Pleasantly Full Days

June 19, 2018June 19, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Life seems to have been particularly busy in the last ten days or so since my last trip to London. There I got a dental check-up (my teeth are fine), visited the Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece Exhibition (fascinating and beautifully laid out) and took Middle and Eldest Son to dinner and The Lantern Society, my favourite Folk Club (what a treat to catch up with them both!)

At The Lantern Society

Rodin’s The Thinker And The Kiss – Two Items In An Intriguing British Museum Exhibition

The weather has been highly conducive to gardening. We have had long periods of sun, but reasonable temperatures, and just enough rain. As a result, many days have been dominated by clearing weeds, planting out seedlings, localised manual watering and working out how to keep the destructive birds, mammals, molluscs and insects at bay. Almost everything that needs protection now has some form fencing, netting or other damage prevention measure in place. I will now sit back, wait and watch the ways the animals will thwart me anyway.

In my last post, I compared the post-modernist house of Erno Goldfinger to a previous house of ours. My last visit to London and overnight stay in the Barbican reminded me, too, that the post-modernist gardens there are now being echoed by Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) planting of our new walled garden. Our final load of gravel and the water feature have now arrived and so our new garden just lacks maturity, but there are already some similarities with the Barbican gardens (although the scale there is massive compared to that of our ex-car parking area). It has certainly been pleasant sitting in the new garden in the sun with a glass of wine after sweating over weeds, seedlings, bean poles and netting.

Our New Garden And The Barbican Gardens; Ours Has Some Maturing To Do!

LSW and I have also been enjoying the annual Nailsworth Festival and, especially, two walks arranged under the auspices of the festival. The first was a history walk in the vicinity of our house. It added to our knowledge of the footpaths, industry and religious history of the area – particularly the historic presence of the Quakers and Baptists in what was once one of the largest non-conformist settlements in the country.

An Attentive Audience On The Nailsworth History Walk

The second was a 12 mile walk billed as being a walk from Nailsworth to ‘the sea’. In fact, ‘the sea’ was the tidal estuary of the River Severn at a point where a number of sea going ships were beached to bolster the coastline alongside the canal along which we had walked. The so-called Purton Hulks, were an interesting climax to a full day of walking up and down the Cotswold escarpment and across the Severn valley in perfect walking weather. LSW and I certainly pushed up our daily step count averages that day!

Views During Our Walk Nailsworth To The Sea

Purton Hulks

We also had a good day out walking in New Quay and Aberaeron in West Wales. We were staying with friends who have a second home there in what seems to be a lively and familiar community of second-homers based in London, Birmingham and South Wales. The health benefits of all the recent walking were offset by rather too much tasty food and drink in New Quay. On the route back from Wales, these indulgences continued as we stopped off at a family party celebrating a brief visit of one of LSW’s first cousins (once removed) from Singapore; lovely!

Views Of New Quay, Wales And Nearby Cliffs

The food, drink and merriment isn’t going to stop this week with more of the World Cup to watch and celebrate (I hope), and the marking of LSW’s birthday with dinner in London on the way to a weekend in Paris.

So: busy and full days, full weeks and, as I near 12 months of retirement, I will shortly look back on a full year.

Picasso And Goldfinger

June 7, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

As I write this, I am travelling up to London for the second time in a week; I still look forward to my regular ‘fix’ of London life. Today, I’m using the excuse of the need to visit my long-term dentist for a check-up. The previous visit was primarily to enable Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I to meet with Eldest Son’s (ES’s) new girlfriend for the first time. She was lovely and we all had a splendid evening at one of our favourite restaurants: Morito in Hackney Road.

I also managed to squeeze in a rather drunken lunch and impromptu darts match with an old mate of mine from my Accenture days – getting on for a decade ago now. Meanwhile, LSW saw an art exhibition and we followed up next day with a bit more culture. First LSW and I saw the Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern and then we went to Hampstead to visit 2 Willow Road, a modernist house designed and previously owned by architect, Erno Goldfinger.

