News from Nowhere

Last Thursday, the forecast was that Storm Goretti wouldn't arrive before late at night - ( Wait, Storm WHAT? ) - so, having visited the greengrocer in the morning to stock up, we decided we were safe to go to Newcastle for Phantoms at the Phil.

The Phantoms briefly haunted the Prohibition Bar in Pink Lane, but having outlived that venue have now returned to their original home at the Lit & Phil. Fittingly, it was in many ways a classic example of the event: three authors read three new(ish) stories with a supernatural disposition, not admittedly in the book-lined splendour of the library itself, but in the rather better acoustics of a downstairs room. Each story was completely unlike the others, and each was a perfect example of its author's approach to the brief.

Sean O'Brien's Events at the House of M. Garamond had nothing ghostly about it: the narrator confronts horrors which are demonic but corporeal in nature, against which a pistol is an appropriate weapon. At the break I asked Sean what he had against garamond (the M. Garamond of the tale is not only evil but ineffectual, which is unforgiveable): on the contrary, he said, it was his preferred typeface. It was days later, chopping red cabbage for dinner and wondering why he had chosen to set this dark tale beside the Canal du Midi (a part of France of which I have many sunny memories), that it occurred to me what I should have asked him: had he been reading much Simenon lately? Now I wonder whether I had been listening to an adventure of Inspector Maigret, Demon Hunter?

The promise is that these will be new stories, but Gail-Nina Anderson produced a previously lost story, Boxes and Books, written some ten years ago, which had recently resurfaced: she took its reappearance as a hint, and certainly it fitted the theme of the narrative. The narrator is definitely not a hoarder (she repeatedly assures us of this) but, obliged by domestic emergency to move the boxes and books of the title, she finds things vanishing and reappearing in a distinctly spooky manner. Definitely not aubiographical, then? said pretty much the entire audience in unison.

So it was left to the guest reader to provide an actual, classical, ghost story. But David Almond is a not-exactly-guest, a revenant at Phantoms, and he knows what is required. His contribution, titled Ghost Story, is certainly that: but is it a spoiler to reveal that the ghosts themselves do not appear until the very end? Up to that point it it not certain that there will be actual phantoms: perhaps it is the story itself that is the ghost, something flimsy and ungraspable, a half-memory from childhood of a tale half-told, half-withheld... As characteristic of its author as the evening's other two stories but also, as promised by the title, an absolutely proper ghost story, it brought the proceedings to a close by tying a big bow around the package.

There was still no sign of Storm Goretti when we left the building, but a cold rain was falling. We felt safe to give S. a lift home across town, and indeed all went smoothly until we were very nearly home. Once we had turned off the main road, though, things got a bit more interesting. The car skidded briefly on the last downhill of the back street, but the ABS brakes did their job, and durham_rambler was able to steer us round the last two corners and into our own street. Where we skidded again, and rather than try to manouevre down to our front door (where the car would be vulnerable to ther drivers losing control on the bend), durham_rambler pulled carefully in to the side of the road just where we were, and we did the last 50 yards on foot. This was an adventure in itself. That cold rain had fallen onto frosty pavements and formed a skin of ice. I was glad that the council had not yet swept away the last of the fallen leaves, which had drifted into the shelter of the garden wall, and I managed, by digging my heels into the soft leaves and clinging to whatever branches the hedge offered (I still have the scratches) to reach the alley, then to cross it. Two houses to go, and the first has convenient railings to hold on to; the pavement seemed less icy, too. Later our next-door neighbour told us he had gritted the pavement outside his house, and that may have helped; he had also put out a Christmas tree for collection, and that didn't - one last obstacle, only slightly bigger than I am, to negotiate before our own front door step! A very small adventure, but quite enough excitement for me.

With Phantoms, Christmas is definitely over. I took down the cards - which are our sole nod to decorations - the next day.

Yesterday morning we said farewell to D. and valydiarosada who had helped us to see in the New Year: we sent them off into heavily falling snow, but the shower passed, and word came that they had reached home safely.

Unusually for us, we were still up to see the new year arrive. In recent years we have simply ended the evening and gone to bed as usual, but this year, for whatever reason, by the time we looked at our watches it was so close to midnight that we decided to wait. It helped that the BBC has been filling our evenings with Only Connect specials and been filling our evenings with Only Connect specials and the University Challenge alumni edition; and Our Friend the Quizmaster had posted the 'missing' quizzes (while there's a break from the pub quiz) online... So what with this and dinner and the crossword, New Year's Eve just flew by.

