I spent from 10:30 to 2:30 on trains today. While this can often be a pain, today I was wrapped up in reading about the Indian Mutiny 1857, so the time just slipped away. It was also quite handy that, apart from the morning train which I was 15 minutes early for, there was no waiting between them.

This was my last view of Bristol:

Bristol Temple Mead station

I was hoping to have a quick look at Brunel’s station but it’s now a conference centre and not accessible to the public!

A few times during my journey I spied rain through the window but, luckily, never had to walk in it. Though when I arrived home, the mud hadn’t changed. What had changed was the daffodils. In front of where the Wendy House once was, is a row of daffs which didn’t bother flowering last year after a brilliant show the first year. This year, however, the two end ones of the single row have! They look lovely if a bit odd.

One of the two daffodils that flowered in 2011

I’ve created a photo album of our Bristol trip as well. You can see it here.

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I have just found out that Ambridge has its own website. Ambridge is where The Archers is set so it’s fictional. However, Jennifer Aldridge maintains the site on the programme and there actually is one! It’s here for anyone who would like to keep up with the goings on in this most perfect English country village: Ambridge Village Website

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And if you’d like to hear me make the others laugh at the Talking Newspaper…it’s here.

Haslemere Herald

Another day that started blue and warm but passed through some horrid weather. While we loved Clifton Common, it was very cold on the top deck of the open topped bus!

We searched in vain for the mythical Starbucks that Mirinda’s little friend assured us was just up the road. We found a container. Actually Mirinda declared that she was standing in it while in the middle of a small road beside a big hotel. Never trust an iPhone is what I get from that. We decided to walk up to the Starbucks we’d actually seen yesterday.

After a lovely breakfast of muffin, luxury fruit toast and latte, we wandered into the city centre to catch the open topped bus beside the fountain. We had ten minutes to wander around before it left. I was surprised to find there were actually other people out and about, ready to tour the city.

A few hardy souls atop the bus

We boarded and were taken on a lovely tour of Bristol, hearing once more the stories we’d already heard or read about. It’s quite funny the way Bristol claims John Cabot as one of their own when he was actually Italian! Still, the city of Bristol did fund the Matthew and it’s trip to America. Apparently the rumour is that the mayor of Bristol at the time was Richard Amerike and Cabot simply named what he found after him.

There are other theories as to the origin of the name but I quite like the idea of Cabot landing and calling it America after the mayor only to have it renamed Newfoundland, which is pretty boring. Fancy having a country named after a dog.

Speaking of names, Bristol means ‘the place at the bridge’ in Old English, because it was the only place where you could cross the river. This bridge was around for a long time but then, as transport grew so did the needs of the bridge and so a bigger, tougher was built which they then built shops on. This was then widened and the buildings removed. The bridge is still there (albeit a different one many times over) and is a main crossing over the river Avon. It’s now called Bristol Bridge which, if you think about it, means the place at the bridge bridge.

Now, of course, the most famous bridge is Brunel’s magnificent suspension bridge at Clifton. What a fantastic piece of engineering! It spans the Avon gorge, supplying magnificent views in both directions. At least it would on a nice day. Today wasn’t a particularly nice day so the photography opportunities were few and far between. Here’s the best shot I could get, looking across it. That’s Mirinda on the left with her earmuffs and big coat on.

Clifton suspension bridge on a gloomy day

We walked out to the little viewing point at the Clifton end but Mirinda started to get wobbly legs so we only stopped for some photos then walked back into Clifton, where we visited the Christchurch church which has an exact replica in Shanghai. It’s to do with a bunch of missionaries who craved their old church so much they decided to build one exactly the same. I’m not sure what the Chinese thought of it. it probably looked quite odd when they’d finished.

After a stroll around the big, open church, we headed off to Cote for lunch. Mirinda wanted to experience the joys of a restaurant chain that she loves in Farnham but, sadly, the restaurant had other ideas. It was full. Actually the Cote in Clifton village has a big thick curtain, like the one that separates business and cattle classes in domestic aircraft. There were plenty of empty tables so maybe we weren’t dressed appropriately.

Crestfallen, Mirinda led us to the Bombay Spice, ostensibly because she wanted to go to the loo. We sat, the only customers, and had a quite enjoyable Indian meal for lunch. The Kingfisher was lovely. And we did manage to avoid the downpour by being inside. This was the second time we’d managed this feat as it had poured down while we sst in a small cafe trying to get a coffee and a hot chocolate even though we appeared to be invisible.

After a stroll around the streets of Clifton village, where we found a lovely Georgian square, we rejoined the tour bus for the trip back into Bristol.

Victoria Square, Clifton Village

We decided to forego the dubious pleasures of the open deck and sat downstairs. The tour guide had also decided the bottom deck was preferable. We enjoyed his patter all the way back to the bus stop near the hotel were we left the bus.

Back in our hotel room, we had a cup of tea/coffee after I convinced the hotel staff that they did actually have coffee in their stores even though the two foreigners I asked claimed they didn’t. To be fair, the hotel is pretty good and I’d recommend it to anyone wanting something nice and clean and close to the city centre and the man station. Just don’t run out of coffee!