The Picasso exhibition was unusual in that it focused on just one year of his life. That was 1932 during which he conducted a secret affair with a young woman who he painted almost daily. It was interesting to hear how the affair came to light – including to his wife – only at a retrospective exhibition of his work which included several paintings of his mistress. For someone so apparently confident in his ability, it was also fascinating to hear how he curated the 1932 retrospective in a way to try to reassert his continuing relevance following the success of his earlier work.

One Of The Many Paintings Picasso Created in 1932 Showing His Secret Mistress

The visit to 2 Willow Road was also eye opening. It’s an early reinforced concrete building built in 1939 by and for the architect who later became (in)famous for some of the tallest reinforced concrete residential tower blocks in London. It was given to the National Trust after his death and has been largely untouched since then. The art he collected – including pieces by Henry Moore, Bridget Riley, Max Ernst and Delaunay – is still on show and we got a real feeling for the way he lived and entertained.

Most interesting were the similarities between the features (such as the en suite sinks), inter-room connectivity (facilitated by removable and sliding doors) and huge windows in 2 Willow Road, and the nature of our previous family home built in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire almost 20 years later. Clearly, unbeknownst to us, the architect who designed our house and the one we used to develop it were familiar with Erno Goldfinger. Like 2 Willow Road, I suspect, our previous house was rather ugly to look at, but lovely to live in.

2 Willow Road, Hampstead

Now we have moved on to an old farm house with a Georgian façade. However, the extension LSW helped to design a few years ago offers plenty of space and light so we have retained some of the best aspects of our house in Minchinhampton. The combination of old house and modern extension feels right and our garden – recently walled and extended to take over half of the previous car parking space – is more manageable than that we had before. With the additional time I now have, and LSW’s increased interest in gardening (plus 4 hours of paid help most weeks), we are gradually getting control of the garden. Once I finish the endless painting of the TV room I will have even more time to relax in it!

Part of the New Garden Area At Our House

Happy Week

April 23, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

The last week or so has seen warm temperatures at last. Despite my fears, Forest Green Rovers have had sufficient success on the football field to ensure that a dreaded relegation will almost certainly be avoided. I’ve been able to get started on preparing the vegetable patch and growing seedlings for the garden and managed to fit in another trip to London. It’s been a good time.

Lincoln Fields: Every Green Space In London Fully Occupied When The Sun Comes Out!

There has also been some nostalgia this week. 20 years ago, Boards of Canada, a band producing an evocative brand of psychedelic electronica, released their first studio album called Music Has The Right To Children. I bought the CD soon afterwards and have spent the last 20 years buying their other albums and loving almost every minute of them.

It’s hard to pick a favourite band because there are so many music genres and different music suits different moods and circumstances. But I believe that, at any time over the last 20 years (including today), I would have said Boards of Canada are my favourite band. An example of their sound – with typically off-beat images evoking public service documentaries, childhood and nostalgia is here (Everything You Do Is Balloon).

Boards of Canada are two Scottish brothers who have only produced three more full albums since that first one that got me hooked. To my knowledge, they have never played live. They leave me grasping for more. I therefore jumped at Eldest Son’s (ES’s)suggestion that we go to a jazz interpretation of the Music Has the Right to Children by Byron Wallen’s Gamelan Ensemble at Camden’s Jazz Club in London. It was an excellent event – though inevitably a shadow of the real thing – and so popular that, I understand, a repeat performance is being scheduled.

Byron Wallen’s Gamelan Ensemble Reinterpret Boards of Canada At The Jazz Club, Camden

The gig was a good reason to visit London for a couple of days. I not only spent time with ES – as usual staying in the Barbican flat he rents from us in a very convenient arrangement – but also managed to meet up with Middle Son (MS). I also saw the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, which was a huge and incredibly varied array of often remarkable photos, and then the superb, new Monet and Architecture exhibition at the National Gallery.

