A Lull In Proceedings

October 2, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

A few weeks ago we were in Ireland and Edinburgh. Later this week we are spending a few days in Belgium. In between we have slowed down into more usual routines and come to terms with the fact that, despite unseasonably warm weather, the trees are starting to turn and Autumn is upon us.

*^{Some Of The Last Big Dahlias From The Garden This Year}*

There is still a lot to do in the garden before closing up for Winter. I’ve made some progress in that I have brought in an excellent harvest of potatoes and onions, have started to pull down the climbing beans and their frames and have collected the wood remaining from some cut trees from out of the field.

*^{Some Of This Year’s Bumper Crop Of Onions, Potatoes and Squash}*

However, I need to weed the currants and leeks, and harvest the squash and Jerusalem artichokes. I also need to dig over all the vegetable beds to give the bindweed and creeping cinquefoil another almost crippling blow before the end of Autumn. I say ‘almost’ since it cannot be eliminated, only managed.

^{Preparing For Winter – Wood Turned Into Wood Store}

A further project is to tidy up the compost heaps which have become very dilapidated. Jane will be upset that I will once again put together a rather improvised set of heaps using old pallets rather than use the purpose-built wood frames that she bought for me years ago. I continue to save those for when we move to our ‘Tin House’ (currently rented out) in Jane’s nearby childhood village of Amberley. The timeframes for that are vague but my short-term solution for the compost heaps will suffice in the meantime; I just need to get my skates on and do it.

*^{My Over-Full, Collapsing Compost Heaps}*

That effort needs to fit in alongside getting a grip on my small allotment in Amberley which I have held onto as another sign of our intention to move to the ‘Tin House’ at some point. Also, we have taken on a mini-project to help Middle Son (MS) and his partner to design and enhance his new garden in Bristol. This was a requested alternative from MS to a more typical birthday present. We really enjoyed delivering our first instalment of help while he cooked us a lovely roast lunch.

A low light of the last few weeks has been watching the steady decline of Forest Green Rovers (FGR) – the football club I support (enthusiastically through often through gritted teeth). Relegation last season following glorious promotion the previous season wasn’t entirely unexpected especially after our now much lauded manager left abruptly for Championship and, more recently, Premiership football. But we are struggling again this season and the disconsolate and disappointing defeat in the last match was very dismaying. What goes up can come down!

*^{FGR At Meadow Lane, Notts County. A Proper Football Stadium}*

On the other hand, a highlight in the last few weeks has been a weekend in Nottingham with my sister and Dad. I saw FGR play Notts County while I was there – we lost again, though only narrowly and a little unluckily – but what was most encouraging was seeing my Dad fighting his way back to the level of activity and health he had earlier this year. For a while this summer he was really struggling with a side-effect of the innovative, and seemingly successful, cancer treatment he has been on. Now that side -effect has been addressed, he has his mental agility and much of his strength back, and his treatment has restarted.

I stayed with my sister in her new house not far from my Dad, but spent the days with at my Dad’s house where we reminisced over tea, lunch and a game of Mahjong. We played with a lovely, intact, bone Mahjong set that has been in the family for ages. The feel of the bricks and the counters that substitute for money is wonderful. Dad was able to demonstrate his powers of mathematics were undiminished as he worked out who owed who and how much after each round. I lost all I had won when we last played back in May last year.

The rest of the month has flown by through a routine combination of the village men’s Talk Club (restarted after a summer break), a morning a week at the Food Bank, local walks solo or with friends, shopping for and then cooking good home food, and evenings of streamed television.

Our current streamed television of choice is Fauda on Netflix. It’s a gripping action series that develops interesting male and female, Israeli and Palestinian characters over four series. We are about to watch the last episode and we shall miss it a lot when it’s over. The last series is partly set in Belgium. I think later this week we will be visiting rather different parts of the country from the vast, labyrinthine housing estates depicted in Fauda!

Fragmented Summer

August 16, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

June this year was wonderfully sunny. The vegetables would have appreciated a little more rain but July certainly made up for that. Indeed, July and, so far, August have often felt autumnal and summer has only come in fits and starts. The sunny periods may have been intermittent but maybe that has helped us to appreciate the sun more on the occasions when it has shone on the unusually verdant countryside.

*^{Intermittent Bright Summer Sunshine On My Daily Walks Into Town}*

Our summer has sometimes felt as fragmented as the weather. The lack of any ties to school holidays and, much more recently, my retirement has meant that we don’t tend to book blocks of holiday through the summer months. As a result, we don’t have centrepiece diary commitments to schedule around. Instead, we have moved towards multiple shorter trips including those to our sons in Belfast and Edinburgh, plus a couple of day visits to Nottingham to check on my Dad during a period of ill-health.

^{The Wonderful Variations Of London’s Skylines}

Retirement means flexibility too. I was able a few weeks ago to piggy back, at relatively short notice, onto the back of a visit Jane was making to London to see a friend of hers. We could share the driving a bit and I caught up with an old friend of my own. I also took the opportunity to visit an exhibition of the sort that was part of my routine when we had a flat or sons in London. I miss those exhibition trips a lot. This one was a visit to the rather wonderful White Cube in Bermondsey.

*^{Anselm Kiefer At The White Cube Gallery, Bermondsey}*

I have been to this gallery several times and one of the most memorable visits was to see an exhibition by Anselm Kiefer. I wrote briefly here about that back in January 2020 just before Covid disrupted things. The monumentalism and scale of that exhibition is repeated in his latest works at The White Cube. I loved it and the White Cube spaces were perfect for it!

