Waking at a ridiculous 7am (having gone to bed at about 1:30am) the puppies and I moved from the bed to the lounge to watch the news. Nicktor slept on. He is one of those lucky people who can just sleep. Even though he wakes early for work every day, he can still sleep for England when work doesn’t grab him out of bed (with the help of an alarm).

He eventually woke at 8:30 and, having showered and changed, we set off for the station at 9. He never has breakfast. Weird.

Along the park path a group of kids had chalked a mural. A variety of images from butterflies to hopscotch, from mountains to snakes had been added to the path. Some of the images were very good. I particularly liked the peacock, though something tells me an adult possibly had a hand in it.

Chalk peacock on park path

We admired the artistry while calmly walking over it, eventually arriving at the station.

Nicktor hates trains and when he realised he’d have to catch three to get to me, he moaned. He no longer has a car, work having picked up his company car on Friday, and is at the mercy of public transport until he buys one. He’s still trying to sort out what to buy; wanting a convertible but having to settle for a family car.

Hearing his transport complaints, Dawn smiled and said “Welcome to Gary’s world!” This did nothing to console him but made me laugh because I was going to say the same thing.

I waited for the train with him but, unlike with Mirinda, I didn’t stand and wave as the train pulled out, preferring to head to Starbucks.

Gostrey Meadow in the Sunday sun

The rest of the day was mostly spent in the garden, weeding. I’m pretty sure that the word ‘weeds’ comes from the Latin for “grows better than anything else”. It never ends! I’m pretty sure I saw some of them growing while I was pulling others out.

It was a very pleasant and restful day, weeding and listening to the cricket, a gentle sun overhead, a slight breeze taking the heat away. The poodles were stretched out underneath various bits of garden furniture (Carmen spent some of her sleeping under an obelisk) with occasional visits to ensure I hadn’t forgotten about them. It was sometime in the afternoon that I noticed it.

We’d planted some gladiolus bulbs earlier in the year and they had pushed forth green stalks, rising high and glorious but little else. But now, before my eyes, one stalk had appeared, the flowers still tightly bunched inside.

This had seemingly appeared out of nowhere but, while very exciting, it didn’t occupy a lot of examination time. Later, having read a bit about Dame Edna’s favourite flowers, I found out that the word gladiolus comes from the Roman word for sword – gladius. It strikes me as amusing that gladius means sword but ‘glad’ means happy. And, of course, that’s what Dame Edna calls them…well, ‘gladdys’ to be more accurate.

So, not so much sword-like as happy plants. And, to be honest, I think they make better smile inducers than they would be lethal weapons.

A while ago, we planted some big poppies in the hot border. Something in the garden gave loud thanks to whatever deity insects give thanks to. Two of the poppies were devoured while still in bud. Clearly these were very specialised insects because they left the California poppies well alone, only eating the big ones. This, as you can imagine, was a bit annoying.

And then yesterday, upon my return from work, a huge red poppy, perfectly formed, greeted me from the middle of the hot border. It stands 4′ tall and the petals are massive. Mirinda reckons it was supposed to grow 5′ tall which is why it’s towards the back of the bed – to give the bed an even line of height as it progresses towards the Crazies’ fence.

The tall poppy in situ

This height difference does not matter. It stands proud and glorious, particularly in the morning sun. In fact, even Nicktor crowed about its beauty when he came over today.

Big poppy up close

In order to keep me company (I’m sure there was no other reason), Nicktor decided we should go a bit old school and have a Nicktor Day. This is where the seeds for Nicktor Nights were sown.

Ages ago, when Mirinda was still commuting, Nicktor and I would have occasional Saturdays which included breakfast at a cafe, beer at the Crimea, football at Aldershot then more beer, before staggering back to our respective homes.

With the advent of London Living, meaning Mirinda was only home on the weekend, we stopped our Nicktor Days, settling for football on Tuesday nights. Somehow this developed into him staying over and going to work from our house the following morning. Except the night it snowed so much that he couldn’t leave the next day and we had a bonus Nicktor Night.

Eventually the football became occasional and we slipped into the Nicktor Night format we now follow.

