Slavery

It's been something of a grandchild weekend, great fun and a great blessing.  After Emily on Saturday, the two grandsons were with us yesterday afternoon.  I enlisted their help to climb the fruit trees and pick the apples and pears.  Unfortunately, the apple tree gave way with Max (6) up the ladder and Ben (10) climbing one of the branches.  Luckily, neither of them was hurt.  We were now able to pick all the larger apples - which were, of course, at the top of the tree.  My son heaved the tree upright and I propped it up with the ladder.  What is needed is a good pruning on the side that is over-heavy and then it should survive.  After the apples, the pears - with no more alarums and excursions, thank goodness.

It is good to have slaves to help in the garden!

That's it while I pop across to France to top up.

Wombling free

Today's earworm: the Wombling Song.

Our six year old granddaughter was with us for dinner yesterday (sausage and mash with broccoli, followed by strawberry trifle) and somehow the subject of the Wombles arose.  Since that television series dates from 1970 or thereabouts it was hardly surprising that Emily had never heard of them.  I was able to remember the first few lines of their theme song and my son found it on the 'Tubes.  Emily found it great to dance to.  Maybe you would like to as well?

All bets are off

I have never been a betting person, but that doesn't mean that I have never had a bet.  I have taken part in sweepstakes and even contributed my tuppence on very odd occasions when somebody has been going to the betting shop to place bets on a race such as the Derby or Grand National.  Heck, I've even visited the tote at the greyhound stadium and, more frequently, given the ladies who come round the tables in the restaurant my betting slip and the one pound stake.  Oh yes, when I get into the swing of these things I really go mad!

There has, in all my 70+ years, been just one occasion when I have entered a betting shop - and that was to pick up a charity collecting box they had on their counter!  Casinos, however, are a different matter.  For a while I even had a membership card for a casino here in Brighton.  Which might sound a little odd as I said I am not a betting man.  The only reason for me joining as a member was so that I could visit the restaurant when the Lions club held dinner meetings there.  I never did frequent the tables or slot machines.

My first visit to a casino came about quite by accident.  I was in Detroit for the Lions' international convention and took a trip on the people mover, as I seem to recall they name their overhead train.  I had decided to get off at a particular station as it looked as though there were some shops nearby where I might buy gifts to take home with me.  Unfortunately, I used the wrong exit from the station and found myself in a casino.  It took me all of 20 minutes to fight my way through the throngs of weary, dispirited looking people who were doggedly feeding coins into one-arm bandits before I emerged on the street.

I was thrown out of the casino in Monte Carlo.  No, that's something of an exaggeration.  I was not exactly thrown out as I never did get in.  The Old Bat and I had entered the vestibule and were about to go further into the depths of Hades when a security man told me I was not welcome.  In fact, I later realised, it was not me that was unwelcome, it was the camera I was carrying.  The OB was most upset, but I did try to make it up to her.  That would have been her first time in a casino so when we were in Carson City for a night, I took her into one there.  That was enough to put her off for life.

And what were we doing in Carson City, you ask?  Well, we were on holiday in California and had been to Yosemite.  We were due to be at a Lions meeting further north in the state so we cut across into Nevada as that seemed to be our shortest route.  Carson City sounded a romantic, wild west type of place where I could imagine gun-slingers fighting it out in a dusty street.  It wasn't quite like that, but it seemed a pleasant enough little place, even if it was over-endowed with casinos.  At least I didn't get thrown out of any of them.

~~~~~

I didn't take any pictures of Carson City, but a few miles north and back across the state line is Bridgeport, CA.  This looked to me like a slightly updated version of a wild west town.

Moving house

No, not us - although moving house does seem to be in the air at the moment.  My friend Chris and Mrs Chris have recently moved after trying for at least two years to sell their house so they could downsize and, perhaps just as importantly, lose the expense of upkeep of the swimming pool.  My brother has also been trying to sell for at least as long, so far unsuccessfully.  Other friends were persuaded to move from Brighton to Wimbledon so as to be nearer their family.  As they are both in their 80s, they no longer need a large, four-bedroomed house with a big garden (which they struggle to control) so they put the house on the market and accepted an offer the same day.  They will be moving next week to a two-bed flat.  Having lived in the same house for 30+ years, they have accumulated much that will have to go.  I called round last week and found cardboard boxes stacked in the hall, each labelled, "charity shop", "Lions books" etc.

I dread the thought that we might ever move.  We have (I think I mentioned the other day) lived in this house for something like 44 years and while neither the Old Bat nor I could really be called hoarders, we would probably need a removal lorry and at least two skips.  I have been in the habit of keeping the packaging from things like computers and printers, just in case they need to be returned.  Needless to say, they never do so all those cardboard boxes are stored in the loft as I always forget to throw them out.

Also stored in the loft are various cases and bags, each because it might be needed one day.  There is, for example, a hard-shell suitcase for air travel - but it is too small to use when we go to France and need to take bedding and towels, so there is another very large case for that.  Then there is a stack of the children's board games which might be useful when the grandchildren are a little older.  Quite why we have kept the slide projector, the projector and stand and screen is beyond me, but we have.  We also have an old electric train layout from when the boys were into that sort of thing.  We used N gauge rather than OO and tried to build a scene with fields, hedges, trees, hills and rivers.  And that's just one side of the loft.  I shudder to think what might be in the other!

We shall just have to stay put until we are carried out in our boxes.  Then the kids can have the joy of going through everything saying to each other, "Do you remember . . ."