Kiefer’s works this time were based around the novel by James Joyce called Finnegan’s Wake. The novel is apparently (I’ve not tried to read it) a fractured mix of dream world and grim reality that deploys invented and combined words. The language of the novel is strewn across most of the works on show. While most of the phrases and sentences are nonsensical in this context, they added somehow to the mystery and sense of a dystopia as I moved from room to room.

*^{Detail From Various Anselm Kiefer Works At The White Cube Gallery}*

Goodness knows how the White Cube is funded – the exhibition was, as usual, free – and I fear removal of some of the works will require repolishing of the extensive polished concrete gallery floors. To be honest the huge piles of debris in a couple of the exhibition rooms were, for all their scale, harder to appreciate than the pictures on the walls. These were dense art works including rural scenes that worked for me close up and from observation across the huge rooms.

*^{‘Woman Will Water The Wild World Over’ By Anselm Kiefer}*

Those rooms were linked by a vast corridor stuffed with huge, dusty vitrines and crude floor-to-ceiling shelves full of… well, what were they full of? Just stuff! It was like walking through a museum of detritus but it was strangely compelling and all underlined by the sheer scale of the thing.

Another recent highlight has been a visit to Cambridge where I once – several decades ago – studied. I had not been back for quite a while and the reason this time was the wedding of my Best Man (BM). He lives nearby and we took up an Airbnb (which turned out to be outstanding) in his village and travelled into Cambridge twice: once for the formal registry element of the wedding and then again for a ceremony and reception held in BM’s and my old college, Peterhouse.

^{Our Outstanding Airbnb (Just the Left-Hand Portion Of The Building) From The Grounds}

^{Peterhouse Main Quadrangle and Chapel (Left) And My Old H Staircase In Gisborne Court (Right)}

The whole weekend was a delightful mix of ceremony, catch up with a few old friends and meetings with a number of new acquaintances – both local and international – who were very interesting and easy to talk to. They really helped to make the whole weekend event lovely. The event generated some nostalgia too as the reception dinner was held in the main Peterhouse Dining Hall where, about 50 years ago, I ate college meals every day. I didn’t appreciate the history or the grandeur of the college buildings half as much when I was living there as I did during this fleeting visit.

One other prompt for a less welcome bit of recollection was that Jane, and a few others at the wedding, contracted Covid there. Fortunately, I have avoided it again but it was a reminder that the pandemic was not long ago and that damned virus is still very much around.

During our stay in and around Cambridge, Jane and I went to Kettle’s Yard to see an exhibition of Palestinian embroidery over the last century that Jane had read about. Even someone like me with no real understanding of the intricacies of embroidery could appreciate the delightful patterns and muted colours of the clothing on display in the first room of everyday women’s wear.

*^{Palestinian Embroidery At Kettles Yard; Everyday Wear In The 1920’s}*

The exhibition went on to show more formal and more ornate wear and the way each local area had its distinctive styles and motifs. The exhibition then tracked the changes in Palestine embroidery brought about by history since the Second World War.

*^{Palestinian Embroidery: Formal Wear (1921)}*

First the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947, the subsequent displacement of about 70,000 Palestinians, and then the 1967 Six-Day War all disrupted and then broke much of the cottage industry of embroidery crafting in the Palestinian villages. Enforced movement of Palestinians mixed up the local pockets of unique styling. Materials such as silks from France became unattainable and were replaced by cheaper products. Small handicraft workshops were often replaced by factories. The end results, outside of a few traditional, small-scale operations, became bland and almost garish.

Finally, following and during the Intifadas of the 1980s and 1990s the embroidery became a means of protest. The exhibition showed how the defiance of the Palestinians led them to incorporate the Palestinian flag into their embroidery designs as a symbol of resistance.

The exhibition was an interesting mix of video and clothing, and of art and history.

*^{Palestinian Dress Post Intifada With The Palestinian Flag Embedded In Designs}*

Back at home the advent of the new football season, together with the Women’s Football World Cup, is starting to take up time at Forest Green Rovers’ football stadium and in front of the telly.

*^{Evening Football At Forest Green Rovers – We Lost (Again) But It Was A Nice Sunset}*

Also, we have entertained Eldest Son, his wife and First Grandchild (FG) with a number of relatives who were keen to meet the little one. I had a great time with FG and my phone is full of video of him that Jane and I watch on repeat. Now we are looking forward to entertaining Youngest Son, his partner and some of their (and our) friends from their time in Australia. Then we are off to Ireland for another wedding. For a quietly retired chap like me, summer may feel a bit fragmented but it also feels pretty full!

Three Property Purchases and a Funeral

December 19, 2022 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Last month we went to a funeral for a very popular, lovely, family man almost 10 years younger than me. He had died suddenly leaving his family and friends shocked and bereft. It was an absolutely packed and emotional church service – he was a terrific guy who was enormously popular – followed by an equally packed reception. The whole occasion was very moving and I have thought about it a lot since.

Of course, the overriding feeling during the service and afterwards was sadness that it represented a life cut short, especially as he was so full of life, he had looked so well and was so obviously a vital part of his family, the organisation he worked for and his local community. However, the speeches and readings at the funeral were largely an uplifting celebration of his life. There were many amusing anecdotes and also a lovely poem by David Harkins that provided a positive slant on death that gave a little boost even in such a sad situation.

You can shed tears that he is gone
Or you can smile because he has lived

You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday

You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

Into this mix of shock, sadness and a celebration of a life well lived, was a feeling of being the recipient of good fortune in that I am still here and reasonably healthy. I have seen three sons settle with three delightful partners and seen Eldest Son produce a wonderful child with his wife. And, this year, I’ve seen all three sons purchase homes with their partners that are each very different but which seem very well suited to each pair; a flat in Edinburgh, a terrace house in Bristol and a semi-detached house in Belfast.

