As the evenings draw in . . .

And don't they just?  I know we've passed the autumn equinox, but it does seem a little hard having to switch on the lights in the living room by six o'clock.  I now close the living room curtains as well, a sure sign that the dank, dismal days of an English winter are approaching.

The mornings are almost as bad.  It seems only last week that I was waking before the alarm clock sounded because of the light seeping in around the edges of the curtains and even through the curtains as well.  I'm sure it is a result of the ever-extending darkness that I am suffering trouble with both my back and my eyes.  When the alarm rings - no, it doesn't ring, it buzzes - well, when it sounds I have great difficulty on these darker mornings in forcing open my eyes and getting my back off the mattress.  I know full well that it is hardly a matter of life and death if I stay in bed another few minutes so I simply hit the snooze button - and again and again.  It would be all the same in a hundred years (as my old granny was fond of telling me) if I stayed in bed all morning, but there are things that have to be done and thigs that I would like to do.  The longer I stay in bed, the less time there is for me to do those things I would like to do after I have done those things that have to be done.

It will be different next week.  We shall be in France and when we are there, there are fewer things that have to be done.  There is no dog to be walked as she stays in kennels in England - and you don't have to feel sorry for her as she enjoys going because she is spoilt rotten.  The one thing I do have to do in the mornings over there is visit the boulangerie to buy the bread for lunch.  An possibly some patisserie as well.

Well, I can't sit here gossiping all day - there's a car-load of garden rubbish to be taken to the tip.

~~~~~

Before I go, I'll leave you with a little puzzle.  You can see from the sign that this Brighton building is the home of the Proud Brighton Ballroom, a cabaret bar/restaurant or, as they describe themselves, "a retro supper club".  (I've never been there, something I really should put right!)  But what was its original purpose?

It was built in 1892 as a wing of the family homeas a mausoleum for Sir Albert Sassoon and other members of his family, including Sir Edward Sassoon, 2nd Baronet, of Kensington Gore.  Albert Abdullah David Sassoon was born in Baghdad in 1818 to a prominent, Sephardic Jewish family. After many years spent managing the family's banking and merchant shipping business in Bombay, he retired to England where he was created a baronet. He died in Brighton in 1896.  In 1933 the remains of the Sassoon family were removed and reburied in the Willesden Jewish Cemetery in Londo.

The former mausoleum was for a time a furniture depository. During World War II it was used as an air raid shelter during fierce bombings. In 1949 it was purchased by a brewery for use as a pub - The Bombay Bar. In 2001 the mausoleum housed the Brighton Arms Pub. In 2003 it was bought and the name changed to "The Hanbury Club".

In 2011 the mausoleum reopened as Proud Cabaret Brighton.

(Thanks to Wikipedia.)

New neighbours coming?

The young couple in the bungalow across the road are moving out this weekend.  I've been wondering when it would happen as there has been a "sold" board on show for several weeks.  They don't seem to have been living there all that long - perhaps about three years or so - but have spent a great deal of money, especially on landscaping the back garden.  Their departure has made me realise just how deep people's roots go in this road.  Next month it will be 44 years since we bought this house.  The family who lived then in the adjoining house down the hill is still there - at least in part.  Two of the children have married and now have children of their own, the husband died some years ago and his widow has only recently become too frail to continue living there with only her younger son, a bachelor of about 50, so has moved in with her daughter.  The house beyond that has a widow living there and she and her late husband must have moved in at least 25 years ago if not nearer to 30. Going up the road, our next-door neighbour moved in with his wife and two children more than 30 years ago.  The children have moved out and the wife died last year.  I wonder how long it will be before either or both of the houses next door to us will be on the market?

Up the hill beyond Tom, the next two houses still have the same owners as when we moved in, and there is another couple across the road who were also here then. Nearly all our other near neighbours have been here at least ten years.

Plus ça change etc.

~~~~~

This resident has been around quite a while as well.  She is (was) Phoebe Hessel, a cross-dresser from the 18th century.  Buried in St Nicholas churchyard in 1821, you can read her fascinating story here.

