Monday 24th August 2015 - It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it...

A beastly raining raining and raining day.

He went and did the shopping and got soaked, I stayed in and tidied the table like mad


OK, so this is an old picture from last year, but it's the same
sort of thing that was facing me this morning

thinking that a music theory pupil was due this morning (wrong, she's due on Friday.) I'm at that stage of the school holiday when
some things are ready for next term

• some things are nearly ready but can't be finished properly until after term starts
• some things still need to be done but I don't want to do them (repairing a dozen samba mallets is high on this list)
• some ideas are still floating about and so all the books and papers are scattered everywhere as I look things up and change my mind

Anyway, while I was flitting through a mixture of tidying, moving papers from place to place, and writing down things that I was nearly forgetting, he came back from the shopping and the morning finished.

Now, in view of the imminent arrival of some friends from far away, some research was required. We eyed up the corned beef slices in the fridge that we were supposed to be having for lunch, shut the door firmly and went out. The research is required to find a suitable establishment which will serve the food that we deem suitable, in surroundings that we deem appropriate, for a forthcoming celebration. Accordingly we set off for



Image: The Chequers Inn, Rowhook. Copyright N Chadwick and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Which would probably have looked like this if the sun was shining. Having checked out the menu in the only way we know how, we gave it a "thumbs up" and made the reservation for one of the requested dates.

We will research further possibilities, in order to find somewhere equally good for the other requested date. Yum yum!

Saturday 15th August 2015 - Climbing out of the pit - a series

I was having a conversation with someone recently who is feeling low. What can you do, when your world has changed, and will never be the same again?

(If wishes were horses, beggars would ride)

I reckon everyone goes through that situation, to a greater or lesser degree, at some time. Certainly, in our family, that has happened to each and every one of us. So I said I'd do some posts on things that have helped me climb back up from The Pit when I've either fallen, or been pushed, into its grimy depths.

Let's be very clear; I'm not talking about Depression with the Big D here. I've never experienced it, and I wouldn't presume to advise anyone in that state. I'm talking about feeling despondent, overwhelmed, stuck, exhausted, tearful, totally-had-enough. I've been there enough times before. 

I think that once you've recognised that you've got into that state, then that's Step1 accomplished. I also think that celebrating success is extremely important. (I once got a job, in spite of being under-qualified and having no direct experience of class teaching on the basis of casually remarking that "success breeds success" in the interview...)

So, well done. You've acknowledged that you're NOT okay. Celebrate and feel good about it, because now you can move forward!

 

Saturday 8th August 2015 - A Surprise Parade

Well, it did rain on the parade, as our pictures show, but not too much.

How did the day start? With a trek across the country from Belfast, across the Glenshein Pass, to visit old haunts.

We started with the graveyard, to see BB's father's grave, but we drew a blank there. Unless it was the one grave with the illegible writing, or the other grave where the headstone had toppled over face down. So that's a task for another day, and probably after some research.

Onwards to Cumber Presbyterian Church,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killaloo

  and some ruins just nearby.

but it turns out that it is all that remains of one of the early plantain towns, called Brackfield Bawn, built by Sir Edward Doddington in 1611!

http://www.visitderry.com/P21045-Brackfield-Bawn-Heritage-Trail-Londonderry-Derry.aspx

Located off the main Derry to Belfast Road (A6) the ruin of the bawn house dates to 1611, built on lands of the skinners company. This type of fortified house was a requirement of the Plantation of county Londonderry by the 12 London companies; it was designed by Sir Edward Doddington, who designed the walls of Derry. A survey of the site in 1619 shows a village of twelve houses and a church near the bawn and house.

Onwards, through the grey day, to Londonderry. The road that we wanted, down to the Craigavon Bridge was closed for some reason, so we went through various side streets until we reached the way down to the river. This was when we discovered why the closed road, and the increasing crowds, and then drummers and fifers and men in suits and ceremonial collars... It was the day of the Londonderry Apprentice Boy's Parades. Big Ooops. The next few pictures aren't too clear; they were snatched through the car windows. We found ourselves literally IN the parade. A harassed steward guided us through the various bands, which were lined up ready to go, and lodged us in a space to one side.