So it was a bit like revisiting the past. We met at Aldershot station and went straight to the Crimea which was pleasantly uncrowded. Being a pre-season friendly, the crowds are not what you’d call massive and this is reflected in the pub.

The football was pretty dismal. We played Brentford which, for reasons we couldn’t fathom, required a big police presence. With 200 travelling fans and about 900 home supporters, it was all very friendly – there wasn’t even any singing – and the police had a very easy afternoon.

The odd thing about about the game was the introduction of drinks breaks for the players. Halfway through each half, the ref blew his whistle and the players all headed for the bench for a 5 minute drink. We were a bit surprised they didn’t have a golf cart like they do in the cricket, with some sort of outrageous advertising on top of it.

Anyway, as I said, the game was not very good and explains why we don’t normally go to pre-season friendlies. To be fair, it was very hot and not the most ideal conditions for playing a winter sport.

After filing out we headed back to the station for the short train ride to Farnham and stopped in at the Mulberry Hotel (‘the home of the gourmet burger’) to watch the final 11 overs of the cricket over a couple of pints. This was far more pleasant than the football. Particularly watching replays of Stuart Broad’s fabulous hat trick and the Indian collapse.

Feeling peckish, the fish and chip hop across the road wove a spell around us to the extent that we went straight over and bought a delicious deep fried dinner. We sat by the River Wey and watched three young guys defying gravity with their seatless bikes while we ate.

We then walked home via the river path and Nicktor showed me the various places where he would walk home when he was but a lad growing up in Farnham. It had changed a lot (it was 30 years ago) although not the house he lived in, which he showed me.

He told me a funny story about when he was about 16 he was invited to a birthday party at the pub. Not sure about how that worked, he took beer with him. That made me laugh. A lot. I do wonder whether he’d take a plate to a birthday party at a restaurant.

Back at the house, we drank some more beer, then whisky, and watched two excellent films (for a change). The classic Lucky Number Slevin, a crime thriller with some great twists and turns. It’s one of those films (a bit like The Usual Suspects or Fight Club) that discussing the plot would ruin the film for anyone who doesn’t know it. Suffice to say that it is a great film and one I’d recommend…although it is violent so not for the squeamish.

The second film we watched was Mean Machine in which Vinnie Jones plays an ex-England football captain who ends up in prison. He winds up coaching a team of prisoners who play a game of football against the warders at the end of the movie. I remember when this first came out and thought it looked pretty bad but, having finally seen it, I have to say it was very enjoyable.

A few people think it is an English copy of the American film The Longest Yard but, rather, they are both adaptations of the same book. After looking it up, I found that The Longest Yard (the 2005 one with Adam Sandler) was actually a remake of a 1974 film called The Longest Yard (the one with Burt Reynolds) which, according to imdb.com, was far better. Even more interesting is that Burt Reynolds appeared in both versions although playing different parts…clearly.

Of course we finished the night with a couple of episodes of Sorry before retiring for the night. Nicktor had a big grin on his face because he could sleep in. The poodles were over the moon because they were allowed to sleep with me.

I can’t help it. Whenever I see Ben Stiller’s name on a film, I avoid it. I just find him annoying. It’s a pity because sometimes he manages to be in some fairly decent films with great co-stars. But, as I said, I can’t help it.

I could just manage watching him in Extras because he was just playing the person I have always thought he was: An annoying, egomaniac convinced he is the greatest comic actor of our time.

Why, you may ask, am I talking about the annoying Ben Stiller? It’s because of the Fokker films. Although, not really. Today I was researching Anthony Fokker, the guy who made the aeroplanes. And, as far as I know, he had nothing to do with Ben Stiller.

So, ignoring him…I have a rather odd memory that relates to a Fokker plane. Many years ago I went for a quickly planned trip to Tasmania. It was quickly planned because Ann-Marie bet me that I couldn’t save the money to go. Actually she didn’t believe I was capable of saving any money for anything. Granted, she was right, however, I accepted her challenge and left a New Year’s party for Kingsford-Smith airport, still drunk, in order to catch the flight down south.