Old age may bring aches, pains and worse but it is a privilege to have had longevity to be able to see our sons grow and establish themselves in the world, to be happy and to establish a platform into which they could introduce new life. As I stood in the crowded church at the funeral, I thought: lucky me.

*^{Late Afternoon Walk With Middle Son And His Partner Near Their New Home In Bristol}*

Even as Christmas approaches and we look forward to hosting our sons and their partners at various times over the Christmas period, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I are starting to think about making the most of our time with a few trips next year. First, we want to get to Belfast to see Youngest Son’s new house but we will be trying to visit Edinburgh too and, I hope, spending smaller but more numerous fragments of time in nearby Bristol. Plus, after a few years of abstinence, we want to travel abroad again.

Meanwhile, I continue to potter through my local routine of walking, shopping, cooking, and working a bit for the local Climate Action Network and Food Bank. In recent cold, clear weather, the local walks have been a real treat.

Plus, of course, I have been watching a lot of football at the World Cup. Qatar may have been a crazy choice for a number of reasons but the overall quality of the football has been great. For all the concern about the Qatari views on LGBTQ rights and workers rights, it has been a pleasant change to see the joyous, ebullient crowds in the stadia in contrast to the thuggery and tears at Wembley at the Euros a couple of years ago.

My normal routine was also interrupted but enhanced by a trip to Lewes in Sussex. I tagged along with LSW who wanted to visit a specific shop called Freight there. It was a long way to travel for a shop but it was very much LSWs thing and Lewes is a very attractive town.

*^{Harvey’s Brewery And St Michael’s Church, Lewes}*

Harvey’s brewery is based in the town and the smell of hops was delightful as we walked down the high street. It is a smell that reminds me of my home town of Reading which was the home of Courage breweries in my youth. I love it.

After a very good value and pleasant lunch at Bill’s, LSW and I split up for a bit. While LSW surveyed the shops, I wandered around the town’s castle and gardens. The gardens are a bit bleak at this time of year but the weather was fine and the views from the visitor-friendly castle were pretty impressive in all directions.

*^{Views Of And Views From Lewes Castle}*

Since getting back home, the weather has been very cold and then surprisingly snowy. We had about seven inches of snow and it stuck around for almost a week. My Yaktrax Ice Grips allowed me to continue my normal round of walks to and from the local towns and the frost and snow made the local countryside en route even prettier than usual. A week of such weather is, though, enough in my book; I am looking forward to temperatures rising a little bit before Christmas.

*^{Frosty Weather In Nearby Ruskin Mill Valley}*

And so on to Christmas! Hopefully our sons and their partners will be able to avoid the issues caused by strikes and weather to make it down to us from their various new abodes. Then we can feel so lucky all over again…..

*^{A Cold And Not-So-Lucky Grey Heron In Ruskin Mill Valley}*

Task Oriented Autumn

November 9, 2022June 9, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

A few posts ago I mentioned that I had started going to a Mental Fitness For Men group under the auspices of Talk Club. Our local pub landlord has arranged weekly Talk Club sessions and I have made it to most of them since they started a few months ago. The sessions are of fixed format but the people who turn up each week vary so there is always something new to listen to as well as, usually, something new to say.

I’ve found the meetings useful in that they help me frame what I am grateful for and what I’m going to do in the next week to make things feel better for myself. However, I do often feel daunted by the lucidity with which most others in the weekly groups talk about the way they feel. In comparison I tend to fall back into talking about things I have done and things I’m going to do. I have explained to the group (and myself) that I tend to feel happiest when I am ticking off tasks on my to-do list but I suspect that I need to get deeper into how I feel about life rather than describing tasks.

Having said that, I have felt a certain contentment that, by and large, I have done what I said I would do over the last few weeks. The tasks have varied from raking up the scythed and strimmed grass in the meadow (into piles I don’t quite know what to do with), to harvesting the last summer crops and gathering seed for next year, to production of a string of documents I promised for the local Climate Action Network group that I belong to.

*^{Not Quite A Crown Prince Squash. Grown From Gathered 2021 Seed And Reverted From F1 Hybrid – Tasty Though!}*

Today, post-Foodbank duties, I am even finally managing to get around to making crab apple jelly which is a task that has been on my to-do list for a few weeks. Overall, October and early November has been a good month for tiny achievements amongst my retirement routine!

*^{Making Crab Apple Jelly – Tree -> Apples -> Straining -> Jelly! (First Of Two Batches)}*

There have been a few other high points recently. Middle Son (MS) and his partner have moved from London to Bristol – just 45 minutes away. That means that we will see them more often. For example, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I were delighted when they popped over for an impromptu dinner a couple of Fridays ago. It was lovely to have a normalised drop-in-type arrangement with one of our sons rather than have to think about days packing, travelling and staying away from home.

Not that those sorts of visits are not welcome. We are off to Edinburgh again later this week and can’t wait to see First Grandchild (FG) again (and his parents!) for the first time in over two months. It’s going to be a special visit this time to celebrate not only FG’s first birthday, but also Eldest Son (ES) and his partner’s marriage. I’m so glad they have chosen a relatively low key way of getting married and celebrating that with a few close relatives. However, the event is momentous nonetheless and it will be lovely to have all our boys, their partners, my Dad and my sister all together with FG in one place at the same time.