It was soon time for Mirinda to make the lonely (apart from an annoyingly reticent Linda) drive back to her student accommodation in Bath. I lay on the bed and watched a very entertaining hour of football, enjoying Birmingham’s defeat of Arsenal in the Carling Cup final. I then popped out to the King’s Head for a pint of 6X before returning to the room feeling pretty happy.

Bristol was a city of two days today. The first was blue skies and a few scattered clouds, the second was grey and wet. We started with the first, suffered the second and then returned to the first for the rest of the day.

Firstly we slept in. How wonderful was that. No Day-z barking to wake me up at 7am, no alarm waking me to go to work at 6:30am, nothing. It was the longest sleep I’ve had for a long time.

The hotel was very comfortable. The shower was ok, especially the shower door which pivots around to allow a bigger door without taking up any more space than a smaller one. Works well. The pressure isn’t as strong as I normally like it but the temperature was good.

In fact, the only real thing wrong with the hotel room is the bathroom door, which doesn’t shut. The bolt and the plate are not aligned. Clearly no-one from the hotel has tried closing the door.

We eventually left the hotel at about 10 and headed for St Nicholas’ Market for a lovely breakfast of bacon in a sour dough roll and lattes. All round delicious and a lovely way to start the day.

The Sourdough Cafe, Bristol

We wandered all through the market, admiring lots, buying nothing. We spotted some lovely fossils and rocks but Mirinda rushed us away before I could get too attached.

Down at the city centre, we learned the truth about the discovery of America. Apparently it wasn’t Chris Columbus, it was John Cabot and his son Sebastian, aboard the Matthew in 1497. They set sail from Bristol. I know because I read it on a plaque. He was actually quite amazing. He has a wikipedia entry here.

We wandered around to Queen’s Square or, rather, we wandered ROUND Queen’s Square, saying hi to William III just as it started raining.

Statue of William III in Queen's Square, Bristol

We decided to walk as slowly as possible to the Hole in the Wall in order to get as wet as we could. It worked very well. By the time we arrived at the pub we were well damp. I noticed, to my great joy, that they had 6X on tap and all the cold and rain vanished in an instant.

I didn’t know this but the Hole in the Wall was so named because there used to be a hole in the wall where the locals would watch for the press gangs. When they spotted them coming along the harbour wall, they would yell “Press gang!” and everyone would vanish into the cellar where they could hide. The press gang guys would turn up at the pub and there’d be no-one there. Ha! Clever.

It is also rumoured to be the place where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island. It was a lovely place where writing something about pirates would be great fun. Especially as Robert wouldn’t have had the Pirate Tour guy suddenly enter the pub followed by 50 tourists to show them the hole in the wall in the Hole in the Wall.

As he passed us, he told his charges that we were a pair of pirates enjoying our pints. I hope my scowl was piratical enough. Then, as quickly as they appeared, the all vanished. Without buying anything. Just went. Very odd.

When we left the pub, the rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. We wandered around the harbourside towards the SS Great Britain. On the way we passed a moored boat with a crew of dogs.

The Crew of Dogs

The Jack Russell is obviously the captain. When he came along the side of the boat, the other dogs all snapped to attention.

After spending far too long chatting to the canine crew with Mirinda taking miles of footage with her iPhone, we continued on to Brunel’s Big Boat.

We have been to many tourist places, visiting lots of places that are good, great, poor or dire. Rarely do we find a place as good as the SS Great Britain. It is up there with Bill the Bastard’s place at Falaise.

At first, the visitor goes into the original dry dock, beneath the ship. There is a thin covering of water within glass, which, as you go down the steps, you move below. You are now under the ship, looking up at the rest of the ship above the waterline. It is wonderfully perverse.

Looking up at the SS Great Britain

The underside of the ship is massive! The propeller and the rudder have been reconstructed to show how they worked but the rest of the hull is the original ship which, interestingly, was scuttled in 1937. Bits of it were then sold as souvenirs in 1939 by British servicemen wanted funds for Spitfires.

It wasn’t until 1969 that the work to bring her back to the surface, clean her up and return her to Bristol was started. It has had a lot of work on it over time, mostly because of rust and the repair of it. Also the dry dock area didn’t open until 2005.

The ship was originally launched in 1843 as a liner but she also saw service as a cargo ship. She was an amazing ship and she still is! The way you wander around, able to touch everything on the ship, go all the way into the cabins, feeling the lumpy mattresses, sitting at the dining table and toasting the Queen.

There is also a free talking guide which makes the whole thing so much better. Interestingly they have four versions. I took the maritime archaeology while Mirinda had the first class passengers. I was amazed that some people didn’t take advantage of them. The ship, while still looking great, had nothing to indicate what anything was. You either needed the talking guide or the guide book to get a completely satisfying tour.

We spent a long time wandering all over the SS Great Britain and loved it all. But it was soon time to eat so we wandered away, down to the cafe. I really felt like fish and chips but they only had jacket potatoes so we both decided to have one with tuna and cheese; an old favourite.