I don’t remember a lot about the flight (I slept for most of it) but something I’ll never forget is that the plane was a Fokker Friendship and it rattled a lot. Had I been sober I may have been more concerned. I’ll swear to my final breath that the wings actually flapped.

I was part of an organised tour group and most of the other passengers emerged at Hobart looking decidedly green. So it wasn’t just me seeing gremlins or anything.

The reason I bring all of this up is because today I researched Anthony Fokker, the guy who started the whole Fokker thing.

He was born in Java to Dutch parents in 1890, back when Java was part of Holland. His father was a Dutch coffee plantation owner who moved his family back to Holland in order to send the kids to school, ensuring a Dutch upbringing. Anthony, however, wasn’t very good at organised education and was a bit of a tearaway.

At about this time, a chap had built a small aircraft called the Spin. I have no idea why it was called the Spin, unless it had something to do with the way it landed. Actually, I do know. Spin actually means Spider. Anthony was in love! He knew he could make a better one so he did. Can you imagine? He just built a plane. Then he flew it. He was 20!!!

He would give demonstrations of, what he called Spin II and take people for joyrides until his business partner crashed it into a tree and wrote it off. This didn’t stop Anthony though; he built Spin III!

The Germans were a bit keen on his ideas and employed him to design and build planes for the German war effort. And so he did. Developing, designing and building faster and bigger aircraft. He was the guy responsible for the Red Baron planes (Fokker Dr.l) which were the scourge of many an aerial dogfight.

Model of a Fokker Tri-plane

One of his greatest innovations was to mount a machine gun at the front of a plane and, using a series of gears that worked in synch with the propeller, had it fire bullets between the spinning blades. There is some doubt that he was the only one working on this or even that he came up with the final solution however, his was the one adopted. Obviously this made it a lot easier for the pilots to win in the sky and the German attacks soon became known as the Fokker Scourge. The German air supremacy was set by such innovations.

Model of a Fokker EIII mono-plane

After the war, the Dutch weren’t too keen on the war Fokkers, so he scrapped all of his designs and started afresh in Holland, creating a company that eventually became the Fokker Aircraft Company.

He was incredibly successful, also opening a factory in the US in 1922. At one stage over 75% of planes flying in Europe were Fokkers. What finished off the company was the fact that newer airplane manufacturers were building their planes out of steel, something he never did. I guess he had far too much investment in his own manufacturing processes and couldn’t really afford to change.

He died in 1939 and the Fokker Company went on until it went bankrupt in 1996 and it’s various bits were sold off to its competitors.

Having learned all of this, it was obvious I had to go up to the Flight gallery at lunchtime and get pictures of anything Fokker related on display.

Full size Fokker Gloster

Actually the Science Museum has an old Fokker that landed in England during the war with German livery which was then repainted by the Brits to their own. I think this must be at Wroughton (the plane part of the museum) because I couldn’t find it on the 3rd floor. However, there were lots of models.

Today was also the day I completed the oil paintings! 272 records completed and cross referenced. Next week I will be working on acrylics (there’s only seven of those) to complete all the PCF records. Yay!

I had another FATN recording today. I covered for another presenter who couldn’t do it, otherwise I wouldn’t generally have them two weeks in a row. It was the Alton one again, worst luck. Still, it was (sort of) fun.

The readers before us consisted of one of my readers from last week who told me that his wife, on hearing me read last week commented that I could make anything sounds interesting. I know I love making people laugh and my shallow nature dictates that this is more than enough…this really made my day. I’m not sure which section she was listening to (either the What’s On or Sport, I imagine) but, whichever, it was a wonderful compliment.

Judge for yourselves: here are the two tracks from last week.

What’s On
Sport

The problem with my session, slight though it was, happened for one of two reasons. Either I did something wrong or one of my readers did. Naturally I took the blame but I’m not so sure. The facts of the matter are these:

When presenters prepare the newspaper, they have two copies. The first one has all the odd pages marked ‘O’ in the top right hand corner and the second copy has the even pages marked ‘E’. The papers are then cut in half and stacked so only marked pages are uppermost. This is to prevent stories being repeated and/or missed in a particular edition.

The Alton paper, unusually, has two papers and so the whole thing needs to be done twice. Annoyingly, a lot of the same news stories appear in both papers. But, as long as you’re aware of it, it’s not that big a problem.