We have also had some old friends come to visit us for a weekend. We have been rather poor at inviting people over for almost anything since the Covid pandemic; we seem to have just got out of that pattern of being. But it was great to see these long standing and close friends again. We had an active but relaxed time with them that culminated in a delightful walk in the Slad Valley and then an excellent lunch at The Woolpack (of Laurie Lee fame).

*^{The Slad Valley Near Stroud Between Autumn Showers}*

Much of the rest of the time in the last few weeks has been more routine. However, I helped to advertise a talk that our village Climate Action Network group arranged with the Parish Council on rewilding and the impact of climate change on our local trees. The theme of this talk, and a continuing series we have planned for next year, is ‘hope’. This is to counteract the inevitable descent into gloom if we consider and talk too much about the climate and biodiversity emergencies alongside other current preoccupations such as the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis.

The first talk in the ‘Hope Talks’ series was almost wildly successful. We have a hard act to follow as we go into next year. The talks themselves bring the village together and just the fact they happen adds to the resilience of the community and its cohesiveness. I edit a quarterly newsletter (another task done this week!) and submit articles to the monthly village magazine but these ‘Hope Talks’ hold out greater promise for conveying useful information while being a great relationship building mechanism.

*^{Our Learned ‘Hope Talk’ Speaker – Local Resident, Dr David Bullock (With Props)}*

Of course, other continuing elements of my recent retirement routine have been steadfast support of local football teams (Forest Green Rovers but also Shortwood United and Horsley United) and more of the Autumnal walks I talked about in my last post.

*^{Local Team Shortwood United In The Process Of Winning 5-0}*

The Autumn weather has been so mild and, until recently, so dry that the walks have been particularly pleasant. The colours in the trees have been changing quite variably from species to species. That has meant that while the reds and yellows have perhaps not been as spectacular as in some past years, the blending of different colours across the valley slopes has been very attractive.

*^{Local Walk Lined With Lime And Hazel Trees}*

I plan to keep up the local walks even as the winter weather closes in. However, I do also plan to reduce the number of discretionary, extraneous things I commit to in the next few months. At least that way I may be able to think more about abstract feelings rather than worrying about the state of my to-do list and the rate of knocking items off it. I may even resort to that old trick of adding things to the to-do list that I have already done…..

*^{Lovely Valley, Lovely Weather, Long Shadows}*

Seeing Football, Missing Football

September 15, 2022September 15, 2022 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

To Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) occasional frustration, I have been careful up to now to ensure that our trips to Edinburgh to see First Grandchild and his parents haven’t clashed with home fixtures for my football club, Forest Green Rovers (FGR). I have a season ticket and, quite apart from my desire (obsession?) to see my team play whenever I reasonably can, I’m the sort of person that wants to get full value from my season ticket investment.

However, I am not going to be able to keep this up since First Grandchild (FG) has a birthday around a weekend when FGR are playing at home. Even football doesn’t take precedence over celebrating the end of his first year with us.

That birthday is in November but I am already going to miss another home game later this week when I am accompanying LSW to her long-weekend college reunion in Buxton, Derbyshire. I regret missing the game but, in truth, it is going to be nice to get away for a change of scene again given that we haven’t had a proper holiday this year.

In any case, I have just been able to engineer seeing an away game at Charlton in London during a trip ostensibly to attend my annual dental check-up and to fix a recently broken tooth. So, I have managed to keep up my support in person at a good number of FGR’s games so far this season.

Unfortunately, following promotion as Champions from English Football League 2 last May, this season in a higher league is a struggle. The scale of the clubs we are playing, the impressiveness of their stadiums and the quality of the football is all much greater than in the past. As a result, positive results have, so far, been hard to come by.

*^{A Minutes Silence For The Queen at Charlton Athletic}*

So, it was great that I was able to see us wobble through to secure a draw and a well-earned point at Charlton Athletic – one of the ‘big’ teams who were once in the English Premier League but who now have to cope with us in English Football League 1 (EFL1). Even better, I was able to meet up with a great Australian friend of Youngest Son (and devoted supporter of FGR) at the game and catch up, and sing along, with him. Based on the performance in our last two games, I remain hopeful that we can consolidate our position in EFL1.

*^{Edinburgh’s Inverleith Park: Picnic Panorama}*

More on my brief London trip another time….. Earlier, our August trip to Edinburgh was, as usual, lovely. It was, of course, great to see how much First Grandchild had developed since the last time we have seen him some 6 weeks or so previously. It was nice too to see how Eldest Son (ES) and his partner have settled into their new flat (including a newly decorated kitchen) and have got FGs sleeping at night more under control.

A major change since visits earlier in the year was that, whereas we used to take FG out in his buggy when it was time for him to sleep, now we take him out between naps to keep him awake. That makes the walks around Edinburgh more interesting for him and us. I can envisage that by the time of our next visit, FG won’t be so content to be in his buggy and will want to try out his embryonic walking skills.

*^{Aerial View Of Part Of The Royal Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh}*

We did our usual trip to, and around, the Royal Botanic Gardens. The gardens are interesting all year around and FG particularly likes the running water and waterfalls in the Rockery. For me, the highlight was the Kitchen Garden in front of the Botanic Cottage which was planted with wild flowers. The mix was varied cleverly throughout the planted space so that, when standing in the middle, the colour palette shifted as one turned around.

FG was much more impressed by our visit to the National Museum of Scotland. I’m going to love taking him here every time I get up to Edinburgh. For a small child, there is so much going on, so many buttons to push and so much movement. At this stage, FG seems more interested in the other children than the exhibits but I can see hours of fun ahead.