On New Year's Day we lunched at the Rose and Crown in Romaldkirk: not the first time that we have chosen this venue to meet D's sister and brother-in-law, as it's halfway between us and them, serves good pub food and welcomes their dog. The drive out was drab and grey, but while we were at lunch the late afternoon sun came out, low but brilliant. It hit the windows of the church (the Kirk, I suppose) so tha the little leaded diamond panes gleamed black and brilliant like splintered coal; it picked out the white farms in the green valleys and gilded the tawny hilltops.

( Bedoba )

So that's the year off to a good start. We looked at the snow, which is still lying, and the other things to be done, and decided to skip this morning's farmer' market. But this afternoon we will go to S's Christmas leftovers party, and next week there will be ghost stories at the Lit & Phil, so the festivities are not over yet.

We are home from our visit to London: I keep wanting to type 'our weekend in London': it would make a very long weekend, but a very short week. We did pretty much everything we planned to, but had very little time for anything unplanned. Which makes me all the more pleased about that afternoon in Highgate with GirlBear. But the rest of the time was packed with good things:

On Saturday

we had invited helenraven and the Bears to dinner at our accommodation. We spent the morning at Waitrose buying goodies which we could prepare with the minimal resources of our kitchen (actually a good-sized and well-arranged kitchen, minimally equipped, which was a waste); and the afternoon writing Christmas cards. I had a great evening: it was a relief that a flat for two people could accommodate five to dinner, and everyone got somewhere to sit. The plates weren't all the same size, and I had bought wine glasses, because there were none provided at all, but the wine was good (helenraven brought an English rosé, which was a perfect choice; I had bought La Marée orange because I was curious, and liked the label; it did not disappoint) and the conversation was even better. So that was good.

Sunday was all carols

and deserves a proper post of its own.

We spent Monday in Essex

with durham_rambler's family. In the morning we called on the Younger Niece. Her husband was working from home, with the emphasis on 'working', but there was time to say hello, and then the three of us went out to brunch in Walthamstow Village (very trendy). We were given a small but perfect gift, a miniature of 'The Wiltshire Laddie' from niece's father-in-law's cask of Bruichladdich. Then on to durham_rambler's brother and sister-in-law. Sister-in-Law was engaged in wrangling her phone, at the other end of which was Elder Niece (whom we had hoped to see, but who wasn't feeling well) and the garage (which was supposed to be preparing her car for its MOT but whose order kept bringing in the wrong part). But Brother was just back from a bird-watching holiday in Costa Rica, and had plenty to tell us about that; he had barely started to sort out the many photos he had taken, so we saw only a random few, some of which were spectacular. He had been prevailed upon to buy a pack of coffee, which (as not really a coffee drinker) he passed on to us. Whisky and coffee, what do durham_rambler's family think about us? After all this excitement, we were back in London with just time to say goodnight and farewell to the Bears. Because -

On Tuesday we were homeward bound,

though not by the most direct route. Given the uncertainty about whether valydiarosada would be sufficiently mobile for the traditional New Year's visit, we had invited ourselves to Ely for a couple of days en route. While we were in London we were delighted to learn that we were good for Plan A, so we reduced that to a single night stopover. Of which a highlight was that a notoriously stand-offish cat allowed me to hold her comb while she brushed against it (admittedly, I was sitting in the seat which is designated for this activity, but I have sat there before and she has never deigned to participate.

Wedesday: home again!

And despite some delays on the way (traffic; there being no fast charger at Waitrose in Newark) we were back in time to eat, do a first batch of laundry, and win the last pub quiz of the year. In fact, with the aid of our secret weapon (son of a regular team member, home after his first term at Oxford), we won both the main quiz and the beer round (read the message of the semaphore penguins and then - the hard bit - win the tie-breaker!).

That was half a week ago. Since then I have been catching up with a number of things - including writing this post.

On Thursday we set off for our pre-Christmas visit to London. As ever, Christmas seems to have arrived before we are ready for it; and as ever, this is partly true. Certainly the calendar has reached the point where the Bears must decide whether, in order to hold the Carol Evening on a Sunday, it must fall either closer to Christmas than is reasonable, or earlier, and have opted for the latter. I think that's a good choice, but yes, definitely not ready.