Sony World Photography Award Winner: Veselin Atanasov

I really enjoyed the Monet exhibition which recalled the Impressionists in London exhibition I saw at Tate Britain last year. Several of individual pictures were stunning, the information provided was just the right level for me (not too much and nothing highfalutin), and the gallery was busy but empty enough that I could see every piece up close. There was a little personal nostalgia here too since the exhibition sponsor was my last employer before retirement.

Monet And Architecture: The Boulevard Des Capucines, Paris

Since returning to Gloucestershire, I have started longer spells of gardening than I managed before Spring truly sprang into life this week. I have also resumed the interminable painting of the TV Room. Both activities have provided moments of humour.

My vegetable patch is adjoined by a field of sheep that have been fed with hay recently because the pasture is so far behind its normal growth levels due to the poor weather. When I appear in the vegetable patch they expect me to feed them and so rush over towards me. One got so enthusiastic that he barged through the fence, jumped over the wall and started munching the weeds in our garden. Fortunately, we managed to guide the sheep back to his field quickly enough to leave us amused by the experience rather than concerned.

Sheep Intruding Into Our Garden

On the painting front, I have recently opened another pot. As I was leaning over it to dip in my brush, my spectacles dropped off directly into the paint. I felt pretty stupid as I fished the drenched, dark blue spectacles out and rinsed them off. Luckily, the paint is water based so, as with the sheep, no harm was done.

Happy week!

Sunny London: Somerset House, Royal Courts of Justice, St Pauls And The 4th Plinth In Trafalgar Square

The Cost of Entertainment

April 13, 2018April 13, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

So, still not much Spring in the air and the water-courses have been full. But lambs are starting to pop out and Spring weather is apparently going to finally arrive next week. Such a relief!

Full Local Water Courses and New Lambs

Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I went to the Theatre Royal in Bath last week to see Mary Stuart starring Juliette Stephenson and Lia Williams. The last time I went to the theatre was years ago when I saw War Horse in London. I really can’t recall when, before that, I saw a play. In retrospect, it’s surprising that I didn’t do more theatre-going while I was in London – one of the theatre capitals of the world. I love cinema, which is perhaps the closest art form, and I love live music which provides similar intimacy. So why not go to more theatre?

Part of the reason is that a large part of good acting is in facial expression. My eyesight is just not good enough to be able to discern the subtlety of such expression from the distances I expect to find myself away from the stage and so I feel I will miss out. That was true in Bath earlier this week but, in truth, the performance was very enjoyable anyway.

The other reason for not going to many shows in London was my perception of the expense of the ticket relative to my knowledge of the theatre and, therefore, my chances of enjoying the experience. However, the costs of going to the theatre are lower outside of London and we knew the play LSW and I saw in Bath would be good because we’d seen the reviews and it had already had a successful run in London. In any case, I have been thinking more about the relative cost of the entertainments I choose.

The tickets for Theatre Royal cost £33 each. That is quite a lot of money in absolute terms and, given that the theatre has a capacity of 900 and was packed, that creates a decent revenue stream for the theatre. But then we were seeing a couple of near-top actresses, and a cast of 20 or so, all directed and acting in front of a backdrop and lighting that all needs to be maintained and manned. This production is a success but not all are and so maybe Mary Stuart has to cover losses on other plays. Also, the play was a pretty compelling three hours long – so that’s around £11 per hour of (dramatic, absorbing and memorable) entertainment.

A week before, I had travelled up to London to see Forest Green Rovers (FGR) Football Club lose against our relegation rivals Barnet. The ticket cost £23 which is above average for English Football League 2. For that, over 90 minutes, I saw a poor game of football with a bad result for us. I can’t say I enjoyed the experience and it cost of over £15 per hour. Of course, had FGR played well and won, I would have been overjoyed and very pleased to have seen the game. But FGR’s away form is such that I could have expected disappointment.