*^{National Museum Of Scotland, Edinburgh}*

We also had a lengthy walk to The Meadows to the south of Edinburgh centre. Because the timing of our trip coincided with the Edinburgh Fringe – a gathering over a few weeks of a staggering multitude of performance artists from all over the UK and, indeed, the World – the central streets and cafes were crowded.

The streets were also dominated by piles of rubbish because our visit also coincided with a strike by rubbish clearance workers in Edinburgh that had been going on for over a week. The huge piles of trash everywhere underlined how much rubbish we generate in a typical big city and how dependent we are on public services to hide the issue of rubbish disposal from our day to day lives.

Although the overflowing rubbish bins were not a great advertisement for Edinburgh (the workers dispute is now resolved), the city remains a great attraction for LSW and I. The architecture in the centre is stunning, the galleries and museums are befitting of a capital city, the area ES and his partner live in is close to interesting shops, and even the playgrounds we took FG to seemed better appointed but more accessible than average.

We are both looking forward to our November birthday party visit hugely – even though I will miss the delights of watching Forest Green Rovers play live!

Big Month and Bacon

May 2, 2022 / fgrtommo / 1 Comment

April 2022 was a truly memorable month. Eldest Son (ES) and his partner (plus First Grandchild) bought a flat – the first of our sons to become a home owner. Also (and I’m afraid ES, at least as significantly) Forest Green Rovers were promoted to English Football League Division 1 (EFL1)!

I have supported Forest Green Rovers Football Club since the family moved to Gloucestershire almost 25 years ago. I was finding it increasingly fraught and onerous to take our boys the 70 miles there and back to my boyhood club of Reading. I wanted them to like football and have the opportunity to watch it live and so I turned to the ‘biggest’ local Club: Forest Green Rovers.

When my support started, the Club had just been promoted to the National Conference League (the fifth tier in England) and offered a poorly attended, but viscerally intimate, version of semi-professional and then fully professional football. I watched the football while the boys messed about one the terraces with each other and with Lego.

The Club were perennial underdogs at that time. However, the Club was transformed progressively following investment from green energy industrialist Dale Vince in 2010. Dale uses the Club to promote his green and vegan values – we are reportedly the ‘greenest’ football club in the world – but has also applied finance, ambition and vision to the Club. Promotion to EFL2 followed via the playoffs and a truly remarkable day at Wembley. Now, just 5 years later, we are promoted again to EFL1. Next year will be very difficult but it has been a wonderful journey for me and all the other fans of the Club.

*^{After A Win Versus Oldham Athletic Which Virtually Guaranteed Promotion}*

Unfortunately we are likely to just miss out on finishing top of EFL2 following a relatively poor run of recent results. But one chance remains if we can win our last game at Mansfield next weekend. In a slightly crazy itinerary, I am going to that game via my Dad in Nottingham and then onwards to Edinburgh to see ES’s new flat. The start of another memorable month perhaps…..

April was not solely dominated by football. I also attended an alumni event in London with people who were exact or approximate contemporaries during my first 2-3 years of work way back in the 1970s. It was a great to catch up and also an opportunity to tidy our Barbican flat ready for sale and to see a London exhibition.

I chose to visit the Francis Bacon, Man and Beast Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. It’s hard to say I ‘like’ Bacon’s art since it is so menacing and challenging but I do enjoy seeing it and admire it hugely. I had last seen an exhibition of his work almost three years ago at the Gagosian Gallery in London. That had highlighted Bacon’s interest in animals and the new exhibition at The Royal Academy followed that wildlife and animal theme.

In practice, some of the work on show was only loosely linked to his fascination with wildlife and the parallels between wild animals and humans (much of which seems to have stemmed from his early life as a horse-breeders son). There were a number of works that one almost expects to see at a Bacon exhibition and the links between these to apes, bulls, birds (but never horses) sometimes seemed tenuous.

*^{Royal Academy Exhibition: Typical Images By Francis Bacon (Head VI, Figure Study II) And, More Unusual ‘Landscape Near Malabata’ (Bottom Right)}*

Nonetheless, it was an excellent exhibition that told a fascinating life story and that was well worth seeing. I found the triptych’s at the end of the exhibition particularly daunting but impressive.

*^{Royal Academy Exhibition of Francis Bacon Triptychs}*

I was lucky too that I was able to attend as the exhibition opened when it wasn’t too crowded. That enabled time and space to take in all the skewed wildness and menace in some of Bacon’s best work.

*^{‘Two Studies From The Human Body’ By Francis Bacon – Probably My Favourite Painting In This Royal Academy Exhibition}*

Back home, we had a very family oriented Easter with Youngest Son, his partner and pretty much all of Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) close relatives. The weather was kind enough to enable us to spill outside for a lot of welcome catch-ups with LSW’s nieces and nephews. We hadn’t seen YS since Christmas so it was just great to see him and his partner over the long weekend too. We must plan another trip to Belfast……

*^{One Of The Signs That Spring Is Here: The Annual ‘Amberley Cow Hunt’ – ‘Mootallica’ and ‘Calf Awake’. Two Of Over 30 Displays}*

Spring hasn’t fully warmed up yet but gardening has started in earnest – I can tell from the muscle aches and the good nights’ sleep. Preparing the ground for vegetables at this time of year by digging it over and clearing weeds is one of my favourite tasks; there is no pressure yet to protect stuff from deer, voles, mice and badgers or to actually produce any vegetables yet. It’s just good old physical work and I don’t have so many vegetable beds that I need to overdo any exertions.

*^{‘Everest’ Crab Apple and Camassia In Our Garden}*

It’s is lovely and lucky to be doing that gardening in such a pretty and relatively untroubled part of the World.