Unfortunately, it was awful. It’s difficult to make a jacket potato awful but this place managed really well. I really wish we’d had a packet of crisps.

We then caught the final ferry from the dock for a trip around the harbour, back to the city centre so Mirinda could lead us on a merry walk looking for an invisible cinema which turned out to be a car park in a seedy part of town with, oddly, a Greggs.

We eventually walked across Castle Park and back to the hotel for a well earned rest.

By the way, the title refers to a diary entry of 7 September 1852 made by E.T. Richards while aboard the SS Great Britain. He or she wrote: “Amongst the sugar at breakfast I found some little animals with many legs running races together, this is most filthy and not very pleasant.“

Today was the last week day of half term and the museums were packing them in. Of course, the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, as usual were by the far the most popular but even so, we had quite a few. So many that I decided to pop out to Starbucks for lunch.

The footpath that runs along Exhibition Road was wall to kerb full of people, strollers and tiny, grubby hands. It was a case of finding someone and walking quickly directly behind them. I find this works really well, particularly if you find someone with absolutely no scruples at all. They act like a snow plough.

I was lucky today for I found a mindless youth with very big headphones, singing tunelessly to himself (and all around him) in some strange language that wasn’t English while barging through, eyes down, impervious to all and any who tried to stop him. I almost thanked him when we emerged from the crowd at the pedestrian crossing but he raced across, between cars and I decided to wait for the cars to actually stop.

Starbucks was actually ok. Not too many people and somewhere to sit. There’s not a lot of places to sit in South Kensington so if you buy your lunch to takeaway, you either eat it at your desk or wander around eating as you go. There was little point in carrying it all the way back through the crowd to Imperial College so I stayed in.

I managed to finish the oil painting list this week, on schedule, making Ailsa very happy. Now I can go back and fill in the interesting stuff!

After work I decided to walk to Paddington Station rather than catch the Tube like last time, when I went to Bath. It was quite a pleasant walk, if you ignore the fact that I had a wheelie bag with me.

I’m pretty sure I’ve not been through Kensington Gardens before today but thought they looked like they’d be very appealing in the summer. I managed to avoid Diana’s fountain or pond or whatever it is and reached Paddington at 4:30. My train left at 5:30. I went to Starbucks.

People may think I spend a lot of my life in Starbucks. Well, I do. They’re right. There is little point in denying it. And, frankly, I don’t really care.

The rush for the train was exactly like last time, all briefcases, bowler hats and gentlemanly fisticuffs. However, my reserved seat was just that and I slipped in, happy as Lonnie and started my book up. I read all the way to Bath between texting Mirinda to find out what room we’re in.

I’d never been to Bristol by train before but it’s ok, I have to say. It’s an hour and a half, almost, but the trip was uneventful and the train comfortable. Ish. However, more than the trip is the proximity of the hotel. Talk about perfect. It’s about a five minute walk and halves the distance to the city. Perfect.

It’s the Mint Hotel we’re staying in. It’s very cool and modern and chilled, as you’d expect mint to be. Mirinda was certain she wasn’t going to like it and is almost disappointed she can find nothing wrong with it.

We wandered up to the futuristic and oddly pleasant shopping centre for dinner, deciding to enjoy some Yo Sushi, since this is what we normally do when I join Mirinda for a weekend during her residential.

It was lovely and afterwards we wandered back to the hotel, trying to walk between the, gradually increasing in size, rain drops.

The room is quite comfortable and the bed, which has very effectively lulled Mirinda off to sleep, looks set to call me to Snoozehampton.

OMG, SUN! Blue sky, few clouds, a delightful day. It looks like spring. Well, spring with mud anyway. The crocuses even popped out for a little look.

The sum total of our crocus crop

Today was a tad hectic. I say ‘tad’ because I’ve had hectic days which make today look like a doddle – bumping into a small theatre in Orange springs to mind. But to my new sedate life, it was hectic enough.

Yesterday I tried to book our usual taxi to take me and poodles to the kennel but I was told they had nothing until 10.30. Why? it wasn’t a special day today. Unless someone hadn’t told me something. Obviously the grossly unsettling news must have infused my voice because the helpful taxi operator (who sounds about 12) gave me another number to call. This proved successful (whew, I exploded) and I ordered a cab to be here at 9am this morning.

From 8, Day-z knew something was up. She started pacing the house, looking confused. Actually, she generally looks confused but she only paces when she thinks something’s afoot. I don’t know how. Carmen just sleeps. Any opportunity she misses, is a sleep she’ll never get, as far as she’s concerned. I tried asking Day-z what she thought was going on but the only reply I received was an increase in her pacing.

The taxi arrived at 9 on the dot and, after a brief ‘I told you so’ look from Day-z, it was on with the lead and out the door. Of course they get all excited when they are to get into a car and it takes a lot to calm them down while I adjust the towel on the seat for them to sit on. This done, they then leapt into the taxi and sat on my lap and on the small bit of backseat without towel on it.

At the kennel they were very pleased to see the girl who took them away, without a backward glance. Obviously they could sense there was tripe in the offing. The taxi driver remarked on how compliant they were. His King Charles spaniels, he said, hated even a whiff of kennel. I told him about the tripe and he understood immediately.