~~~~~

One of the cryptic crossword clues this week reminded me of Skip:

American shoots African lion (11 letters)

~~~~~

"Do you remember . . ."  Time does play tricks on us - or I find so.  It seems much more than two years ago that we were in that mystical part of France known as the Auvergne.  As usual, we had rented a cottage and this was the garden.

Self-indulgence

I spent several rather tedious hours yesterday trying to improve a low-resolution graphic (a sponsor's logo) so that it would reproduce satisfactorily on a large - VERY large - poster.  I changed it pixel by pixel, only to find that the end result was exactly the same as before I started.  Most frustrating.  Things did improve after I switched off the computer in disgust, partly at myself for being unable to do what seemed a simple enough, albeit tedious (as I said earlier) task, partly because I suspected that a gremlin had taken up residence in my computer's innards.

The Old Bat cooked a very tasty risotto - one of my favourite comfort foods - for dinner, after which we spent a couple of hours in front of the goggle-box.

The latest (4th) series of Downton Abbey started airing about ten days ago.  As we had not then finished watching series 3, I set the recorder and yesterday evening we watched the first episode of the new series.  I have to confess that I had not really noticed something so many of the professional television critics had pointed out: that the standard of the scripts - and, indeed, the plot - in the 3rd series had slipped from the heights of the earlier episodes.  Yesterday evening I realised what I had missed.  If the rest of this series is up to the standard of the first episode, Julian Fellowes (the script writer) will have done a first-rate job.  He is ably assisted by the members of the cast, especially Michelle Dockery who plays a blinder as Lady Mary, and Dame Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess.

After that, we switched to real time TV.  Well, a programme that we watched as it was broadcast.  This was one of those superb BBC nature programmes, this one the first of a series of four programmes about the British seasons.  The photography was superb, even though I felt there was a touch too much of speeded-up footage, the sort that shows a tree as it changes from winter to spring.  The voice-over, although a bit twee at times, was remarkably unobtrusive and, indeed, absent completely at times as, for example, we watched a barn owl hunting.

Superb.

~~~~~

With today's photo we get back to the streets of Brighton, this being Lewes Crescent, Kemp Town, in the east of the city.

Most of these house have been divided into flats, but  a complete house did come onto the market fairly recently with a price tag of over £3 million.  This is the agent's description:

There are many historical rooms and artefacts within the house including a 'wind indicator', the lavishly decorated Drawing Room and listed 'King's Loo'. However, the house is currently used as a wonderful home and is now arranged over 6 floors, offering 5 bedrooms, plus a master suite, 2 magnificent receptions including the first floor Drawing Room, still with its original beautiful hand painted ceiling and walls, and the ground floor Dining Room with the ornate grapevine moulded cornice. On the lower ground floor are the kitchen fitted in a Shaker style with the original range plus all the necessary modern appliances needed in a modern kitchen, breakfast area with water feature, dining room, family room, wine cellar, utility room, shower room and plenty of store rooms, crockery and linen cupboards having been there since it was first completed in 1830. The second floor comprises the master suite offering the main bedroom, 2 dressing rooms and a full bathroom having a central roll-top bath with glass shower enclosure. There are 3 further bath/shower rooms within the house with a further four bedrooms being on the third and fourth floor. To the rear of the house are two rooms which could form a separate self-contained area for staff. The house also benefits from the use of the beautifully kept private Kemp Town Enclosures; a 6 acre private garden which also gives direct access to the beach via a tunnel under the road.

