The Singing Writer

2009-08-22T23:29:00.002+01:00

I never cease to be amazed by the new things that come my way in life since meeting Rob.

Take the preparations for our coming wedding...

I know I'm a dab hand at painting after doing up Rob's flat, but I've also become quite adept at using a power washer (well, it's one way to blast the dried-up cow manure out of the yard where the wedding is taking place).

And today I also took paart (for the first time ever) in raising three marquees. One of which is huge!

It's all very exciting - can't wait for next weekend.

Random idea #4712

2009-08-08T17:38:00.000+01:00

Would the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse be preceded by people with placards saying "The end of the world is neigh"?

Damn the tennis, and damn the BBC

2009-07-04T22:36:00.000+01:00

I've been recording and watching Robin Hood. Whatever your views on the content, I rather enjoy it and it's evolved a treat since its early days.

I got a bit behind so had the last two week's left on the hard disk recorder.

I watch the first one, with exciting cliffhanger, and settle down to watch the second part (from last Saturday).

Lo and behold, there's tennis (Andy Murray) on the recording. After a couple of minutes a flag on the screen informs viewers that Robin hood will be on BBC Two at 7.

Great. Thanks. So I have no recording. The BBC deems a tennis match more important than the series finale of one of their much-hyped (albeit now cancelled) Saturday evening family dramas.

I know, I think, I'll go online and watch it on the iPlayer.

Good idea. Except it started, faltered and now refuses to play for me.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The sweetest thing...

2009-06-18T18:32:00.004+01:00

We picked our first few strawberries from the strawberry plants yesterday - and I can honestly say I've never tasted finer. I guess you tend to forget just how restricted the taste of shop-bought, forced fruit really is.

We've been working hard on growing fruit and veg this year. The lettuce has been great-tasting and we're looking forward to bumper crops of tomatoes and blueberries amongst other things.

And while anyone who knows me would happily admit that I'm not naturally the most practically-skilled of people, I'm proud of the cage I've put together from netting and bamboo to keep the birds away from the fruit. It's a bit cobbled together, but hopefully effective.

Gardening talk...

2009-06-15T21:29:00.003+01:00

Slightly surreal this evening, doing a couple of hours weeding in the pleasant late afternoon sunshine, while a variety of thunderstorms passed by - almost constant sounds of thunder but somehow none of them ever came in our direction.

Weeding is, of course, the bane of any gardeners life (not that I'd go so far as to cal myself a gardener...), specially if, like me, you grew up only being allowed to do three sorts of gardening: gathering up the fallen apples in early autumn, mowing the uneven lawn (including under said apple tree) and weeding.

Weeding is even worse when your garden is infested with mare's tail.

Mare's tail is horrible stuff in so many ways. It grows like a mad thing, even up throw the middle of clumps of other plants, it laughs at any of the anti-weed spray you try on it, it mostly throws up individual stems (if you're lucky you may get two or three together) and when you pull it up (there's really no room to dig in our densely planted front garden) it (if you're lucky and it doesn't just snap) gives you what looks like a reasonable of root, which is fine until you realise that the main tap roots extend feet underground.

Oh, and it has supernatural powers of some sort. No sooner have you cleared an area and looked away to start clearing another patch than one or two (large!) fronds will suddenly appear exactly where you were just weeding, waving gently at you and singing 'la la la la...'

I guess we should just be grateful that plants aren't more intelligent - otherwise, they'd certainly wait to make their cheeky re-appaearance for a day or so to really rub it in.

What did you do at the weekend?

2009-06-10T18:41:00.002+01:00

Rob and I did a round trip of slightly less than 600 miles to see a Breton music band play and to whitewash a barn.

Nothing wrong with a bit of variety, is there?

What I did on my Easter holidays...

2009-04-21T19:12:00.003+01:00

... by Neil, aged *mmph mmph mmph*

If I asked most people to picture the preparations for their wedding (assuming they ever thought they'd get married - I know I didn't up till a few years back), I imagine they'd be thinking about planning a venue, sorting out the flowers, perhaps writing vows.

Guess again. We started our preparations during the last week. Using shovels, a tractor (first time I'd ever driven one) and a power-washer (ditto).

Yep, we've been clearing cow muck from the yard and barns which we'll be using for our celebrations in the summer.

It's different, I'll grant you. But it really does feel like we'll be making our own celebrations much more personal.

Overheard in the supermarket

2009-03-30T19:48:00.001+01:00

"And how's destiny?"

I missed the answer. While I suspect it was probably regarding an (unfortunately-named) child, I have visions of a *really* deep conversation about the questioned person's journey through life.

Shopping really is the new religion

2009-03-09T22:01:00.003Z

I looked out of the window yesterday morning around 9.15 to blue skies and lots of sunshine. Right, I thought, a nice stroll round the locality and over to the park would be a great start to a Sunday.