Back at home, I had time to wash the kitchen floor (without pesky poodles poking their noses and paws in) before heading out for the Talking Newspaper.

In the park, the new playground has taken on the appearance of a battle zone. Holes, broken rubble and mud everywhere; huge machines blocking the path. The playthings looked a bit odd in the middle but it promises a lot in the way of tiny adventure and fun. Anyway, because of the big truck parked on the path, I had to walk all the way around, off the all weather path and into the squelchy, muddy grass. A nuisance but, apparently, necessary.

At the Talking Newspaper, I was happily ensconced in my editing duties when Tony turned up. he’s the secretary and was the person who put me through my training session. He’d popped in, I thought, to say hi to one of the presenters who hadn’t been around for a while. Then he bent over next to where I was sitting and whispered in my ear “Can I have a word in private please, Gary.”

I knew I was in trouble. I’d been too cheeky; taken too many liberties in my readings; some blind person had objected to my irreverence. I was ready to take it on the chin and apologise. I can tone down, I’d say. I can toe the party line and not say rude words like ‘nipple’. Trust me, I’m an actor!

We went into the kitchen and I prepared to take my medicine.

“We had a meeting the other night,” he started, meaning the committee, “And we wondered if you’d like to be a presenter. We all think you’d be terrific.”

I was stunned. And pleased. And relieved.

“Well, yes, I’d love to,” I found myself saying. “Thank you.”

It was then a case of telling everyone and being patted on the back and congratulated by all and sundry. Returning to my editing was slightly difficult with this news flashing around my head, thinking of all the extra things I’d have to do and the responsibility of running the show. However, I managed to finish and we all went into the studio to record.

I had a piece this week about a ‘fromage’ day at a school in Haslemere. The kids, as part of an introduction to French class, had to taste French cheeses and the photograph featured five young girls with big cheesy grins – as the piece said, they all cried ‘FROMAGE’ as the photo was taken. Part of the piece was in French which I had a good go at and before the next section, Judy, the presenter, said how well I did with the French. Given I wasn’t the next to speak and we were doing the letters to the editor, I didn’t really feel I could say anything but then I hit on an idea.

At the end of every Talking Newspaper, we all say goodbye, one at a time, after being introduced by the presenter. I sat waiting for my turn.

JUDY: So now it’s goodbye from Rosemary…
ROSEMARY: Good bye.
JUDY: And goodbye from Gary…
GARY: Au revoir!

And then the studio erupted in hysterics. They managed to splutter out the rest of the goodbyes and ended the recording still laughing. Of course I apologised, asking if they wanted to do the farewells again but Judy insisted it was great and Di claimed the listeners would love it. So it stayed in. I’m very naughty.

Last night, when I spoke to Mirinda, she insisted that I drop in to the Hop Blossom on my way home from the Talking Newspaper so, obeying my wife, I tried. Alas, it was closed! I was devastated. How could I hope to appease my wife?

Fortunately the Nelson Arms was open and I had a lovely pint of Winchester Ale in there instead. Mirinda was right, it was a lovely way to finish my volunteering. And celebrate my good news.

The Nelson Arms, Farnham

Our garden is a quagmire. I noticed that even Day-z has started picking out the tiny islands of grass to walk on, afraid she’ll vanish in the bog. Of course, Carmen just charges through it, making it worse. I have made a few trips up the back but generally avoided it for fear of being sucked under.

Our mud garden

And so the day has been spent largely inside. I went shopping, of course, and had my coffee in Starbucks.

Actually I was in Starbucks, happily reading The Indian Mutiny – 1857 on my reader when a cheery voice beside me said “Oh, hello!” It was Alex, who used to work there but then worked in Cote. She is working on her final piece for uni and has, therefore, given up work. So she says. She graduates in July but her piece has to be in by May. She’s at the uni here so I’m assuming she’s doing something arty.

I asked her what she was going to do when she’s finished. She thought it over and then said, with utter confidence “Do a Masters.” She thought for a bit more then said “And another Masters. I can just keep doing lots of Masters.” I smiled, unsure if she was being serious. She’s Schumanian and maybe I didn’t get the joke intonation or something. However, I think she was serious.

This then made me wonder what sort of arty Masters you could do and what the dissertation would be about. Make a wedding dress, maybe. Or stuff a doona. Then I thought about Mirinda and her multitude Masters of Arts and figured I’d best stop thinking about it.

I made myself toad in the hole for dinner which, while I loved it, is also a major treat for the dogs. The minute I take the sausages out of the wrapper they are sitting in the kitchen watching and waiting. As they bubble and spit beneath the grill, the dogs sit and watch them, enthralled like kids watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for the first time. When I take the snags out, they get all excited, thinking I’ll just pop them into their mouths like dolphins with fish. They then guard them – well, Day-z does, Carmen feigns a careless disregard by going into the lounge for a sleep – until they are cold enough for me to cut up and drop in their bowls. And they don’t waste any time tasting them! God no. They’re gone in seconds and then the dogs are back in the kitchen looking for the rest.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner though possibly not as much as Mirinda did her Moroccan dinner in Bath today.