My plan for today

I have spent part of the last two afternoons - only part, mind you - reclaiming the vegetable patch.  I'm not sure just how much work I did two autumns ago but i do know that I did none at all last year.  So, the two beds have become almost completely smothered in grass, dandelions, buttercups and all kinds of weeds.  I can fight my way through to the raspberry canes, but that's about the limit.  Of the rhubarb crowns there is no sign at all.  The hedge between my garden and my neighbour's has been pretty much non-existent for several years, most of the original hedging plants having died, but there has sprung up a very productive bramble patch.  This, of course, needs to be cut back severely each year and as we now have enough blackberries in the freezer to see us through until the last trump, or so I am told, I have made a start.  I now have a mountain of green rubbish to be removed to the tip.  A bonfire would be easier, but that's a no-go, so several trips to the tip await.  I hope to make the first this morning, provided the rain that was starting as I got back from walking the dog does not get itself set in for the day.

~~~~~

I've always thought I would like a garden path made of old bricks, like this one at the Upper Lodges of Stanmer Park.

If it's not fun, don't do it

District Governors - those people way, way up the hierarchy in Lions Clubs - often, maybe even usually, adopt a motto for their gubernatorial year.  Long ago - or so it seems now - we had a DG here in south-east England who adopted as his motto the phrase I have used for the title of this piece.  It was brought to mind by Skip's post script.

I have been surprised time and time again when something or other that we are doing as a Lions Club turns out to be more fun or, at least, less boring than had been expected.  Granted, there is a certain camaraderie involved, but even so, there is pleasure or amusement to be gained from many apparently tedious occupations.  Selling carnival programmes door to door is a typical example.  We don't actually hold our carnival any longer for a number of reasons I don't need to go into, but when we did, we spent weeks beforehand selling those programmes around the streets.  It helped, I suppose, that we always, always met up in a pub before hitting the streets for a couple of hours, after which we needed refreshment so it was back to the pub.  The thought of spending two hours travelling home from work and then having to rush dinner so as to get out selling was really dispiriting, but once out there, things always seemed better than expected.  And, as I say, there was nearly always a laugh.  On one occasion, it was me that provided the laugh.

There were five of us out that evening and for some reason, the other four had been having a particularly lean time whereas I had sold quite a few programmes.  I told the others my trick of the trade:  hold the programme out to the householder so they automatically take hold of it and nod your head as you ask them to support Brighton Lions Club by buying a carnival programme.  As they are already holding the programme you are halfway there.  Nodding your head makes the householder subconsciously nod his head, so hey presto! you've got a sale.

"Watch me," I said.  "I'll demonstrate."

The others stood at the gate as i walked up the path and knocked on the door.  A little old lady answered and I went into my routine.

"Thank you, dear," she said - and shut the door in my face, keeping the programme.

Then there is the warm glow that sometimes comes.

For many years, our club has organised a day out in the summer for disadvantaged children, a local zoo being our regular destination.  In the way back, the children were accompanied only by Lions and their other halves and on one occasion my wife was sitting next to a girl aged about 10 or 11 on the coach during the journey home.  The girl whispered to my wife, "That was a lovely day.  It's the first holiday I have ever had."

(Cue violins.)

~~~~~

A drinks vending machine I spotted in Nara, Japan.

The end of the season

By "the season" I don't mean the Society Season of Henley. Royal Ascot et al, but the silly season.  I sincerely hope that the change in weather we have seen today marks the end of what has been a particularly silly Silly Season.  Our wannabe Prime Minister has excelled himself this week here in Brighton at his political party's annual conference.  Regular readers will - or might be - aware that I try to avoid political matters (and religion) on this blog as I have no wish to cause offence.  But really!  Ed Milliband, otherwise known as Red Ed, promised that if he becomes Prime Minister after the next election, he will immediately cap gas and electricity prices for two years.  Only it's not really two years, just 20 months.  And he seems to be unaware that he will have no control over the wholesale price of power coming from abroad.  The price of shares in power companies immediately fell by 5%.  I am surprised it wasn't more.  Oh, and if development companies have land on which they have not yet started building, the land will be confiscated.  Heaven forbid that the loonies ever take control of the asylum!

Perhaps it was appropriate that Red Ed's announcements were made in Brighton, a city where the loonies are already in control.  Our Council is controlled by the Green Party, but most of the Green councillors represent wards in the city centre where green means a few blades of grass and from where few of the residents ever venture into true greenery.  Well, that's how it seems to many of us who live in the outlying parts such as Westdene and Patcham.  The Council's latest scheme involves Ditchling Road.