Dream on!

What a wonderful language

I suppose laguages other than English have their oddities such as giving inanimate objects a gender (How can a window be feminine?  It's too easy to see through.) but English most certainly has its quirks.  Or perhaps I am using too broad a brush and it is not so much the language that has the quirks as the way in which it is used by those whose mother tongue it is.  For example, what on earth could have caused somebody to come up with the phrase "right as rain" to describe something good?  I suppose if one lived in a place where there was an almost permanent drought the phrase might have some meaning.  But in England?  A similar phrase is "as right as ninepence".  What does ninepence have to do with the price of fish?  Of course, "the price of fish" (or sometimes tea) is simply a substitute for, well, anything, really.  Just another of those odd sayings that seem to have no meaning at all.  Like describing a bad-tempered person as a bear with a sore head.  And we link both rain and animals in the phrase "raining cats and dogs".

One can, perhaps, understand how some phrases have come into use.  A long wait for something would seem to be as long as "until the cows come home" to a farm worker centuries ago, although I have noticed cows congregating by a gate when they realise that it is getting close to the time for something, feeding or milking or whatever.

Some people say that English is the richest language in the world.  This opinion is based upon the fact that we have so many synonyms and near synonyms, words that describe exactly various different nuances.  Some of our words are derived from Latin-based languages, some from Greek, and some from Teutonic or Scandinavian sources.

Given the vast richness of the modern English language, it seems to me a great shame that so few of our youngsters can use even the smallest fraction of what is available to them.  OK, so it's not only the young who are so poor at communicating, it's something that afflicts all ages and probably has done for many centuries.  But why do so many people think it big and manly to sprinkle Anglo-Saxon sexual terms so liberally in every sentence they utter?  I remember my old scoutmaster suggesting that this was not such a good idea.  "What," he asked, "do you say when you get really angry?"

And then there are the "just a moment, I need to think" words.  "I mean, like, my mouth, like, is running, I mean, faster than my brain, like."

"Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour."  Or perhaps not.

~~~~~

With the "real" autumn approaching, there are signs that leaves are changing colour and the first are falling.  This is a view in Stanmer Great Wood.

Confusion worse confounded *

* Milton, Paradise Lost, ii, line 996.

Our dustmen - sorry, refuse collectors (or operatives, as the sign on the back of the dustcarts states) call every week on Tuesday mornings.  The recycling team calls fortnightly, also on Tuesday mornings.  Residents are expected to put their wheelie bins (general rubbish) and/or recycling boxes (paper, metal, plastic in one; glass in another) on the pavement in front of the house before a specified time on the appropriate days, but not earlier than another specified time.  Which is all very well if (a) you are available to move the bins and boxes in the allotted time span and (b) have somewhere to put the bins/boxes at all other times and (c) are physically capable of moving said bins and boxes to the correct place.  As our drive is very steep uphill to the pavement, the Old Bat is incapable of moving the bin as required.  Because there was a time when I was away a lot, she made arrangements with the Council for the dustmen to collect the bin and boxes from where they are kept just outside the back gate.  And that system has worked well for a number of years.  In the main.  There have been occasional lapses when our regular crew have not done the round.

But all is about to change.

We received a communication yesterday, 30th September.  The letter told us that new rounds are to be introduced from 7th October and our collection days will change.  The accompanying leaflet gives details of our collection dates for 2013/14 and states that our recycling will be collected on Fridays, starting this coming Friday, 4th October - three days before the letter se changes come into effect.  Our refuse, it says, is collected every Wednesday (it's not - see above) and this will change to Mondays.

Could it be that the wrong leaflet was sent to us, or does the team under the Executive Director Environment, Development & Housing (in other words, the Cityclean people) not know what is happening?  Fortunately, it doesn't really matter to us - unless the new team forget to collect our rubbish - but it really could be a case for another quotation (tho' I don't know its provenance): "and chaos reigned supreme".

~~~~~

Here's another Brighton building that has seen various uses.

Photo: Tony Mould

This was opened in in about 1891 as a Congregational chapel. In 1920 the chapel was converted into the 370-seat King's Cliff Cinema, and sound was installed in 1930. In 1947 it became the Playhouse Repertory Theatre, but was taken over by Myles Byrne in 1949 as the Playhouse Cinema. In 1951 it became the Continental, specialising in foreign films but concentrating on pornographic films from the late 1960s until it closed in December 1986. In 1990-1 it was converted to houses.