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I spotted this on blip today. It is from someone who lives and works in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was posted the day of the quake. I think it shows the power of blogging that we can get such a human perspective on events happening in the world these days. Broadcast news is always a distant, unattached view; this is a real person. I felt sad but also cheered by the human spirit. It’s well worth a read: New Zealand

Carmen amazes me sometimes. I’m not sure how she can do some of the things she does with such a tiny brain. And with legs that go the wrong way. One of her amazing things is the way she can guess where I’ll be on the path when we go for our walk. She will take off into a copse of trees, be completely hidden from view and then pop out of the trees just as I reach the same point. She does this with unerring accuracy. I don’t call her, or whistle or make any overt noise but she manages every time.

Day-z, on the other hand, just follows. When she gets left behind and only Carmen emerges, I have to whistle so she knows where we are. She always finds us eventually but I think she has more interesting things on her mind like flowers, insects, random animal droppings, etc. She gets a bit pre-occupied. Carmen, on the other hand, thinks she’s human.

Here they both are, not being particularly human at their favourite puddle.

Carmen & Day-z at the puddle in the park

To say the day was grim would be an understatement. Every now and then, the rain drizzles down and everything is misty and grey. One of those type of days Mirinda wishes she’d stayed in Oz. It’s also quite chilly and the park is awash with mud.

To add to the overall grimness, today we ran into a guy I call Mr Grumpy Grunch. He’s an odd sort of chap. About 60ish with a life worn face, he lopes around the park looking miserable as sin. (I’m not so sure that is a very accurate expression. After all, sin, by its very nature, is going to be far from miserable until after you confess it and even then the memory can be pretty good.)

I’ve seen Mr Grump Grunch at a couple of Aldershot games. We’ve seen him on the Slab with the other old timers. Here he doesn’t look so miserable. Instead, he whoops it up if anything happens and looks generally pretty demented. When I say when anything happens, I mean it. Someone can drop a hotdog and he’ll start doing the Macarena, chortling away to himself. If someone laughs at something funny he will go into paroxysms of hilarity, threatening to burst a blood vessel.

But in the park, he just looks permanently grumpy. He never says hello or nods and show any recognition at all, even though he’s seen me and the girls many, many times. Speaking of the girls, they know what he’s like and avoid him. Once they went up to him, tails wagging, expecting the usual comment about how cute they are but were disappointed when he just kept walking. So now they just walk around him.

As I always say, the day can be miserable enough without adding to it.

Anyway, after our walk I decided to attack the back garden. Mind you, after my last disastrous foray, I was under the strictest instructions. Armed with spade, fork, gloves and kneeling stool, I hit the hot bed. Well, the little corner that had been spared my previous decimation.

First I transplanted Carmen’s lavatera. I was amazed at the length of the roots. For something snapped off my a poodle and left for dead, it has developed a long way down underground. I had earlier prepared a patch of soil which had previously been hidden by a fresh crop of nettles, replacing the long dead stalks of last years bountiful harvest. Into this I put Carmen’s lavatera. Once packed down with fresh compost from our own compost bin, Carmen came over to inspect it. She seemed ok with it. I hope Mirinda is as happy.

I then discovered an interesting thing about strawberry plants. I planted a few when we first dug up the hot bed and I’ve been getting rid of them ever since. They are the most incredible little spreading plants. There’s no stopping them once started. I’m picking them out all the time.

Unknown to me, the strawberry plants have taken to growing in very sneaky places, making it very difficult to extract them. They are somehow aware of our love of forget-me-nots and tend to bunch around and through them. This makes their removal a very delicate operation. For this, the gloves had to come off and I had to get very close to the ground.

Because I’m on their level, Carmen & Day-z love it when I do this. They lick my face, my ears, my neck, you name it. Apart from making any delicate operation more difficult, it tickles. I am forever fending them off. Even with this constant distraction, I managed to get rid of most of them. We’re expecting rain tonight so I just know they’ll all grow back.

Before quitting, I cut back a shrub that was getting a bit scraggy and which Mirinda distinctly pointed at declaring it needed to be cut back to a foot. It is now about 18 inches. This may sound like I’m being contrary but it’s actually because I have an absolute lack of measurement guessing. Because of this, I always cut high.

My gardening was stopped by the failing light and the approaching black clouds. I hit the shower and felt like I’d achieved something. Fingers crossed I’m not in trouble again.

As the old joke goes, it’s all about the timing. Of course, that only works when you say it. I was trying to work out how to make it work by writing it down but it’s just not possible. Like this:

ME: You know the secret of great comedy?
YOU: Wha-
ME: Timing!

See? Doesn’t work.

However, it is not the timing of great comedy that I wish to blog about today, it is the timing required to get home feeling at ease and smiling. I feel I can comment on this today because I was a victim of awfully BAD timing this evening.

At work I started a new project. I have to collect record cards (which may or may not be there), scan the images (which may or may not be there), give them an increasingly difficult file name (which only makes sense to Kevin and the computer), fill out two spreadsheets and, eventually (well, after Kevin has resized them because I do not have Photoshop on my machine) drag and drop them into MIMSY. It took a good two hours to get a handle on this.