Anyway, last week, I managed to get into a big mess with the odds and evens and had to call on my reserve copy (which we get just for such accidents) and so this week, I was extra careful. I went through the piles of stories a few times, just to make sure there wasn’t any duplicates.

Halfway through editing, two of the readers spotted identical stories in their piles. We then had to go through all the stories and filter out these doubles. It wasn’t a huge problem and we sorted it all out without much to do. Except I think the two readers figured I was a moron for getting it wrong.

However, I’m not so sure it was me because if a reader turns a page over, the flip side of the page will have the identical stories of another reader. For this reason it is drummed into us NOT to turn the pages over. And this is what I think happened.

Not to worry, though. We went into the studio and read and all was fine.

Something I read about reading the newspaper is how it is important to make sound as if you are talking to someone you know. Make it sound personal; as if they are sitting in front of you. I think this is excellent advice and I try and do it each week. It’s annoying how the stories still sound read to me but I think I’m getting better. Anyway, it’s still great fun and I’d miss it if I didn’t do it.

I was a tad early for the recording so I stopped off in Farnham cemetery (it’s just across the road) and took a few photographs. Here are a couple:

Farnham cemetery, West Street

Farnham cemetery, West Street

It doesn’t look very pretty and, to be fair, it’s not really! But it is a huge area and maybe I didn’t get to the pretty bit. It’s also on a very busy road. Not that you can hear that.

Then, on my way home, the light was lovely so I took a couple of photographs off West Street.

The first one is a private road. You can always tell a private road because it’s not surfaced. This one looks quite sweet. Though big hedges always start alarm bells in my head. They are usually planted because of the noise!

West End Grove, Farnham

And, finally, our lovely Georgian museum. Actually, the building is Georgian…the museum stretches right across known time.

Farnham Museum, West Street

You can see from that shot what a lovely day it was today.

BBC Breakfast was broadcast from the main Olympic site this morning. A lot of it was inside the aquatic centre, which looks wonderful. The reason? It’s exactly one year before the opening ceremony in 2012.

Tom Daly (Olympic diver) is going to be the first person to dive off the high board. This is such big news that the BBC will be going live so we don’t miss it.

There’s a lot of argy bargy going on about the transport links coping with the Olympics. Dedicated lanes are being disputed, there has been worries about the tube and buses coping, and so it goes. However, I maintain that it couldn’t get much worse than it already is.

This morning (before the dawn chorus) I hopped on the 05:56 train to Waterloo to get to the flat. I know I generally have a go at South West Trains but this, being the first train of the day, was an excellent trip.

A highpoint was the fact that the guard doesn’t constantly rattle on with over-loud announcements about short platforms, his/her location and what to do if confronted by a turnip. In fact, when he came through the train to check tickets, he entered our carriage and almost whispered “Good morning, folks” and then inspected the proffered tickets. Given that the majority of passengers were asleep, this was amazingly considerate.

Even more incredible is the amount of sad faced, sleepy businessmen that catch this early train. One expects tradesmen and railway workers but, as Mirinda says, clearly there’s a lot of people paying private school fees, forced to work very long hours to make ends meet!

At Waterloo I went down to the Jubilee line and ran head long into a giant queue. Apparently engineering work ran over time and there were delays. I wonder how this will be avoided during the Olympics? I ask this because the Jubilee line goes to Stratford, where Olympic Park lives.

After a wait of about 10 minutes, a crowded train pulled in and the queue moved forward as people squeezed onto the train. Then the doors closed and it pulled out of the station. I was still in the queue, surrounded by annoying people with their noisy earplugs, playing a ghastly variety of tinny music.

I managed to squeeze into the next train, one minute later. And I arrived at the flat at 7:30, hoping that Parcelforce hadn’t tried to deliver in the previous half hour. I had no way of knowing whether they had so was just hopeful.

My first job was to fix wheels to the coffee table. This took about five minutes, although it’s not quite finished as I need to buy some filler. I’ll finish this off next week.