Small scale live music gigs are very good relative value. Many I have attended in recent years have cost less than £10 and, with support bands, provide around two hours of entertainment at £5-8 per hour. The latest band I saw was a (supposedly) up and coming band called Goat Girl. For the cost of a CD (£11), I got in to see them live in the intimate surroundings of Rough Trade East record store in Shoreditch, London. It was a lively hour, I liked much of the music and it was very good value (given I have the CD memento).

Goat Girl at Rough Trade (With Goat Props!)

Of course, the quality of music venue (the comfy seats available at Theatre Royal Bath are not an option in the small venues I tend to go to!) and the quality of the music is variable. Generally though, I will have listened to the band on Spotify or CD in advance and have enough knowledge to aim at events I enjoy. The good value of live music has, for me, been pretty consistent over several years.

The other thing I did on my football and music trip to London was go to a couple of art galleries. Both shows, at the Hayward Gallery and the Barbican, entertained me for about 90 minutes. By far the most interesting was the excellent exhibition of Andreas Gursky photographs at the Hayward. It provided a fascinating insight into the work of someone I had never heard of before at a rate of about £10 per hour. Thinking back to other exhibitions I have seen recently, that rate of entertainment cost per hour seems about the norm for me. I like free art shows but having to pay focuses my attention of what I am seeing.

Example of Andreas Gursky’s Photos: Paris, Montparnasse

Further Example of Andreas Gursky’s Photos: Bahrain Racetrack

Exhibition: Another Kind of Life, Photography on the Margins (Here, A Nigerian Man With His Hyena by Peter Hugo)

I might consider further the relative value of other entertainments such as restaurants, cinema, watching catch-up TV, gardening and walking (which is certainly cheapest!) Clearly cost per hour is not the only factor. However, from the past week I conclude that:

Theatre (out of London at least) is better value than I previously thought – I really enjoyed it
Music events are high value entertainment provided I keep my knowledge of what I am going to see current
Art exhibitions are good entertainment value despite the high absolute cost of tickets; indeed, I suspect the fact there is a high cost drives me to concentrate more on what I am seeing and get more out of it
following Forest Green Rovers away from home is bad value unless we win (just twice in the last 9 months!).

Nonetheless, the pain of the football fan is to carry on ploughing the same furrow regardless of results so I’ll be handing over my cash at Cheltenham on Saturday and hoping for value for money and, rather desperately, three points for FGR.

Busy With Peak Beard

February 25, 2018February 26, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

It’s been a pretty packed couple of weeks at and around home, and then in London. Last week’s visit to London was triggered by the opportunity to catch up with a Madagascan friend who was once a marvellous au pair for us when our kids were small. She is now living in the US but was visiting London with her husband. We had a lovely lunch at some very hospitable mutual friends. We then visited Kew Gardens with particular attention to the Orchid Festival.

When we lived in Kew, I treated Kew Gardens almost as an alternate back garden and visited them at least once a week, dragging one or more sons with me. The gardens have been developed in a number of interesting ways in the intervening 20 years but retain their beauty, neatness and scale. I shall plan a longer and more comprehensive visit later in the year when there is more colour and warmth outside the unique greenhouses.

A Small Sample Of Orchids From The Exhibition in Kew Gardens

That excursion was followed by dinner and an overnight stay at the house of some other long-standing friends in Chiswick. It has been a while since I have attended a London dinner party. After the last few months of early nights of rural entertainment, it was a shock to find myself drinking, eating and still deep in conversation at 2am. Given that interesting gins and tasty wines had been opened before 7pm, it was a wonder we got back to Gloucestershire in time for me to attend the next critical game in Forest Green Rovers’ attempt to stave off relegation.