To be fair, Kevin isn’t the greatest trainer in the world. He tends to get sidetracked by irrelevances. This is fine when you’re writing a blog, I hasten to add, but can be annoying when you’re trying to hang onto the last instruction, waiting for the next one to appear beyond the comma. It goes something like this:

So you scan the image and save it on the M drive…hang on, I don’t think you have access to the M drive…maybe you should save it…actually when we did this before it was all saved locally and anyone could pick it up…no, that’s no good because…anyway, I’ll work that out later, for now save it to the J drive…

And so it goes. What could have taken about half an hour was effectively stretched for two hours. I didn’t mind. It gave me a chance to formulate a system that would helped me work my way through the list of objects, cards and MIMSY records.

The first thing I had to do was go into the store and gather up some cards. This is not so easy. I had to make a group on MIMSY first, in order to know which record cards to pull. Then I had to get Kevin to let me into the stores which are kept securely locked at all times. Then I had to wade through the millions of filing cabinets in the store, searching for the record cards.

While they are in numerical order, it’s not so simple as looking for 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27. Oh no. There are two types of record card: the older ones numbered with the year to begin with (1987-2536) and then the newer records which start with an ‘A’ followed by up to six digits. OK, that seems easy. BUT NO! It gets messier. Computers being pedantic means that the number 1235 will come before 527 in a sorted list – because the sorting starts with the first digit – so when looking for an ordered list of records, you find yourself going backwards and forwards along the filing cabinets looking for the records rather than one after the other in the same cabinet.

But there’s more! The first filing cabinets have the old numbers that haven’t any photographs and the second lot have some that do and some that don’t. Along with finding the ones with photos, I also have to note down the ones that don’t, which means going through both these filing cabinets when I can’t find a record in one of them.

OK, so let’s assume I have a pile of record cards and have made my way back to the desk. Now I have to scan the photograph on the card, save it to the appropriate directory, then enter the relevant information on two spreadsheets – one is for Kevin (and me so I can keep track) and the other is for MIMSY (for automatic upload which we probably won’t use). When I have gathered together a group of images (separated in folders for landscape and portrait) I send them over to Kevin for re-sizing and, upon being given his nod, I drag and drop them into MIMSY. Then it all starts again.

Naturally this all took a bit of getting used to but I soon had a fairly reasonable system going and was (sort of) flying through them. Lunch came and went (outside today because of the half term hordes) and I was back into it again. When I next looked at the clock, the time for leaving was very close at hand.

This is where the timing starts to come in. Because I had a stack of cards that had to be replaced in the filing cabinets and because I’d not performed this delicate task before, I took longer than anticipated so I ended up leaving ten minutes later than usual.

Ten minutes? Ha! What’s that…nothing, surely. Well, not at half term! My God! The crowds at South Kensington Tube were horrendous. I managed to walk behind a couple of workers who steamrollered their way through the tight knotted crowd of parents, squabbling kids, strollers and babies. You didn’t know where to look. Look down to avoid the tiny little people or look up to avoid running into the exhausted parents.

Finally our little group of exhausted workers reached the barriers. The woman in front of me, who had been huffing and puffing with fury all the way across the thoroughfare, asked the guard why the crowd was there; what the problem was. His answer was short, crisp and spoken with the skill acquired from repeating the same phrases for the past few hours and the knowledge he would continue intoning them for a few hours to come.

“Half term. Free museums,” was all he said.

Getting through the barriers was only half the battle. The stairs down to the platform were awash with bodies. It was difficult to know when the stairs actually started. At least if you tripped you would never fall down but be swept along onto the platform and, hopefully, deposited near a door for the next train. I managed to keep my footing to the bottom of the stairs and headed for the only bit of the platform not populated with strollers and balloon clutching, chocolate covered little hands. I was not alone. This was where most of the other peak hour travellers, just wanting to get home, were standing as well.

The Tube train wasn’t too bad, if I ignored the noise of thousands of little voices trying to be heard over each other, at the same time. Mind you, it did mean I couldn’t hear any bloody, tinny music bleeding through cheap headphones – always a silver lining somewhere. Somehow, I managed to get a seat at Victoria as a lot of them left for the peak hour trains home. At Embankment, the rush for the Northern Line took on the appearance of WWI soldiers heading over the top, trying to dodge the bullets of tiny bodies racing around corners and bounding down stairs with frantic parents screaming names out after them.

Waterloo wasn’t much better with more screeching, more strollers, more war weary parents trying to get to the main station. By this time I knew I had no hope of catching the nice 4:30 train so I strolled over to Nero’s for my coffee – one of the best things about half term is that kid’s don’t drink coffee so Nero’s was deserted – while I fumbled with my mobile because I had a text.

“What time is sunset tonight?” the text read.

I stood for a moment, stunned. The text had arrived at 4 but there’s no reception in the Tube so it had taken half an hour, chasing me through the tunnels, before finding me at Waterloo. It took me a moment to take this in. Sunset? How…what…why…SUNSET?