My second job was to clean the windows. Having a balcony makes it easy enough for the sliding glass door in the lounge but the bedroom is another matter. Mirinda assured me the window would spin around, top to bottom. It took me a while to work out how to do it but once I did, it just turned completely. Amazing technology, though I did feel a bit wary about the window just falling out of the frame.

In all, cleaning the windows took about half an hour. There was no third job so I just watched rubbish TV, wrote my blog, played around with my new camera and waited for the delivery.

I think I’ve said before that Mirinda keeps her Phoenix hat on top of the TV and it makes everyone look like they’re wearing it. Well here’s Claire Balding wearing it:

Claire Balding at the new Olympic Aquatic Centre wearing Mirinda's cowboy hat

I have to say there’s some rubbish on TV during the day. I was lucky that the parcel arrived at 2:30pm.

Half an hour later I was out of the flat and on my way home. An hour later I was standing on Waterloo concourse, bemoaning the fact that I’d missed the 3:30 by mere seconds. I may have made it if I’d not stopped off to get a photograph of the latest tall ship docked near the Turkish restaurant.

The Tenacious docked at Canary Wharf

I also stopped briefly at the entrance to the Jubilee line because I liked the slope of the roof and, because I had my camera with me, it seemed silly not to snap away like a demented tourist. To be fair, I wasn’t the only one.

The very modern entrance to the Jubilee Line at Canary Wharf

At Waterloo, I bought a coffee and watched, amazed as a girl walked around in Goth boots that looked like they came straight off Dr Frankenstein’s monster’s feet. They were obviously rubber and had huge holes bored through them in order to make them usable. Or perhaps to act as permanent overflow outlets for when the wearer walks through rivers.

Finally the train arrived and, accompanied by many hundreds of others (including a woman in a Chihuahua print dress pushing a baby stroller with an actual Chihuahua in it) I boarded it eagerly. I was starting to flake a bit but managed to type up this post. I then flaked for the rest of the journey…until a woman hit me with her bag when she left the train at Aldershot. It was probably a good thing or I may have ended up back at Waterloo.

I am expecting a parcel to arrive at the flat tomorrow morning. Rather than giving a reasonable time frame for delivery, Parcelforce, in their infinite wisdom, has given me from 7am to 6pm. Now I just know it will probably arrive at 5:58pm but, because I know how these things work, I have to get there as early as possible.

My main problem is that I cannot get there any earlier than 7:30am and in order to achieve this, I have to get up at 4:30am tomorrow. Even typing it makes me tired.

I have tried contacting Parcelforce to ask them if was in any way possible to ensure it doesn’t arrive between 7 & 8am but, although they have a ‘Contact Us’ form which requests an email address and a phone number, they have decided not to contact me in return. I figure this is simply a ruse to make people THINK they care about the customer.

Am I the only person who thinks that having to wait a possible 11 hours is excessive? Clearly Parcelforce doesn’t.

Anyway, we went for a lovely long walk around the park today so, in the interests of calm, here’s some photographs of Farnham Park:

Very green

Carron Pond

Up the hill

The path

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The title refers to something Claire said (or wrote) yesterday which I found delightfully obscure and funny. It doesn’t appear to mean anything and I definitely do not want to forget it!

Back when Tony first asked me to be a presenter for the Talking Newspaper, he also wondered whether I’d be his back-up for the schedule. Each quarter he prepares the roster for all the presenters and readers for the upcoming editions. He told me he used a whizz bang spreadsheet to plot it all. I said, sure, I love spreadsheets. Which I do.

I know that probably makes me sound a bit sad. The spreadsheet love thing. But the reason I managed to get a job in the UK (many years ago now) was because of my strangely all-encompassing knowledge of Excel and the power of columns and rows. While I wasn’t that keen on working at Global Beauty, it did get us started over here and I’ve been grateful for that.

And I do actually enjoy spreadsheets. Mirinda marvels at this because I am totally deficient when it comes to numbers. I am completely dyslexic in maths. I don’t know why but the simplest of numeracy problems escapes me. I maintain that this is why I love spreadsheets – they do the maths for you!

Anyway…for this reason I agreed to be Tony’s back-up. Today I went to his place to find out all about it.

