Month: May 2018

Trips, Royals and Trophies

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Recently, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I have tried to arrange at least one mid-week trip out from home each week.  This is, as LSW puts it, to mark that I am now retired and so have the flexibility to visit places during the week rather than during the more crowded weekends.  These have to fit around her continuing part time work commitments and, to a lesser extent, my trips to London but we have managed them with reasonable regularity.

Last week, we capitalised on the excellent weather and visited two gardens in the North Cotswolds.  Bourton House Gardens is relatively new having been laid out and planted around a beautiful 18th century manor house just 30 years ago.  The colourful flower beds, potted tulips, box bush topiary and knot garden were inspiring.  Best of all, for me, was a walk around an arboretum, with a simple pamphlet guide, that helped us decide which sorts of trees to plant in our own field alongside the few fruit trees we have already established.  Current favourites are Whitebeam and Poplar.

Bourton Hill Gardens

Bourton House Gardens

We then went to Snowshill Manor.  This turned out to be an interesting, coincidental adjunct to my pondering a couple of weeks ago about the accumulation of material goods and de-cluttering.  Prior to being given to the National Trust, the house and garden was owned by Charles Wade, a compulsive collector of items recording craft and workmanship.  He lived in a small cottage adjacent to the medieval manor house which he bought specifically to accommodate his large and varied collection of cabinets, artwork, costumes, musical instruments, tools and other artefacts.  The dusting challenge for his housekeeper and, now, the National Trust, must be huge!

Part Of Charles Wade’s Collection (Masks And Musical Instruments) at Snowshill Manor

Part of Charles Wade’s Collection (Masks And Musical Instruments Are Shown Here) At Snowshill Manor

The collection, and his compact personal accommodation, were interesting but even better were the gardens and the views from them.  In weather such as that we have enjoyed through much of May, England can look marvellous and it certainly was in the Cotswolds that day.

Snowshill Manor Gardens

Snowshill Manor Gardens

We rounded off the trip with a visit to Daylesford luxury farm shop which LSW loves.  The shops – even the grocery shelves and the food counters – look rather like art shows.  The prices are almost prohibitively geared to out-of-London trippers but the quality is high and several pieces inspired ideas for things that we might try to replicate in some way at home.  We stuck with those ideas rather than buy anything more than lunch in the sun.

LSW really enjoyed the Royal wedding last week.  Whilst not being particularly interested in the Royal Family myself, I can understand her positive sentiments about the wedding.  The bride and groom looked adoring and very happy.  Meghan’s mixed race heritage is a welcome extension to the Royal’s outlook, diversity and modernism.

LSW watched the wedding proceedings for hours and then watched the replays.  At one point she was watching a replay while I was watching a replay of Forest Green Rovers’ promotion playoff-winning performance at Wembley exactly a year ago.  We both had tears of joy in our eyes!

This season, Forest Green Rovers (FGR) barely avoided relegation from their newly elevated status in League 2 of the English Football League.  That was good enough for me.  The performance was burnished for me by my pride in winning the FGR Prediction League competition (for the second time in 10 years).  The competition trophy will have to be found a small space somewhere as other stuff is bundled off to car-boot sales, charity shops or the dump – but only for a year since I doubt I will be so lucky to win next season.

The Forest Green Rovers Prediction League Trophy

The Forest Green Rovers Football Club Prediction League Trophy (The Colin Gardner Shield)

Spring and Stuff

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Spring has arrived late but with waves of sun and warmth that suggest it is trying to catch up on lost time.  Leaves and blossom have burst into life and colour and the landscape suddenly has that fresh feel of Spring.  The carpets of bluebells in the nearby woods are already usurped by the wild garlic and the paths and verges are lined with cow parsley 4 foot high.  Already, we seem to be marching into summer.

Wild Flowers OnThe Way to Town

Cow Parsley, Wild Garlic, Bluebells And Cowslips On The Walk Into Town

The recent improvement in the weather has encouraged me to resume vegetable gardening in between trips to London (a cheeky, impromptu visit primarily to see a favourite band, Kefaya) and Nottingham (to see my parents).  I have been planting seeds, digging the vegetable patch and putting up a bit of new fencing.  For the first time, I am retired from work during a Spring.  When I was working, I used to perform what I called ‘speed gardening’ at weekends.  This year I can devote time throughout the week to a more relaxed style of gardening.

From bitter experience I know that not all this reinvigorated effort will bear fruit in terms of usable crops.  Not everything germinates or thrives and squirrels, deer and badgers have taken more than their fair share in recent years.  However, now Spring is here, frustrations with the local wildlife, and memories of needless gluts of vegetables that the animals don’t like, are set aside and the vegetable patch is cultivated once more.  Once again, in a few months’ time, we will probably be scouring recipe books and the internet for meals requiring lots of beetroot or courgettes and having beans with every meal.