At Waterloo there is a big screen, just above the train indicators, which gives news, sport, show business headlines and the weather, with interspersed ads. It’s quite a handy distraction if you’re waiting for your train to be indicated. For some reason, I was convinced that the weather segment had the sunrise and sunset information included in it. Of course, this is the last update I saw so I had to wait a good five minutes for them to scroll round. To say that I was sadly mistaken, would be an understatement.

I took out my phone and did what I should have done in the first place. I went into http://bbc.co.uk/weather and read it off the screen there. (Really, I’m a bit simple sometimes.) Of course, while I was doing this, my eyes remained glued to the train indicators, in case my platform was announced. There were still strollers and frazzled parents milling around and I HAD to get a seat home or I would kill someone. I quickly texted off the time of tonight’s sunset (17:48 if anyone’s interested) and waited impatiently.

Suddenly the platform number appeared and, in a solid mass, 500 people, all without children and desperate for a seat, surged towards the barrier to platform 9. I knew my ticket wouldn’t work because it hadn’t on my morning journey (I don’t why but this happens sometimes and is very frustrating) so I went to the manned barrier to be let through. Of course, the guard there was chatting to some loser who didn’t have a ticket. There was no hurry. They discussed the weather, the cricket, the problems in Libya. Eventually, the guard let me through by moving his arm as slowly as possible until it reached the unlocking mechanism, allowing me egress. My thank you may have been slightly sarcastic.

This put me at a distinct disadvantage but I managed to get the last good seat by knocking out a few holiday makers and kicking aside their children. I sat and sighed and thought about timing. I then sent off another text, apologising for the shortness of the sunset time one which consisted of just the time.

Timing. Had I left work at my normal time, things would have been vastly better but this one little detail snowballed into an absolutely awful journey. It wasn’t until I walked through our door and the puppies slobbered all over me that I felt any type of relaxation.

Pork belly on red cabbage & smoked potato mash

Ignoring the poor quality of the photograph (because of low light) this was my main course last night. As I wrote yesterday, we finally went to Truffles restaurant in Alton. It has been heralded as the best restaurant in Alton. While I should state that I like Alton very much (we did live there for a bit), saying something is the best in Alton, does not aim very high. However, without this praise, Truffles also has two AA rosettes, a high award indeed. The Auberge in Haslemere had the same. It was because of this that we decided to go. Well, to be fair, Mirinda was the one who really wanted to try it out.

The restaurant is part of a hotel and is lovely. In the car park was a lovely vintage car (I’d say what model it was but I really have no idea) giving the whole place a modicum of class. And very nice it was too.

Vintage car outside Truffles

At this point, everything looked good and expectation was high. We wandered into the bar where a young barman was busy fending off a bunch of women, clearly out for a night of fun and giggles. He was completely professional, making sure we had drinks to take into the lounge while we perused the menu.

What an amazing selection! I’m afraid I had pork for both starter and main course but it was very hard to go passed the ham hock with the fried egg. I love eggs and try and have at least one with every meal. The ham hock is the ankle joint of the pig, usually from the front leg – I know because I just looked it up. My only previous knowledge of the ham hock came from a psychedelic song recorded by the band Funkadelic, in which they discussed them in connection with a bowl of cereal. And for my main, the pork belly (a personal favourite) and smoky mash just jumped off the page and held me transfixed.

It was while we were looking at the menu that our suspicions were first aroused. The prices seemed awfully low for a double rosette restaurant. The wine list was similar until I turned a few pages and managed to find the sancere which was a more ‘reasonable’ price. We ordered and hoped for the best.

As we left the lounge on our way to table 42 (the barman was amazed I remembered it and when I tried to explain how it’s the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything, he just switched off) another group of diners were looking at the menu. One of them called the waitress over asking for some clarification of some of the words on it. They wanted to know if they could have mashed potato with puy lentils (pronounced ‘poo-ey’ lentils by the oldest chap) until the waitress explained that the lentils were the protein and having potato would double it up. I’m not sure what the result of this was as we were out of earshot sitting at our table.

The restaurant area was very atmospheric. Low lighting, flickering candles, the usual sort of thing. The room has a hint of art deco about it with those multi colour glass lamps dotted about the room. It was very conducive to a good night’s eating. Through the arch behind us, the group of women were getting stuck into the wine and were starting to take far too many photographs and getting rowdy. This concerned me for a bit but they all quietened down and didn’t really bother us. Though the barman had a hard time most of the night. Apparently his name was not Darren although that’s what was printed on the bill roll – or so one of the women said.

Our wine arrived to coincide with the other group of diners (the lentil people) who immediately complained that it was too dark. I’m not sure why this should be a problem. They had already ordered, all they had to do was talk and eat but, apparently, they needed excessive light for these task. I guess it’s important to make sure you’re not talking to the wrong person. Or you want to see your ‘poo-ey’ lentils.

Anyway, the waitress suggested another table which was a bit closer to a light but, instead of following through on this preferable course of action, she turned the lights up. Suddenly any atmosphere in the room was removed and it all just looked like someone’s over sized dining room with too many dining tables in it. To be completely honest, we couldn’t believe it had just happened. Not what you expect…etc, etc.