Each group was lead by a mace bearer, leading first the drummers (snares, and a bass drum) and several rows of fifers. This was always followed by lines of men wearing suits, white gloves, sometimes bowler hats, and always the braided "collarettes". Finally there was a black, highly-polished car, or sometimes a minibus, carrying the veterans. And, for one band, us!. As they approached the bridge to the old town, we were guided off to the left, and out of the parade. Phew!

Intruigingly, the Craigavon Bridge is a double-decker bridge, so we were able to cross on the lower deck while the parades whistled and thumped their way above us.

 For future reference, the day to avoid (or aim for, depending on what you want) is the second Saturday in August.

Needless to say, most of the shops, and the cathedral and the museum, in the centre of the town were all closed. The modern enclosed shopping centres away from the main parade routes were open, so we were able to park in the multi-storey car park and wander around the city walls, looking out at the distant hills, or down at the parades weaving their way through the narrow streets below.

The atmosphere was generally a sort of seriously light-hearted. The sentiments behind the parades are clearly no laughing matter. Just beside the wall were the dying remnants of what had clearly been a HUGE bonfire; the houses closest to the fire all had boarded up windows to protect the glass from the ferocious heat.

In the streets behind the parades were plenty of police and armoured vehicles "just in case". We left around 4pm, after the last band had done the route and the clearing up was in progress.

We had no trouble, and I guess the same could have been said for most, if not all the people present.

Londonderry looks to be a lovely city, full of interesting places to see, and I look forward to going back sometime. When it is sunny. And the cathedral is open!

Tuesday 11th August - Game of Thrones

There may be spoilers in this post - not having ever had anything to do with the books of the TV series of The Game of Thrones, I can't tell.

But while we were in Northern Ireland for a few days, we were taken around to some spectacular places.

Like here:

The strand at Portstewart. Right at the far end, you might just be able to make out the Mussenden Temple. And here below are some views taken around Ballintoy Harbour

 

Here's me, pausing partway along the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.

It was a lot less scary than I feared it might be.

And finally (although this was the first place we stopped at) The Dark Hedges

Check out this link to find out more about these, and other Game of Thrones sites which we didn't actually stop at. Although, when we returned to the car after our adventures upon the rope bridge, I discovered that overflow car park, in Larrybane Quarry was yet another site (some fight scene or other - I did find an image, but lost it again.

http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/gameofthrones/

 

It was an amazing day, with stunning scenery. Not only that, we were lucky with the weather as well.

 

 

 

 

Monday 3rd August - The comfortable cat

This cat and I have been at war for several months now.

It really doesn't matter what arrangements I make for my own comfort - she assumes I've done it for her.

MY footstool (because the cat wanted the other half ov my settee all the time so I couldn't curl up properly)

This is the settee I am talking about - and this is the one and only time when both cats were able to occupy the same piece of furniture without scrapping with each other.

My latest patchwork quilt, made using on old fleece cot blanket, for keeping ME warm in the evening.

MY new bag

Today she has taken over MY nice soft cushion that I use when I'm working at the dining room table.

Son't be fooled by that sweet, cuddly, fluffy expression. It actually means "I got here first and here I'm going to stay". Any attempt at discussion will be met with indignant miaows and possibly teeth and claws (which will rapidly escalate into a trial of size and strength. I WILL win and the cat WILL sulk)

The other cat, however, prefers her proper cat bed above all places when she is downstairs.

Putting it on the bottom shelf of the new trolley has only improved its cat-appeal, as she can leap out and attack anything coming in through the cat-flap (meaning her sister, the fluffy cat), like some fierce predatory creature;

However, upstairs, it's another story; that's MY quilt on MY bed.

What's more, she won't allow the fluffy cat upstairs. There's usually a ruck when fluffy cat attempts to sleep on the hot pipes under the floor in the bathroom.

Well, I'm getting a numb bum sitting on this hard chair, so I'm off to make a cup of tea and a second breakfast.