Public footpath, north of Farnham

Tony lives about the same distance as we are from the centre of Farnham but in the opposite direction. I checked a map and there were a number of public footpaths, zigzagging with a haphazard beauty, across the fields to his street. Obviously I decided to follow these rather than tramp along a road that may or may not have a footpath of any kind.

The day was bright and warm, the walking easy. Down by the University (the lowest scoring in the country…or at least it was) which looks all modern and cool.

Farnham University of Creative Arts, entrance

Turn right at the end and head into the fields. I was completely alone; not a soul anywhere; the only sound apart from the insects, the distant thrum of a tractor in some unseen field. The hay had been harvested, the stubble on the ground looked like so many million marines buried up to their necks. No traffic, birds singing like lunatics. Vague splats of red daubed hither and thither where poppies had migrated. It was wonderful.

Path on the way to Tony's place

I managed to make good time to Tony’s place and we had a most productive time – an hour spent with a spreadsheet – before I bid him farewell.

He (and his wife) have a lovely house. High on a hill, overlooking Farnham, with a lovely big, mature garden. They are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary this week and are planning a big party under a marque in the back garden for 50 people! That just shows how big the garden is. For England, I mean. That’s not so big in Oz.

The walk home was just as lovely. Naturally I had my new camera with me as the weather was so kind. I snapped away like a demented paparazzi.

On the way home

I had to build a fence to hold the lavatera out of the way.

Due to the weather and the fact that it’s growing like a thing possessed, egress to the back of the garden was seriously hampered. I had a good think about it and, eventually, decided to use a section of the old fence that the Crazies claimed delineated our land from the 2″ that belonged to them.

A fence to keep the lavatera out of harms way

They (the Crazies) have taken to sending their kids to sleep in the back garden on the weekend. They were there again last night – I heard them early this morning talking in their tent. The same as last week and the week before New York as well. I realise kids enjoy ‘camping out’ and all but this seems to be a now regular thing. I don’t really care but they do make me wonder sometimes.

The other thing is that Mr Crazy never says hello or indicates he knows anyone in the street (not just me). His wife is now fine. She says hello when we meet outside. She even gestures from the car if she drives by. But not the husband…or the kids. They really are slightly crazy, I think.

I’m hoping they don’t realise what I’ve done with the fence. I’m pretty sure they are of the opinion that we would one day put it back, 2″ from the big fence. Neighbours can be odd creatures.

I took a couple of shots in Farnham this morning for Mirinda. Firstly the lion and lamb statue.

Close up of the Lion & Lamb statue

I managed to get nice and close so you can see the malevolent look in the lion’s eye. Obviously it was carved mere moments before he swallowed the lamb whole.

The back of the almshouses on Castle Street always look lovely but especially so when the sun is actually out…like it was this morning. These were built in 1618 (or around this time) for poor and “…impotent people”.

Castle Street almshouses

And, finally, a look down Long Garden Walk. This is where I walk almost every day to Waitrose (except when I have to go via the French shop for almond croissants) and the Hop Blossom is the pub at the end.

View up Long Garden Walk

Hopefully, the sun will return tomorrow and I’ll take some shots of the front garden.

Even though I don’t work – well, in the traditional way, whereby I interact with other people while getting paid for doing something deemed worth paying for – my weeks are filled with ‘stuff’. Weekends, on the other hand, are a time when Mirinda and I can chill, enjoy the garden and/or visit other people’s, basically just enjoying each other’s company more than anything else. When she’s away, I tend to feel a bit lost.

Dawn obviously felt a bit sorry for me; with a vision of me sitting at home moping (not mopping, which is difficult when seated) and so invited me to join all four Cansfields at Millfest.

Millfest is an annual event held in the beer garden of a lovely, very English country pub in Milland, not far from them. Fortunately it’s quite a sizeable beer garden.

They have a number of (unknown) bands performing on the smallest stage I think I’ve ever seen, a fantastic beer tent as well as the bar, a food delivery service that is run with military precision and a massive crowd of, mostly, family groups.