*^{The Cotswold Countryside Appears To Be Supporting Ukraine}*

A Surprise Test Event

September 25, 2020September 25, 2020 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

The undoubted highlight in what has been a further two weeks of Covid-19 quietude was a surprise test event held at Forest Green Rovers Football Club (FGR) – my team! Test events to ‘test’ the efficacy of running sporting events that are open to the public during the pandemic have been scheduled across several sports for some weeks. Because of the latest surge in infections many have been cancelled but apparently FGR were asked, at short notice, whether they wanted to hold one. They obliged by inviting all their season ticket holders to take part.

Once I knew that my allocated, socially-distanced seat in the stand wouldn’t be in any potential driving rain, I jumped at the chance. In the event, it was a sunny day. The attractive, hilly walk to the ground felt like old times, and the whole occasion was a very exciting break from Covid-19 routines.

There were socially distanced queues for temperature checks and then to get into the stadium. The imposition of face masks muffled my cheers of team loyalty and those of the other 500 supporters. But, not only did was event an emotional highlight, it felt safe.

The game itself was one FGR should have won. However, following two players being sent off (the opposition), a missed penalty (us) and a scorching last-minute-of-injury-time equaliser (us), we had to be content with an eventful and dramatic draw.

*FGR vs Bradford City; The Only Professional Game I Will See Kick Off Live This Season?*

Unfortunately, the increasing progress of the Covid-19 infection rate means that this event is likely to have been a one-off. Further attendance of live FGR games feels a long way away again. But I feel lucky that I had a brief reminder of the visceral pleasure of live football in a stadium. (And we didn’t lose!)

As another highlight, Long Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) mother took us out for a very pleasant lunch (only our second restaurant lunch in 6 months) at The Potting Shed. We also walked to the relatively new Wild Carrot Cafe on the very rural edge of the Parish and have made a few visits to our local and increasingly pandemic restriction-bound local pub.

Otherwise, waking life has been a merry-go-round of walks, day-to-day shopping, meals and catch up television. Outlander (just Series 1 so far) has been our latest TV box set plough-through. That was very watchable except for the rape and torture scenes during which I tended to go off to make my warming evening drink!

There have been a few little frissons of excitement courtesy of nature. I saw my first lizard (other than slow worms) in the garden. We also had a huge dragonfly perch briefly on our garden table. The friendly pheasant is back.

Indeed, the garden continues to be a bountiful pleasure with masses of chard, huge but tasty beetroot, courgettes (of course) and masses of wonderful dahlias from two plants that have survived the cold of the last two winters.

*They Just Keep On Coming: ‘Cafe Au Lait’ Dahlias*

The walled garden we had built three years ago is still laced with lots of white, purple and pink flowers among the tall grasses and shrubs.

Meanwhile, achingly slow progress is being made on a new garden behind and above the house. LSW loves a project and, when the builders have finally completed the terracing and walling, there will be loads of work for us to do to clear unwanted plants (bind weed and hypericum is rife, is hard to eradicate and both LSW and I hate it) and renew the area with new ones.

We are so lucky to have the space to be able to enjoy a garden and enough cash to be able to remodel it. The garden has been such a boon during these weird, pandemic times. It’s such a shame though, that this weirdness will continue, as most of us feared, into autumn, winter and beyond. I look forward to my next sporting test event – whenever that may be – as a sign that these weird times may be ending. Stay safe, all.

*Colourful Hedgerows This Year (Black Bryony, Hawthorn and Rose Hips)*

Football Coming Home?

August 29, 2020 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Last weekend, I went to my first live football game for almost 6 months. Granted, it was a relatively small local village affair but it stoked feelings of regret for the football I have missed due to the Coronavirus and some excitement for the delayed but impending advent of the new football season.

The match was played on our village playing field – an unassuming but picturesque venue – between our very own Horsley United and a guest team.

Pre-Match Line-ups For Horsley United And The Guest XI

The match was a celebration of Horsley United’s promotion to Stroud District League 2 last season. Somehow, the organisers had managed to attract three ex-Premier English League footballers to play for the opposition (Deon Burton, Lee Hendrie and Lee Carsley). Each of these showed their class (and their age) and they added an unexpected gloss to a very pleasant occasion.

I have to say, too, that Horsley United look a much better team this season. While Stuart Hendrie (Lee Hendrie’s younger brother and another professional footballer) was probably the best player on the pitch, two new young Horsley strikers caught the eye and ultimately won the game. I look forward to seeing village football again soon.

My main team, Forest Green Rovers, have also started playing friendlies. The building anticipation for Forest Green Rovers’ new season in English Football League 2 has been accelerated by the streaming over the Internet of some of the more important friendly games and the availability of season tickets. I fear that social distancing in the main stand, which has reduced capacity by about 75%, will mean that my allocated season ticket seat will be near the front or sides of the main stand where the risk of getting very wet in westerly storms is high. However, I may get lucky and, anyway, I have waterproofs and I can’t wait for the season proper to start.

Initially, games will be streamed since the stadium can’t be opened until infection and death rates are lower. There is hope that this will be sometime in October but, given the experience of other countries in Europe, our confused approach to lock down in the UK, and currently rising infection rates, I’m not so optimistic. My purchase of a season ticket within an hour of sales starting was an act of faith and of support for the football club I love; hopefully, it pays off.