Fine.
Until I got to the park and the blue skies almost magically disappeared, leaving me with grey miserable skies and a hefty wind. Ah well, I thought, a stroll will still do me good.

And a stroll I had, but quite a brisk one, leading me to decide to pop into the local shopping centre (our town centre was ripped out mercilessly years back). It's bound to be quiet at 10 when it opens, I thought, the sound of the local church bells ringing in my ears.

Imagine my surprise when arriving at one side door at 10 to see a queue of people patiently waiting for the door to open. On a whim, I walked round the side to see a slightly bigger, patient group.

Odd. Still, I thought I'll wander round through the car park to the main entrance. And oh yes, a veritable throng. All waiting to worship at the altar of consumerism - although a lesser altar than the cathedral to consumerism that is the Trafford Centre a few miles away. I'm not judging, by the way, I ended up as part of the patient throng.

I didn't worship though. Well, just a little. And threw a few curses at WHSmiths for only opening from 11-3.

Foxy visitor

2009-02-27T21:31:00.002Z

Was slightly surprised when arriving home today to glance into the garden and (as a blackbird shot up into the air) see a fox slipping through the hedge to next door.

Don't get me wrong, I'm aware that there are many foxes living in urban areas, it's just I've managed to go my whole life without seeing one.

Perhaps that's why the birds won't come to our feeders/bird table.

Sometimes I think naming and shaming is just about worth it...

2009-02-10T18:25:00.002Z

A light spot of shopping at the Trafford Centre yesterday led into a need for food. The Food Hall there isn't exactly my favourite place, but at 9 in the evening it was fairly quiet and not too off-putting.

Well, except for a certain vegetarian feeding stop - v2go. The food was fine, but what is it with the pricing? I ordered a quorn pitta meal (quorn fillet in pitta with salad and a hot or cold drink - relatively healthy). Advertised as £4.75.

Unless you ask for water as the drink. then it's an extra 25p.

Which doesn't make any sense at all - especially seeing as the bottled water is *cheaper* than the other hot and cold drinks on sale...

*grumble, grumble, grumble*

Weird dreams

2009-01-12T23:29:00.002Z

I don't often remember my dreams, so it was with some surprise that I remembered two separate ones from last night:

1. The handyman who works for our landlady had come round to check on our radiators (they really are in a shockingly 'not heating the room' way in some parts of the house). After deciding they were hot enough, he ran upstairs and when I followed hime, bored me with his life woes.

2. (The better one) I'd decided to go to a reunion/open day thing at my old secondary school. I was waiting for the bus, unsure which one to catch when several lads from the school appeared at the bus stop. It seemed obvious that I needed to get the same bus number as them, but try as I might every time one pulled up, more students arrived and I was never able to get the (always dilapidated) bus.
Eventually, I succeeded, only on stepping aboard to find myself in a space more like the entrance to an underground station. I shuffled forward to the desk, expecting to buy a ticket but instead finding I had to purchase a coffee. I took the cup and started to pour myself a drink from the (very small) jug before being scolded by the person on the cash desk, telling me not to take so much. I took my coffee round to a sort of breakfast bar place. Shortly afterwards, a young lad from the school leant on the other side and told me liked what I'd done. I was puzzled but looked down to where he indicated and found I was wearing my old school tie. Still puzzled, I asked what exactly he liked about it. Apparently, he liked the way I'd tied it, even though it didn't seem out of the ordinary to me.

Tips from a 'qualified' renovator

2009-01-06T23:14:00.003Z

It's been a bit quiet round here for a while. We've been busy renovating t'other half's old flat (I signed up for a quick bit of decorating and then discovered it was many weekends of hard labour at the other end of the county... ah well, it must be love).

Here are my tips for the day:

1. Use a mini-roller (with a gloss sleeve) when glossing (but remember to paint in the awkward bits first) - much quicker and much less prone to drips.

2. Use trade paint wherever possible - it's thicker and generally covers whatever surface in just one coat (how else do you think painters get the job done so quickly *and* have time for multiple cups of tea?)

3. New carpets. Don't rip up the old gripper rods (tackless strips to our American cousins) when you take up the old carpet. And if you do, where thick gardening gloves when dealing with putting new ones down. I learnt that one the painful, somewhat bloody way.

A Dark Knight's Tale

2008-09-28T19:08:00.001+01:00

Yes, yes, I know it's not an original title, but sometimes the obvious thing just feels right...

The other half and I went to see The Dark Knight last night at the Odeon IMAX in Manchester.

Let's deal firstly with the so-called Premier seats - sticking a headrest on and (I think) giving you a couple more inches really doesn't count as Premier in my book. And certainly not for the extra £2/3 we paid. I've sat in wider seats too.