I was very lucky. Nicktor offered to come and pick me up. This was lucky for a couple of reasons. Mainly because the trains were replaced by buses between Farnham and Aldershot, which would have been a pain. Also because I haven’t seen Nicktor for a few weeks so it was nice to have a catch up in the drive back.

While waiting at home, I managed to watch the first half of a rugby league match between Warrington and Wigan (a quarter final of the Challenge Cup) which, I can only describe as amazing. After the first 25 minutes, Wigan had played like a bunch of crazy people, building up an impressive 22-0 lead. Then everything turned on it’s head and Warrington scored some fantastic tries to go in at half time at 22-16.

I’m not the biggest league fan in the world but the game was incredibly exciting. It was like Warrington had been dazed and confused while Wigan ran all over them and then, shaking themselves, full clarity returned and they fought back. It was a pity the half ended because I reckon they would have ran away with the game at that point.

Nicktor arrived as half time drew to a close so I didn’t get to see the rest of the game. On Breakfast this morning, I heard that Wigan took the game 24-44. Without having seen the second half, I figure that Warrington just ran out of steam. The ‘pundits’, the sort of guys that dad hates, were saying at half time that if Wigan wanted to win, they had to not only defeat Warrington in points but also in stamina. They didn’t think they would, particularly after Warrington staged the sort of comeback that Spartans would be proud of. Well, Wigan showed them!

Anyway, we arrived at the Cansfield house in time to see the last few Indian wickets fall in the first test at Lords, before heading out to Millfest.

It’s not often that I get to see the entire family in one go, so it was a bit of a treat for me. As Dawn was driving, she wasn’t drinking, so it wasn’t as much a treat for her.

Interestingly, the acts we saw were very good with 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s covers but failed miserably when it came to trying Pink Floyd. One memorable performance for all the wrong reasons, was by a girl in black and white horizontal stripes wearing acid blue bedroom slippers, trying to emulate Clare Torry‘s wordless performance on The Great Gig in the Sky. She wasn’t very good…that’s me being generous.

A stage clearly not made for Big Bands

Still, apart from the Pink Floyd blunders, the bands were quite good. They performed some great medleys of songs that were strung together very well. I should add that we didn’t see the earlier bands which, even I, cannot comment on. I particularly liked the Led Zeppelin numbers they performed although the woman drummer, while in all other ways excellent, was no John Bonham.

While we were there, Nicktor seemed to attract an inordinate amount of female attention. As he greeted, what seemed to be his harem, I asked Dawn who these women were and she just shrugged, as mystified as me. After she asked him for the umpteenth time who they all were, he made sure to go and chat to a few males he claimed to know.

I managed to snap him with a couple of his floozies. Apparently, after I took this photograph, the woman with him was a bit concerned. I’m not sure if this was because she didn’t want to be seen with him or she just didn’t want to be seen. Regardless, I’m not big on showing mercy without foundation.

Nicktor notices my high powered zoom lens

Millfest ended for kids at 10pm so we packed the car with the boys and took them home. Dawn drove me to Haslemere station where I realised I was drunker than I thought I was.

With a great amount of effort, I managed to read the indicator board to find that the next train to Guildford wasn’t for three quarters of an hour. Adding this to the journey time and the fact that I would have to change trains then get a railway bus meant I wouldn’t be home until September. I went and grabbed a taxi.

And what an knowledgeable taxi driver I had! At one point, while classical music filled the cab, we were discussing the Russian novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Actually, I was talking about growing up in Australia and happened to mention the fact that in the Russian labour camps, if the temperature sunk as low as -42, they didn’t have to go to work, quoting Solzhenitsyn and he came back with “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?“. We had a jolly good chat about how Russian literature developed as a result of a repressive rule.

At home I collapsed beneath the weight of over excited puppies and gradually drifted off to sleep with the television entertaining itself. At 3am I decided I should go to bed.

After a day spent researching the usual plethora of totally unconnected things (cotton manufacturers, racing circuits, beheaded kings, etc) I set off for Embankment to meet my Aunty Jan & my cousin, Idonarose.

While I haven’t seen Aunty Jan for decades, I feel I have, really, given her strangle-like embrace of Web 2.0 technologies and seemingly endless Facebook and Youtube posts. Actually, I’ve followed her trip this time, around the UK and Lanzarotte, via her Youtube posts.