We did Christmas shopping at the weekend. Not only did we go to the monthly Farmers' Market, we also attended the Christmas Fair on Palace Green. At the former we may have over-shopped for vegetables, because the vegetables are so good there; at the latter we picked up a few small gifts, but were disappointed in the hunt for cards. The local hospice had cards, and we bought the only remaining pack of the design we liked, and there were artists selling single cards, but that's ridiculous... On the way home from the Farmers' Market, we made an inspired detour to the Garden Centre, where we again cleaned them out of the design we liked (three more packs). This enabled us to send off all the overseas cards. Today durham_rambler went to the Oxfam shop alone, and brought home a selection of cards, none of which I hate but none of which I love - and we have spent more of today that I anticipated writing cards.

Yesterday evening we zoomed in to Jim Causley and Miranda Sykes' Midwinter concert, which was pleasantly seasonal. My favourite thing was their 'medieval mashup', but there was also an intriguing combination of Sydney Carter's Song of Truth with fragments of Down in Yon Forest (which is always one of my highlights at the Carol Evening).

Meanwhile, durham_rambler is out being festive - at an annual Parish event, to which I declined to accompany him. I have plenty to do here, thanks: including writing this, and making pizza for a late supper (you could regard it as gratuitous cooking, or you could call it appeasing the sourdough starter, which I will now freeze to await our return). More of a problem is that tonight's event has caused another meeting to be rescheduled to tomorrow, which really is inconvenient.

Oh, well. Onward!

I enjoy the cooking with leftovers which follows Christmas: I don't know why people talk as if it was a bad thing. I like the illusion that half the work has been done already; and I like the limitation it imposes (this is what there is - now turn it into a meal). I made the surplus pigs in blankets (actually, I regard that as tautology, but durham_rambler requested them, and this is the season of surplus) into toad-in-the-hole (toads in blankets?) and tonight the last of the ham will go into a mushroom risotto. I have not curried anything (yet).

I can't see any end to the leftover washing up, though. Where did it all come from? (Guests arrive tomorrow, so it must be done).

I have tidied away the last days of the leftover calendar, and replaced it with the Angela Harding one which was my Christmas present from K. This feels premature, but we have enough plans for next week to justify it.

We continue to chew our way slowly through the crossword from the Saturday before Christmas: a minimalist grid into which only the consonants of the solution are to be entered. All of the across clues are the names of the composers, and not further defined. There are no black squares, so you could complete the puzzle by solving only the across or only the down clues; we have done some of each, but even this means that there are places where we have filled in an entire answer without actually knowing what it is. Clever, but not really satisfying.

Finally, a post left over from our visit to London: I threatened a post about the British Museum, and here it is. I knew that there had been many changes since I last visited the British Museum (when was that? probably before the British Library moved out in 1998) and was prepared for the unfamiliar; what I wasn't prepared for was how very familiar other things felt. But to start with the new, here's how the entrance hall looks now:



( More under the cut: )

And that really was all we had time - and energy - for. We didn't even investigate what looked like another, better, gift shop. Was that where they used to keep Magna Carta? No, looking now at the map, perhaps not. Anyway, it's in the British Library now...

Amazon called yesterday, and delivered a package addressed to durham_rambler containing a large box of shortbread biscuits. Neither of us has any idea who sent it, and there is no clue on the packaging. We are mystified, but not displeased.

We are paying our traditional pre-Christmas visit to London. As I have already remarked, it falls early this year, but we are doing our best to get into the spirit, with the help of the neighbours:



There's one house near the tube station which always makes an effort, and they have outdone themselves this year!

The flat which we rented last year was not available, and I did not expect to find anywhere else as convenient: but this year we are even closer ("Ah," said boybear, "that's what happened to the back rooms of the Tufnell Park Tavern!") so all is well. This year's accommodation doesn't quite have rhe charm of last year's, but nor is it up two flights of stairs, so what you lose on the roundabouts...

We arrived on Thursday, later than I would have wished, but not horribly so. On Friday, while boybear was teaching, GirlBear took us to Eltham Palace, which they had discovered on one of their London walks, and talked about with enthusiasm ever since. Originally a medieval palace, it was derelict and only the fifteenth century Great Hall remained when the lease was bought in the 1930s by Stephen and Virginia Coutauld, who spared no expense in constructing a luxurious country house around it. The juxtaposition is striking, and was, of course, criticised. Historian GM Young wrote to The Times complaining "the other day I found myself confronted with what at first I took to be an admirably designed but unfortunately sited cigarette factory." This is harsh, but consider buildings like the Wills' Tobacco Factory, which is one of the architectural stars of Newcastle upon Tyne... The interior décor of Eltham Palace is luxurious, in a slightly impersonal style, rather as I imagine the great ocean liners to have been - but with the fashionable addition of an exotic pet, a ring-tailed lemur (purchased from Harrods pet department) who had a habit of biting people. In the middle of all this, the Great Hall constructed by Edward IV, where Henry VIII and his sisters played as children, and the attendant member of staff and I indulged ourselves in working out whe genealogy of all those involved.