Previous to all of this conviviality with Long Suffering Wife (LSW), I had ventured up to London to do a few things alone (while LSW fulfilled her book club commitment). As before, I stayed with eldest Son (ES) in my old Barbican flat; what an excellent arrangement this is turning out to be. After dinner with him I had breakfast with Middle Son (MS) and so was able to report back to LSW on their well-being and current hopes, fears and habits.

I also fitted in the Museum of London’s Fatberg exhibition – a fascinating and very topical 30 minutes of facts and societal concern – and a visit to the Charles I King and Collector exhibition at the Royal Academy.

The Museum of London Fatberg (A Foot Long Segment of the Biggest Fatberg Ever Found And More Interesting Than It Looks Here).

The Charles 1 exhibition was huge and impressive. The way the collection came together during Charles I’s reign, was dispersed after his head was cut off by Cromwell and then partially reassembled (and further reassembled for this exhibition) was fascinating. It also provided an opportunity to observe some interesting beard and moustache styles from the 17^th century that I am tempted to reproduce with my own burgeoning facial hair.

Charles I With Peak Beard And His LSW

Of my New Year resolutions, perhaps that to grow a beard has been the one in which I have made most progress so far. Unsurprisingly, LSW has already vetoed the Charles 1 style handlebar moustache and, just today, she has started to make noises about the bushiness starting to exceed her tastes. The scissors are ready so peak beard is about to pass.

Peak Beard? Nearly Two Months’ Growth But Ready For A Trim?

Other events in London included one of the longest lunch (and related drinks) sessions I have had for a while. This was with another retiree with about 18 months more experience than I. It was fun talking about mutual ex-colleagues, the more frequent and extended holidays now possible without the constraints of work, and the possibilities of using some of the extra discretionary time we now have to play the credit card promotional offer ‘game’. Given the benefits, I need to try that by applying for, using and then discarding new credit cards; after all, I have the time to do so.

I also saw two films: The Shape of Water (a beautifully shot but simple love story) and Lady Bird (fine and very well acted but probably most cogent to a mother or a daughter). I had one other late night visiting a pop up art exhibition called PoptArt Gallery run by one of Youngest Son’s (YS) ex-college friends. These pop ups have been running for a couple of years and have become progressively more sophisticated. This occurrence was in a stylish private club. The art was as interesting as ever but the main attraction was to catch up with the organiser and to meet her friends, some of whom know YS.

Noticed During My Walks Through London This Week: An Example of London’s Wonderful Graffiti (This By Bambi)

After all that rushing about in London, it would be very satisfactory to settle back into impending Spring in Gloucestershire (and do more decorating of the TV room of course!). Not much time for that though…. we are off to Cape Town next week. Exciting times……

Catching Up With London

February 4, 2018 / fgrtommo / 5 Comments

The effects of my retirement last year are not only about me. Long Suffering Wife (LSW) had to be in agreement that my retirement was a good idea since it was clear that there would be a significant impact on her too. That has proved to be the case since I stopped work and moved back to the family home from my 5-day-a-week flat in London. She no longer has large tracts of the day to herself and the house that she controls so well now has an additional presence (/interloper?). It was therefore somewhat of a relief for LSW when, for the first time in 7 months of retirement, I headed back to London for a few days last week and gave her a bit of space and time alone.

I know that she enjoyed that. I also had a very good time.

Replica Of The London Olympic Flame Mechanism At The Museum Of London

I visited the Museum of London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the Temple of Mithras under the new Bloomberg building. I also took in an occurrence of The Lantern Society (one of the best folk clubs in London and one I had frequented regularly until last July) and spent a couple of hours in the Rough Trade East record shop listening to new music. That was all fitted in around a few catch ups with Middle Son (MS) and some old friends. It was also good to go out for dinner with Eldest Son (ES) who put me up in our Barbican flat. It was an active few days.