About three weeks ago, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) had one of her periodic purges of our possessions to populate a table at a village table-top sale.  I had my usual power of veto to prevent the discarding of things that might conceivably be useful to me, our sons or any of their as yet entirely unplanned children at some point in the future.  However, I kept my veto in my pocket and a car-load of stuff was priced up and went for sale.

Unfortunately, our village evidently has a lot of people who want to offload things but few who wanted to accumulate them.  By the end of the sale, due to LSW buying yet another designer tap, she came back out of pocket and only one item lighter.  Given the investment of time in pricing all this stuff up, LSW had another go at a local car-boot sale.  She had about £60 more success but it’s clear that much of what we are trying to sell is going to take the normal trip to the local charity shops.

We gather so many material goods over a lifetime.  Some have a now outdated function and some are purely decorative but are no longer in vogue or have a place.  A classic example was an Apilco tea set which we once used and loved but which has been in a cupboard untouched for years.  We tested whether any of the sons wanted it and got negative responses (‘its horrific’ said one).  They already have what crockery they need and, if they need more, will go online at Amazon, John Lewis or Ikea.  Handing stuff down over the generations doesn’t seem to work any longer.

Apilco Tea Set

Apilco Tea Set Awaiting A New Home

At our age, we simply don’t need many additional material goods.  Indeed, LSW is strong – and persuasive in the face of my greater, but softening, reticence – on reducing our footprint by clearing our old stuff out.  Thank goodness for the recycling work of charity shops but the dump is also a regular destination.

These thoughts were going through my mind as LSW and I visited the annual neighbourhood open studios events of the last couple of weeks.  Lots of creative and talented people were displaying their art and craft work in their homes and in local galleries; some was impressive.  In past years we have bought some of the items but, more recently, we have walked around the open studios rather aimlessly.  We just don’t need any more things to sit on shelves or to go on walls.

LSW has recently started a ceramics course.  My fear is that her work – worthy and perhaps even lovely as it may turn out to be – will be another avenue of stuff entering our home.  If so, then at least I will have a bargaining chip in negotiations around hanging onto some of my long-standing possessions for another year.  But my realisation that I have to declutter that stuff is growing – maybe I’ll go to the next car boot sale or even learn to try eBay…..

Kefaya At Archspace, Haggerston, London

Kefaya At Archspace, Haggerston, London; One Of My Favourite Bands

Not Too Old Yet

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Following my last post here, I was admonished by both Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and Eldest Son (ES) for not mentioning an incident that occurred last time I was in London.

Following the gig I saw with ES and one of his best friends, we wanted to find a bar in Camden that would allow us to unwind a bit with some more drinks. We approached a lively bar but I was refused entry; ES and his friend were welcome but, evidently, I was not. Admittedly my memory from similar past occasions may be fuzzy but I can’t remember being denied entry to a bar or club before. I was astonished but all three of us found it very funny.

At the time I assumed it was because I was overly merry – ES would probably corroborate this – but later, as I considered how relatively little I had had to drink over the few hours of the gig, I wondered if the barrier to entry was on grounds of age. I didn’t ask at the time and so I will never know, but I would have increased the average age of the clientele significantly had I gone in. Given that we managed to get into the next bar I shan’t worry too much but, with yet another birthday coming up tomorrow, I wonder if I will experience this sort of ageist rebuttal again.

LSW and I had no such problem getting into another venue – The Forge – in Bristol last week. The Forge had cropped up one of LSW’s favourite blog sites as one that hosts craft workshops, yoga sessions and performance art including music. We went more to see the venue than the band (although listening to them on Spotify had allowed us to build optimism that we would enjoy them in advance).

The Forge, Bristol

Awaiting The Band At The Forge, Bristol

In practice, the headline act – Albert Jones – turned out to be excellent. The venue was also great although the audience was seemingly full of close friends who spent most of the time catching up with each other rather noisily instead of listening to the music – something I’m always irritated by more than I should be.

We conjoined the trip to The Forge with a scouting exercise around residential north and west Bristol. Cheltenham, Bath and Bristol are nearby cities and towns that LSW and I are considering as a place to live in at some point in the future. In part, a move to an urban area would reduce our reliance on a car while putting us in easier reach of entertainment and other facilities. It would respond to our probable decreasing personal mobility as we get older. Moving house is not something that we plan to do for several years – we are still upgrading the current one for goodness sake! – but it’s better to think and plan ahead.

Having walked several residential streets and looked at a number of estate agents’ windows, we concluded that Bristol is definitely an option. I would like the big, gritty, city feel but LSW would prefer Cheltenham due to its smaller size and more sophisticated feel. Visiting The Forge with its huge windows and elevated out-look, tempted LSW to imagine life in a top-floor loft apartment in a converted warehouse. I’m not sure how that will reconcile with the need to think about our future mobility. However, it’s fun to contemplate the possibilities and we are lucky to be able to do so.

Meanwhile, although it may be my birthday tomorrow (and I apparently increasingly run the risk of exclusion from some bars and clubs), LSW and I are still in good health. We can therefore focus on enjoying our current house, garden and rural community rather than worry too much about next steps yet.