Anyway, the film... Really enjoyed it. Heath Ledger did some sterling work as the Joker and Aaron Eckhardt as Harvey Dent/Two-Face brought home to you what a tragedy the fall of this 'White Knight' was. Christian Bale, of course, was well-(Bat)suited to the flawed hero role.

I do find it interesting that the comic world (in comic and film forms) does seem to be taking us further and further down the dark, flawed hero road. I wonder whether this is a reflection on society and how film-makers see early 21st century life or whether I'm over-analysing and this is a phase.

I'm all for light and shade in characters, but I kind of hanker for the ages when superheroes were bright, shiny and just plain heroes.

Pigeon trauma on the avenue

2008-09-27T23:56:00.003+01:00

Arriving home from the local shops, I was accosted by a woman who asked if I was any good at dispatching pigeons. Odd request, you might think...

Turns out that she had nearly driven over a pigeon which had earlier (presumably) been hit by another car. She was flapping somewhat about how to help it and shooing a neighbour's cat away from getting it. The bird itself was looking pretty badly damaged in both wing and leg.

A near neighbour was trying to raise the cat's owner to get it taken in. My first thought (fortunately unspoken) was that it might be best just to let the cat have its way with the bird. after all, the RSPCA (which the two ladies wanted to call) were highly unlikely to be interested in doing anything.

Help came in the form of our elderly neighbour across the road, Mr J, who volunteered to take the bird away and kill it. According to the other neighbour, he was the perfect person to do it because he was a fisherman...

I swear every time I've looked out of the window since today, the cat has been sitting there, looking disgruntled and glaring at anyone who happened to pass.

Raiders of the Lost Patio

2008-09-22T22:15:00.003+01:00

Take sunshine, a carload of brushwood, 10 very large bags of garden waste, forks, spades, a broken-handled rake and a trowel and what do you get?

Sounds potentially like implements of medieval torture (possibly coupled with a witch-burning event), but in fact it was the shaping of a previously jungle-like garden into something resembling a useful "outdoor room" (don't you just love the estate agent speak?)

We've been working on doing up Rob's flat for a few weeks now (mostly at weekends) and the grand weather sent us out to what was out the back.

"Get a flamethrower!" I joked. And actually, rather than lugging the brushwood down the steps into the flat, through it (trying to avoid newly-painted walls - yes, you can see we really thought this one through) and then back up steps at the front to the car, it might really have been easier to burn the brushwood.

Still, in the process, I've re-edged borders with brick designs to fit those already partially there, moreorless relaid a path and, in the process of scraping accumulated earth and weeds, rediscovered a patio that hadn't seen the light of day for quite some time.

I also hacked back the vine from next door so much that the neighbours at the back lost their overhanging bunches of grapes (shame, seeing as they have a very bare yard, but it really did need getting under control).

There's still work to do - but there's also a sense of achievement having made such a visible change to the garden.

Return of the Rubbish Blogger

2008-09-15T21:19:00.002+01:00

I've discovered a new artistic outlet (one I'm sure I could indulge instead of writing...).

Painting. I reckon I'm quite an artist.

With a roller, that is. Surprised myself with how much I enjoyed painting two rooms at Rob's flat over the weekend.

If only I could get my artistry into my writing again, I'd be fine...

Blogger's Block

2008-09-03T22:58:00.004+01:00

Not really. We've been away on holiday for two weeks and I've been pretty busy (and tired) since getting back, so writing hasn't been that high on my list of priorities.

Here are some recent random thoughts:

- The pen is mightier than the sword. But generally less sharp and more prone to leaks.

- Wouldn't it be great if writers had some sort of equivalent of doctors' Hippocratic Oath? I haven't yet worked out what I think it might include.

- I've been remembering my dreams a lot more recently. Well, for the first few seconds after waking and before dozing off again. I'm sure my brain is in overdrive on something, but it would help if I ever had a longer-term memory for them.

Pie in the blue sky thinking

2008-08-20T22:54:00.003+01:00

Sometimes I come up with a phrase in the middle of a discussion which seems to be original. Well, today's title (at least in internet terms) almost is. (Google gives only 3 other occurences of the full string, if you're really that interested)

We were doing some planning for the wedding today. It's a year away but we realised we ought to start having a few ideas. So far, we've been looking round the farm at various possible venues as well as creating a first run at a guest list.

I didn't think I'd have that many people to invite, but came up with about 60 names straight off. Which is a bit scary as Rob did the same (with no overlaps). And we have been aiming to keep it fairly intimate...