Yesterday durham_rambler and I went to the British Museum: it seemed appropriate to follow up our visit to Sutton Hoo by looking at the treasures excavated there, which durham_rambler claims never previously to have seen (I find this hard to believe, but there you are). The museum is so designed that you can't head straight for the thing you want to see, but have to approach through other galleries, and are liable to be distracted by many other wonderful things, some familiar and some not, and perhaps that will be a post of its own, one day. For now I'll say only that I wore myself out looking at a fraction of what is in the museum. Then we went to Borough Market to eat tapas with helenraven: tapas excellent, shouted conversation (over the vibrant nightlife of Borough Market) limited.

And now we are due across the road for an evening of carols.

I always thought that Christmas ended on Twelfth Night: January 6th, also known as Epiphany, the day the three kings finally arrived at the stable. That's when decorations must be taken down, right? Then valydiarosada pointed out that if you count twelve days from Christmas Day, the twelfth day, the one with all the inconvenient gifts from your true love, is January 5th. There's no arguing with this: once you count it out, it's obvious. Christmas ends on January 5th, and the following day, Christians celebrate the coming of the Magi. Two related festivals on successive days suggest that something has gone wrong, and that Occam's Razor should be applied, but that's how it is. So today is not Twefth Night. I expect everybody except me already knew that.

Thursday wasn't Twelfth Night either, but it was that date of Phantoms, a now-traditional event which has come to mark the end of our Christmas. Originally 'Phantoms at the Phil', from its location in Newcastle's magnificent private library, it consists of a trio of spine-chilling tales newly written and read by their authors to a delighted audience. This year the Phantoms had exorcised themselves from the Lit & Phil only to settle a short distance along the road in Prohibition. Downstairs this is a bar haunted by its past existence as a jazz café, but upstairs -



- well, I think durham_rambler's photo does a good job of conveying the combination of old-fashioned comfort and ghostly unreality. Gail-Nina Anderson (left, shielding her eyes against the light) said it resembled a well-heeled bordello, but while there was certainly an abundance of drapery, there was also something of the gentlemen's club, or the sort of library on whose floor the master of the house will be discovered, horribly murdered. Sean O'Brien, right, looked entirely at home there. Out of shot, keeping a safe distance from these two sinister apparitions, was guest speaker David Almond.

We habitually refer to Phantoms as 'an evening of ghost stories', but actual ghosts are in a minority: some years there are none at all. This year Gail-Nina's story was a characteristic blend of disturbing iconography and parish gossip: something nasty in the chapel of Saint Anthony Abbot; Sean's trademark horror crept up despite the daylight and open windows of an artist's workroom (am I inventing the Mediterranean sunshine?). It was David who gave us an actual ghost dispatched back whence it came, and left us - well, left me, at any rate, wondering whether this was a good thing.

After a busy, sociable time in London we are enjoying our lazy days in Ely. We are pampered by our hosts, who bring us food and drink and books and crosswords and quizzes on television...

Yesterday we got up late and did all of those things; I finished the book I was reading and started another (which is my idea of a holiday). Whether for this reason, or just because it was randomly one of those nights, I lay awake for hours.

So today we made a point of going out. We needed, in any case, to replenish the supply of breakfast cereal. So we parked at Waitrose, and shopped there: cereal, milk, a lemon and a potato masher (not an impulse buy, but something I have been wanting to replace). Considering that today is Saturday and tomorrow is Christmas Eve, this was a surprisingly painless exercise, and when it was completed, we had fun looking round the market.

D. is dismissive of the Saturday market: it's the tourist market, he says, and the real market is midweek. But we are tourists, and enjoyed looking at things without buying them:



I also did not buy a necklace, a Spode plate in an unfamiliar pattern, a watch strap - I need a new one, but this was identical to the current one, which has not proved durable - and several different kinds of bread. I did buy a small cake (pear, chocolate and pistachio), some of which we ate for lunch.

This afternoon we might have visited the cathedral, but we were distracted by the Christmas crossword, and it didn't happen. Oh, no! We have finished the crossword! How will we get through Christmas?