Tudor Portraits At The National Portrait Gallery (Katherine Parr, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Henry VII). Wonderful Vibrant Colours Still

The cultural highlight was the Opera exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It’s a history of opera told through focus on seven operas as they premiered in seven cities including Venice, London, Paris, Dresden and Leningrad. The exhibition shows how each opera was influenced by the events and politics of the time and, in turn, ignited passions in the cities in which they were performed. The magic was in the immersive experience generated by the wearing of headphones that responded to where one stood physically in the exhibition. They played the operas (also shown in videos) but also provided spoken insights into them and other sound effects all of which amplified the historical context in the cities in which the operas debuted. It is a fascinating exhibition.

I also loved the Temple of Mithras which was a swish and free exhibition of a Roman temple that was discovered in the Second World War and is now re-positioned in its original location under the new buildings in Walbrook. A lot of money has been thrown at the display and it’s well worth booking up a visit.

Temple of Mithras, Walbrook

After all that walking and cultural input, it was important to eat and drink well and I did! The ineptly named Flavour Bastard restaurant provided a very tasty lunch. It was near empty but that meant there was no rush as I caught up with an ex-Accenture colleague made redundant from Accenture with myself in around 2009. The canapes at the Accenture Alumni event I briefly attended were small and tricky to eat but dinner at Flat Iron with ES was more straightforward.

I also had a good evening of beer and curry with two other work ex-colleagues from a project way back in 1977. We have differing views on Brexit but otherwise set the world to rights and discussed the benefits of retirement. One retired 5 years ago, the other has yet to sample the delights.

Old Mates Contemplating Retirement, Grandfatherhood, Beer And Where The Next Curry Will Be

We agreed that what primarily keeps, or kept, us at work were the qualities of people we work(ed) with. In my case the impact of that aspect of retirement was diminished by the fact that, in the later years of my career, most of the people I interacted with were overseas. Therefore interactions were rarely face to face and were, correspondingly, of relatively limited depth. That reduced the sense of loss when I retired.

I think we also concluded that a clean break from work is probably the best option – one can always resume some form of work later if work-less retirement doesn’t provide all one needs. Finishing work abruptly on a stress high may not be healthy but, in my case, the intensity of work had already decreased as I moved into the final work years. So, again, the impact of stopping work was not as great for me as it may be for some.

More of an impact for me was the sudden move out of London. However, that also has been ameliorated by the fact that I can still have weeks like last week when I can visit and stay in my old flat on the sofa bed.

I’m looking forward to my next visit already.

Music At The Lovely Lantern Society Folk Club

The First Day

July 3, 2017March 3, 2023 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

Thank you to all the very early followers who have signed up to this rather unpredictable blog. I hope your expectations are low but I can exceed them.

Today was the first day, proper, of my retirement. Ok, it was a bit like just another a Bank Holiday Monday for me, but it was the first weekday since I left work; the first weekday for many years that wasn’t holiday or off moaning about an illness.

I did shave this morning. When I got up, I wasn’t sure I would but some habits die hard. Anyway, my Long Suffering Wife (LSW) doesn’t particularly like scruffy, scraping stubble. She is going to have to put up with a lot more of me, so it’s probably better to oblige her on this and start the way I mean to carry on.

LSW and I have spent the bulk of the day preparing for our Eldest Son (ES) to rent our London flat. The main task has been to bring up a bed from Gloucestershire to London that doesn’t collapse in the middle when it is moved – as the current one does. The novelty of the collapse wears thin after a couple of times and I don’t want to impose it on others. We also had a trip to Ikea so tomorrow is flat pack assembly day!

I shall miss London – probably more than I shall miss work – and I shall miss the flat in the Barbican. It’s central, near the ever-changing delights of the North-East quarter of London, and is comfortable while having the having the vibrancy of urban London just outside the window. I regret not using the balcony more than I did but here are the views from it. I suspect the next couple of weeks while we get the flat sorted for ES and I wean myself off London may see me sitting out and enjoying them.

More soon….

My Retirement Journey

I've Retired! What Next?

London