Sunday 2nd August - Finished reading "The Gabriel Hounds"

Another Mary Stewart:

I won't give the plot away just in case you (like me) had forgotten it.

It is set in the Beirut and Syria of 1967, before everything changed.

I can remember stopping over in Beirut, the first time we flew out to Indonesia. That would have been in the winter of 1970. We all got off the plane into brilliant sunshine and unexpected heat to go into the transit lounge for a breakfast which included fried eggs, looking remarkably English in such a foreign land.

I was jolted out of the plot twice in the first few pages;

You'd never use a phrase like "Oh, it all went like a bomb..." to describe a successful trip through North Africa to Damascus these days. Too much has happened in too many places.

And how about taking a package tour to visit these romantic, ancient places? No thanks, not at present.

My grandmother never spoke of Petra without adding "rose-red city, half as old as time". I don't think I've ever followed up that quotation before;

from Wikipedia:

"The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate Prize-winning poem by John William Burgon."

It seems no work of Man's creative hand,
by labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;
But from the rock as if by magic grown,
eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!
Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine,
where erst Athena held her rites divine;
Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane,
that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain;
But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,
that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;
The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,
which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,
match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,
a rose-red city half as old as time.

Go here for lots of (creative commons) images. Like these






What a place.

Saturday 1st August - Flowers, Flying springs, Flying Ants

The other day, as we went out, I spotted a scarlet pimpernel growing amongst the weeds that make up our front "lawn". We treated with grass with something-or-other (well, HE treated the lawn with it). I'm not sure what it was supposed to do, but the results are not entirely unpleasing. A lot of the weeds, and all the moss, have turned blackish-brownish-deadish, leaving a certain amount of grass, and a delightful variety of wildflowers flowering weeds. I shall be sorry when mowing has to happen again.

However this confusion of ground-cover made it very difficult to find the spring from our lovely new doorbell. He was applying Loctite to various parts of it, mainly to avoid the possibility of the spring working free and making its escape, when, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, that's exactly what happened, pinging it's way to freedom and laying low in the long grass. The spring, I mean. Obviously. It took a little while, but we did manage to find it again.


We reckon the whole town was built on a huge ant nest.

Their little sandy anthills are EVERYWHERE.

They have even built a huge, dark brown edifice inside the compost bin. There was great agitation when I went to add some more kitchen peelings (and extinct credit card slips - them composting worms are as good as a shredder any day). The flying ants were all ready to fly, but were too big to escape through the little ventilation grills. Consequently I was mugged by them as soon as I lifted the lid.  Aaaargh!

Saturday 1st August - Another tidy-up job in progress

We were "early-adopters" of home computing, and once the children were born (a long time ago now) the computer lived in a corner of the sitting room.

The actual corner has varied from time to time, but at the moment, and for the last I dunnamany years it has stayed in the same place. I say "it" - the techy stuff has been rebuilt, upgraded, reconfigured and whatevered every couple of years.

And somehow, the arrangement of the corner has been a bit of a mish-mashy messy sort of area.

This is all changing!

I don't have the really, really "before" picture, but here is the first change, mainly to do with tidying. The roll of yellow paper was a piece of sticky-notes-on-a-roll which had just fallen off the wall, where it was marking out the position of the new shelves.

The heap of "to be filed" paperwork has gone (I suspect it may have been put "somewhere" as opposed to "filed", but that's a start), and the intricate arrangement (tangle) of near-identical (to my eyes, anyway) black cables with a variety of connectors is elsewhere. A couple of holes are all that remain of a single shelf that had been put up to hold software booklets and discs.

Aha! Three shelves will always look better than one! The single shelf had been annoying me for years! The plastic drawers under the bottom shelf were for storing cables etc... but 

 they really looked toooo cheap and flimsy for the job. So, the next day, they all got taken down (leaving ten holes in the wall) and we will have to look for something similar but more substantial, and more pleasing.

It doesn't take long for empty shelves to get filled.

 

 

Just this lot left to find homes for now.

 



It is so satisfying to be steadily chipping away at the bits and pieces around the house which have just been waiting (sometimes for decades) to get sorted out.