

- the builder came to call. He examined the damage to the house and was duly impressed. He took lots of photos. Now he goes away and reports to the insurance company. Then, he says, they will arrange for us to be visited by a glazier, a stonemason and a railings specialist. He didn't mention a bricklayer, but I expect there may be one of those as well...

Ellen - who was once Samarcand in another place, but never made the crossing through to Dreamwidth - came to visit yesterday. It has been a long time since we met, and even longer since we met in circumstances where we could sit and talk for as long as we wanted to. So we had quite a lot of serious talking to do, and we did quite a lot of it.

We did - as we have always done - a fair bit of silly talking, too. Just because this journal doesn't have a tag for silliness doesn't mean it is never silly: on the contrary.

The title of this post emerged from that conversation: I can't remember which of us actually said it. I gave her tea in the puffin mug which was a Christmas present from the Bears, and she admired it - as well she might: it is a very fine puffin mug. So I explained, probably not for the first time, that beautiful puffins are always a welcome gift, but that there are some grotesque puffins out there, and that no-one should feel obliged to give me puffins just because they are puffins (this may seem ungrateful of me, but I have seen what happens to people who admit to liking cats, or ducks - or, inded, bears). "Oh," said Ellen, "I imagined you had a cupboard full of puffins too ugly to be displayed!" But no, there is no ugly puffins' cupboard of shame ...

Even as I write this, I feel sorry for those hypothetical ugly puffins.

When I described the multi-car pile-up outside our house, I didn't dwell on the damage to our own car. It didn't seem as worthy of note as the spectacular movements of the cars on the icy road surface, and the number of them involved. Nonetheless, it didn't escape unscathed:

The damage was serious enough that it could not be driven - the body of the car was pressing on the tyre - but not so dramatic, I thought, that it couldn't be repaired. We had, after all, done serious damage to a very much older car (on a rising bollard in Spain) and not only had it lashed up enough for us to drive it home, but had a permanent repair done at the insurers' expense when we got home.

Times have changed. The insurance company has now confirmed what their mechanics were telling us, that the damage can not be repaired and the car will be written off. If I've got this right, the outer shell of the car is put on in one piece, so you can't just replace a damaged panel, you have to replace the whole thing. There may be a good reason for this, but I'm old enough and grouchy enough to complain about a world in which nothing is repaired, everything is discarded and replaced - because resources are inexhaustible, aren't they? This is not why we chose an electric car.

The marginally better news is that the insurers don't propose simply to hand us the cash and tell us to get on with it, they will replace the car: "new for old" they say, which is not quite how I'd describe a car we have had since September (I've barely learned its registration number). But they seem confident they can find a replacement without trouble: they are asking questions about preferred colour, which I will believe when I see it...

Meanwhile, someone is coming next week to look at the damage to the raiings in front of the house. Someone else has already done this, but it seems she was just agreeing the claim as valid: the next person will assess the work to be done. Fortunately, damage to buildings doesn't risk getting the house written off.

In yesterday's paper: the Ladies of Llangollen: This article illuminates the third member of the household, the servant Mary Carryl.
On her death, the money she left to the Ladies (visitors would pay her for garden tours) enabled them to buy Plas Newydd, guaranteeing continued stability.

Traditionally, it's the proprietor who leaves money to the faihful retainer, so they won't be homeless when the property passes to the heir. I liked this twist, which reverses that convention. It must have been a tidy sum, to judge by the picture of the house, which is about three times as big as I had imagined it.
In yesterday's paper: finding youself in someone else's narrative: This article about the downside of kindness videos took some finding, because searching The Guardian for 'random acts of kindness' keywords prioritised a whole page of more positive coverage. I probably err on the side of caution: I'm very hesitant about photographing strangers, ao my pictures tend to show mysteriously empty streets...
On the other hand: The same article quotes someone who "has been researching consent and ethics in memoir and other life-writing for 10 years." Good subject: even at the very informal level od this journal, I do sometimes hesitate over including other people's stories. At a more sustained level, I have been reading Ellen Mellor's memoir Tea, Comics and Gender: it's very strange reading the autobiography of someone you know (and finding yourself in it!) but it's Ellen's story to tell, and she has taken pains over hoe other people are presented. Recommended, by the way.
The front page of today's paper: A picture of a dodo! Scientists plan to use gene-editing to recreate a dodo. Is this a good idea? I don't know, but I enjoyed the picture. (It makes a change from cabinet ministers.)
A phone call from the car rental company: They have a car for us. Hooray! I have rebooked my appointment with the optician for tomorrow.