As we can pretty much come up with our own ideas for ceremony and celebration (after the legal bit, of course), I started throwing all sorts of (at points random and/or over-ambitious) ideas around. Which takes up back to the title. Generally, I hate 'management speak', so I quite liked my little variant...

I knew we'd forget something...

2008-08-16T20:42:00.002+01:00

We're on holiday. In Devon. At the in-laws.

And very nice it is too (I really do get on with Rob's family very well). Except for one thing.

We forgot to bring something with us, in the way that is almost inevitable when it comes to going on holiday.

Not clothes or personal stuff or anything like that.

We forgot to bring the weather. :(

It was gloriously sunny when we set off yesterday. And it's absolutely poured down all day here. And I really don't want anyone to underestimate the quantity of water. I'm kind of glad the farm is on the side of a hill - well, unless we get washed away in the middle of the night - because I suspect we'd be like ducks if we were down in the valley.

On the plus side, it's been a handy day for unwinding, sitting around reading, playing board games etc, which is not the worst way to start a holiday.

The Unbearable Brightness of Seeing

2008-08-13T22:06:00.002+01:00

No. I don't have any idea what that title is about either. Sadly, I seem to have a tendency to come up with good titles (or in this case a dubious pun on an established title) and then think of what to write to go with it later on.

Sometimes this works really well. In my days of being a fanfic writer (I shan't bore you with which fandom, but (surprisingly) it isn't sci-fi related), I was quite prolific at coming up with titles and then juicy short stories to go with them. For anyone who is aware of my 'previous life', I can only beg forgiveness for the inevitable cliffhanger at the end of each part of my longer stories.

I imagine that I've lost any potential reader by this point, what with the cryptic references and the general lack of suitably gossipy detail.

But you may be starting to note that I like punctuation. Even brackets within brackets. Not that I always remember to close brackets (I've had to go back already and close an earlier one).

Let this randomness finish...

Busman's holiday, mochas and kids' films

2008-08-10T13:58:00.005+01:00

We went to Tate Liverpool yesterday to see the Klimt exhibition. As someone who works part of the week in an art gallery, you might consider this to be a bit of a busman's holiday, but I was looking forward to it, partly because my partner really likes Klimt's work and partly because I had it in my head that The Kiss was in the exhibition.

No such luck. No Kiss. And a relatively small proportion of Klimt. It was as much about the Viennese Succession (one of those inevitable breakaway artists' groups - usually that have broken away from an earlier breakaway group [much like most branches of Christianity, come to think of it]) and design around the turn of the 20th century. I was actually quite disappointed by it. There was a Klimt lake scene I enjoyed, and a couple of quite stunning portraits which really depicted the essence of the sitters, but otherwise it was... well, a bit dull. Sadly, it kind of confirms my suspicion that paid exhibitions often aren't worth the money you spend on them.

Before I sound like too much of a grumpy old man, I should point out that I really enjoyed the two floors of 20th century art. I was especially pleased to see an Yves Klein blue (IKB79) which I'd last seen in the Tate Modern a few years back, as well as Jackson Pollocks, a Craig-Martin and a whole range of other imaginative work.

And before anyone suggests that yesterday was a 'culture vulture' day, I should point out that in the morning we took my friends' two boys to see Wall-E (the film was fine, if possibly more adult in some respects than I'd imagined - the queueing for 25 minutes to get tickets not so great) and we had lunch at Debenhams in Liverpool (it was nearby and we were hungry - nice deli sandwiches, worst mocha I've ever drunk [all the chocolate syrup glooped at the bottom]).

Leak update: the handyman is bemused by its continuing presence, so we've now (at his request) removed the halogen light until he can come and have a look. It, for some unknown reason, now only drips every other day after we've showered...

It's always windy in Stretford...

2008-08-06T22:48:00.003+01:00

Well, so says my esteemed other half. And since we've moved here it has seemed that way. Apart, of course, from the days it rains. Like now :(

No wonder Manchester gets called the Rainy City.

And on the subject of water (sort of), we've managed to develop a very strange leak in the kitchen today. A small drip round one of the halogens for about 3 minutes in the morning. The handyman confesses to be puzzled - there's no obvious sign of leak or damp above.

I can't find any particularly clever link between water and work, so I'll just point out that creating the design and content for a 16-page magazine (which doubles as our gallery education programme) is a lot longer work than I ever thought it would be, especially when I'm coming up with mad schemes to rename all the 7-11 sessions after song titles (you won't believe how much googling that took last week). Blame my boss - she suggested Madonna lyrics - and has since adapted the Kylie song title :(

2008-08-05T23:18:00.002+01:00

This is just a test run for now. The aim being that if I can write a bit on here every day, perhaps a 'diary' entry, perhaps something about work, or maybe even a fiction snippet, I'll start getting my head back round some more serious writing.

We can hope :)