Still, we ignored it and enjoyed our meal. My starter was delicious, although it was a bit undecided what temperature it should be. Unless indicated otherwise, I expect my meals to be equal, temperature-wise. The ham hock wasn’t the same temp as the egg and the pineapple relish wasn’t any temp at all. This makes it out to be not very nice but it was really delicious. The flavours were delicate and complementary. I excused the temperature thing and just enjoyed it. Mirinda’s rabbit was also delicious and I don’t think there was any discrepancy with the temperature.

The wine was lovely, though a few years younger than I was expecting. This wasn’t a problem, it was lovely. My main arrived looking like the photograph above. And I have to say, it was superb. I’m not sure how they smoke potato mash but it was very effective. It had a slight scent of wood smoke and tasted a bit smoky. The pork belly was perfect melt in the mouth as it should be and the red cabbage an excellent accompaniment. Mirinda’s lamb was lovely as well but she needed to add salt.

Actually, that was another thing. At these sort of restaurants, adding things like salt and pepper should not be necessary. The chef has prepared a meal to a certain degree of taste and adding anything extra will spoil the balance of flavour. However, as the barman put the meals down, he asked if we’d like black pepper. I was shocked. I didn’t let it show. And then, having tasted her lamb, Mirinda needed salt.

Mine needed nothing and was a delight all the way down. Even the fresh veg was steamed perfectly with lots of lovely broccoli and carrot.

For dessert I had a treacle cake thing in a nutmeg custard with mandarin cream, while Mirinda had the rice pudding. Both were delicious. We ended up with coffee & peppermint tea (and a sneaky glass of amaretto) in the lounge before we paid and left.

On the way home we chatted about why we wouldn’t be going back. Our main problem was the price which affected the ambience and the size of the meals. The meals were too big, the prices too low and there was no appetizer. A shame because I think the chef is excellent but slightly wasted at the best restaurant in Alton.

I have just looked up the Truffles website and, apparently we were supposed to be served an appetizer and petit fours with our coffee. We missed out on both. Also the AA rosettes were awarded in 2007-2008. I think things may have slipped a bit!

Mirinda at Truffles before the lights were raised

My daily attempts to find something to blip has meant I have an awful lot of photographs that no-one is every likely to see. In order to somewhat rectify that, I am going to devote this (and maybe more in the future) post to a few of my second favourites that didn’t quite make the blipping heights.

This first one is of the escalators going up from the Jubilee line at Canary Wharf.

Canary Wharf, Jubilee Line

This was back on October 13, the day before Mirinda flew to Oz. I went to the flat before meeting her and thought this looked interesting but ended up using a photo of some windows in an office building. I still rather like this shot, particularly the big image of the woman in the poster on the left.

This next one is in Farnham Park, of course, early November. I thought these two trees looked like the bigger one was protecting the smaller. It sort of looked rather maternal to me.

The Tree of Love and Protection

Of course, it could just be me. I blipped a photograph of a broken plastic fork and managed to get a five star rating for it! It’s all very odd. I guess my wit and strange way of looking at life helps rather than hinders in the strange world of blipping.

During most of November, when the weather permitted, I wandered around Farnham taking photos for Mirinda, who was missing home. As I stood at the crossroads of East, South & West Streets, this leapt out at me. I think it’s all the signs but I also like the Royal Deer scroll.

Royal Deer, Farnham

I’m not sure what the Royal Deer was or when it was but it’s a realo now.

When the skating rink is installed at the Natural History Museum each year, a sort of fairground atmosphere is created with lots of stalls and a carousel. It all gets very busy and full of kids. This is at lunchtime, before the after work families arrive.

Carousel outside the Natural History Museum

Of course I was then off to Australia and my photographs changed a bit. This is a piece of a big turbine at the model railway at Nambour, just down the (very steep) hill from dad’s hospital bed. I thought it looked quite dramatic.

Bit of a big engine, Nambour

For anyone interested, it’s actually part of the number 3 crushing engine from the Moreton Mill. It was used from 1926 to 1981 after which it was replaced by a bigger, more powerful engine. I wanted to blip this because it looked quite dramatic and powerful but, this was the day I caught the guy paddling on his surfboard at Caloundra. This was an image I just HAD to blip.

The final photograph I’m going to bore you with is from Caloundra, just up from the Powerboat Club. I was so close to blipping this one but I wasn’t happy with the line of the dock across the top. It would have been better had I crouched a little lower so it was obscured by the submerged bench.

Bench in the sand

Still, the bench is what I was after. In fact, with a bit of judicial cropping and lighting, it could have looked like this.

Cropped bench

Although this achieves the best bit of the bench, you can’t get away from the dock! Back to a normal post tomorrow.

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Tonight we’re off to Truffles Restaurant at the Grange Hotel in Alton for our anniversary dinner. No, not our wedding anniversary. It is the anniversary of our arrival here in the UK. It was 13 years ago. We’d normally go to St John’s but they were booked out so we decided to try a restaurant that Mirinda’s been dying to try for ages.