So I arrived at Embankment station and headed for Starbucks. I told them to meet me at Starbucks because I know it well. They were supposed to be coming from Harrods so I was expecting many bags with their distinctive labelling. They were waiting for me inside with coffee and food. They hadn’t gone to Harrods because Idonarose had to interface with her iPad. I told her what I thought of Apple. Mirinda should be glad she wasn’t there.

And we had a great time. I’d never met my cousin before (though I’d know her anywhere, having seen around a thousand photographs of her) but it was like I knew her. I think it’s fair to say, we got on extremely well for two people who had never met.

From Starbucks I dragged them up to the Coal Hole for a few real drinks. I say dragged because poor Aunty Jan is still battle scarred from her gangplank assault. She can’t walk far so we only went four miles.

The Coal Hole is a weasel favourite because it’s a freehouse and always has interesting beers on tap. I asked what they wanted and was very surprised at the answers. Aunty Jan wanted a Harvey’s Bristol Cream. Most people who know me well would know this is a tough one. I can order any number of beers and I can just about manage mixers but, when you’re facing a Schumanian and you ask for something as exotic as Harvey’s Bristol Cream, you feel a right plonker.

The barman, who’s command of English was pretty much equal to my command of whatever language he was speaking, just said they didn’t have any…I think. Aunty Jan was given a rosè.

However, the greatest thing any cousin of mine could do is order a real ale and that’s just what Idonarose did. A pint of London Pride. She did ask how much a pint was and I explained it was, about, a pint and a half pint was, pretty close to half that but I assured her that I would drink anything she couldn’t manage. I think she took this as a personal challenge!

Idonarose knocks back a pint of Pride

Three pints of real ale she put away! What a girl. That’s two Prides and an odd concoction that included coriander – it had a weird taste that did not resemble coriander at all but tasted of something green. I reckon she could hold her own against any of the people I generally drink with. She should be an archaeologist.

I know some people have different ways to get the measure of someone but, by the gods, if you drink real ale, you’re well up there in my mind. I could hear my wife calling me shallow as I wrote that. Some sort of future echo reaching out across the oceans.

One odd thing that happened was the strange effect Aunty Jan has on my camera. Not my brand new, whiz-bang jobbie. No, my normal, ordinary, point and shoot that I bought in Australia when my other one died of old age and general over use. Obviously there was a lot of photo taking. Apart from satisfying Aunty Jan’s need to document every step of every day, my mother would kill me if I didn’t get shots of us all together.

The trouble was, Aunty Jan just had to move the camera and it would take a photo. It didn’t happen with me or Idonarose (we had to push the button) so I’m figuring it was something to do with the spirit of some dead, dead drunk, drunk that was staggering around the top floor of the Coal Hole and was being mischievous. It was truly odd.

What happens when there's a ghost in the machine

We managed to spend around four hours, drinking, laughing, talking about family, laughing some more and getting acquainted (that was me and Idonarose, I didn’t need to get reacquainted with Aunty Jan). She’s only seven years older than me and, given we spent a fair few years growing up in the same house, more like a sister. But having never met Idonarose, I needed the five minutes it took for us to click.

The three of us at the Coal Hole

By the way, no-one told me I had to call her by her full name! There’s me, marching into Starbucks saying “Hi, Aunty Jan. Hi, Idey,” without realising this just wasn’t allowed. I guess I’m just grateful I didn’t have to call her by her full name every time I spoke to her. Can you imagine? “Hi, Aunty Jan. Hi, Idonarose Everett Reavell Joan Beatrice Mabel Delilah Luanne Patricia Stephanie Orr.” Frightening. And very difficult when drunk, I imagine.

Cousins

Anyway, we had a lovely time and managed to disturb every other single person in the pub before we left and I popped them into a cab for the trip back to Parson’s Green. It was then the long haul back to Farnham for me.

I should mention that there’ll possibly be an awful Youtube video featuring me which will be online as soon as an Internet connection can be found. You have been warned.

Aunty Jan & Gaz

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And well done Claire, who came through the operation in flying colours. It’s been a great day.