This morning the low-loader arrived to take our damaged car to the workshop, to await attention. The workshop initially pleaded that they were too busy to deal with our var immediately, so we were quite pleased to talk them round even this far: less pleased when the low-loader got the car on board and promptly broke down, but you can't win them all...

It has also been conceded that we are entitled to a courtesy car as soon as the rental company at the top of the hill has one available. The garage originally offered us a car as soon as they had time to look at the damage and agree it was repairable, so this is better, and we are hopeful of having something in the next day or so. We were both a bit disconcerted by the possibility that the car might be written off, and can't work out whether this is just garages being non-committal or a real possibility, so we look forward to the workshop giving us a more definite assessment.

Our house insurance will send an assessor on Thursday morning.

We - and that's more

durham_rambler than me - spent a fair amoint of the weekend talking to neighbours, which is probably a good thing in a general sort of way. So we have been visited by the student from two doors down, whose car was hit, though no-one seems to know which of the two out-of-control cars hit it; we learn that the man across the road whose people carrier was hit saw the whole thing (his professional opinion, apparently, is that anti-skid road surfacing is available and the council should use it); a visit from driver number one reveals that he lives at the top of the hill, so this was not a story of someone unfamiliar with the road using it as a short cut; also that having been taken to hospital in an ambulance, he returned with a number of stitches in his face - and that the police have revised their position from "no further action because it was damage to property only" to "no further action because no-one was to blame."

I have broken my (prescription) reading glasses.: Yesterday I visited the optician and picked out a frame (my only requirement is that the reading glasses be as different as possible to any other glasses I own, to minimise the risk of wearing the weong glasses) and in a week's time I will have new ones. With luck they will work even better than the old ones, since my prescription has changed quite a bit. Meanwhile, I am squinting at things with my nose to the paper.
We - unintentionally - dined on vegetarian haggis.: I had included haddis in my cheese order, since these are the people (or the successirs of the people) from whom I have long bought my haggis. The delivery note says "not vegetarian", but I can see how expressing it like that could lead to errors. The worst thing about it, though, was not that it was vegetarian byt that it was tinned; also in a plastic 'stomach' as a result of which the texture was completely wrong. Which was disappointing.
Other endangered foodstuffs:: A Guardian article discusses seven of the UK’s most endangered foods, of which we frequently eat two, saddleback pork and beremeal. The illustration shows something unlike any bere bannock I have ever met...
Not the finger in the ear show: In 1982 the EFDSS made a half hour programme in the BBC's Open Door slot, about why you might like folk music better than you expect (the defensive note is theirs).

Watch on YouTube

Some familiar faces and some unexpected fashion choices (Martin Simpson in a pink bow tie?)
One for my own benefit: Thank Goodness it's Folk: Sam Hindley and James Fagan on Sheffield Live - because I believe the latest show had lots of Les Barker, and I'd like to listen to it.

We were thirteen at table: last Saturday, for dinner after the match with visiting cousins and family. The match itself was nothing to celebrate: Sunderland had lost, and had in any case played atrociously badly - I have no opinion on this, but note that the supposed fans very often judge it tobe the case. The party, in addition to ourselves, were three brothers (including a pair of twins), one wife and one partner, a daughter (and, I think, her partner), her daughter (in her first term at university) and boyfriend, a step-grandson - and one more: his girlfriend, possibly? The table sorted itself, as if Maxwell's demon had been at work, older generation at one end, younger at the other, so I never really sorted out all the young folk. We can't help being aware of those who are missing from the party, and that each time we all meet may be the last, but any family gathering which is not a funeral is cause for celebration.
Celebrating a Hatfield man: More or less by chance, and at the last minute, we spent Sunday afternoon at the Assembly Rooms with John Watterson, Paul Thompson and the songs of Jake Thackray. Part tribute act (Watterson has an ongoing existence as Fake Thackray, and his mimickry of Thackray's voice is at times uncomfortably good); part book launch (the pair have collaborated on a biography), part homecoming: I think of Jake Thackray as a Yorkshireman, and a French chansonnier, but it turns out he was also a Durham graduate, specifically a Hatfield man. There was to be a further, more conversational, event in the college bar the following evening, but I bought the book, durham_rambler bought the DVD and we decided that this was enough. It wasn't until we got home that we discovered that the DVD, a BBC compilation of Thackray's half-hour shows, also contained performances by guests, including Alax Glasgow - I'm looking forward to playing those.
Celebrating Georges Brassens: I probably travelled in the opposite direction to most people, because I discovered Jake Thackray through Georges Brassens, rather than vice versa (There's this man who is undertaking the impossible task of translating Brassens, and - gasp - doing it rather well!.) So this photo from Leclerc's autumn wine promotion seemed appropriate:

No, I didn't buy a bottle: I love the marketing, but who knows what the wine is like? The Leclerc catalogue doesn't say what region it comes from, what grape it's made from - it's a 'vin de France', which could mean anything...
Still active at 80: The City of Dur ham Trust celebrates its 80th birthday this year - which means it was founded in 1942, when you might have thought local residents would have other things on their minds. But a plan to build a huge power station just along the river from the cathedral sparked the creation of a Durham Preservation Society, and it's being going strong ever since. There have been various serious events to mark the anniversary, but Wednesday was the actual birthday, and a group of us got together over a glass of wine to gossip. The Mayor was there - he's a member -- wearing his chain of office, not for our benefit but because he had come straight from a gathering of the Showmen's Guild...
Other people's parties: A student party in one of the houses in the street that backs onto ours finally wound up about two o' clock this morning. Mostly I can sleep through the roar of their conversation, but the beat of the music gets into my bones. Several times I almost got up to phone the police, but it seemed to be abating - and then started again. Oh, well, a month or more into the term, and this was the first really bad one.

At lunchtime I had my seasonal Covid vaccination.

I don't seem to have posted about our previous attempt, when we were first notified that vaccinations were available, and we drove off to a clinic in Sunderland where drop in sessions were allegedly available. It turned out that the information on the internet was wrong, and you couldn''t just drop in (and no, we'd already discovered that there were no appointments to be had).

durham_rambler had his vaccination some weeks ago, from our GP, and his flu jab too, but I wasn't eligible for those. Then a letter arrived while we were away, inviting me to book an appointment, and I found one at a pharmacy in Sacriston - which turned out to be some sort of back office, a unit on an industrial estate, at the far end of a shed mostly occupied by a motor mechanic. Which was surreal, but the process was efficient and friendly.

So now I just have to sort out the flu jab...

I have not posted very much in the last few weeks. This isn't because I have nothing to say (as if!) but because I have been too busy doing things to write about them. Which is a good problem to have, but manages to feel like a problem nonetheless. This is not the missing post, but a statement of intent, a promise that I would at least like to write a bout -

- But that's just an aide mémoire for my benefit, which is pretty dull for anyone else. To brighten it up, one photo from the last weekend:

The closing procession of the family strand of the Hartlepool Folk Festival almost - but not quite - ready to lead off. Other subjects ( under the cut. )

Will I ever write them? Or will I be distracted by other plans, not to mention domestic trivia? Certainly, we have other plans, and no shortage of domestic trivia. But oh, I would like to write those posts -

It's been an eventful ten days, which is why there's been nothing from me but a piece of drive-by snark - and that's eventful not on the national stage, a rabbit hole I do not intend to go down right now, but here at home, where it counts.

Last weekend, then, as anticipated, family visit number one,

durham_rambler's great-nephew and his girlfriend. I don't know which disconcerts me more, that we have a great-nephew (two, in fact, of whom this is the elder, and a university student) or that no-one else finds it in the least unexpected. They had been in Newcastle for a wedding, and took the opportunity to spend a couple of days with us. First visit to our house, we think, for Great-Nephew, first visit to his family for Girlfriend. We asked if there was anything in particular they wanted to do while they were here, and being well brought up young people, they asked to visit Durham cathedral.

I was hesitant about walking in to town and walking back (yes, I know; things have changed) so we took the car as far as Pimlico, and walked down and over Prebends' Bridge. So we came into the cathedral through the cloisters. Here's something I'd never noticed before:

( Detail - and more - under the cut )

Last night there was a very different family visit, my cousin A and his partner "up for the match". Once or twice a year they come north to see Sunderland play, and we join them for a post-game meal at an Italian restaurant in Sunderland. Saturday's match was cancelled, of course, but they decided that they had packed, and booked the hotel, and they might as well come...

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shewhomust

The Shadow Gallery

May 2025

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Entries tagged with personal

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Family / visits