Forest Green Rovers’s Current Stadium

In the two weeks since our trip to Northern Ireland I have become aware of how much I needed that trip away from home for the first time in five months. The lock-down days have now returned to their rather lustreless routine. The walks through local nature continue to be very pleasant – I spotted some bats a couple of evenings ago which was an example of how uplifting little incidents on these walks can be. The garden continues to be a pleasure even in the relative wetness of this year’s August. The gentle rhythm of walking, shopping, reading, listening to music, cooking and eating, snoozing and watching catch-up television generates contentment if not outright excitement.

One Of The Local Walk Pleasures – A Glorious Sunset

Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) has found another outlet from this routine with another short trip – this time with a work colleague to (very) northern Scotland.

Her absence has accentuated the predictability of my own home routine. I look forward to LSW’s return. I look forward to the return to a football season. I look forward to other signs of post lock down normality.

Another Bonus From Having Time In Retirement To Stroll Through The Local Countryside: One Of ‘My Five A Day’

Actually, as I think back over the last couple of weeks, there have been more breaks from lock-down routine than it feels. Eldest Son visited us on his way to a camping trip. Middle Son is visiting us tomorrow following a meet up with friends in Bristol. We also managed a very pleasant ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ lunch with friends last week at our local and excellent William’s Kitchen. Another move toward normality is the restart of the monthly series of village pub quizzes from next month.

I helped keep some semblance of momentum around the village quiz going earlier this year. Now, the local pub is setting up a quiz that will be adherent to the government guidelines for social distancing, for making too much noise and for having too much fun during the pandemic. Despite my general hopelessness at answering the quiz questions, I am looking forward to participating in something that, like the start of the football season, suggests we have turned a corner in the pandemic. Once again, my fingers are crossed.

Hunkering Down For Coronavirus? Not Quite Yet

March 12, 2020June 11, 2020 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

The news is dominated by the progress of coronavirus and our response to it. In line with one of my New Year resolutions, and to assuage Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) dislike of my chuntering on to myself in response to the radio news, I have reduced the amount of news I listen to, especially in the morning. Nonetheless, the reports of infections, deaths, stock market collapses and empty toilet roll shelves, creates a compelling narrative and visceral sensation.

The prospects, not least for my pension, look gloomy but whether the current levels of fear of coronavirus are fully justified is not quite concrete. As a result, and despite my natural pessimism on this sort of thing, my personal response, in terms of activities undertaken, has been uncertain and mixed.

For example, I did brave the snuffling crowds to travel up to London last week by train and tube to attend one of my regular evening sessions with old friends there. We went to a busy pub and Russian restaurant in Soho (we are up to R in the alphabet of cuisines we are sampling). The washing of my hands in the loo a little more self-consciously and for longer than usual, and the eschewing of handshakes, were the only concessions to the virus. Unless, that is, we count the imbibing of a few flavoured vodkas and the antiseptic qualities of their alcohol content.

A Selection Of Vodkas, Part Finished. Best Was The Horseradish Flavoured One

A Selection Of Vodkas, Part Finished. The Horseradish Flavoured Vodka was The Best And Has Already Been Quaffed

On the other hand, I chose not to go to a Forest Green Rovers (FGR) football match in nearby Swindon which normally I would have attended. I rejected sitting on a stuffy train or bus for an hour next to old people like me and then being packed into the ‘away’ end. Instead, I favoured a breezy walk to an airy view of a much smaller game at Shortwood, the even more local football ground just over the hill. I felt rotten about the decision afterwards because it felt like conceding ground to the virus while missing out on what has recently become a rare win for FGR.

Since then, I have continued retired life as I did before the advent of the coronavirus outbreak. I continue to walk into town daily. I have been to a pub to meet a village mate. I have attended two optional meetings on local climate change response activity and have been to a local dinner party. LSW and I plan to go to Bath for a concert and (assuming it is on) I plan to see FGR’s game at the weekend from the (fairly) packed stand.

I keep veering along a continuum from avoiding unnecessary contact with others through thinking that what ‘will be will be’ and doing normal things but in a restrained way, to full out participation in events because it might be the last chance I get to do so for a while.

Hopefully, now spring and some warmer weather is coming, the trepidation about the virus and the more scary statistics associated with it will reduce. However, the news readers, politicians and experts on the radio that I have listened to tell me that things will get much worse before they get better. I suspect several limitations on normal living are imminent. Should that be the case I will absorb myself in splendid isolation in the garden, clearing the winter weeds and clutter and digging over the vegetable patch. In any case, that’s a task I have postponed for long enough already.

While in London last week, I did fit in an exhibition. This was the Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography exhibition at the Barbican. This inadvertently continued my recent run of visiting photographic exhibitions – the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, the Don McCullin exhibition at Hauser & Wirth last month, and now this.

Overall, I enjoyed it – these large exhibitions at such prestigious venues are so well thought out and always worth seeing – but my level of enjoyment fluctuated as I progressed through it and I ‘tired’ towards the end.

Barbican Masculinities Exhibition: Photo By Rotimi Fani-Kayode

The exhibition starts with a series of photos focusing on men as soldiers, athletes and cowboys in traditionally male roles. However, the chosen photographs deliberately undermine the typical view of the male; the soldiers are out of combat and apparently defenceless, the athletes are barely beyond pubescence, the cowboys are of ambiguous sexuality.

Studio Photos Found Abandoned by Thomas Dworzak In Afghanistan: A Strange Mix Of Guns, Flowers and Kohl

The theme of subverting the masculine ideal here was quite interesting and the video by Jeremy Deller of cross-dressing wrestler Adrian Street was compelling enough to watch all the way through. (It brought back memories of the routine of watching all-in wrestling on the BBC before the reading of the Saturday football results back in the 1960s and 70s.)