Perhaps I should explain that there are three main routes into the city centre.  From the west, traffic uses the bypass and Dyke Road; from the north, London Road; and from the east, Lewes Road.  That, at any rate, has been the usual practice since the bypass was built some 20 or 30 years ago.  Until the Council "improved" the Lewes Road and, as a result, caused gridlock.  Now a lot of drivers prefer to take a slightly longer route, travelling up Coldean Lane and then into the city by Ditchling Road.  It just so happens that, from the bypass a tongue of the South Downs National Park stretches southwards some way into the city, with Ditchling Road running through it for about a mile.  The northern stretch of this road has fields on both sides, then a stretch of unfenced grassland, including part of the field known as 39 Acres where many people walk their dogs, then a golf course on one side.  This part of the road is subject to the national speed limit, ie 60mph.  The Council's idea is to put cattle grids at each end, allow free grazing of cattle and sheep, reduce the width of the road, reduce the speed limit to 40mph, remove road markings, install a gravel-surfaced cycle/pedestrian track, bus stops, picnic areas and pedestrian crossings.  The aim?  To improve access to the National Park.  All they will succeed in doing (if the scheme goes ahead) is to make the road more dangerous (free-roaming sheep and cattle on a major route into the city?) and reduce the number of people who use this valuable amenity.

Granted, the Council has asked for public consultation by means of a survey on their web site.  There were 5 questions.  Four of those questions were designed to elicit favourable responses, the fifth was a space for further comments.  Then there were a raft of questions about "equality".  No doubt, the comments will be ignored and the favourable responses will be a substantial majority in favour of the proposal.

Cynical of me?  I call it realism.

~~~~~

The heart of old Brighton is an area bounded by East Street, North Street, West Street and King's Road (the seafront).  There used to be a South Street but that was washed away in a storm hundreds of years ago.  (And no, Skip, I don't remember it!)  This area is known as the Lanes because so many of the streets are just that.  This is Meeting House Lane.

Ees a puzzlement

It has me completely bemused.  Some days it does one thing, some days another.  And then, just occasionally, it does something else entirely.,  Then again, if this were television, it would be quite different.  Have you noticed, when somebody in a television programme - and I'm not thinking of documentaries or chat shows - presses the button to turn on a computer, the thing fires up instantly?  Now why doesn't mine do that?  Some days I have time to walk the dog three times round the block between pressing the "on" button and the screen lighting up.  The I could have a cup of coffee before I can actually do anything.  Other times the screen lights up almost instantly and, hey presto!, we're up and running.  Today, it was neither of those.  The screen lit up immediately - for which I gave premature thanks - but it took almost five minutes before the page on my browser came to life.  I just don't get it.

~~~~~

Where do you think this is?  Could it be a chateau in the Loire?

If you said the Loire, you're almost right, although it's actually here in Brighton.  It was built in the 1890s on behalf of the French government and received patients from the French Hospital in London, serving as a home for elderly French nationals.  It is believed to be the only building in England constructed in the style of a French chateau.

A close shave

Phew!  That was indeed a very close shave.

I'm very pleased to report that I have recovered.  I think I might have been suffering from post-traumatic sunstroke or something like that.  You see, yesterday was absolutely gorgeous as far as the weather went: warm, sunny, no wind.  In short, a perfect summer's day - except, of course, that as we approach to fag end of September we don't really expect such bounty.  I even mowed the lawns after walking the dog! But I alluded to my (fortunately brief) fit of madness.

I started writing a piece in which I invited you to come along with me on a virtual walk across 39 Acres and round the Roman Camp.  The trouble was that I got carried away and started waxing lyrical, talking about ships steaming down Channel and heading off to the Afric sun and exotic places like Araby and the Orient.  I didn't use those actual words - at least, I don't think I did - but the purple prose would have been most embarrassing had I gone on to hit the "publish" button.  I suppose had I done so I could always have claimed I was doing no more than those old "romantic" poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge, who wrote some of what is considered their best work under the influence of laudanum or opium.

The Roman Camp was indeed where I walked yesterday afternoon, and most delightful it was.  I did not have the camera with me yesterday but this is a panoramic view over Brighton and the South Downs made up of pictures I took a week or two ago from the southern rampart of the Camp.  At the left we are looking to the south-east and at the far right, west or even perhaps north-west.  I would point out some of the landmarks but there are just too many!