‘Rusty’ By Catherine Opie

There was some more unexpected material on masculine spaces – fraternities in the US and Mens’ Clubs in London – and some more playful stuff on men and fatherhood on the ground floor of the exhibition.

Hans Eijkelboom’s ‘My Family’: A Playful Set Of Photo’s With Him Posing As Husband To Housewives Asked At Random To Pose With Him In Their Homes (Real Husbands Absent!)

Upstairs, as the examination into the ‘plurality of subversive masculinities’ continued, the more predictable focus was more on ‘Queer’ culture (that appears to be an ok word to use again), homosexuality and race. I found this less interesting although I again enjoyed some of the more light-hearted pieces and there were a few impressive photos by Deana Lawson and Rotimi Fani-Kayode who’s work I have seen somewhere before.

Piotr Uklanski’s ‘The Nazi’s’: Montage Of Famous Actors Playing Nazi Leaders

I’m wondering if my plans to visit London again over the next month or so will remain intact during the coronavirus crisis; fingers crossed on that. One thing for sure – I’m glad I have retired and have a choice (provided I don’t catch it!)

Squeezing In The Football

December 2, 2019 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

A couple of week-ends ago, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I went up to London to stay with a couple who have been friends of ours for a few decades. They live in Chiswick and the territory is familiar to us since we lived for several years in the 1990’s in nearby Kew. The stay with them was a chance to catch up on our respective lives and those of our offspring, to observe recent neighbourhood changes, to share views of current issues and re-discover a couple of walks that we haven’t done for years. We had a great time.

We went up to London on the Friday morning and parked outside our old house in Kew. There was then time for me to visit Tate Britain and see the William Blake exhibition there, and for LSW to head into central London to peruse the shops there.

Jacob And The Angel By Sir Jacob Epstein At Tate Britain

It seems that William Blake was somewhat of a mystery during his life-time and remains so today. I enjoyed the cleverly displayed books of illustrated poems and his apparent pre-occupation with the darker aspects of myth and religion. I liked the combination of big works with grand gestures and delicate pieces with intricate engraving. The narrative of his topsy-turvy life was interesting too but, for me, too much of his motivation was left unexplained – perhaps because there is no definitive view on what he was trying to achieve.

William Blake Engravings At Tate Britain: ‘Christian Drawn Out Of The Slough By Help’, ‘I Sought Pleasure And Found Pain’ and ‘House of Death’

As it happens, I also struggled with finding a real point to the popular and much publicised ‘Year 3’ exhibit by Steve McQueen in the main hall of the Tate. This was a huge display of hundreds of traditional school class photos showing all Year 3 children in London schools. I confess I didn’t ‘get it’ although I understand that many of the participating classes will now visit Tate Modern to see their photo and also, hopefully, kindle a love of art.

Steve McQueen’s ‘Year 3’ Photographs At Tate Modern

On the Friday evening, our male football loving host and I eschewed the possibility of going to see his football team play an evening game. Instead, we relaxed over excellent food and rather too much good wine and chatted. However, I had forewarned the company that I was committed to seeing my team – Forest Green Rovers (FGR) – and two of our sons at Leyton (Orient) the following afternoon.

On the Saturday morning, following a satisfying carbohydrate and coffee breakfast, we went, fully fuelled up, to The Wallace Collection in Manchester Square. I had visited this lovely, free museum earlier this year when seeing a Henry Moore exhibition there. This time, I focused on the paintings on the first floor which I didn’t remember from my earlier visit. What was especially interesting about this was that several were of Venice which LSW and I had visited only a week or so previously. The paintings by Canaletto and his school of artists, brought home what we had felt during our Venice visit: that Venice has hardly changed in centuries.

Venice Cityscapes By Canaletto and School Of Canaletto In The Wallace Collection

I left the others at the Wallace Collection, with their plans for lunch and a visit to the Antony Gormley exhibition at the Royal Academy, and headed east to grimier terrain in Leyton. It was great to meet up with Middle Son (MS), Youngest Son (YS) and one of his friends there. The game itself was thrilling and FGR achieved a hard fought and rather fortunate 4-2 win.

Forest Green Players Celebrating Their Win At Leyton Orient

We left the ground buzzing with football excitement and the sons started talking about seeing the late afternoon Premiership football game in a nearby pub somewhere. Two of our party were sporting distinctive FGR shirts so prudence was forcing them to think of pubs away from Leyton where Orient fans wouldn’t be drowning their sorrows. They settled on Bethnal Green a couple of tube stops away. That was on my way back to the hospitality in Chiswick so I went with them.

I love football (you may have noticed!) and I wanted to both spend more time with YS and MS and see the Premiership game too. So, almost without really consciously deciding anything I sleepwalked with them out of the tube, out of the station and into a grotty but TV-equipped pub to watch the game.

As the first half progressed I wondered about the second pint of (awful) beer and whether I could stay a bit longer without annoying LSW and our hosts back in Chiswick. My decision making was forced by a text on our family group-chat from LSW who was wondering where I was. While I was pondering a response MS, YS and his friend burst out laughing. YS had already posted a picture of me, clearly in a pub and looking at the text on my phone. I was rumbled!

I sloshed the second pint down and left the pub at half time. I arrived back in Chiswick in time to have got away with squeezing in the football. I settled back into our hosts’ wonderful hospitality, still excited by my team’s win and armed with news from MS and YS.

Next day was calmer. We had a relaxed walk around Chiswick down by the Thames and topped up with alcohol at a local pub before indulging in Sunday lunch. Good times indeed!

The Thames Art Chiswick

Chiswick House

Chiswick Views

My Retirement Journey

I've Retired! What Next?

Football